1. Has your relationship to sobriety or recovery changed in the past few years in relation to aging, diagnosis, hormones/peri-menopause, trauma work, medication, cannabis or psychedelics, harm reduction, burnout, wellness culture, internet sobriety culture, what’s happening in the world {open to interpretation!}, or just life?
Yes, it has changed.
3. If so, what does that look like for you?
I am six+ years sober (1.3.20) and my first three years of that sobriety was an absence of all substances (minus caffeine), with a brief period of giving up sugar as well. I took a break from my career during those years to work on said sobriety. In 2022, I accepted a position in my career field and accepted all the stressors that go along with it. In 2023, I had my first experience with gummies taking three over the course of a month. In 2024 I smoked a joint in a vineyard looking at the sun setting over a mountaintop and felt grateful to be alive. In 2025 I began using gummies more often recreationally and I still use them to that end today. I suppose I am going into detail to give you the gradual lifestyle creep that has happened. I would like to end the usage, but I am having a hard time finding alternative “rewards” and stress relief from my job.
5. Are you aware of a backlash against “sobriety culture” etc., and what do you make of it?
No, this is the first I am hearing of it. However, I am in the beverage industry, and I suppose there has always been tension in my field around this topic. Once sales reps find out I am sober (I don’t hide it, am open about it, but don’t wear a hat on my head announcing it either), they treat me with respect that may have more to do with the fact that I am the largest buyer of alcohol (for restaurants and hotels) in our small town than out of any real respect for my sobriety.
Against Sober Culture (Respectfully) is the title of a Substack post I ran across just yesterday. My first exposure to pushback of sober culture. I didn’t get very far reading it. She had to stop drinking for 3 months for a medical procedure and based her decision on that experience. It was not a compelling argument. I lost interest with her perspective pretty quickly.
My own sobriety path has not changed much through dealing with all the things you’ve listed. While other things in my life have shifted, my sobriety feels good and right.
This thing about people having to stop drinking for months before surgery has really gotten me thinking. Is this new? I've heard about it 3x in the last year. Like holy shit. I feel like it's that fact about alcohol that is waking me up more than any other. Anyway, I am so close to being done all together. I think sober culture is alive and well and I also notice that folks will do anything for clicks so they'll be against something for that more than anything. I live in Las Vegas and I hear that the wellness industry is infiltrating the strip b/c people are wanting that more than coming here to drink. So we will see about that....
I actually went back and finished the post this morning after commenting and her argument was that she loved the way wine was intertwined with her culture and social existence. But why be against sober culture just because you prefer something else? I think you nailed this article with 'they'll be against something [for clicks] more than anything".
Yes, wine is for me too AND I am realizing, at least in the US that wine makes me stay awake at night and therefore feel like absolute shit the next day. Is that cultural too? Nope! I'm Italian by and by I am beginning to imagine trips to the homeland sans alcohol. I so enjoy my sleep and feeling good. And Holly, you are the most real writer about all of this and that's what I relate to most. That is where my poetry comes from too... the real, raw, excruciating, awe-inspiring, painful, beautiful, amazing and cray cray experience of being alive!!
And as far as social media and click-bait, something has happened to the humans. And I don't like it. I am never really on FB anymore and only some on IG b/c people have decided that disagreeing with the most neutral is fun, I guess. It seems many will do almost anything for a reaction and clicks. It is sad, sad, sad. That's why I moved over here... and well, b/c people were begging me to put my poetry somewhere, so I started doing that too. I really hope Substack remains a stimulating place to be lest I become a total hermit from online anything.
I haven't seen the article ringing the death knell on sobriety culture but my approach has certainly changed since I got diagnosed as au-dhd 3 years into my sobriety.
I now see my drinking as an attempt at coping and regulation rather than addiction and struggle with the language and ideas in AA though absolutely love the people I met and got sober with there.
I just finished writing a book about it, as I think there are many many of us who masked out difference with alcohol and it is both a blessing and a curse! 'Drinking to mask and unmask', it's out next year.
Can you share the link to the piece that kicked off these Q's? X
Thanks Holly! I sent you some interview Q's but I imagine they got lost in your inbox/life. I'd love to have you on the podcast if you ever have any spoons leftover (big lol, who ever has any spoons leftover).
How can I find your book? I am a therapist and am coming to this very conclusion for my AuDHD clients who seem 'addicted' to tech but it's clear they are trying to regulate. I need help helping them!! P.S. I am ADHD and pretty sure AuDHD too and I have been so patient with my process around alcohol. I actually had a dream last night that I was in treatment and I was like "ya, I'm not really an addict but it's weird that I ever drink b/c it interrupts my sleep so much and I do it anyway, maybe once a week, so that feels problematic to me." I was so happy to wake up and remember this dream. My psyche is really getting it. I don't have a getting drunk problem. It's more that my brain has concluded that the buzz is just so fun, the break from life, from monotony, that it's just hard to get fully away from it. But I am close. Just need to take the final jump. Such a process.
