Author Christine Koschmieder drank for years, drank too much – until she became addicted. Nobody noticed. A conversation about the dangers of functional alcoholism, self-deception and shame.
Ms. Koschmieder, you are an alcoholic. You made that public with your autobiographical novel “Dry”. You belong to a whole squad of successful women who recently came out as alcohol dependent. Why did you do it?
I was concerned with dealing with the question of where functional drinking comes from and why it is so little visible. So the drinking that everyone says afterwards: Really now? Man, we didn’t even notice! So I didn’t want to illustrate the consequences and effects of alcohol, as is well known from the Quit-Lit and films. I was interested in the motives, the contradictions, the dynamics and the structures behind drinking.