Glorious Rock Bottom: 'A shocking story told with heart and hope. You won't be able to put it down.' Dolly Alderton

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And even though I've read a few memoirs like this I was gobsmacked by Gordon's bravery in admitting the extent of her addiction, including cheating and the times she put her child second not because I'm shocked it happened, but that she'd say so. Gordon's new book is a frank, sometimes wince-inducing and often very funny look at her 20-year relationship with booze.

I read this is a few hours while feeling desperate to understand more about a close friend’s struggle with alcoholism.First Bryony Gordon faced her demons, then she fought them (and is still fighting-you’re always an addict and she’s thankfully in recovery now), and then she wrote it all down and revealed everything to the public.

In a recent interview with Fearne Cotton, Bryony states the importance of showing her readers that they are not the “worst person in the world because they haven’t heard anyone speak about it. As far as addiction memoirs go, I'd say it is in the top ten and trust me, I've read most of them during my long quest for sobriety. Often wince-inducing, the memoir does not shy from describing the lows of her alcoholism and the impact on her family. Never did I think I’d describe a book about alcoholism as “charming” but Gordon has such a way with words that I often found myself pulled into her life and her story in much the same way I assume booze pulled her in: with drama and a bit of a gamble.Shining a light on the deep connection between addiction and mental health issues, Glorious Rock Bottom is in turn, shocking, brutal, dark, funny, hopeful and uplifting. It's a story of an addict's struggles and triumphs, and how the wins often look like absolutely ordinary moments. I've read quite a few addiction memoirs and I've always been left with wanting to know how people navigate sobriety.

There were some real light bulb moments for me and this is powerful reassurance that I am not alone and that everything I am experiencing is normal and part of the process.

I loved the idea of alcohol as “a depressant masquerading remarkably well as a relaxant, an Oscar-winning actor”, but including it twice felt like sloppy editing. While the author herself relays how she found the cliches or jargon of 12 step recovery annoying and dismissible when still in active addiction, she both repeats them as part of her story, e. The term “mental health awareness” is bandied about in such a facile way to the point where it’s lost all meaning, but Bryony genuinely does raise awareness of incredibly debilitating and life changing conditions.

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Clearly addicts or alcoholics won't be reading this type of book, or probably any, they have other things to be doing with their time, as the book makes clear. No, it is not easy but no matter how much pain you have to put yourself through to get it, it is by far the most wonderful thing one can possibly do.

You are not alone, going mad or worthless, there is hope and a guaranteed better life without alcohol. Support, understanding and compassion are crucial - particularly from people who have also been through it. In Glorious Rock Bottom Bryony opens up about a toxic twenty-year relationship with alcohol and drugs and explains exactly why hitting rock bottom - for her, a traumatic event and the abrupt realisation that she was putting herself in danger, time and again - saved her life.