I relate so much! And if I'd known what I know now about autism and ADHD I might never have chosen abstinence... But I came to AA first and so understood my problems and relationships through the lens of addiction. It never completely fit but I was desperate enough to 'keep coming back' and am still sober and still trying to find ways to get what alcohol used to give me!
My book is out early next year and I am happy to hear my experience rings true with what you are seeing and experiencing in your practice.
I am also starting a podcast on the topic and looking for guests 😊 Drinking to Mask and Unmask, conversations about how alcohol and neurodiversity interrelate.
It definitely seems like I'm not going to be short on guests!
Me too, Chelsey!! After years of struggling with my relationship with alcohol and why I seemed to need it to survive, I was diagnosed AuDHD and it all made sense. The new understanding has me aware of my own sensory overwhelm I was suppressing with alcohol to be in spaces socially and to be with people for long periods. I’m looking forward to your book release!
I just read the exact article that Amanda references. I had the same feeling, although I did make it to the end, feeling aggravated that people who choose to drink should feel the need to comment on those who don’t. In my professional experience, a backlash against sobriety culture often seems to come from people who are, for whatever reason best known to themselves, defensive about their own relationship with drink.
When I first got sober, in Aug of 2020, it was really important for me to be strictly sober. Somewhere along the way (am I so basic to say when Trump was reelected?) I just couldn’t hold the line anymore and started using cannabis. My relationship to cannabis is so different from my relationship with alcohol, and I don’t see it as problematic. I don’t act like a raging asshole when I use it and it really actually just mellows me out. One of my teenage sons gave me a little grief for this and I explained it as harm reduction. I feel no grief or guilt over it.
Now this next part may be a little murky but I am a distance runner and there’s just something about completing a marathon or a crazy hard long run that lends itself to enjoying a beer after. I physically cannot abuse beer like I would any other alcohol — it’s just too filling. I feel ok with it. It’s like natural guardrails? I still feel sick and gross and sad
when I think of any other alcohol so I am not afraid at all that it will escalate beyond that. I don’t think I could ever be in this place had I not had stacked multiple years of sobriety first.
I’m not aware of a sobriety backlash, per se. But I have discussed this gray area stuff with other friends who have been on their own sobriety journeys and there does seem to be a commonality. Take what you will from that. Maybe we are all just trying to be a bit softer in the midst of all this hardness?
I think the last line is the most potent, and share that view as part of it. I am so very curious about how there was no guilt about the pot at first; no expectation to respond, you’ve shared so much, but wondering if you can pinpoint why no guilt?
My personal relationship with recovery hasn’t changed much in response to the factors listed, however I work in the field and am quite burned out. I wasn’t aware of an anti sobriety movement. I really struggled initially with how to label myself as I do drink small amounts rarely (when flying), and perhaps previously I omitted that when speaking to people but now I offer it up. I’m not sure it’s in response to anything other than feeling more confident in my own recovery and not allowing opinions of others to influence how I identify and relate to alcohol.
I’m so curious how that shift happened for you. I’ve interviewed a lot of people at this point and it’s been fascinating to watch that evolve (esp folks interviewed a few years ago, who credit aging and the world ditch . I know in my case it came from sourcing internally, age, worth, etc. Anyway, appreciate this.
