“It happened this way: I fell in love and then, because the love was ruining everything I cared about, I had to fall out.”

Knapp likens her relationship with alcohol to a love affair with an abusive dynamic. It develops slowly and eventually takes over her life. This relationship is the product of a disease, and breaking its hold is extremely difficult, much as it is difficult to part ways with a person one still adores. “Fall out” seems to have two meanings here: falling out of love and having a falling out, as in having a quarrel that leads to estrangement. Knapp has to have a falling out with alcohol to help her fall out of love with it. Drinking: A Love Story is part of the falling-out process she needs to complete in her effort to stay sober.

“There are moments as an active alcoholic where you do know, where in a flash of clarity you grasp that alcohol is the central problem, a kind of liquid glue that gums up all the internal gears and keeps you stuck.“

Throughout the book, Knapp points out ways drinking has made her life murky and difficult to navigate. She also examines the ways that it keeps her from making progress in her life—especially in her relationships—and from breaking patterns that are destructive, dysfunctional, or both. Despite these challenges, she is not as helpless as she feels. Though drinking clouds her insight, she still has moments of clarity about her situation and what she needs to do to escape the grip of alcoholism.