If you’ve been on social media in the last five years, there’s a good chance you’ve come across the “sober and curious movement.” On TikTok only, the hashtag has hundreds of millions of views; on Instagram, nearly 800,000 videos carry the same tag.
As a recovering alcoholic, I’m a little ashamed to admit that, until recently, I found the hype around the “sober curious movement” a little annoying. I had no qualms about accepting the concept – which encourages little or no alcohol consumption as a lifestyle choice and has been widely adopted by Gen Z and millennials – but the trend of the term irritated me. It joins a host of similar phrases that have gained popularity over the past decade: “dry January,” “sober October,” “sober sweet,” and “sober adjacent.”
The reason these semi-new buzzwords ate at me was that they made quitting drinking, at best, seem easy, casual, and even fun.
At the heart of these concepts is a fundamentally good idea: reassessing your relationship with alcohol. Research shows that even small or moderate amounts of alcohol can have harmful health effects. On a societal level, we have normalized much more than moderate alcohol consumption. It is no coincidence that, when choosing the months to try to get sober, people chose the months that ended the winter holidays: October and January. The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States says a quarter of the distilled spirits industry’s profits, valued at $49 billion a year, come from the month between Thanksgiving and New Year.
So what could have been my problem with an objectively good and healthy phenomenon? I would never have said as much out loud, but the reason these semi-new buzzwords ate at me was that they made it seem like quitting drinking, at best, was easy , relaxed and even fun. At worst, it seemed performative, and when the predictable fusion of influencers and sponsored marketing deals with mocktails happened, it was too Goop-y for my tastes.
Because, for me, getting sober was nowhere near as easy, casual, or fun as a thing could be.
I got sober on January 24, 2008 – not because of one last attempt at Dry January, but because I had no other choice. The night before, I had been admitted to the emergency room with a life-threatening blood alcohol level and less than 24 hours later I was on my way to the hospital’s psychiatric ward. There, a doctor explained to me that I had most likely survived such a high blood alcohol level because, although I was only 23, I had a long history of chronic drinking that allowed for my body to adapt to what amounted to daily intoxication.
Sobriety was a long, arduous process – one that involved a near-death experience, a stay in a psychiatric ward, and a month in an inpatient treatment center – all just to get away from alcohol for a month . After that, there were 12-step groups, therapy, and hard work to figure out who I was and how to live as a sober person.
Through my limited perspective, I unconsciously divided people into two distinct categories: the first was filled with people like me, who could not control their drinking and for whom staying sober required talking about sobriety and of recovery, and the second was “normal people”. ”, who could consume alcohol whenever and however he wanted and everything went pretty well.
Over the next 16 years, my beliefs about substance use, alcohol use disorder, and recovery have evolved. They have become more expansive, inclusive and flexible. These two disparate compartments have become a Venn diagram: two circles that overlap significantly. I stopped thinking of alcohol addiction as something you either had or didn’t have and started seeing it as one end of a very broad spectrum. That was the end I belonged to, of course, but millions of people filled every other space on that line, all the way to the opposite end: the people who never had a drink.
It wasn’t a new or original way of looking at substance use, but it was one that I didn’t see talked about as much as I would have liked. So I started writing about it, including an advice column, first for a recovery website and then for Paste Magazine. I brought the column back as a Substack newsletter a few months ago. I alternate between answering questions about substance use and addiction and writing short essays on recovery topics.
The newsletter’s themes boil down to these: there is no one right way to get sober, there are many paths to recovery, it is personal and non-linear, and we all must find our path – ideally with a supportive community around us. An inclusive recovery landscape is vital as people are not receiving the help they so desperately need.
In the United States, deaths related to excessive alcohol consumption have increased by 29% in just five years. Doctors say young people, in particular, are experiencing a sharp increase in alcohol-related liver disease.
In the United States, deaths linked to excessive alcohol consumption have increased 29% in just five years. Doctors say the youngestin particular, are experiencing a sharp increase in the number of alcohol-related liver disease. What could be more necessary than a broad, non-normative movement discussing the benefits of reducing or stopping drinking?
I’d been writing the newsletter for about a month when someone asked me what I thought about “the whole sober curious thing.” I was halfway into a Pavlovian eye roll when I realized how ridiculous this was I was being. The sober curious movement generally catered to a different demographic than mine: I wrote for people who felt like they were struggling with alcohol; sober curious seemed to focus on people who did not consume alcohol compulsively but wanted changes in their lifestyle or health. But we were saying the same thing. Try it. See what works for you. Talk to others about how you feel. Don’t worry if you slip; just evaluate how you got there and try again if you like.
Watching a handful of “sober curious” videos, I realized I had made another error in judgment. Although many people seemed to adopt an alcohol-free lifestyle quite easily, others documented the challenges they faced — many of which described the kinds of struggles I used to tell people about: craving , relapse and social avoidance. The simple and curious tent was much larger than I initially thought.
As for the trend in terminology? I now see this as a blessing, especially during the holidays. The fact that it is a ubiquitous term has normalized people’s awareness of their alcohol consumption. People who go to holiday parties and other heavy drinking occasions now have a handy phrase on hand if their family members and friends start wondering why someone isn’t not engage more fully in the holiday spirit.
In some circles, there has always been an unspoken assumption that if you can drink (meaning you are not an alcoholic, pregnant, or have an illness that prevents you from doing so), you will drink. I wish people didn’t feel the need to have an excuse to abstain from alcohol, but until that happens, I’m immensely grateful that the sober curious movement – and the 50 millions of TikToks about him – exist.