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.
After 7 years of recovery work and 57 years of living - I realized my mother wound. My brother died when I was 10 and he was 6. My mother turned her anger on me. And I accepted her judgement as my own and the voice of "You will never amount to anything". was deeply instilled my whole life. That wound paired with my rebel nature and that I am verbal processor really put a lot of challenges in front of me. - The point is drinking I would never have found it. 1 year of sobriety - I did not find it. Who knows what the lesson is ..
At 7 years into my sobriety - I have lost that feeling of what it was like being stuck in the hell of trying to escape ... I wish I still remembered better - cause I try to relate to others and it seems so far away...
But sobriety does help me in every part of my life... I am not aware of the sober culture so to speak ... but I think the idea of loneliness is going to be a bigger and bigger issue. and people who think being Sober contributes are crazy ... the answer is to learn to make friends .. which is really fucking hard when everyone has their nose in their phones.
So there you go .. my update. Holly was the voice that I was able to hold onto until I was strong enough to walk it myself... Her Fuck the world - I will find my own path...is what I needed to hear. Her voice made me understand that I was stronger than I thought .. and I could do this .. .. and I love her for it.
Now I walk with others in Austin ... I show up at a local park and walk with others on Thursday nights at 6:30pm ... if you are in Austin or pass through for a conference and want to come walk with us - let me know.
The thing that bothers me these days ... is all the bravado from sober coaches or influences most I do not know - - I am sure they are doing good work - but the certainty they sell.. the notion that Sobriety is going to make your life all better .... bothers me .
Life is better without the alcohol no doubt - but I see it as the starting place and I certainly do not want to tell people how to get sober with certainty .. I try to just tell my story ... the world is fucked up and who am I to offer the fix to it ...
You are just a gem, Terry. I am so grateful our paths crossed. I still drink coffee from the mug you and your wife gave me. Much love to you and thank you as always for your generosity and sharing.
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
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!
I relate so hard to this thread. I am a 43 year old who has been sober for just about 5 years. I always thought that I drank because… trauma. The plot twist came when my child was diagnosed with ADHD and Autism and it was a holy-fuck-moment for me around my own neurodivergence (I have an ADHD diagnosis and am very certain I am autistic too). Now I see that while my drinking was connected to my trauma, it was also one of THE ONLY ways I could manage any social setting and anything overstimulating. Now that I don’t have that anymore, I find humaning much more difficult and my ability to mask is getting almost impossible as I age and uncover my identity as neurodivergent. I think I have been in a state of major burnout for at least 3 years.
My relationship to sobriety has most definitely evolved over the years. I still consider myself sober and I don’t fuck with alcohol. I have taken a gummy here and there and I microdose mushrooms on occasion. Both of these things do not cause me any harm but rather the opposite.
I have also used psychedelics (mushrooms and ayahuasca) as a part of my own healing journey. Both trips were healing in different ways.
I have not seen anything around the demise of sober culture and am curious to follow along as you unpack it.
Same here. Addiction as explanation fit when I was struggling with booze because I knew I HAD to drink to socialise. And I was likely entering the spectrum of addicted too, but drinking to cope with social anxiety and to manage the cost of masking AND get some relief from that cost and finally UNMASK and go wild... Well that makes more sense. And of course alcohol was a compelling and irresistible offering when it was the only time I felt free to be myself...
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).
I relate to your comment. I had been in recovery from alcohol use disorder for more than five years when I got my ADHD diagnosis at age 54. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my alcohol abuse got out of control in perimenopause when it got harder to compensate my ADHD symptoms. I had also been raising neurodivergent children with a neurodivergent husband - all undiagnosed until after my diagnosis.
My sobriety is my new normal after more than eight years. It’s easy and stable even if I feel unstable and life is hard. For that I‘m grateful.
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!
It's a relief to finally understand why life has been such a clusterflip isn't it?! Not much support comes for the late-diagnosed but my self image/concept is radically transformed and that has been a gift...
My brain loves black and whites, despite my adjacent love of grey/gray and all things that are different and new and varied and variegated. Sobriety is an on/off switch. Mine will stay on until I die. This is fine. So that is what has not changed.