1 & 2. I've been sober (alcohol only, I still use pot, it's an evil I can mess with) for 7 years (last week, best decision ever after 25 years of bloody battle with alcohol)
What changed and what amazes me is that I no longer have any interest in alcohol, I would not drink a single drop of it, not even for a million dollar (I'm fucking serious, I would consider a drink for a billion but nothing less :-P) it grosses me out completely
I would never have believed that my relationship to the product could undergo such a drastic change
And I credit a lot of that to you (I read all of your blog a few months before quitting for good and it started to shift the way I thought about it)
it took a few years to really solidify
Another thing that changed is, a few months ago, maybe 2 years ago (so 5 years sober), I realized how traumatizing my years of drinking had been to me, both physically, but also mentally, how violent and mistreating I had been with myself during all those years, I'm still trying to flush all that with talk therapy and somatic yoga
I'm in the middle of an ADHD diagnostic, it seems that I have "the flavor" with a lot of hyperactivity, hypersensitivity both sensory and emotional, impulsivity but no real attention problems, it changes the light on my eating disorders (kid and teenager) and alcohol abuse (teen and adult)
Edit : oh and it also explains why I ended up in a massive burnout 10 years ago with over investment in an NGO and why I don't seem to be able to get really out of burn out whatever I might do
I've hit menopause a year ago, didn't change the slightest thing, I just stopped getting my period ;-)
I've been using pot since the age of 15 or 16 to unwind in the evening, as my psychiatrist says "you found ways to manage your symptoms", I might try ADHD meds it's still in discussion with her
3. I'm from France, we never had a sobriety culture (or it's just starting : it's way easier to find nice adult non alcoholic beverages) but we mainly hear stuff like "you don't drink, then you're no fun" and other really stupid things, I think we might be the only country were the governement didn't endorse dry january (I know lot's of people who did dry january just "to go against Macron's views" #Streisandeffect)
QLAW was my first experience with quit lit. After reading and listening to many excellent others, it is still the best and most helpful. Thank you, Holly! It helped me do the impossible and break my decades-long alcohol habit. I find abstinence to be the most healthy but do have a glass or two of wine on occasion. I have no problem stopping and find the all-or-nothing approach too much like diet culture which I’ve failed at since I could read Seventeen magazine. Everything in moderation works better for me, particularly to cope in our lunatic era. Alcohol does have the safety valve of tasting like poison and that is enough of a reminder that it is truly a terrible thing to ask our bodies to process. I don’t do other substances. Nancy Reagan terrified me as a teenager. Hang in there, Holly! Your work is wonderful. One foot in front of the other…
1-2. A little over 6 years since quitting alcohol (and doing your sobriety school!), I feel less and less like defining myself or my life vis-a-vis a substance I don’t plan to have again. And yet, I work in the sober space (as the manager/editor of someone else’s sober-focused publication), and sobriety often finds its way into my own newsletter, even though it’s not the specific focus.
I remain very interested in noticing and practicing with my patterns - I just prefer the language of Buddhism or similar when looking at my own life these days. At the same time, I have tremendous tenderness and love in my heart for sober people. And I’m quick to get defensive or protective on their behalf. In my daily life offline, I’ve never really talked about my sobriety, so not much has changed there in my interactions with others.
3. That recent Substack article people are mentioning was suggested to me the other day in my feed. I was annoyed just seeing the title and the comments that appeared under it. In the past, I would’ve clicked on it and probably written an impassioned rebuttal. Now, I couldn’t even bring myself to click; really trying not to use my energy in ways that leave me drained and probably don’t change anyone’s mind. I usually assume if someone’s criticizing people for not drinking, they have a problematic relationship to alcohol themselves in one form or another.
More generally, though, I see two things (at least on Substack): certain publications I read in the wellness genre have more and more people talking about getting sober - I love that, whatever their motivations. In other publications, including big ones, I see snark against sobriety quite frequently. It really annoys me - working on that.
I feel the same as you, just so protective of something that is so precious and specific and individual, and what people encounter online that makes it feel not that. And re that article, I haven't seen that particular one, but I have seen That Article a thousand times. The things you see, I see, and same. TY ILY.
Hi. I've only noticed one convo close to backlash and the topic was sobriety however, sobriety as "optimization". So I'm assuming they were against the motive, not the conclusion. And has my view changed? Yes. I'm no longer a righteous c*nt. Lololol. xo.
1. Hi Holly! I’ve been sober for 6 1/2 years and thanks to you, I NQTD. 🥰
I’m turning 50 next week and I think sobriety has actually strengthened while Ive been going through menopause. I read that alcohol actually makes it worse physically. Emotionally, I am so grateful that I went through all of the hard years in my mid 40s before a lot of the menopausal moodiness came to be. At this point sobriety helped me to find my inner Fried Green Tomatoes Kathy Bates and to stop saying yes to bullshit that I used to need to drink to get through. I am gladly estranged from my alcoholic father, he treated me awfully the last time we saw each other five years ago, and he was around me for the first time since I became a sober person. His behavior was part of the above category of “events I needed to drink at to get through.” I don’t think I fully understood how terrible he treated me until I was sober. Another gift. And although I have some brain fog from aging, I’m certain that it’s less than if I were still drinking which also makes me feel better. I am that I don’t look my age and I directly attribute that to my sobriety skin.
Overall, this is been the best decision I’ve made in my life and while I didn’t have a low bottom when I quit. I also don’t know that I wouldn’t have found one eventually.
As for an anti-sober movement, I haven’t heard of it. It’s certainly not showing up in my Instagram feed of bravo shows and tarot card readings, but I don’t doubt it’s out there. I do see a lot of content about cigarettes coming back lately, which I find oddly amusing, but I still have no intent to do that either. See above comment about happy skin.
As far as I’m concerned, there’s always been an anti-sobriety movement or at least that’s how it’s felt when I’ve tried to explain to people that I don’t drink anymore and everyone then tries to sell me on how little they drink and how much they actually enjoy the taste of alcohol. Its the same movement found at HomeGoods and Target featuring items with phrases like “Its Wine o'clock” and “ Take me drunk, I’m home”.
