Kristen Crisp opens her Author of the Month article with a line that refuses to soften the pain: her sister is dead, and the guilt remains. In this deeply personal story, she writes about Robin, a beloved older sister whose cancer history, job loss, family stress, secrecy, and escalating alcohol use made the crisis harder to see until it was too late.

Kristen Crisp closes her Author of the Month series with a funny and uncomfortably honest look at what happens when a sober person steps back into a bar. From the awkward mocktail exchange to loud conversations, sloppy behavior, loneliness, aging, sadness, and social pressure, she describes a familiar alcohol-centered world through a very different lens.

Kristen Crisp’s Author of the Month article tells the devastating story of her sister Robin, whose education, professional success, and social standing did not protect her from alcohol addiction. With blunt honesty and grief, Kristen describes the warning signs, the family history of drinking, the trauma and loss that intensified Robin’s use, and the painful truth that addiction does not discriminate.

Kristen Crisp writes with sharp humor and lived-experience honesty about the reasons she kept drinking for more than 30 years. From low self-esteem and “liquid courage” to the social pressure that made sobriety seem strange, this Author of the Month piece names the loops that can keep alcohol feeling normal long after it has stopped being fun. It is direct, funny, uncomfortable, and deeply human.