What has changed is how I regard sobriety. If sobriety were a person, your relationship with that person changes over time, inevitably, as we change and grow and develop as humans. So that's the yes part to the question. I fall more in love with sobriety every day, like the tank that drops on your chest when you give birth and someone gives you that baby that is yours to love, but then every day goes by and you love it somehow more than you did before even though you thought you hit terminal capacity. I don't regret sobriety. We are so good at regretting things, I love to think about how it was just....10/10 recommend. 5 out of 5 stars. 13/10 goodgirlsober. All of that.
Data point for you: I use cannabis in sobriety, in blended ratio forms of CBD/THC because it helps me immensely. It helps me stay sober but also helps me with sleep, anxiety, depression, and sometimes physical pain.
I know nothing of a backlash against sobriety. That is probably a PR stunt from a liquor distributor or something. But to be fair, I also have become extremely choosy on when/how/what I consume in recent months to protect my mental wellbeing, so I basically live under a digital rock. And I love it here, feel free to stop by anytime for a cuppa. Much love to ya Hols.
“ If sobriety were a person, your relationship with that person changes over time, inevitably, as we change and grow and develop as humans.”
You are so, so smart.
Do you mind sharing a bit about the benefit or difference of a 1 to 1 blend? I don’t think a lot of people understand that part, and I’m curious about your particular reason for it, though I could guess.
Before medical marijuana was a thing and all we had was street weed, I had a few bad experiences with pot. It was too much for me, I felt bombarded by the earth and gravity and people. It made me panic and feel paranoid. It probably didn’t help that I was a “good kid”, as in, I stayed out of trouble, so doing an illegal drug in the era of DARE made me feel like a dirty naughty criminal. I also know for sure I was given some weed for a birthday that had something else in it, because I hallucinated.
I say all that to say, approaching marijuana as a medicine for anxiety, depression, and sleep took baby steps because I was scared about having the same experiences I had when I was 17. It was recommended to use CBD dominant products, so I did, and it helped. I get the medicinal positives from THC and CBD without all the panic and paranoia and the “too damn high” feeling.
CBD also provides an entourage effect, so even for people who can tolerate straight THC, it intensifies the positive effects, too (so I’ve read, no source).
Now I’m all ratio products, edibles and cartridges, and I love it. I took a long hard look at this medicine because of my propensity for addiction, to make sure I didn’t have the same feelings about it that I had for alcohol. It doesn’t trigger me, thankfully, and the relationship is completely different. Praise be the Mother.
I'm from Kentucky where the "anti-sobriety" movement is embedded in the culture of bourbon and bourbon travel, in the prevalence of the liquor industry, and in a fairly aggressive class manipulation that doesn't want people to hear the stories that have been omitted from the dominant (white) narrative. (My father was a distiller, so being raised in this and then quitting drinking was a def culture clash.) Like a lot of projects that whiteness and capitalism wants upheld, this isn't something that happened in the past, but is happening now, and there's a line that runs straight through history connecting those points.
I got sober thirty years ago, and began to change my relationship to my former sobriety when, at menopause, a friend shared a good way to microdose mushrooms. I'd been working with some mighty plant allies that really subtly changed consciousness, (teas, herbs, flowers, cannabis), and began to question why the sober line was set at acceptance of only certain plants, and upheld by a group of people heavily invested in maintaining patriarchy. AA, though it supported my initial sobriety, isn't great at understanding the vulnerability necessary to live in wild ways suitable for more fluid bodies. Or the power that emerges from that vulnerability.
I discovered that certain plants are really terrific at assisting when the frenetic and amplified pace of this too-urgent world no longer invites clarity. There's a trick to softening when things become hard, and plants are great teachers of this, (including in distilled products and in tobacco, the master plant,) but not only are they over-imbibed, but every body has its own relationship with the substance, so we might not look and act like another when in that exchange. I'm thinking about how much this culture hasn't really learned how to intuitively approach plants, but instead just wants to consume them, be overridden by them, which is less like surrender and more like being terrorized. Thanks for asking, this question helped me think through some things. Love always.
