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It Wasn't the Taste: Chasing the WHY
Paperback
Health GeneralAbuseAddiction & Recovery
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Sep 26 2026
Pages: 176
Weight: 0.54
Height: 0.41 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Understanding alcoholism.
Why do they keep drinking?
Why don't they just stop?
Many families are left with more questions than answers.
It Wasn't the Taste: Chasing the WHY does not excuse alcoholism or erase the damage it causes.
It is a raw and honest poetry and prose collection written from a perspective few people can offer: first as the daughter of a functioning alcoholic, and later as a woman facing alcoholism herself, for different reasons and with very different consequences.
The collection moves from what a family sees and lives through to what may be happening underneath the drinking: what alcohol can seem to give before it begins taking far more in return.
Through poetry and prose, Paula Sheldon writes about the family side of alcoholism, the person holding the glass, the consequences, regret, sobriety, recovery, boundaries, and what remains after the alcohol is gone.
For families trying to understand someone they love, for people struggling with alcohol, and for those living through recovery, these pages look at both the damage and the reasons underneath it.
Understanding is not excusing.
Sometimes it simply means asking a better question:
What made them reach for it in the first place?
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