People who drink to drown their sorrow should be told that sorrow knows how to swim.

Ann Landers was the pen name of Esther “Eppie” Lederer (1918–2002), whose syndicated advice column reached millions of American newspaper readers in the mid-to-late 20th century. The line is commonly attributed to her as part of her plainspoken counsel about coping mechanisms—especially the tendency to use alcohol as a quick anesthetic for grief, stress, or disappointment. In the cultural setting of postwar America, Landers often addressed family conflict, addiction, and mental health in a pragmatic, moral-tinged register aimed at everyday readers. The quip functions like a column-ready aphorism: memorable, slightly humorous, and designed to discourage self-destructive “solutions” to emotional pain.

The remark argues that alcohol cannot truly eliminate emotional suffering; it only postpones it. By personifying sorrow as something that “knows how to swim,” the quote turns a common metaphor—drinking to “drown” feelings—into a rebuttal: sorrow survives immersion and resurfaces, often compounded by the consequences of drinking. The humor sharpens the warning without sounding purely preachy, making the message easier to accept and repeat. In effect, Landers promotes the idea that grief and distress require direct, healthier forms of processing (support, time, reflection, treatment) rather than chemical escape, because avoidance tends to preserve or intensify the underlying pain.