Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: The Hate You Drink
AUTHOR: NR Walker
NARRATOR: Antony Ferguson
PUBLISHER: Tantor Audio
LENGTH: 8 hours and 39 minutes
RELEASE DATE: September 29, 2020
BLURB:
Erik Keston, son of the Keston Real Estate empire, knows what it takes to be successful. Despite his inherent wealth, he holds his own. He works hard, he’s grounded, he’s brilliant. He’s also secretly in love with his best friend.
Monroe Wellman lost his parents three years ago and never grieved, never recovered. Inheriting the family company and wealth means nothing, and his spiral of self-destruction is widespread and spectacular. Dubbed Sydney’s bad boy, he spends more days drunk than sober, and the only person who’s stuck by him through it all is his best mate.
But when Monroe hits rock bottom, Erik gives him an ultimatum, and his entire world comes to a grinding halt. It’s not until the haze lifts that Monroe can truly see what he’s been searching for was never in the bottom of a bottle. It’s been by his side all along.
REVIEW:
Monroe is a young guy who has lost his parents. Since their deaths, he has not done much with his life except increase his partying habits. He’s ignored his job at the company he inherited, ignored those who are trying to help him and generally just self-medicated himself into numbness. His drinking to excess on the regular has once again led to him crashing and wrecking his car – avoiding serious injury and miraculously not injuring or killing anyone else. But things are just going from bad to worse and he cannot seem to stop drinking – even if he says he will.
Erik is Monroe’s best friend since their days at uni. Erik is the guy who always picks up the pieces. He take Monroe home and cleans him up. He takes physical care of him when he’s wasted and he takes care of the consequences of all of Monroe’s shenanigans. In fact, his identity has become that of Monroe’s keeper. Keeping him out of jail, out of trouble and out of the view of the press has become job one for Erik. But eventually this takes a huge toll on Erik and on his feelings for Monroe – which he’s never really shared with Monroe – because Monroe is not in the right frame of mind to even hear Erik. When Erik finally breaks down and tells him, Monroe doesn’t take him seriously. He just uses Erik to make himself feel better. This is the last straw for Erik. If Monroe doesn’t clean up his act, he’s going to end up dead and Erik can’t bear to watch it happen.
Finally Monroe gets it. If he doesn’t do something he really will lose everything – which mostly means Erik. So he agrees to treatment with Saul, the therapist to the stars, who specializes in addiction. He also has to convince Monroe to dig down to the reason for his drinking and the consequences of not dealing with his grief, guilt and anger. His issues come from a deep place, and it’ll take some work for him to overcome them. But Saul is there and he allows Erik to be there to some degree as well. There is a whole lot of work to do for Monroe to figure out how to handle his reliance on alcohol. And frankly, it’s difficult because it’s around so much. He has to learn how to cope with the desire and not give in. Thankfully Erik and his family are supportive as well.
I’m a huge fan of NR Walker – her books and series are some of my absolute favorite. However, this book, for me, fell a bit flat. There were a couple of things that didn’t quite work for me. First of all, I’ve never heard of a therapist being OK with plunging into a sexual relationship while in the very beginning stages of recovery – which is what the majority of this book covers. In fact, my recollection is that the recommendation is that a newly sober person be significantly into recovery (like a year) before embarking on such a relationship. I mean I know they were already best friends, but going from friends to lovers is a huge step and not without its own peril. I did really like how the friendship between Erik and Monroe was portrayed. I felt Erik’s hurt at the hands of Monroe. I liked that Monroe was able to grow enough on his road to sobriety to be able to accept responsibility for the hurt he had caused and genuinely apologize to those who were impacted. I also really loved Erik’s family. His sister and his parents were really rocks for both Erik and Monroe. I was impressed that Saul was able to talk to Erik about his co-dependency – and in fact I would have liked to see a lot more about how Erik worked through his own issues. It’s extremely hard for someone whose identity has been the “cleaner” for the addicted person to adjust to letting the newly sober person stand on their own. I felt neutral about the narration if I’m being honest. This is the first book narrated by Antony Ferguson that I’ve listened to and maybe I’m just not used to his voice, but I didn’t feel like the performance added to the story. While this isn’t my favorite NR Walker book, if you’re looking for a story of friends to lovers and overcoming addiction, you might try this one. As usual, YMMV.
RATING: 
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