"I'm from Kentucky where the "anti-sobriety" movement is embedded in the culture of bourbon and bourbon travel, in the prevalence of the liquor industry, and in a fairly aggressive class manipulation that doesn't want people to hear the stories that have been omitted from the dominant (white) narrative. (My father was a distiller, so being raised in this and then quitting drinking was a def culture clash.) Like a lot of projects that whiteness and capitalism wants upheld, this isn't something that happened in the past, but is happening now, and there's a line that runs straight through history connecting those points."
AND THEN THIS:
and began to question why the sober line was set at acceptance of only certain plants, and upheld by a group of people heavily invested in maintaining patriarchy.
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.
Thank you so much for this. Carrie Wilkens, who runs CMC, told me a few years ago she tells all her clients she doesn’t know if they have addiction, but she knows they have trauma.
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?
I’m glad you asked this question. I had to think about it some more and I will modify my previous statement. I originally did feel guilt and I think it was tied to expectation and all the sharing I had done on IG about my sobriety journey. Underneath the original guilt was something worse: shame. Shame is what got a lot of us here in the first place. And I realized if I am feeling this and afraid to share it — what are the chances other people feel the same way? That’s why I was so moved when you shared your experiences. We just have to let that shit go if we are going to keep moving forward.
Maybe part of it is turning 50 this year. Maybe part of it is being on HRT now and feeling so much more comfortable in my skin. Maybe part of it is realizing I have also had ADHD my whole life and can quiet my mind a bit without abandoning myself or hurting others in the process, what is the harm in that?
Jesus this comment could have been written by me. The shame piece: one definition I cane across was its the distance between who people think you are, and who you actually are. And that the greater the chasm the bigger the shame. I think Martha nussbaum anyway. Thanks for that part.
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 just so appreciate your thoughts. i mean that’s it, isn’t it. Like we are not okay with ambiguity, and we just run from one fixed thing to another instead of being able to stay in the undefinable.
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…
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.
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.
Abbie ♥️ Hi hhs spring 17. lol, stopped calling it ethanol.
It’s amazing how many similarities there are running thru these comments. I think the softening part is so essential and I love how many of us have turned toward it
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)
I'm almost 10 years without a drink. Last year, after almost 10 years of therapy, in the throws of perimenopause, and an uptick of anxiety, I decided to try some mild CBD/THC drinks. I feel like I could relate to so much of what was said in this thread. Needing to be softer with myself, wanting to expand beyond the black + white thinking in both addiction and sobriety, less fear of myself, more trust and faith in myself. Just returned from a trip where thc was not available and I didn't even think about it. I have such a different relationship with it than alcohol which I know I can't go near. I can relate to many here mentioning letting go of the shame. Gosh, there was a period of sobriety where I felt shame drinking a kombucha.
As far as backlash to sobriety culture, I've been thinking more that for a time it became such a trend like any other trend - for some wellness, others perhaps just another club to belong to (ha those of us who most needed to quit alcohol never wanted to be part of that club). Though I haven't seen the articles you all are referring to, I am intrigued.
I appreciate this thread especially just a month before I turn 50 where I'm no longer looking for a program, or a set of rules. I'm thinking much more about being in the latter half of my life and knowing that my focus is no longer in trying to find myself but just having reverence for the fact that I'm here today.
This last paragraph I think is what so many are circling. I remember having a talk a few years ago with someone who’d had a horrible childhood and struggled with drinking and they’d been sober for a decade and just wanted to be in their garden and they asked, like maybe it’s enough that I’m just in my garden after all that hell, and I don’t know why but I think about that. Like what is the point of healing if it’s not to provide a sense of safety and calm? When did it ever get said that healing was just work all the time a forever and ever?
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.
*snark might be too strong a descriptor for the pubs I have in mind... but it happens so frequently it feels that way to me (I’m definitely on the sensitive side on this topic) <3
haha, well I was thinking about my comment and realized: there sure is a lot of annoyance in there for someone who’s trying to let that shit go! It’s probably one of the areas that snags me the most in my everyday readings - the offhand things (non-sober) people say about sobriety.
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.
After 7 years of recovery work and 57 years of living - I realized my mother wound. My brother died when I was 10 and he was 6. My mother turned her anger on me. And I accepted her judgement as my own and the voice of "You will never amount to anything". was deeply instilled my whole life. That wound paired with my rebel nature and that I am verbal processor really put a lot of challenges in front of me. - The point is drinking I would never have found it. 1 year of sobriety - I did not find it. Who knows what the lesson is ..
