The scene is set as follows: On a cold December Sunday, my hope was set on an afternoon of writing at a newly open wine and cocktail bar. As the rain does not seem to stop and I simply can’t be bothered to go out in such conditions, I pour myself a glass of red. I swirl the organic Primitivo in my glass, as if it didn’t cost a fiver at Tesco, and start reading yet another article on sobriety and sober curiosity. Apparently, everyone stopped drinking but me.
I mean I got the memo, drinking for the sake of it isn’t that attractive or fun anymore. A victim of the trend I did a sober November (in 2022), found myself flirting with non-alcoholic ciders on more than one occasion and never went full-on drinking mode during the lockdown.
I get it, the appeal of sobriety. It is nice to wake up at 6 on a Saturday morning, read for a couple of hours, run 10k before lunch (yes it happened), and still have a full day ahead. But how much fun is it to go to an improvised afternoon at the pub, meet some friends and see everyone getting tipsier by the hour. I have so many memories of my nights out and a great amount of stories, could I ever recreate the same if I was sober? Probably, you don’t need alcohol to have fun as they say, but it sure helps. I also do not care if someone does not drink, I’m not the type to judge people for their life choices, as long as we can still go places and have fun (or at least no longer, some shameful peer pressuring from the past is haunting me).
Back on the sobriety trend. I have a theory, theories actually, on this surge of NA people. The first one is…suspense… the lockdown. Like an airport, during lockdown, it was suddenly appropriate, or at least not frowned upon, to drink all day every day. What else was there to do to forget the deep shit we found ourselves into? It was followed by the grand reopening of pubs and bars and everyone wanted to be out of their four walls, go into the world, see people, and drink outside. Two years or so of inhibition could only be followed by prohibition, a self-inflicted restriction on alcohol to cure a massive hangover.
The other theory concerns the younger generation (says the 27 years old), and the rise of drug consumption. Vaping is the sweet introduction to nicotine, balloons (laughing gas), weed and the rest seems so easily accessible to the youth. So much so that, before it was banned, a walk in town would be sprinkled with hundreds of small metallic canisters. I haven’t done enough research to elaborate on this one, so I won’t but you get the gist.
To conclude this mini-essay, if sober curiosity is different from going cold turkey on alcohol, it can definitely lead to that path and is worth exploring. After all, sobriety is the promise of a better self and better health: suddenly you’ll have more time, more ideas, and more energy to do ALL THE THINGS. After a long weekend spent with friends at the pub, and with the coming winter celebration, I can picture a quiet time ahead. But then again, I love the pub, bar and everything in between.
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Some things I read and listened to on the topic:
Has the Pandemic Fundamentally Changed the Way Women Think About Drinking? in Vogue
How to survive the party season… sober by
I knew I didn’t have a drinking problem – but I had a problem with drinking by author Emma Gannon in the Guardian and also on her substack: Things I’ve Learned While Being Sober-Curious