At first, ankle deep, then wading deeper and deeper, a surge of waves crashed into my thighs as I braced against the tidal tug. My friends were on the beach, unfurling towels and applying sunscreen. I had no time for those chores. I wanted the ocean.
I had never been on a tropical island, let alone to the Caribbean. It was also my first sober vacation with my four best friends from college, a friendship tallying 20 years. I had quit drinking seven months earlier, when the days were short and dark. The season had felt like an appropriate match to confront a reckoning with alcohol that was decades in the making.
Now it was spring and I was thousands of miles from home, where snow still lingered in the high country. Although we were well past infamous antics from our college days, this joint 40th birthday celebration presented the potential for nostalgia-inspired fun and that usually included alcohol.
I was nervous before my trip and had confided in my husband. What was the worst that could happen, I mused, if I had a glass of wine at dinner? Would I feel out of place with my friends who had known me as the wild child – would they still like me? Would just one piña colada hurt?
Very few topics of conversation are off-limits among my friends and alcohol was no exception. It was a part of the pre-trip planning conversation, mixed into group text messages about coordinating flights and booking the hotel. My friends knew that I was no longer drinking, and Claire called me from the Dominican Republic, where she was now living with her family, to gauge my comfort level with staying at an all-inclusive resort and the readily available supply of alcohol.
If this call had taken place earlier in my recovery, I would have felt much more uncomfortable. Instead, I was grateful. Thanks to months of addiction-focused group therapy and a concerted effort to unravel the hold alcohol use disorder had on my life, I now felt less vulnerable discussing any potential triggers that would lead me to drinking. With my children squawking in the background, I told Claire that I appreciated her thoughtfulness. Claire ended the call with, “I’m so proud of you, Maggot.”
I snorted but it was a feigned annoyance. Claire’s invocation of my endearing yet antagonistic nickname from college made me feel so very normal. An affirmation-laced jest from someone who knew me for so long and so well.
For the most part, I could float on top of the waves of temptation during our island stay. Each morning I woke up early and walked on the beach, relishing the solitude and my beachcombing finds. If a few in our group opted to go to a bar for a beer after dinner, I didn’t object but I didn’t join them. I didn’t feel left out or slighted. One night we all decided to go out dancing, and I didn’t need a beer or shot to do so. Sobriety was enhancing my connection to my friends. There was no shortage of laughter or fun or inappropriate banter and the support my friends gave me aided my resolve.
Licensed professional counselor Colleen Davis-Timms, who specializes in alcohol and addiction, agrees that a strong and accepting social network is an integral part of staying sober. “Sobriety won’t stick unless a person can find a social circle they connect with. If you feel isolated, you will not succeed in sobriety.”
Sobriety is having its moment. “Sober-curious” or “mindful drinking” are now familiar phrases; Sober October and Dry January are popular trends. Whereas problematic drinking used to be hushed or relegated to the edges of polite conversation, confined to anonymous meetings often held in church basements, abstaining from alcohol is increasingly destigmatized. But it still requires a willingness to go against the grain.
The country singer-songwriter Margo Price published an essay in GQ in March 2021 about her decision to quit drinking after one too many stressors caused by the pandemic, including her canceled tours. Relying on alcohol to assuage the brunt of cyberbullying or the uncertainties of a musical career was no longer cutting it. She wrote that while she believed she was in control of her alcohol use and had the intention of taking a sustained break from drinking, after reading Quit Like a Woman by Holly Whitaker she decided to quit for good in January 2021.
Without alcohol and its drowning effects, parenting and work feel easier, and she’s able to enjoy life more. For Price, sobriety was the “‘most rebellious thing’’’ she’d ever done, a fully conscious rejection of the culture of alcohol.
Getting sober was an act of dissent for me as well, but with unintended consequences. When I decided to stop drinking, I felt like my identity was no longer stable. This isn’t an uncommon response; Davis-Timms says that “sobriety becomes an identity shift.” Reassessing my life without alcohol went deeper than what I drank – it shot straight to my inner core.