My response to any anti-sobriety movement is the “OK Jan” animated GIF.
Thanks for sending this Holly! I am always happy to hear from you!
I believe my relationship to recovery has changed after a few years of trauma therapy.
I remember being horrified when my therapist posited that addictions stemmed from trauma. She asked me what I would do if I stopped going to Al-Anon meetings. I said I would die without my family by choice. That recovery had become a central part of my life, and something I shaped my identity around.
Slowly, I came to see her side of things.
Due to other commitments, I no longer regularly attend meetings. Something I thought would never happen after 13 years in recovery. I don’t feel the draw like I used to. I no longer hold major service positions, and question the negative feedback loop at times.
I’m also sober by choice, and could never fathom drinking again. I’m not aware of a backlash against sobriety culture here in Canada. I believe the demand for non-alcoholic options is increasing.
1-2. My relationship to sobriety is less defended, but also more fierce, if that makes sense. Somewhere along the line (it'll be 10 years sober in January) I went from being someone who cut out booze who to someone who generally and genuinely wants to be as unaltered as possible. It's become something that feels really powerful to me, personally, separate from wellness shit. So i'm not drawn to using pot or psychedelics at all. But I think some of this is also ageing and hitting my mid-50s. I want to be fucking awake for whatever time I have left, whatever happens.
DId you ever read Black Wave, by Michelle Tea? She's sober and so is her protagonist in the book. In the last chapters, the world is ending and while the main characters are waiting for the final night one of them goes back to using heroin. The protagonist gets it, but she decides to stay sober until the end. I kinda feel like her.
3. No! But I am not very online. Also I think the UK has slightly different media cycles, and there is less sober culture here than in the US I think.
I do think there's a weird two-sides-of-a-coin thing to the optimisation/rejecting-optimisation binary that needs to be talked about more. Like a while back Jia Tolentino wrote this thing about how it's too hard to keep kids off screens and thinking you should is just another cruel expectation imposed upon us by optimisation culture. And I get it--but also, not everything that's good to do is an unfair burden or an imposed stricture. There is a middle ground we seem to have lost between hollow self-optimisation/striving and a reaction against it. Neither of those seems to allow for the possibility of doing hard things not because we need to redeem ourselves but because we genuinely want something from the process.
It reminds me of something you wrote somewhere about how people wanted you to find a way for them to skip the hard part of getting sober, but when you thought about the infamous day of going to hot yoga after a bender, you can see how the difficulty of that walk was part of the building of the person you were becoming. If you skip the hard part you skip the becoming.
I don't want to throw the baby of becoming out with the optimisation bathwater. Because I think there is, underneath all the bullshit, something holy and true about the human desire for growth and transformation, which defaulting to a counter-reaction misses.
Sorry for going on and on but as always you raised so many thoughts in me!!
i'm nearly nine years sober from alcohol (hi, HSS Spring 2017 friends!) and have noticed a shift in my own sobriety practice .. during / immediately after HSS i was REALLY into wellness, yoga, routine and then after a year or so, i started grad school and all my carefully plotted routines went up in the air, but along with that was a softening toward others who do still drink (including my partner) since i had to be around / at social events where there was alcohol. (i stopped mentally calling it ethanol, for instance, lol.) i started dabbling with cannabis more maybe around 2021-2022 (whenever it became more available in the southeast US where i live)? and it feels like something that i can fuck around with and it won't ruin my life, but i have also gone through 6mo-1 yr periods of not using pot when i felt like i was reaching for it a little too much, and that's been fine too. i think the vast majority of my feelings and evolution is related to simply settling into sobriety from alcohol as part of my identity and being kinder to myself that i don't have to be a perfect icon of wellness all the time.
i think i got sober right before sobriety got "trendy" (if you want to call it that), so i noticed the media/world talking about sobriety more (and of course read QLAW) and appreciated all the new N/A options at bars/restaurants etc (although i am always ANNOYED that now it's like "here's the same drink just without alcohol, and we're going to charge $15 .. capitalism strikes again) but i haven't noticed any particular backlash back from that - although i do agree with other commenters that i think/hope people are just trying to work out how to be gentle toward rules/routines amidst so much awfulness in the world, and doing what works for them.
1. Has your relationship to sobriety or recovery changed in the past few years in relation to aging, diagnosis, hormones/peri-menopause, trauma work, medication, cannabis or psychedelics, harm reduction, burnout, wellness culture, internet sobriety culture, what’s happening in the world {open to interpretation!}, or just life?
Yes, it has changed.
