In her first book, Sarah Levy offers readers a candid account of her struggles with alcohol and her rocky path to sobriety. Drinking Games is a memoir-in-essays that peels back the layers of Levy's life--happy to all outward appearances--to reveal a much more difficult truth.

"I looked like I had it all together," Levy writes in the first pages of Drinking Games, "but my insides told a different story." Despite a successful job with a hot new start-up, a vast network of friends and an active social life, Levy was drowning inside--sometimes literally, consuming copious amounts of alcohol at any and every occasion, with sloppy blackouts her norm. Because she hadn't hit her definition of bottom--drinking on the job, losing her housing, driving while intoxicated--she convinced herself for years that her drinking wasn't really a problem. But, as she notes, "hitting bottom doesn't have to be catastrophic; it can simply mean that we are ready to stop digging." For Levy, this came after waking up next to a stranger, another blackout one-night stand. After years of trying to drink in moderation with no success, she found a support group and built up a new sober life, one day at a time. "The insanity of my drinking," she notes, "was my inability to accept that it wasn't serving me."

With raw honesty, Levy explores the years it took her to learn this truth for herself. She offers details about her partying lifestyle and her mindsets around drinking through her 20s. She recounts the ways she inched toward sobriety; tells of her last drink and her first recovery group meeting; and finally explores the ways that sobriety has given her a sense of freedom--and even joy--that felt impossible when she was drinking, but equally hard for her to imagine would be possible when sober. Ultimately, Levy's path to sobriety becomes a lens through which she reflects on drinking culture and what it means to be sober within that. She also explores the challenges so many people (and particularly so very many millennial women) face in entering adulthood. Her stories examine how people navigate grown-up friendships, the toxicity of social media, emotionally secure romantic relationships, unlearning toxic diet culture and disordered eating habits--to name just a few.

Drinking Games is hard to read at times, yet never judgmental; in her vulnerability and willingness to share the highs and lows of her relationship with alcohol, Levy invites readers to consider what might not be serving them in this moment--and what might be possible on the other side of whatever habit is holding them back from true freedom. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer

Shelf Talker: A memoir-in-essays considers one woman's struggles with alcohol--and her rocky path to sobriety--to examine the challenges of adulthood.

Every book about getting sober is important as it could help others who are struggling. Drinking Games will be helpful to Millennial and younger folks who are struggling with drinking and who are upper middle class and highly educated. (As a Gen X’er, I had a hard time connecting.). I appreciated this novel in that it focuses on sobriety, not the gory details of being drunk all the time. (Although for that reason, the experience of being an abuser of alcohol is sanitized to a degree.). It was difficult to connect with the author because she had so much going for her financially (she could afford NYC in entry level jobs) and she also attended an elite university and had good, albeit complicated, relationships with both her parents. The point is that alcoholism does not discriminate I suppose. The first half of the book was very compelling. The chapters on archiving social media posts and manifesting should have been cut. They were too much and it comes off as see reader, I manifested my boyfriend and book deal into existence. It ruined the rest of the book for me.

This book makes me realize I really don’t like memoirs by entitled well to do white people. While I believe this writer had a true issue in her drinking the complaints she has in her day to say are sooo minor compared to some of the other stories I read it just sounds so ridiculous. She beats herself up for not doing her dishes or having a pile of unread books. Oh boy.
This collection of essays makes her comes across as the most unassured young woman who ping pongs from trend to person looking for validation and some kind of direction. Her background of blackouts and ending up hospitalized or in unwanted sexual situations is definitely terrible don’t get me wrong but the surrounding people and perceptions were so cringey. At one point she tells us abt a socialite friend who watches her get so drunk she ends up hospitalized. Instead of helping her, the friend decides to break off their friendship. These people are awful. I’ve had friends with drinking issues and I never would have abandoned them like that. And her boyfriend who told her she’s fat?! Oof. She can really pick ‘em.

If you liked Alyssa Shelasky’s memoir:essays this might strike your fancy. Similarly this writer is very honest and I applaud that aspect. The vulnerability she shows is fantastic. I just maybe didn’t need a chapter on archiving instagram posts. Oh millennials. Sigh.

Many thanks to NetGalley, St Martin's Press and Macmillan Audio for gifting me both a digital and audio ARC of this memoir by Sarah Levy - 5 stars! I started reading the digital copy but switched to the audio because the author narrated it - love listening to an author tell her own story.

Sarah Levy was 28, living in NYC, and was an alcoholic even though she wouldn't have given herself that label. She was like many millennials feeling that she always had to be on her best game, in real life and in social media, and couldn't imagine navigating life without alcohol. Until too many blackout incidents made her take a hard look at her life.

This was a look into Sarah's experience with alcohol and it was honest and real. But it was never preachy - Sarah told her story before and after alcohol and how life looks now. It's a tale for anyone with an addiction or even a drive to constantly be bigger and better instead of living. Add to all that, it was a well-written, intriguing story and tough to put down. Highly recommended!

