Her Best-Kept Secret

What’s the first thing many women do when they go home? Makea dash for the white wine in the refrigerator.

In Her Best-KeptSecret, journalist Gabrielle Glaser uncovers this hidden-in-plain-sightdrinking epidemic—but doesn’t cause you to recoil in alarm. She is the first todocument that American women are drinking more often than ever and in ever-larger quantities. And she is the first to show that contrary to the impressionfostered by reality shows and Gossip Girl,young women alone are not driving these statistics—their moms and grandmothersare, too. But Glaser doesn’t wag a finger. Instead, in a funny and tendervoice, Glaser looks at the roots of the problem, explores the strange historyof women and alcohol in America, drills into the emerging and counterintuitivescience about that relationship, and asks: Are women really getting the helpthey need? Is it possible to come back from beyond the sipping point anddevelop a healthy relationship with the bottle?

Glaser reveals that, for many women, joining AlcoholicsAnonymous is not the answer—it is part of the problem. She shows that asscientists and health professionals learn more about women’s particularreactions to alcohol, they are coming up with new and more effective approachesto excessive drinking. In that sense, Glaser offers modern solutions to a verymodern problem.