La huella de los días

This is a book on addiction. Talk about alcoholism and the struggle to get out of it; it also addresses the myths -literary, artistic- that surround it, connecting genius with alcoholic self-destruction. The author began drinking as a teenager, but it was during her college years that she became an alcoholic in an attempt to overcome her insecurity, chronic shyness, and relationship problems with men. In these pages, she recounts her fall into addiction and the subsequent self-destructive spiral (which led to an abortion, persistent arrhythmias, and despair). And she also recounts the failed attempts at recovery and the slow road to sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous, which allowed her to rediscover herself and fight to regain happiness. Along with this itinerary, the book also explores the romantic tradition that links creativity and drunkenness, through singers Billie Holiday and Amy Winehouse and writers such as Raymond Carver, Jean Rhys, Denis Johnson, David Foster Wallace, John Berryman, Elisabeth Bishop or Charles Jackson, the author of the autobiographical novel The Lost Weekend, which Billy Wilder made into a movie in Days Without a Footprint.