Sarah’s memoir is more a series of essays than a linear timeline but a compelling read full of honesty about her journey to sobriety. Whether your sober, struggling, or have no issues with alcohol her story has something to relate to, especially female millennials.

Thanks NetGalley and St Martins Press for my arcs!

Navigating Compulsion

Drinking Games packed a punch and too many blackouts. This memoir is written by Sarah Levy, a smart girl living in New York brought up in a close nuclear family. Sarah has a younger brother and is obsessively close to her mother.

Sarah worked hard, a good student and all the time, wanting to be perfect. She often had unrealistic ideals based on her personality or made-up identity. Highly sensitive, Sarah reacted negatively to almost any outlandish remarks and her response was to drink heavily at a young age. She suffered from blackouts; in fact, when she awoke many mornings, she had no idea where she was or who was in the same bed. Every so often, she was in the hospital when she suffered severe blackouts or injuries. She was anchored to alcohol to cover up her insecurities and reality.

Sobriety was the only solution to her many weaknesses and bad behavior. She tells us about horrific experiences, terrible degradations and heartbreaks. Drinking really never made her feel better but her vulnerability took precedent. Not unusual, she was insecure as millions of girls and young women in our social media world. Expecting to thrive on her women friendships, they were often precarious incidents and deep hurt.

The expectation of the book to be somewhat chronological was lost. As I was reading, it appeared that the sections were disjointed. She started with the solution and then jumped back and forth introducing the reader to various episodes. The author was significantly influenced by women and men. Unfortunately, the chronicle became repetitive.

Sobriety was the solution and Ms. Levy is the epitome of a heroine. She hardly stumbled and liked herself more every day. Sure, she still had obsessions and insecurities. So many of us have and are not alcoholics. The memoir would have been easier reading if the writing was sequential. Unfortunately, the sequences mirrored her confusion.


My gratitude to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press. All opinions expressed are my own.

Sarah Levy thought of herself as fun and flirty, living the dream in New York City. She couldn’t remember the fun she had because of the blackouts, but that’s life with partying right? Until she gets sober and takes us along with her journey.

I give pretty much all memoirs five stars, but I’m not saying that to minimize this book. As memoirs typically are, it was authentic and brave. We don’t just get a bunch of crazy, wild party stories, we get a lot about the transition into sobriety and there’s just so much to it.

“This life, the one I had built for myself, didn’t fit into a phone screen. It was bold and uncomfortable, occasionally messy and imperfect.“

Drinking Games comes out 1/3.

Thank you St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I was on a complete memoir kick in November & this ARC rounded out the month. I was drawn to the premise of it.. a young woman talk about her sobriety. Sarah Levy really lade it all bare in this memoir. My generation and the culture around drinking has became 'normal'. There's booze at every event and Sarah talks about it even going into how Bachelor Monday's were fueled by alcohol. Some people can handle that, some people take it a drink or 10 too far.

Sarah's honesty about her struggles with alcohol and her body image were honest. She talks about how tough it is as a woman in her 20's to date, go to weddings, or exist without booze. There was a chapter about wedding planning that truly hit me right in the feels.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Drinking Games is a brave piece of writing that feels more like a collection of essays, each chapter more relatable than the next. Even if you're not considering going sober or you're someone who can have just one... I still recommend you pick this up. It's always good to take a look inward, feel uncomfortable and try to push yourself to be the best version. Proud of you, Sarah! It wasn't an easy journey I am sure, but a necessary one.

Ok, I will confess that I picked this book because I genuinely thought it was a humorous memoir or collection of essays by the Sarah Levy of Schitt's Creek fame. I guess that I should have read the description in a bit more detail, because this was not really humorous and it was written by another Sarah Levy. But once I start a book, no matter how wrong I am about the premise, I keep going.

I truly enjoyed this book and getting some insights into addiction and, in the case of Levy, serial compulsions. The book is easy to read and moves at a good pace. I did find that the lack of linear progression to the story - the approach being a bit less memoir and more collection of interlinked essays - got frustrating as the book progressed because things started to repeat but also things started to repeat in ways that made me go back to see if the story was different because it had that "wait, I read this already but it didn't quite read like this the first time" feeling. I had to keep checking that Levy hadn't messed up her own history. My preference after about the first 100 pages was that Levy had stuck to more of a standard memoir, because I didn't really want to keep bouncing through events from one period of her life to the next; my brain likes things to flow consecutively in memoirs. Like she meets Adam and goes on dates with Adam at multiple points in the story and while each is tied to a different chapter theme, they make for a bit of a disconnect with the flow.

In the end, I did enjoy the book. I also think that it paints a picture for how people deal with addiction and how coming to your big moment will be different for everyone. It also is a very frank portrait of how alcohol can truly confuse your perception of self worth. No one should wake up in bed with someone they don't know after a night of drinking, and there were many moments in the book where I thought that she skipped the implications of that (i.e. rape or non-consensual sex). The same can be said for the eating disorder that is mentioned many times but never really captured. So, in the end, this was a book that focused very heavily on alcohol addiction and depicted both the good and bad of moving from addiction to sobriety.

