The Best Quit Alcohol Books 2019 & 2020 – If you are looking to quit alcohol in 2019 make sure you arm yourself with the best sober books you can get your hands on.
Updated April 2020
When I quit alcohol I found sober books to be a huge help when it came to changing my thinking about how alcohol featured in my life. Instead of picking up a glass, I picked up a book (in fact I picked up plenty of books).
I ended up buying and reading just about every quit drinking book I could lay my hands on in an effort to expand my knowledge and learn new tactics as I worked towards an alcohol-free life. Even now, a long time after I quit alcohol I still read ‘Quit Lit’ to ensure I stay focused and remind myself of why I cut drinking out of my life.
There are some books that are ‘must have’ if you want to quit alcohol and others that were a good read but didn’t really do much in terms of helping me make a true and lasting change, below I have listed what I believe to be the best quit alcohol books for anyone looking to change their relationship with booze in 2019.
Scroll down the page to see the full list of the best quit drinking books.
The Sober Survival Guide – How to Live a Life Free From Alcohol
By: Simon Chapple
OK, this is my book, of course I am going to put it first on the list! If you would like the first 10 chapters of my book for free either email me at info@besober.co.uk or fill in your email in the box on the home page here.
Regardless of this fact, The Sober Survival Guide is the perfect companion for anyone looking to make a change. The book is split into two parts, the first gives the reader real world tactics to help them address their relationship with alcohol and change how it features in their lives. The second part deals with specific challenges that come up as the months and years go by and shows readers how to approach just about anything that might arise. Such as going on holiday sober, the work Christmas party or what to do if you quit drinking but your partner won’t make a change.
I wrote the book for anyone who is worried about their drinking and wants to make a positive change to their life. Readers of The Sober Survival Guide have said that it made a real impact and helped them on their journey to alcohol freedom. If you want to quit alcohol forever, or explore what a life without drinking might look like for you, add this book to your reading list.
Get the Sober Survival Guide on Amazon UK here or Amazon US here.
Watch my video below – The Best Quit Alcohol Books
This book was a game-changer for me. It was the first book I have ever read twice in a row and helped me totally change my relationship with alcohol.
Annie takes readers on a journey of self-discovery and enables them to bring their beliefs about drinking out into the light to discover what is really true for them.
By exploring their true beliefs readers are able to make a real and lasting change to enable themselves to find freedom from alcohol forever. It worked for me and I am confident it will do the same for you.
You can buy This Naked Mind – Control Alcohol on Amazon here.
The Sober Diaries – How One Woman Stopped Drinking & Started Living
By: Clare Pooley
The Sober Diaries was a great read. It is more ‘memoir’ than ‘tactics’ and I wouldn’t recommend it as a specific tool to quit drinking. But I would recommend having it on your quit alcohol book list as the book allows you an insight into Clare’s life and enables you to see how she dealt with the challenges of quitting drinking and coped with everything that came up in her new sober life..
This book is the story of a year in Clare’s life. A year that started with her quitting booze having been drinking more than a bottle of wine every day. It sees her starting a hugely successful blog, then getting and beating breast cancer. By the end of the year she is booze free and cancer free, two stone lighter and with a life that is so much richer, healthier and more rewarding than ever before. Sober Diaries is an upbeat, funny and positive look at how to live life to the full.
You can buy The Sober Diaries – How One Woman Quit Drinking & Started Living on Amazon here.
Alcohol Explained
By: William Porter
I loved this book, it helped me understand alcohol and make decisions about how I wanted it to feature in my life. I would recommend this to anyone who has become curious about their relationship with alcohol.
Alcohol Explained is the definitive, ground-breaking guide to alcohol and alcoholism. It explains how alcohol affects human beings on a chemical, physiological and psychological level, from those first drinks right up to chronic alcoholism. Alcoholism and problem drinking seems illogical to those on the outside, indeed it is equally perplexing for the alcoholic or problem drinker. This book provides a logical, easy to follow explanation of the phenomenon and detailed instructions on how to beat it.
You can buy Alcohol Explained on Amazon here.
The Alcohol Experiment
By Annie Grace
Annie Grace’s follow up to This Naked Mind is a 30-day programme with a difference. Each day, it will show you a new way of thinking about booze, and ask you to look a little closer at why we drink, what we get out of it, and whether it’s really the alcohol that’s giving us what we want.
This is another must have quit alcohol book and comes highly recommended if you are worried about your drinking or questioning how alcohol should feature in your life.
You can buy The Alcohol Experiment on Amazon here.
The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober
By: Catherine Grey
I thoroughly enjoyed The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober and feel that this is also a must have if you are curious about quitting drinking and what an alcohol-free life might look like.
In The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober, Catherine Gray shines a light on society’s drink-pushing and talks to top neuroscientists and psychologists about why we drink, delving into the science behind what it does to our brains and bodies.
Much more than a tale from the netherworld of addicted drinking, this book is about the escape, and why a sober life can be more intoxicating than you ever imagined. Whether you’re a hopelessly devoted drinker, merely sober-curious, or you’ve already ditched the drink.
You can buy The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober on Amazon here.
Kick The Drink…Easily!
By: Jason Vale
I enjoyed Kick The Drink…Easily! It is another book I would recommend for your sober bookshelf. It is informative and provides plenty of insights and tactics to help readers work towards a life free from alcohol.
There is no such thing as an alcoholic and there is no such disease as alcoholism! (as society understands it). Whether you agree with this statement or not, one thing is for sure, you will never see alcohol in the same light ever again after reading this book. Jason Vale takes an honest and hard hitting look at people’s conceptions of our most widely consumed drug. Jason’s major argument is there is no such thing as an ‘alcoholic’ and that we are conditioned to accept alcohol as a ‘normal’ substance in today’s society despite the fact that it is the major cause of many of today’s social problems and a wide range of health issues. This book is much more than a simple eye opener, it will: change the way you see alcohol forever; show you how to stop drinking; help you enjoy the process and enjoy your life so much more than you do now without having to drink alcohol. So open your mind and take a journey with Jason to explore the myths about the most used and accepted drug addiction in the world!
You can buy Kick The Drink…Easily! on Amazon here
Quit Like a Woman
By Holly Whitaker
OK, I know I am not a woman! But I loved Holly’s book.
This book is brings into the light the sickness that exists in our society that drives us toward an unattainable perfection and lives we never bargained for and what we do to manage that impossible situation. It’s about an addictive chemical that we have been fooled into believing is the answer to every problem, a healthful staple of our diet, our key to connection and power. It’s about a system that limits our ability to question whether we should be consuming that addictive chemical and one that, when we do become addicted, forces us into male-centric “recovery” frameworks (i.e., Alcoholics Anonymous) that not only run counter to our emerging feminist and individualist ideals but actively work against them, boarding us through yet another system that requires submission to male authority, self-silencing, further dissolution of self, and pathologised femininity.
In other words, this book is about what makes us sick and keeps us sick. It’s about our power as women—both as individuals and as a collective—and how alcohol can keep us from it. And most important, it is about what is possible when we remove alcohol from our lives and destroy our belief systems around it. This is the truth about alcohol, and the thing about truth is once you know it, you can never un-know it.
You will never look at drinking the same way again.
You can buy Quit Like a Woman on Amazon here
