A book in progress · By Pooja Gupta

The Diary of anAlcoholic Mom

Mother. Wife. Professional. Drunk.
In that order. Allegedly.

A darkly funny, painfully familiar story about a high-functioning Indian woman, the invisible work of holding a family together, and the drink that makes everything feel—briefly—fine.

Read a taste Follow the diary

Currently being written22 chapters planned

Cover of The Diary of an Alcoholic Mom by Pooja Gupta

Chapter 1 · I Am Absolutely Fine

“My outer adult is mildly drunk, but the inner child is making tremendous progress.”

Meet the woman with the glass

01 / The story

She is absolutely fine.Please stop asking.

She has an excellent career. An amazing teenage son. A husband. And issues. So many issues.

Between Teams calls, wet towels, invisible domestic labour, Instagram University, and a doorbell that refuses to respect boundaries, one glass becomes the softest part of the day.

The Diary of an Alcoholic Mom is candid, comic, and uncomfortable in exactly the right places—a story about denial, resentment, love, and the private negotiations behind a very functional life.

The woman

Forty-something, overqualified, overextended, and spectacularly self-aware.

The life

Marriage, motherhood, work, hormones, family—and all the labour nobody names.

The glass

Not the problem. Not yet. Just the thing that makes the committee adjourn.

The greatest threat to the mental health of the modern Indian woman is someone ringing her doorbell after 8 p.m.

From Chapter 1 · I Am Absolutely Fine

02 / Inside the diary

Five parts.
Twenty-two chapters.
Zero chill.

The story moves from high-functioning certainty to the rather inconvenient possibility that the glass may know more than she does.

Part 01

The Woman with the Glass

I Am Absolutely Fine · 5:01 PM Is Practically Night

Part 02

Things That Apparently Didn’t Bother Me

Marriage Comes with Free Resentment · Nobody Told Me I’d Become Somebody’s Wife

Part 03

My Very Reasonable Reasons for Being Unreasonable

I Don’t Have Anger Issues · The Patriarchy Would Like Some Tea

Part 04

Alcohol and I Would Like to Clarify Our Relationship

We Were Just Friends · What If I Stop Drinking and Still Hate This?

Part 05

The Unfortunate Return of Sober Me

How Do Normal People Have Fun? · Dear Diary, Pour Me a… Actually, Never Mind

03 / The author

Pooja Gupta

Pooja writes about the things respectable families prefer to leave unspoken—and makes them funny enough that you keep reading. Her voice is sharp, intimate, proudly Indian, and allergic to pretending everything is fine.