3. If so, what does that look like for you?
I am six+ years sober (1.3.20) and my first three years of that sobriety was an absence of all substances (minus caffeine), with a brief period of giving up sugar as well. I took a break from my career during those years to work on said sobriety. In 2022, I accepted a position in my career field and accepted all the stressors that go along with it. In 2023, I had my first experience with gummies taking three over the course of a month. In 2024 I smoked a joint in a vineyard looking at the sun setting over a mountaintop and felt grateful to be alive. In 2025 I began using gummies more often recreationally and I still use them to that end today. I suppose I am going into detail to give you the gradual lifestyle creep that has happened. I would like to end the usage, but I am having a hard time finding alternative “rewards” and stress relief from my job.
5. Are you aware of a backlash against “sobriety culture” etc., and what do you make of it?
No, this is the first I am hearing of it. However, I am in the beverage industry, and I suppose there has always been tension in my field around this topic. Once sales reps find out I am sober (I don’t hide it, am open about it, but don’t wear a hat on my head announcing it either), they treat me with respect that may have more to do with the fact that I am the largest buyer of alcohol (for restaurants and hotels) in our small town than out of any real respect for my sobriety.
This is so unbelievably generous. Thank you for being so gracious with your experience.
Against Sober Culture (Respectfully) is the title of a Substack post I ran across just yesterday. My first exposure to pushback of sober culture. I didn’t get very far reading it. She had to stop drinking for 3 months for a medical procedure and based her decision on that experience. It was not a compelling argument. I lost interest with her perspective pretty quickly.
My own sobriety path has not changed much through dealing with all the things you’ve listed. While other things in my life have shifted, my sobriety feels good and right.
Yeah, I think it’s very much in the margins of lifestyle choice over “I shat blood.” Wow though. Wow.
This thing about people having to stop drinking for months before surgery has really gotten me thinking. Is this new? I've heard about it 3x in the last year. Like holy shit. I feel like it's that fact about alcohol that is waking me up more than any other. Anyway, I am so close to being done all together. I think sober culture is alive and well and I also notice that folks will do anything for clicks so they'll be against something for that more than anything. I live in Las Vegas and I hear that the wellness industry is infiltrating the strip b/c people are wanting that more than coming here to drink. So we will see about that....
this is fascinating Raudri!!! (And sending you all the good quitting vibes <3)
I actually went back and finished the post this morning after commenting and her argument was that she loved the way wine was intertwined with her culture and social existence. But why be against sober culture just because you prefer something else? I think you nailed this article with 'they'll be against something [for clicks] more than anything".
Yes, wine is for me too AND I am realizing, at least in the US that wine makes me stay awake at night and therefore feel like absolute shit the next day. Is that cultural too? Nope! I'm Italian by and by I am beginning to imagine trips to the homeland sans alcohol. I so enjoy my sleep and feeling good. And Holly, you are the most real writer about all of this and that's what I relate to most. That is where my poetry comes from too... the real, raw, excruciating, awe-inspiring, painful, beautiful, amazing and cray cray experience of being alive!!
And as far as social media and click-bait, something has happened to the humans. And I don't like it. I am never really on FB anymore and only some on IG b/c people have decided that disagreeing with the most neutral is fun, I guess. It seems many will do almost anything for a reaction and clicks. It is sad, sad, sad. That's why I moved over here... and well, b/c people were begging me to put my poetry somewhere, so I started doing that too. I really hope Substack remains a stimulating place to be lest I become a total hermit from online anything.
I haven't seen the article ringing the death knell on sobriety culture but my approach has certainly changed since I got diagnosed as au-dhd 3 years into my sobriety.
I now see my drinking as an attempt at coping and regulation rather than addiction and struggle with the language and ideas in AA though absolutely love the people I met and got sober with there.
I just finished writing a book about it, as I think there are many many of us who masked out difference with alcohol and it is both a blessing and a curse! 'Drinking to mask and unmask', it's out next year.
Can you share the link to the piece that kicked off these Q's? X
https://www.instagram.com/p/DYfNYDGFOBR/?img_index=1
Interesting. Her take is very pro sobriety. I haven't seen any of the pieces she is talking about but maybe they will start appearing for me now…
if you're lucky! lol.
I am v. excited for this book Chelsey. Lemme look for it hold
Thanks Holly! I sent you some interview Q's but I imagine they got lost in your inbox/life. I'd love to have you on the podcast if you ever have any spoons leftover (big lol, who ever has any spoons leftover).
they 100 did looking now
How can I find your book? I am a therapist and am coming to this very conclusion for my AuDHD clients who seem 'addicted' to tech but it's clear they are trying to regulate. I need help helping them!! P.S. I am ADHD and pretty sure AuDHD too and I have been so patient with my process around alcohol. I actually had a dream last night that I was in treatment and I was like "ya, I'm not really an addict but it's weird that I ever drink b/c it interrupts my sleep so much and I do it anyway, maybe once a week, so that feels problematic to me." I was so happy to wake up and remember this dream. My psyche is really getting it. I don't have a getting drunk problem. It's more that my brain has concluded that the buzz is just so fun, the break from life, from monotony, that it's just hard to get fully away from it. But I am close. Just need to take the final jump. Such a process.
