Wasted: Tales of a Young Drunk

The book at the center of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings.

Mark Judge describes in vivid detail the privileged milieu in which he and his classmate and friend Brett Kavanaugh were raised and fast times at their all-male preparatory school - benders, blackouts, and hookups. Judge candidly chronicles the twists and turns of his downward spiral into alcoholism. "It soon became obvious," he writes, "that drinking was one of the major forms of recreation at Prep. On Monday morning, the upperclassmen would return from the weekend with stories about keg parties, girls, and hours spent in bars in Georgetown. . . . At Prep, seniors would often go directly from class to a bar. They would even drink with alumni at football games." Cynicism and black humor underscore this hard-edged memoir of a young journalist's alcoholism and subsequent recovery.