The aspects of your personality that make you uncomfortable or incite pain don’t simply disappear once you eliminate drinking. One of alcohol’s big lies is that it blunts the pain. I would argue it only buries it until it mutates into a much more ugly monster. In my case, I used it to avoid feelings of not being enough and allowed intoxication to make me feel powerful, funny and emboldened.
There is the very human element of my personality that still seeks pleasure and wants to avoid pain, but with a clearer mind I can sit with my discomfort and meet confrontations with more patience and acceptance than I ever could in the past. Compassion for myself, previously a massive hurdle, is slowly unfurling and it extends to all other areas of my life.
Back in the Caribbean, I joined my friends on the lounge chairs beneath a palm tree after swimming. When they ordered a drink, I raised my hand and added, “Make mine a virgin.”
Those who choose to eschew drinking are helped by a new flood of alcohol-free beverages in grocery stores and mocktails on bar menus, which is what journalist and editor Julia Bainbridge covers. Her book Good Drinks: Alcohol-Free Recipes for When You’re Not Drinking for Whatever Reason, is a recipe collection celebrating innovation in non-alcoholic beverages.
Bainbridge is quick to point out that sober-curious culture and recovery are very different. It’s important not to conflate the two.
“Perhaps the paradigm will shift to the point that this isn’t a thing – drink, don’t drink, whatever, no need for a label or dedicated dry month – but while I appreciate that some people are choosing a sober lifestyle, it’s still important to remember that sobriety has likely been painful for those with substance use disorders,” she said.
This lack of distinction is what makes me a bit concerned whenever I read a glossy magazine boasting a headline such as “has everyone stopped drinking?” Trends generate much-needed conversation but also flatten nuance, and alcohol use disorder requires a comprehensive understanding and approach.
Nonetheless, this cultural reckoning is affecting the alcohol industry. The demand for alcoholic beverages is decreasing, especially among the Gen Z generation.
Bainbridge applauds the increased availability and diversity of alcohol-free beverages, but with a word of caution. “Offering good non-alcoholic drinks and normalizing the consumption of them in all social spaces is a good thing for those who want them, whatever their reasons,” she says. “But while the increasing availability of these drinks is helpful and it’s a joy, it’s not treatment. Those in need of treatment usually have to work hard to keep alcohol out of their lives and that work is ongoing.”
I’ve been a hesitant adopter of the alcohol-free beverage offerings because I wasn’t yet at a place where I felt like I could drink a non-alcoholic craft stout and not feel the urge to swap for its alcoholic counterpart. Different friends and acquaintances, out of a genuine desire to offer support but not always knowing how, have given me bottles of alcohol-free wine, beer and spirits. They mostly remain untouched in my fridge.
Although I’ve made it an entire year sober, I still feel uneasy around alcohol-like substitutes. Part of recovery’s difficult but redeeming work is understanding my boundaries, which were all too fluid and porous when I drank.
I don’t consider myself even remotely trendy, but my recovery journey alongside the sober-curious trend is simultaneously exciting (Margo Price and I are both rebels? Hell yes!) and worrisome. I do find it comforting to see there’s finally a deliberate, focused conversation on alcohol, a recalibration of its influence on our lives and health.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing trendy about the work recovery demands. This is a concern that Davis-Timms shared. “It’s a scary thing to say, ‘I’m a sober person’ versus ‘I’m trying out Sober October.’ The worrisome part of the trend is how trends come and go and I don’t want their sobriety journey to depend on that.”
My decision to quit drinking had nothing to do with Sober October. I had a very bad night of drinking and when I woke up, I realized that if I didn’t get help, the relationships that I valued most in my life – with my husband, my two young children, my friends and family – wouldn’t last.
Some days, I don’t even think about alcohol. Other days are much harder and I crave a beer or that once-familiar big pour of wine when the world feels like too much. In those moments, I find that ultimate connection – the one with myself. I take a breath, recall those turquoise Caribbean waves and once again choose not to drink.