Unshaming

A Memoir of Recovery, Relapse, and What Comes After

By: Jowita Bydlowska

Narrated by: Jowita Bydlowska

From the national bestselling and critically acclaimed author of Drunk Mom, a powerful and transformative memoir exploring the intersection of addiction and shame.

It’s been over a decade since Jowita Bydlowska published her bestselling lightning rod of a memoir on overcoming alcohol addiction as a young mother. Both hailed and criticized for its no-holds-barred transparency, Drunk Mom was—and continues to be—refreshing and revelatory in its gritty exploration of addiction and relapse in the context of new parenthood, specifically from the experience of a woman. But what happens after the last page is turned, after the “happy ending” of an addiction the world assumes is safely in the rearview?

When Bydlowska relapses after the success of her book, her overwhelming sense is one of shame. She struggles to reconcile the knowledge that she’s helped bring comfort and hope to countless readers with her own frustration and mounting fear that the truth will only let others down. In prose that is by turns harsh and beautiful, tender and devastating, she writes about her ensuing spiral into alcoholism—and the climb back up and out.

Unshaming is a raw, unsparing navigation of the intricacies of shame. With the same generosity and grim humour that made Drunk Mom such a standout, Bydlowska uses her own story as a vehicle to interrogate and challenge the narrative surrounding addiction, exploring the ways in which the conversation has both evolved and stayed the same over the last decade. Told with breathtaking narrative immediacy, Unshaming transcends the typical self-help memoir and punches through every expectation about what the perfect woman, mother, and writer in recovery should look like.

Critic reviews

A Chatelaine Favourite Book of Spring 2026

"Bydlowska's story contains equal parts heartbreak and hard-earned triumph, with a final scene that's nothing short of transcendent."
—Chatelaine

"Bydlowska has a distinctive narrative voice and she powerfully lays bare her personal experience with—and feelings around—alcohol, and the shame of being a "chronic relapser," and in doing so offers healing, freedom, and empathy to those who have grappled with these kinds of feelings themselves—addition-related or otherwise."
—Quill & Quire

"Raw. . . . Its portrayal of recovery eschews standard redemption arcs in favour of honesty and nuance. . . . The book's darkness is leavened by a black humour. . . . Its accounts of falling down and getting back up are unsparing throughout. . . . Powerful."
—Foreword Reviews

"What grounds the book is its tactile honesty about the daily textures of addiction and recovery. Bydlowska is especially good on the destabilizing boredom that can threaten sobriety, and on the strange nostalgia that can attach itself to self-destruction. Her imagery can be brutally vivid . . . but it can also turn unexpectedly light. . . . Severe, funny, unsparing, and sharply attuned to the false notes in even our most enlightened stories about addiction. . . . Bydlowska deserves credit for pushing that conversation into the open."
—The Seaboard Review of Books

"Bydlowska's confessional tone and trenchant self-reflection make the memoir an excellent read. . . . Overall, this is a page-turner that's full of vulnerability and heart. A poignant memoir about addiction, shame, and recovery."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Bydlowska writes with humility and lucidity about the mercurial nature of addiction, avoiding easy platitudes or excessive self-regard as she details the hard work of maintaining sobriety. . . . Her generous and frank chronicle will, like Drunk Mom before it, resonate with readers battling demons of their own."
—Publishers Weekly