A Drinking Life

Pete Hamill · first published 1994 · ISBN 9780316341028

Hamill's 1994 memoir recounts his struggle with alcohol from youth through middle age, tracing how drinking became woven into his identity as a journalist and man about town. At once glamorous and corrosive, the narrative follows his journey from bars to addiction to the breaking point. The book ends on New Year's Eve 1972, when he quit drinking alone, cold turkey, without help from any program.