At 7 years into my sobriety - I have lost that feeling of what it was like being stuck in the hell of trying to escape ... I wish I still remembered better - cause I try to relate to others and it seems so far away...
But sobriety does help me in every part of my life... I am not aware of the sober culture so to speak ... but I think the idea of loneliness is going to be a bigger and bigger issue. and people who think being Sober contributes are crazy ... the answer is to learn to make friends .. which is really fucking hard when everyone has their nose in their phones.
So there you go .. my update. Holly was the voice that I was able to hold onto until I was strong enough to walk it myself... Her Fuck the world - I will find my own path...is what I needed to hear. Her voice made me understand that I was stronger than I thought .. and I could do this .. .. and I love her for it.
Now I walk with others in Austin ... I show up at a local park and walk with others on Thursday nights at 6:30pm ... if you are in Austin or pass through for a conference and want to come walk with us - let me know.
The thing that bothers me these days ... is all the bravado from sober coaches or influences most I do not know - - I am sure they are doing good work - but the certainty they sell.. the notion that Sobriety is going to make your life all better .... bothers me .
Life is better without the alcohol no doubt - but I see it as the starting place and I certainly do not want to tell people how to get sober with certainty .. I try to just tell my story ... the world is fucked up and who am I to offer the fix to it ...
Terry
OKAY AUSTIN PEOPLE GO WALK WITH TERRY!
You are just a gem, Terry. I am so grateful our paths crossed. I still drink coffee from the mug you and your wife gave me. Much love to you and thank you as always for your generosity and sharing.
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
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.
Raudri I'd also look to Jan Winhall's work (FSPM) and IFS for addictions. In this post, I listed about ten books on the subject.
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!
https://newsletter.hollywhitaker.com/p/28-essential-books-to-build-a-solid
I relate so hard to this thread. I am a 43 year old who has been sober for just about 5 years. I always thought that I drank because… trauma. The plot twist came when my child was diagnosed with ADHD and Autism and it was a holy-fuck-moment for me around my own neurodivergence (I have an ADHD diagnosis and am very certain I am autistic too). Now I see that while my drinking was connected to my trauma, it was also one of THE ONLY ways I could manage any social setting and anything overstimulating. Now that I don’t have that anymore, I find humaning much more difficult and my ability to mask is getting almost impossible as I age and uncover my identity as neurodivergent. I think I have been in a state of major burnout for at least 3 years.
My relationship to sobriety has most definitely evolved over the years. I still consider myself sober and I don’t fuck with alcohol. I have taken a gummy here and there and I microdose mushrooms on occasion. Both of these things do not cause me any harm but rather the opposite.
I have also used psychedelics (mushrooms and ayahuasca) as a part of my own healing journey. Both trips were healing in different ways.
I have not seen anything around the demise of sober culture and am curious to follow along as you unpack it.
Thanks for this space. ❤️
Same here. Addiction as explanation fit when I was struggling with booze because I knew I HAD to drink to socialise. And I was likely entering the spectrum of addicted too, but drinking to cope with social anxiety and to manage the cost of masking AND get some relief from that cost and finally UNMASK and go wild... Well that makes more sense. And of course alcohol was a compelling and irresistible offering when it was the only time I felt free to be myself...
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.
Hehehe. Doesn't take much to make me start questioning all my life choices so it could be fun.
Hey—I sent an email about the qs.
Thanks! I can't see it though. Can only see this message 🤔
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
I relate to your comment. I had been in recovery from alcohol use disorder for more than five years when I got my ADHD diagnosis at age 54. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my alcohol abuse got out of control in perimenopause when it got harder to compensate my ADHD symptoms. I had also been raising neurodivergent children with a neurodivergent husband - all undiagnosed until after my diagnosis.
My sobriety is my new normal after more than eight years. It’s easy and stable even if I feel unstable and life is hard. For that I‘m grateful.
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!
It's a relief to finally understand why life has been such a clusterflip isn't it?! Not much support comes for the late-diagnosed but my self image/concept is radically transformed and that has been a gift...
Yes, it has changed but it also hasn't, at all.
