no lost causes club

talking a wee bit more about my debut book

I named No Lost Causes club after the phrase came up spontaneously in conversation with someone else in recovery, who also holds the steadfast belief that there is no such thing as a lost cause. We were reflecting on how wild it was that we lived through our twenties, given the war stories we were exchanging about the dark place we were taken to. Both of us once believed that we were a faulty model of something that resembled a human being, damned to a miserable existence of pain being the price of being alive. Both of us had now worked out ways of being in the world that worked for us, found a connection to other people we didn’t know was possible, and we survived something we didn’t know had another side, or at least a different side. We could look life in the eye, and accept that there would be struggle, because that is the nature of life - but we could struggle well now.

‘Who would have believed we weren’t a lost cause?’

‘This is the no lost causes club.’

My book No Lost Causes Club is part memoir, my story of being an alcoholic opera singer with a history of self-injury, eating disorders, and my experience of getting sober at age 25. It is part guide, outlining the many ways and modalities that have helped me through early recovery, fear, senses, emotions, loneliness, trauma, dating, sex and love, grief, regret, making friends and making it all mean something. It is about how I got to a place where I can accept who I am and the material I’m working with, living a life I can live with.

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It is a book for people who had a quick progression into the dark place, and are wondering how they can be so young but so done with life. It is for people who feel like they’ve burned out too soon, and there’s nothing left for them. It’s for the people who feel too far gone, and not bad enough, at the same time. It is a book for people who stopped drinking, started therapy, began taking medication and the work began, rather than things getting immediately good. It is a book that attempts to make that work easier, even enjoyable sometimes. The personal lens I speak through is sobriety, but at its core this is a book for anyone who wants to change something that isn’t working for them, or something they feel will always feel this terrible.

This is the No Lost Causes Club - it’s for people who took the long way around, who managed pain in the ways we knew how, until those coping mechanisms started taking more than they were giving and we had to find something different before it killed us. We know what it’s like to hope to die in our sleep, but at some point felt a feral desire to live and dragged ourselves from the scrapheap, not knowing what comes next, but knowing that we don’t want to go back.

My writing has always been for the people who know how it feels to fall apart. It is for people putting themselves back together, or those who are at the precipice of knowing that something needs to change. It is for anyone who is on any path of recovery, or simply curious about what hope or wholeness might look like. This book is a love letter to all the people who felt like lost causes, and a reminder that we are in this together.

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Pre-ordering a book for July might sound like a mad thing to do, but pre-orders really help authors, so if any of this is interesting to you, you can pre-order here.

It is also buying future you a present, so everyone wins. There are links for UK, USA, Canada and Australia at present.

Here are some quotes from people I deeply admire and am so grateful took the time to read my book:

'I believe that No Lost Causes Club will be a beacon for a generation of readers who have come to the false conclusion that they are broken beyond repair. With the warmth, clarity and humour of a friend, Lauren McQuistin generously shares her own story and the insights she has gained to show us how an inconceivably better life becomes possible. This book is not just about sobriety or just about recovery; it is an invitation to hope'

SHON FAYE, author of The Transgender Issue and Love in Exile

'Lauren McQuistin's work is irreverent, provocative, delightful and very funny. It captures the bizarre, delightful highs and lows experienced by the alcoholic or addict in recovery: acknowledging the dumpster fire of a life one leaves behind, restoring oneself to sanity, the struggle for intimacy, and so on. Lauren is an important voice and a rare talent. I'd read anything she writes'

CAT MARNELL, author of How to Murder Your Life

‘A stunning, seriously sick and profoundly well work. I love the intricacies of sanity, and how it can look so crazy. This book had me laughing and crying. Truly brilliant’

MARGARET CHO, author, comedian and actress

"In a singular voice that captures both the absurdity and vulnerability of being a young woman in recovery, Lauren McQuistin’s No Lost Causes Club chronicles the messy, nonlinear path of healing with dark humor, unflinching honesty, razor-sharp insight, and deep empathy. This is a book for anyone who has ever fallen apart—and dared to believe they could put themselves back together.”

—Erin Khar, author of Strung Out

"Lauren McQuistin's high-warmth, low-nonsense approach to the adventure of recovery is unique and invaluable. This book has it all--actionable strategies, devastating memoir, a delightful sense of humor, and unflagging hope. McQuistin reminds us that we get to change at any time, and that we don't have to abandon the fun or the jokes or even the darkness to do it. Whether your path is complete abstinence or an honest reassessment of your relationship to drugs and alcohol--this is recovery for the rest of us."

—Tara McGowan-Ross, author of Nothing Will Be Different, a finalist for the Hilary Weston Prize for Nonfiction

Thank you so much for reading,

Lauren xo