Title: Drinking Games
Author: Sarah Levy
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Read if you like:
Memoir
Essays
Sobriety
Vulnerability

My Thoughts:
This was such a vulnerable memoir. I loved hearing Sarah's story of becoming sober and her realization that she needed to throughout her stories. I think alcoholism is something that more people suffer from than we realize because it has become such a coping mechanism for a lot of people and it's legal. It was especially interesting for me to read because Sarah and I aren't that different in terms of age, thoughts, and other things and alcoholism is something that I could have easily fallen into myself. I hope this memoir finds everyone that needs it because it was truly an eye opening read.

In Drinking Games, author Sarah Levy shares the story of her unhealthy relationship with alcohol and what contributed to her decision to quit drinking.

Although I didn’t find Levy’s story particularly unique or compelling, she is definitely a talented writer and constructs readable and interesting prose. I will be keeping an eye out for her future work.

I loved this book.
This was a heartfelt memoir that, on the surface, is about a young woman’s alcohol use disorder and how she got and stayed sober. However, it’s about so much more than that. The author touches on imposter syndrome, anxiety/depression, and eating disorders. I have never had an issue with drinking but I found that other parts of her story really resonated with me. She is of my generation and she is candid about her need for validation and people-pleasing tendencies and how that affected her self-confidence. She writes about the damage that social media can have on our feelings of self-worth. And she talks of the constant striving for excellence that many of us (particularly women) felt as young adults while also feeling the pressure to maintain an appearance of effortless perfection.

I am now in my 30s and relatively settled in life but I wish I had read this book in my 20s. I think it’s full of wisdom.

Absolutely loved this brave, open memoir from Sarah Levy. She uses her struggles with alcohol as a jumping-off point, but she also discusses the darker sides of other (seemingly innocent) aspects of life: social media usage, obsessions with clothing/image, skincare, the "wellness" industry, etc. I think most women (especially millennials) will find something relatable in this book.

Absolutely fantastic plot! Could not put the book down once I began reading it. Cannot wait for it to be released. Will recommend it to everyone I know!

What an excellent, honest, and much-needed memoir. There were so many relatable moments throughout Sarah's story that reminded me of how important it is that we take the shame or "weirdness" out of a sober lifestyle in a world where so many social events revolve around alcohol. I have so much admiration for Sarah for the way she so beautifully told the struggles of alcoholism in different stages, and how the journey of sobriety is truly a never-ending and nonlinear one. Thank you to Sarah Levy, Netgalley, and St. Martin's Press for the advanced copy of such an engaging and important work! I truly wish this book could have landed in front of a younger version of me, and I hope that so many others (young women especially) find safety and strength in Sarah's words!

DRINKING GAMES follows author Sarah Levy’s experiences with alcoholism to sobriety. Her memoir is written well and I finished this in a day.
Levy’s stories about the period of her life where she would get black out drunk were uncomfortable, but it was interesting to me how she explored alcohol in his memoir. Obviously her relationship with it impacted her relationships with others, but I thought the commentary on how societal expectations play a role was very interesting.
It was very relatable how all types of social events have an expectation for you to drink. As a woman, if I said no to a drink, it was always met with side eye like are you pregnant or do you have a problem. There is so much stigma around alcohol so while Levy’s specific experience may not be relatable to all, I think there a nuggets in here that could resonate with everyone.
Thank you St Martin’s Press for the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Sarah Levy has written a memoir that joins the ranks of Caroline Knapp's Drinking a Love Story as an essential women's recovery book. With admirable vulnerability, Levy lays bare her relationship with alcohol in a series of interconnected essays that mix humor and palpable rawness. A vital read for anyone thinking about changing their relationship with alcohol, Levy's book charts a lost young woman's journey to finding herself and freedom from alcohol.

Disclosure I received a free copy of this book through netgalley. This review is my honest opinion .

I really enjoyed Sarah Levy's account of being a woman in her 20s and struggling with issues that many of us face-body insecurities, dating and friendship woes, and how these really contribute to the culture of binge drinking. A lot of sobriety memoirs focus on the rock bottom moment, but I think she did a great job of changing that narrative, and how important it is to normalize conversations around alcohol use that's unhealthy. She also provides some really insightful experiences of life after quitting-navigating dating, holidays, work situations that revolve around drinking, and the pressures of social media. Really great debut, and as someone who reads a lot of memoirs about substance use and mental health, this one takes a unique and fresh approach to the subject.

Although I am not sober myself, I enjoy reading books about sobriety because I think there's always room for improvement in your relationship with alchohol. That being said, I loved this book. Sarah Levy was completely transparent about her struggles and issues with drinking and I never once felt she was coming from a place of judgement. I think this book will help so many and I'm so glad it exists.

This is the first addiction memoir I think really speaks to younger millennial women, connecting the ideas about gender, feminism, womanhood, and work that we received in our teens to the thorny issue of alcohol and substance abuse. I loved the author's frankness and her gentleness. Going to recommend this in and out of class, especially for the way it talks about gender, substances, and the body.