My brain loves black and whites, despite my adjacent love of grey/gray and all things that are different and new and varied and variegated. Sobriety is an on/off switch. Mine will stay on until I die. This is fine. So that is what has not changed.
What has changed is how I regard sobriety. If sobriety were a person, your relationship with that person changes over time, inevitably, as we change and grow and develop as humans. So that's the yes part to the question. I fall more in love with sobriety every day, like the tank that drops on your chest when you give birth and someone gives you that baby that is yours to love, but then every day goes by and you love it somehow more than you did before even though you thought you hit terminal capacity. I don't regret sobriety. We are so good at regretting things, I love to think about how it was just....10/10 recommend. 5 out of 5 stars. 13/10 goodgirlsober. All of that.
Data point for you: I use cannabis in sobriety, in blended ratio forms of CBD/THC because it helps me immensely. It helps me stay sober but also helps me with sleep, anxiety, depression, and sometimes physical pain.
I know nothing of a backlash against sobriety. That is probably a PR stunt from a liquor distributor or something. But to be fair, I also have become extremely choosy on when/how/what I consume in recent months to protect my mental wellbeing, so I basically live under a digital rock. And I love it here, feel free to stop by anytime for a cuppa. Much love to ya Hols.
“ If sobriety were a person, your relationship with that person changes over time, inevitably, as we change and grow and develop as humans.”
You are so, so smart.
Do you mind sharing a bit about the benefit or difference of a 1 to 1 blend? I don’t think a lot of people understand that part, and I’m curious about your particular reason for it, though I could guess.
Before medical marijuana was a thing and all we had was street weed, I had a few bad experiences with pot. It was too much for me, I felt bombarded by the earth and gravity and people. It made me panic and feel paranoid. It probably didn’t help that I was a “good kid”, as in, I stayed out of trouble, so doing an illegal drug in the era of DARE made me feel like a dirty naughty criminal. I also know for sure I was given some weed for a birthday that had something else in it, because I hallucinated.
I say all that to say, approaching marijuana as a medicine for anxiety, depression, and sleep took baby steps because I was scared about having the same experiences I had when I was 17. It was recommended to use CBD dominant products, so I did, and it helped. I get the medicinal positives from THC and CBD without all the panic and paranoia and the “too damn high” feeling.
CBD also provides an entourage effect, so even for people who can tolerate straight THC, it intensifies the positive effects, too (so I’ve read, no source).
Now I’m all ratio products, edibles and cartridges, and I love it. I took a long hard look at this medicine because of my propensity for addiction, to make sure I didn’t have the same feelings about it that I had for alcohol. It doesn’t trigger me, thankfully, and the relationship is completely different. Praise be the Mother.
Thank you so so much for this Jen <3 Praise be mother.
I'm from Kentucky where the "anti-sobriety" movement is embedded in the culture of bourbon and bourbon travel, in the prevalence of the liquor industry, and in a fairly aggressive class manipulation that doesn't want people to hear the stories that have been omitted from the dominant (white) narrative. (My father was a distiller, so being raised in this and then quitting drinking was a def culture clash.) Like a lot of projects that whiteness and capitalism wants upheld, this isn't something that happened in the past, but is happening now, and there's a line that runs straight through history connecting those points.
I got sober thirty years ago, and began to change my relationship to my former sobriety when, at menopause, a friend shared a good way to microdose mushrooms. I'd been working with some mighty plant allies that really subtly changed consciousness, (teas, herbs, flowers, cannabis), and began to question why the sober line was set at acceptance of only certain plants, and upheld by a group of people heavily invested in maintaining patriarchy. AA, though it supported my initial sobriety, isn't great at understanding the vulnerability necessary to live in wild ways suitable for more fluid bodies. Or the power that emerges from that vulnerability.
I discovered that certain plants are really terrific at assisting when the frenetic and amplified pace of this too-urgent world no longer invites clarity. There's a trick to softening when things become hard, and plants are great teachers of this, (including in distilled products and in tobacco, the master plant,) but not only are they over-imbibed, but every body has its own relationship with the substance, so we might not look and act like another when in that exchange. I'm thinking about how much this culture hasn't really learned how to intuitively approach plants, but instead just wants to consume them, be overridden by them, which is less like surrender and more like being terrorized. Thanks for asking, this question helped me think through some things. Love always.