I relate so much! And if I'd known what I know now about autism and ADHD I might never have chosen abstinence... But I came to AA first and so understood my problems and relationships through the lens of addiction. It never completely fit but I was desperate enough to 'keep coming back' and am still sober and still trying to find ways to get what alcohol used to give me!
My book is out early next year and I am happy to hear my experience rings true with what you are seeing and experiencing in your practice.
I am also starting a podcast on the topic and looking for guests 😊 Drinking to Mask and Unmask, conversations about how alcohol and neurodiversity interrelate.
It definitely seems like I'm not going to be short on guests!
Me too, Chelsey!! After years of struggling with my relationship with alcohol and why I seemed to need it to survive, I was diagnosed AuDHD and it all made sense. The new understanding has me aware of my own sensory overwhelm I was suppressing with alcohol to be in spaces socially and to be with people for long periods. I’m looking forward to your book release!
I just read the exact article that Amanda references. I had the same feeling, although I did make it to the end, feeling aggravated that people who choose to drink should feel the need to comment on those who don’t. In my professional experience, a backlash against sobriety culture often seems to come from people who are, for whatever reason best known to themselves, defensive about their own relationship with drink.
Hi dear Graham. As always, deeply grateful for your perspective.
When I first got sober, in Aug of 2020, it was really important for me to be strictly sober. Somewhere along the way (am I so basic to say when Trump was reelected?) I just couldn’t hold the line anymore and started using cannabis. My relationship to cannabis is so different from my relationship with alcohol, and I don’t see it as problematic. I don’t act like a raging asshole when I use it and it really actually just mellows me out. One of my teenage sons gave me a little grief for this and I explained it as harm reduction. I feel no grief or guilt over it.
Now this next part may be a little murky but I am a distance runner and there’s just something about completing a marathon or a crazy hard long run that lends itself to enjoying a beer after. I physically cannot abuse beer like I would any other alcohol — it’s just too filling. I feel ok with it. It’s like natural guardrails? I still feel sick and gross and sad
when I think of any other alcohol so I am not afraid at all that it will escalate beyond that. I don’t think I could ever be in this place had I not had stacked multiple years of sobriety first.
I’m not aware of a sobriety backlash, per se. But I have discussed this gray area stuff with other friends who have been on their own sobriety journeys and there does seem to be a commonality. Take what you will from that. Maybe we are all just trying to be a bit softer in the midst of all this hardness?
I think the last line is the most potent, and share that view as part of it. I am so very curious about how there was no guilt about the pot at first; no expectation to respond, you’ve shared so much, but wondering if you can pinpoint why no guilt?
My personal relationship with recovery hasn’t changed much in response to the factors listed, however I work in the field and am quite burned out. I wasn’t aware of an anti sobriety movement. I really struggled initially with how to label myself as I do drink small amounts rarely (when flying), and perhaps previously I omitted that when speaking to people but now I offer it up. I’m not sure it’s in response to anything other than feeling more confident in my own recovery and not allowing opinions of others to influence how I identify and relate to alcohol.
I’m so curious how that shift happened for you. I’ve interviewed a lot of people at this point and it’s been fascinating to watch that evolve (esp folks interviewed a few years ago, who credit aging and the world ditch . I know in my case it came from sourcing internally, age, worth, etc. Anyway, appreciate this.
1 & 2. I've been sober (alcohol only, I still use pot, it's an evil I can mess with) for 7 years (last week, best decision ever after 25 years of bloody battle with alcohol)
What changed and what amazes me is that I no longer have any interest in alcohol, I would not drink a single drop of it, not even for a million dollar (I'm fucking serious, I would consider a drink for a billion but nothing less :-P) it grosses me out completely
I would never have believed that my relationship to the product could undergo such a drastic change
And I credit a lot of that to you (I read all of your blog a few months before quitting for good and it started to shift the way I thought about it)
it took a few years to really solidify
Another thing that changed is, a few months ago, maybe 2 years ago (so 5 years sober), I realized how traumatizing my years of drinking had been to me, both physically, but also mentally, how violent and mistreating I had been with myself during all those years, I'm still trying to flush all that with talk therapy and somatic yoga
I'm in the middle of an ADHD diagnostic, it seems that I have "the flavor" with a lot of hyperactivity, hypersensitivity both sensory and emotional, impulsivity but no real attention problems, it changes the light on my eating disorders (kid and teenager) and alcohol abuse (teen and adult)
Edit : oh and it also explains why I ended up in a massive burnout 10 years ago with over investment in an NGO and why I don't seem to be able to get really out of burn out whatever I might do
I've hit menopause a year ago, didn't change the slightest thing, I just stopped getting my period ;-)
I've been using pot since the age of 15 or 16 to unwind in the evening, as my psychiatrist says "you found ways to manage your symptoms", I might try ADHD meds it's still in discussion with her
3. I'm from France, we never had a sobriety culture (or it's just starting : it's way easier to find nice adult non alcoholic beverages) but we mainly hear stuff like "you don't drink, then you're no fun" and other really stupid things, I think we might be the only country were the governement didn't endorse dry january (I know lot's of people who did dry january just "to go against Macron's views" #Streisandeffect)
Wow, thank you so much for writing this all out. It still astounds me level of distaste I developed and maintain toward alcohol.
