CLEANING UP

This memoir starts with the author waking up in a bath of cold water, having fallen asleep when it was warmer, following yet another drunken night out. This marks the start of the end of her 23-year love affair with alcohol.

We then flash back to a resume of her loveless childhood and a quick run through her psychological problems, building into a depressing tale, not only of a lengthy addiction to drink but to all manner of substances and behaviours.

She is obviously a bright woman, able to cope with University and become a competent writer, but her public face conceals a mind full of problems which she shares here. In fact, a very disturbed person emerges from the account. She hardly seems to be able to function without her alcoholic crutch. She charts many fleeting and failed relationships, and does not speak to her parents for many years. I do wonder that, given the amount of alcohol and other drugs that have passed through her brain, just how accurate and honest this can be, and if it is, then why the author would want to tell us and not just keep it a secret. Is describing all the gory details to anyone who will read them the next in her long line of addictions? Is lurid confession the new line of coke? Perhaps this process is her therapy after all. Tell and be free.

Anyway, her journey hasn’t all been ‘wasted’, I suppose, as Glyde has been able to publish this autobiography out of the experiences, and she has made something of a living as a sex columnist and a sex chat line show host since drying out.

It is a fascinating book, but not a very comfortable read. In fact, it’s mostly rather disgusting. There are some insights into both binge drinking and binge sex, and the link with depression, but for me the book generates more questions than it answers. Specifically: why do all this stuff if you don’t enjoy it; and why do I find it interesting?