Overview

From the creator of the blog Renegade Mothering, comes Janelle Hanchett's forthright, darkly funny, and ultimately empowering memoir chronicling her tumultuous journey from young motherhood to abysmal addiction and a recovery she never imagined possible. Pregnant at twenty-one by a man she had known three months, Janelle Hanchett embraced motherhood with the determined optimism of the recklessly self-confident. After giving birth, she found herself bored, directionless, and seeking relief in wine, which she justified as sophisticated and going well with chicken. But over time, her questionable drinking habit spiraled into full-blown dependence, until life became bedtime stories and splitting hangovers, cubicles and multiday drug binges-and eventually, an inconceivable separation from her children. For ten years, Hanchett grappled with the unyielding progression of addiction, bouncing from rehab to therapy to the occasional hippie cleansing ritual on her quest for sobriety, before finding it in a way she never expected. Hers is a story we rarely hear-of the addict mother not redeemed by her children; who longs for normalcy but cannot maintain it; and who, having traveled to seemingly irreversible depths, makes it back, only to discover she is still an outsider. Like her irreverent, laugh-out-loud funny, and unflinchingly honest blog, Hanchett's memoir calls out the rhetoric surrounding the sanctity of motherhood as tired and empty, boldly recounting instead how she grew to accept an imperfect self within an imperfect life-and think, Well, I'll be damned, I'm just happy to be here.

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9781549198656

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Reviews

Hanchett here demonstrates how the overidealization of modern family life makes it difficult to emerge from a damaging cycle of addiction...An inspiring message about recovery that resonates through its emphasis on the imperfect progress of life. -- Library Journal By turns painful and funny, [I'm Just Happy to Be Here] explores the pressures of modern motherhood while chronicling one woman's journey toward acceptance of her own limitations and imperfections. A searingly candid memoir. -- Kirkus Reviews [A] raw and riveting memoir...Readers will cheer Hanchett toward her triumphant recovery. -- Publishers Weekly Witty, heartbreaking, and enlightening, Hanchett's memoir will resonate with parents and nonparents alike. -- Booklist Unflinchingly honest. -- Health Far from your cookie-cutter story of addiction and recovery...Describes Hanchett's journey to recovery and sobriety in imperfect and unconventional ways. -- Bustle

Author Information

Janelle Hanchett created the website Renegade Mothering in 2011 because she needed to know if the rest of the mothering world was crazy or she was. Writing after her kids went to bed and while she was supposed to be working, she attracted an audience of hundreds of thousands of readers. She holds a BA in English from University of California at Davis and an MA in English literature from Sacramento State.

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