The adhd pot in the evenings for transitioning is something that comes up time and again from readers and others.
QLAW was my first experience with quit lit. After reading and listening to many excellent others, it is still the best and most helpful. Thank you, Holly! It helped me do the impossible and break my decades-long alcohol habit. I find abstinence to be the most healthy but do have a glass or two of wine on occasion. I have no problem stopping and find the all-or-nothing approach too much like diet culture which I’ve failed at since I could read Seventeen magazine. Everything in moderation works better for me, particularly to cope in our lunatic era. Alcohol does have the safety valve of tasting like poison and that is enough of a reminder that it is truly a terrible thing to ask our bodies to process. I don’t do other substances. Nancy Reagan terrified me as a teenager. Hang in there, Holly! Your work is wonderful. One foot in front of the other…
Thank you Maggie for this generous share. It feels similar to a few I received in my inbox; lots of middle path, exhaustion at restriction
1-2. A little over 6 years since quitting alcohol (and doing your sobriety school!), I feel less and less like defining myself or my life vis-a-vis a substance I don’t plan to have again. And yet, I work in the sober space (as the manager/editor of someone else’s sober-focused publication), and sobriety often finds its way into my own newsletter, even though it’s not the specific focus.
I remain very interested in noticing and practicing with my patterns - I just prefer the language of Buddhism or similar when looking at my own life these days. At the same time, I have tremendous tenderness and love in my heart for sober people. And I’m quick to get defensive or protective on their behalf. In my daily life offline, I’ve never really talked about my sobriety, so not much has changed there in my interactions with others.
3. That recent Substack article people are mentioning was suggested to me the other day in my feed. I was annoyed just seeing the title and the comments that appeared under it. In the past, I would’ve clicked on it and probably written an impassioned rebuttal. Now, I couldn’t even bring myself to click; really trying not to use my energy in ways that leave me drained and probably don’t change anyone’s mind. I usually assume if someone’s criticizing people for not drinking, they have a problematic relationship to alcohol themselves in one form or another.
More generally, though, I see two things (at least on Substack): certain publications I read in the wellness genre have more and more people talking about getting sober - I love that, whatever their motivations. In other publications, including big ones, I see snark against sobriety quite frequently. It really annoys me - working on that.
Looking forward to reading all of these!
I feel the same as you, just so protective of something that is so precious and specific and individual, and what people encounter online that makes it feel not that. And re that article, I haven't seen that particular one, but I have seen That Article a thousand times. The things you see, I see, and same. TY ILY.
Hi. I've only noticed one convo close to backlash and the topic was sobriety however, sobriety as "optimization". So I'm assuming they were against the motive, not the conclusion. And has my view changed? Yes. I'm no longer a righteous c*nt. Lololol. xo.
Lolol. I fucking adore you.
1. Hi Holly! I’ve been sober for 6 1/2 years and thanks to you, I NQTD. 🥰
I’m turning 50 next week and I think sobriety has actually strengthened while Ive been going through menopause. I read that alcohol actually makes it worse physically. Emotionally, I am so grateful that I went through all of the hard years in my mid 40s before a lot of the menopausal moodiness came to be. At this point sobriety helped me to find my inner Fried Green Tomatoes Kathy Bates and to stop saying yes to bullshit that I used to need to drink to get through. I am gladly estranged from my alcoholic father, he treated me awfully the last time we saw each other five years ago, and he was around me for the first time since I became a sober person. His behavior was part of the above category of “events I needed to drink at to get through.” I don’t think I fully understood how terrible he treated me until I was sober. Another gift. And although I have some brain fog from aging, I’m certain that it’s less than if I were still drinking which also makes me feel better. I am that I don’t look my age and I directly attribute that to my sobriety skin.
Overall, this is been the best decision I’ve made in my life and while I didn’t have a low bottom when I quit. I also don’t know that I wouldn’t have found one eventually.
