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Honestly with Bari Weiss · October 21, 2025 · 1h 5m

How Katie Herzog Drank Her Way to Sobriety

Katie Herzog, co-host of Blocked and Reported, discusses her new book Drink Your Way Sober, which makes the case for alternative approaches to alcohol addiction. She argues that naltrexone, a drug that reduces the desire to drink, offers a path that doesn't require immediate abstinence—and that the dominance of AA has obscured other options. Herzog explains the counterintuitive premise of the Sinclair Method and addresses the understandable resistance to letting an alcoholic continue drinking.

This summary was generated from show notes and public descriptions, not from a full transcript review. Details may contain inaccuracies.

Curious

Naltrexone and the Sinclair Method
Herzog describes naltrexone as a chemical safety net that reduces the desire to drink, and notes that patients must continue drinking for the treatment to work.

Highlights

The AA monopoly on addiction treatment
Herzog argues that AA's dominance has obscured other treatment options, creating a one-size-fits-all approach to a complex problem.
Drinking to extinguish the craving
The Sinclair Method requires patients to drink—at least at first—because the drug only works when the brain experiences drinking without the expected reward.
The resistance to medication-assisted drinking
Herzog acknowledges the resistance to her argument—the instinct to say 'hell no' to the idea of an alcoholic drinking on medication.

Editorial

The staggering scale of alcoholism in America
Herzog grounds her argument in the scale of the crisis: 30 million Americans meet the criteria for alcoholism, and 175,000 die from it annually.

References

Drink Your Way SoberKatie Herzog (2025)Herzog's new book discussed in the episode
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