Drunk Mom

Addiction makes people do things they otherwise never would. For Jowita Bydlowska, this included passing out for the night next to her shrieking and urine-soaked one-month-old infant. Bydlowska’s memoir Drunk Mom is unsparingly honest about the level of deception—of both herself and others—that constant intoxication demanded. Insightful candour and tart wit combine to render her alcoholic motherhood mortifying yet completely comprehensible. Present-tense immediacy blends with dexterous use of language: clipped words embodying claustrophobic angst give way to sloppy, stumbling sentences as she descends into drunken bliss. Bydlowska compares her thirst for booze to a screaming child that can never be pacified. But driven by the love of her son and struggling to maintain her relationship with his father, she navigates from addiction to recovery, through relapse and toward stability. She eventually achieves a sense of calm in the current moment—all any of us can ever hope for.