As for an anti-sober movement, I haven’t heard of it. It’s certainly not showing up in my Instagram feed of bravo shows and tarot card readings, but I don’t doubt it’s out there. I do see a lot of content about cigarettes coming back lately, which I find oddly amusing, but I still have no intent to do that either. See above comment about happy skin.
As far as I’m concerned, there’s always been an anti-sobriety movement or at least that’s how it’s felt when I’ve tried to explain to people that I don’t drink anymore and everyone then tries to sell me on how little they drink and how much they actually enjoy the taste of alcohol. Its the same movement found at HomeGoods and Target featuring items with phrases like “Its Wine o'clock” and “ Take me drunk, I’m home”.
My response to any anti-sobriety movement is the “OK Jan” animated GIF.
Thanks for sending this Holly! I am always happy to hear from you!
I believe my relationship to recovery has changed after a few years of trauma therapy.
I remember being horrified when my therapist posited that addictions stemmed from trauma. She asked me what I would do if I stopped going to Al-Anon meetings. I said I would die without my family by choice. That recovery had become a central part of my life, and something I shaped my identity around.
Slowly, I came to see her side of things.
Due to other commitments, I no longer regularly attend meetings. Something I thought would never happen after 13 years in recovery. I don’t feel the draw like I used to. I no longer hold major service positions, and question the negative feedback loop at times.
I’m also sober by choice, and could never fathom drinking again. I’m not aware of a backlash against sobriety culture here in Canada. I believe the demand for non-alcoholic options is increasing.
1-2. My relationship to sobriety is less defended, but also more fierce, if that makes sense. Somewhere along the line (it'll be 10 years sober in January) I went from being someone who cut out booze who to someone who generally and genuinely wants to be as unaltered as possible. It's become something that feels really powerful to me, personally, separate from wellness shit. So i'm not drawn to using pot or psychedelics at all. But I think some of this is also ageing and hitting my mid-50s. I want to be fucking awake for whatever time I have left, whatever happens.
DId you ever read Black Wave, by Michelle Tea? She's sober and so is her protagonist in the book. In the last chapters, the world is ending and while the main characters are waiting for the final night one of them goes back to using heroin. The protagonist gets it, but she decides to stay sober until the end. I kinda feel like her.
3. No! But I am not very online. Also I think the UK has slightly different media cycles, and there is less sober culture here than in the US I think.
I do think there's a weird two-sides-of-a-coin thing to the optimisation/rejecting-optimisation binary that needs to be talked about more. Like a while back Jia Tolentino wrote this thing about how it's too hard to keep kids off screens and thinking you should is just another cruel expectation imposed upon us by optimisation culture. And I get it--but also, not everything that's good to do is an unfair burden or an imposed stricture. There is a middle ground we seem to have lost between hollow self-optimisation/striving and a reaction against it. Neither of those seems to allow for the possibility of doing hard things not because we need to redeem ourselves but because we genuinely want something from the process.
It reminds me of something you wrote somewhere about how people wanted you to find a way for them to skip the hard part of getting sober, but when you thought about the infamous day of going to hot yoga after a bender, you can see how the difficulty of that walk was part of the building of the person you were becoming. If you skip the hard part you skip the becoming.
I don't want to throw the baby of becoming out with the optimisation bathwater. Because I think there is, underneath all the bullshit, something holy and true about the human desire for growth and transformation, which defaulting to a counter-reaction misses.
Sorry for going on and on but as always you raised so many thoughts in me!!
i'm nearly nine years sober from alcohol (hi, HSS Spring 2017 friends!) and have noticed a shift in my own sobriety practice .. during / immediately after HSS i was REALLY into wellness, yoga, routine and then after a year or so, i started grad school and all my carefully plotted routines went up in the air, but along with that was a softening toward others who do still drink (including my partner) since i had to be around / at social events where there was alcohol. (i stopped mentally calling it ethanol, for instance, lol.) i started dabbling with cannabis more maybe around 2021-2022 (whenever it became more available in the southeast US where i live)? and it feels like something that i can fuck around with and it won't ruin my life, but i have also gone through 6mo-1 yr periods of not using pot when i felt like i was reaching for it a little too much, and that's been fine too. i think the vast majority of my feelings and evolution is related to simply settling into sobriety from alcohol as part of my identity and being kinder to myself that i don't have to be a perfect icon of wellness all the time.
i think i got sober right before sobriety got "trendy" (if you want to call it that), so i noticed the media/world talking about sobriety more (and of course read QLAW) and appreciated all the new N/A options at bars/restaurants etc (although i am always ANNOYED that now it's like "here's the same drink just without alcohol, and we're going to charge $15 .. capitalism strikes again) but i haven't noticed any particular backlash back from that - although i do agree with other commenters that i think/hope people are just trying to work out how to be gentle toward rules/routines amidst so much awfulness in the world, and doing what works for them.