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Drunk at 21 and washed up, she's sober and an author at 24

Associated Press
Published February 4, 2005

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At Syracuse University in upstate New York, and certainly at other colleges around the country, the pubs and Greek houses are the centers of social life. There, friendships are made, romances are sparked, and bad habits with alcohol are reinforced, sometimes never to be completely shaken.

Such was the case for Koren Zailckas, whose trials with alcohol snowballed from its being a social emollient to a social crutch.

The precocious Zailckas, now 24, has taken a step back from her abusive relationship with alcohol during high school and college to write Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood .

In her book, she recounts the nearly 10 years she spent drinking heavily, beginning at 14 during a sleepover at home in Boston and not ending until her college days ended. It's one part memoir and one part beautiful prose, sprinkled throughout with facts and research about binge drinking. For many women, it may hit terribly close to home.

The most fascinating part of the book is watching how slowly Zailckas' drinking unravels, almost like time-exposure photography. It starts with sips of Malibu at parties during her high school years and grows until she is a full-fledged washout as a senior in college. There, she is too tired and too lazy to walk the four blocks from her apartment to the campus bars, so she drives.

On the surface, Zailckas comes across as a typical young woman, working out with her college cheerleading team and pledging her sorority. She drinks in her dorm room with her buddies -- it's so cold outside, what else are they supposed to do? (Study? Nah!) At a school like Syracuse it's easy to amuse oneself with liquor, especially when the bars are just yards away from most Greek houses and fake IDs are passed around like lipsticks.

Throughout the book, Zailckas stresses that heavy drinking among young women has become so common and accepted that it doesn't seem like a big deal. She points out that the group mentality seems to be that it's perfectly okay to get wasted and wake up on the living room floor, just so long as you don't hurt anyone along the way.

Her story is a dark one, especially when she writes about drinking to avoid shyness or awkwardness around men. It's a wonder she managed to pull herself out of her slump.

However, she had the gumption to examine her life and make sense of why she felt the need to drink so much. She offers few answers, just some research and her story.

Even with all the studies on the topic, Smashed seems to offer the best examination of the relationship between women and alcohol in a clear and brilliant way.

Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood. By Koren Zailckas. Viking. 343 Pages. $21.95.

[Last modified February 2, 2005, 13:29:09]