I Quit Everything

How One Woman's Addiction to Quitting Helped Her Confront Bad Habits and Embrace Midlife

By: Freda Love Smith

Narrated by: Freda Love Smith

An experimental account of one woman’s quest to shed addictive substances and behaviors from her life—which dares to ask if we’re really better off without them.

In January 2021, Freda Love Smith, acclaimed rock musician and author of Red Velvet Underground, watched as insurgents stormed the U.S. Capitol. It felt like the culmination of eight months of pandemic anxiety. She needed a drink, badly. But she suspected a midday whiskey wouldn’t cure what was really ailing her—nor would her nightly cannabis gummy, or her four daily cups of tea, or any of the other substances she relied on to get through each day. Thus began her experiment to remove one addictive behavior from her life each month to see if sobriety was really all it was cracked up to be.

With honesty and humor, Smith describes the effects of withdrawal from alcohol, sugar, caffeine, cannabis, and social media, weaving in her reflections on the childhood experiences and cultural norms that fed her addictions to these behaviors. Part personal history, part sociological research, and part wry observation on addiction, intoxication, media, and pandemic behavior, I Quit Everything will resonate with anyone who has danced with destructive habits—that is, those who are “sober curious” but not necessarily sober. Smith’s experiment goes beyond simply quitting these five addictive behaviors. Moved by the circumstances of the pandemic and the general state of the world, she ends up leaving an unsatisfying job for more meaningful work and reevaluating other significant details of her life, such as motherhood and the music that defined her career.

More than a simple sobriety story, Smith’s book is an exploration of passion, legacy, and what becomes of our identities once we’ve quit everything.

©2023 Freda Love Smith. (P)2023 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“Performed by the author, this thought-provoking memoir takes on a reflective and relatable tone. The issue-oriented investigation of ways in which society supports addiction is clever and compelling. Though many have been affected by their own or another's substance abuse, Smith also touches on the universal phenomenon of ‘quitting’ the phases of life that have run their course. This audio will appeal to listeners seeking a candid autobiographical analysis of the ease with which one becomes addicted to both substances and behaviors. Recommended for fans of Sarah Levy and Holly Whitaker.”—Library Journal

"A humorous, insightful memoir of self-improvement."—Kirkus Reviews

“Reading I Quit Everything is like having a heart-to-heart with your smartest friend—cups of spearmint tea steaming as the conversation goes from personal disclosure to pop-culture analysis to philosophical inquiry and back. Freda Love Smith writes at one point that this is an "anti-self-help" book, and it does offer much more than your average bullet-pointed guide past a midlife crisis. But it helped me, because as a sometimes impulsive, often self-critical, always curious woman at midlife, I related so much to Smith's desire to both reset her life and celebrate all she's lived through. Heartening and challenging.”—Ann Powers, author of Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music

Honest, loose and funny

What an interesting book - to be clear, I t’s not a self help book. Freda Love Smith ponders and explores “quitting” and freeing oneself of dependence on substances like caffeine, alcohol, sugar, and social media, etc...
Many of us have wondered if we can become our best self if only we didn’t (choose your own vice).
It is very relatable, honest and not preachy. Rather, the author seems like the kind of person who would enjoy giving you an expensive bourbon for your birthday even though she’s abstaining from liquor.
So there’s no judgment, or guilt in this honest and often funny memoir of considering self improvement by way of elimination.

Why kick it off with stupid political views?

Couldn’t get far past the Trump derangement syndrome… not what I thought this was about. Lame