Definitely Better Now by Ava Robinson (2024) 341 pages
Emma, a young woman working in the marketing department of a financial consulting firm, has been going to AA meetings three times a week. She's ready to mark one full year of abstinence from alcohol and is now trying to figure out how to navigate the next part of her life. In her crisis years, she needed alcohol in social situations. Since she's been in recovery, her social life equals AA. The only people who really know her are her mother and her AA sponsor, Lola. She has been mostly estranged from her father, who is an alcoholic himself.
Emma feels split between being "Work Emma," the responsible employee who shares only selective bits of her personal life and who does not go to Friday Happy Hours with her coworkers versus becoming a person who shares her life, opening the possibilities of honest conversations and gaining real friendship.
I find this story to be a thorough telling of the trials of recovery, concerns about backsliding (as well as dealing with others who fear that you may backslide), and the difficulty in dealing with people, especially when one's self-doubts continually resurface.
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