First, hello <3 Second, this pull quote:
"I'm from Kentucky where the "anti-sobriety" movement is embedded in the culture of bourbon and bourbon travel, in the prevalence of the liquor industry, and in a fairly aggressive class manipulation that doesn't want people to hear the stories that have been omitted from the dominant (white) narrative. (My father was a distiller, so being raised in this and then quitting drinking was a def culture clash.) Like a lot of projects that whiteness and capitalism wants upheld, this isn't something that happened in the past, but is happening now, and there's a line that runs straight through history connecting those points."
AND THEN THIS:
and began to question why the sober line was set at acceptance of only certain plants, and upheld by a group of people heavily invested in maintaining patriarchy.
Love you miss 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.
Thank you so much for this. Carrie Wilkens, who runs CMC, told me a few years ago she tells all her clients she doesn’t know if they have addiction, but she knows they have trauma.
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?
I’m glad you asked this question. I had to think about it some more and I will modify my previous statement. I originally did feel guilt and I think it was tied to expectation and all the sharing I had done on IG about my sobriety journey. Underneath the original guilt was something worse: shame. Shame is what got a lot of us here in the first place. And I realized if I am feeling this and afraid to share it — what are the chances other people feel the same way? That’s why I was so moved when you shared your experiences. We just have to let that shit go if we are going to keep moving forward.
Maybe part of it is turning 50 this year. Maybe part of it is being on HRT now and feeling so much more comfortable in my skin. Maybe part of it is realizing I have also had ADHD my whole life and can quiet my mind a bit without abandoning myself or hurting others in the process, what is the harm in that?
Jesus this comment could have been written by me. The shame piece: one definition I cane across was its the distance between who people think you are, and who you actually are. And that the greater the chasm the bigger the shame. I think Martha nussbaum anyway. Thanks for that part.
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 just so appreciate your thoughts. i mean that’s it, isn’t it. Like we are not okay with ambiguity, and we just run from one fixed thing to another instead of being able to stay in the undefinable.
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
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.
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.
Abbie ♥️ Hi hhs spring 17. lol, stopped calling it ethanol.
It’s amazing how many similarities there are running thru these comments. I think the softening part is so essential and I love how many of us have turned toward it
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.
I'm almost 10 years without a drink. Last year, after almost 10 years of therapy, in the throws of perimenopause, and an uptick of anxiety, I decided to try some mild CBD/THC drinks. I feel like I could relate to so much of what was said in this thread. Needing to be softer with myself, wanting to expand beyond the black + white thinking in both addiction and sobriety, less fear of myself, more trust and faith in myself. Just returned from a trip where thc was not available and I didn't even think about it. I have such a different relationship with it than alcohol which I know I can't go near. I can relate to many here mentioning letting go of the shame. Gosh, there was a period of sobriety where I felt shame drinking a kombucha.
As far as backlash to sobriety culture, I've been thinking more that for a time it became such a trend like any other trend - for some wellness, others perhaps just another club to belong to (ha those of us who most needed to quit alcohol never wanted to be part of that club). Though I haven't seen the articles you all are referring to, I am intrigued.
I appreciate this thread especially just a month before I turn 50 where I'm no longer looking for a program, or a set of rules. I'm thinking much more about being in the latter half of my life and knowing that my focus is no longer in trying to find myself but just having reverence for the fact that I'm here today.
This last paragraph I think is what so many are circling. I remember having a talk a few years ago with someone who’d had a horrible childhood and struggled with drinking and they’d been sober for a decade and just wanted to be in their garden and they asked, like maybe it’s enough that I’m just in my garden after all that hell, and I don’t know why but I think about that. Like what is the point of healing if it’s not to provide a sense of safety and calm? When did it ever get said that healing was just work all the time a forever and ever?
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.
*snark might be too strong a descriptor for the pubs I have in mind... but it happens so frequently it feels that way to me (I’m definitely on the sensitive side on this topic) <3
and like the most buddhist thing to temper the word snark.
haha, well I was thinking about my comment and realized: there sure is a lot of annoyance in there for someone who’s trying to let that shit go! It’s probably one of the areas that snags me the most in my everyday readings - the offhand things (non-sober) people say about sobriety.
me too <3