46 Comments
deletedOct 20, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker
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Oct 18, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

Yay!!! for launching your 40-day course :) So many of us were forever changed by Hip Sobriety and the work you have done.

People are so shitty. It pisses me off that they write negative things about you.

House of the Dragon...I'm in too!

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Oct 18, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

I have really enjoyed re-doing the mantra project and for me it also brings back memories of 2016/2017 and the kind of person I was then, and the hopes and fears I had. We are all ever changing and can’t possibly be expected to apologise for that - in fact one of my favourite mantras from the project this time has been ‘I am allowed to change’. It must be exhausting to have to publicly defend that all the time, and I wish there wasn’t such an appetite for tearing people apart. On another note, both my kids have ADHD and getting the right care team - which includes a kinesiologist, chiropractors, lots of breathing and supplements in addition to meds - has made such a difference to them being able to thrive. Hope you are ok moving through that process, love you xx

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Thank you for the reminder to give my past self grace.

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The recent slaughtering of women in the recovery community speaking their truths and offering lines of hope to so many makes me want to projectile vomit. I feel a deep sense of fear that nudges me to stay quiet, avoid attention -- basically the very reasons I drank. Thank you for speaking up, and vocalizing the misogyny in all of these criticisms (including -- especially -- the article that just came out). I'd be more interested in what that writer is doing to support the recovery community than tearing others down. I imagine that person would feel stronger in their own recovery if they focused on that, too.

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Oct 18, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

For what it’s worth, I have read Quit Like A Woman 4 times since you published it and every time I highlight something new and it inspires me more than any other book on sobriety - and I have read them ALL!!! I’m nearly 67 years old, sober nearly 8 years and your strong feminist voice has been critical to my sustaining sobriety and also beating a sense of powerlessness that led to many bad life choices. I hope you will not take to heart those ridiculous articles written to discredit you - they pull you in because your name is well known and having it bashed will bring more readers. It’s a about dollars not about truth. I can not possibly express what your brave words have meant to me. THANK YOU X 100000000000000000000

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(Banned)Oct 18, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

Yes to all of this. It’s damn hard to go first. You’re my hero.

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Oct 18, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

At the risk of triggering Holly, God, that Jennifer Dines piece is a hit piece. I also have a huge allergy to her mentioning that she landed in the ER and spent time in the "dual diagnosis unit" at McLean Hospital-- a notoriously carceral psychiatric facility with a reputation for medical violence. McLean also offers a wildly misogynistic "borderline personality disorder program" designed to medicalize and pathologize female trauma survivors, that basically teaches women who have had complicated lives that they are manipulative and slutty.

If Dines feels she benefitted from working with for-profit institutions where men with medical degrees legally took her power away as part of her "recovery," of course she feels threatened by Holly. Of course she feels threatened by a democratic, accessible solution to recovery that is about tapping into what you're feeling, reclaiming your agency, and calling out the institutions/ drugs that profit off of us not feeling what we're feeling and keeping our lives small.

Holly, it took me six years to get sober. I'm at five-ish months today, and when I was truly ready, it was so easy that I don't even know what my sobriety date is. (Truly, I have no idea-- maybe Mother's Day was the last time I drank?) Discovering "Home" was the first positive domino that helped me move in the right direction; reading QLAW helped me get closer to ready in 2019. Today, I'm there. Keep doing what you're doing. Women across the country are benefiting from your work.

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Oct 18, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

"At the very least, we need authors to promote programs that have been tested according to rigorous scientific standards and to promote critical thinking rather than saleswomanship in their readers."

Neither of these criteria is even close to met by AA, yet she's happy to tout how successful (and free!) it is.

What a bunch of bullshit this whole article is. I did not start recovering (I hate that word), I did not start getting well, even after inpatient rehab and months of standard "treatment", until I read QLAW and WATL. THOSE were the game-changers for me, THOSE are the things that saved my life.

And can I just say this petty thing? Her writing is super boring.

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Oct 18, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

Lol - I imagine I know you, Glennon, Abbey, Liz, Oprah, Michelle Obsma... need I go on?

(borderline creeps who do not know her personally but completely imagine we do)

We already see this for you!!

My wish is that what I see is a person who was brave enough to keep going, who wasn’t guided by her fear of being wrong, but her love of where she was at each step of the way.

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I went and found the article because I had to and I honestly clicked out halfway through reading it because it was so one note and just weirdly not even interesting for a total hit piece. How can someone be this mean but also that boring? Thats unique. Uniquely sad.

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Oct 19, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

I love you too Holly. And you too, Laura.

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This made me think about how things can be both- I can be both the me I am today AND the me I was then. Life isn’t one photograph.

It also makes me think about how society can need us to stay in our boxes, and how that’s such an outdated way of thinking- you’re one thing for your whole life then you retire. It’s crap! We can be many people and still be ourselves- because we evolve and grow. The willingness to do that doesn’t make you wishy washy, it makes you wise.

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Screw that writer, just trying to make a name for herself at your expense. Love you, love your writing, love how your mind works, love your courage

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Oct 19, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

The amount of infighting in the addiction treatment space is unbelievable and ubiquitous - having worked at multiple addiction treatment facilities, it's a definite feature all around. And it's exhausting. Interesting to see how the rebuking and scolding is spilling out on to the internet in the form of trying to present thoughtfully considered arguments that ultimately function as just another way to artfully takedown, diminish, and judge as morally less superior the way someone finds their way to recovery.

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Oct 19, 2022·edited Oct 19, 2022

It NEVER would have crossed my mind that someone would write an article about you in a negative light. Having an opinion is one thing, but did they really have enough material for a whole article?!?

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