Right off the bat I want to come clean: I don’t know what sobriety means. Does it mean no alcohol? Does it mean no alcohol and no drugs? What are drugs? Does Advil count? Can I drink coffee and chew nicotine gum? Where is the line and who draws it?
One place to start might be a dictionary definition and a quick look at the etymology of the word sober.
Here’s a definition from dictionary dot com.
Immediately, sober has connotations of drunkenness baked into the definition. I looked at a few other sources as well, and abstaining from alcohol is common among them all, while some also mention abstinence from so-called “drugs.” For now, I’ll assume that “drugs” means illicit substances that are generally referred to as “street drugs,” and leave other substances such as cigarettes, coffee and OTC medications out of the discussion. I’ll briefly return to these substances later.
Interestingly, dictionary dot com also had this to say about the history of the word sober.
English sober comes from Middle English sobre, sober(e), sobor, from Old French sobre, from Latin sōbrius “sober (not intoxicated), in possession of one’s faculties, staid and sensible in behavior.” Sōbrius appears to be a compound of the preposition and prefix sē, sē- “apart, aside, by oneself” and the adjective ēbrius “drunk, intoxicated” (the derivative adjective ēbriōsus means “addicted to alcohol, alcoholic”). The adjective sōbrius therefore means “not drunk,” which is an odd way of looking at things, as if sobriety were the unusual condition and drunkenness the normal.
This is interesting because anyone who has “gone sober,” as in quit drinking, will tell you that a common reaction they get is something must be wrong.
I remember one time I was at a Tennessee Titan’s tailgate party early in the morning, around 9:00 am, and I was drinking Suero Oral, a Mexican version of Pedialyte. I’d been up late the night before drinking and partying, and since I’ve never been a morning drinker, I was just trying to rehydrate.
One of the hosts of the tailgate asked me what I was drinking and I explained my Mexican elixir to him, and he asked, “vodka, tequila, what’s in it?” while slowly sipping his bloody.
I smiled and shook my head. “No booze. Just suero.”
He looked at me and said, “weird.”
I thought to myself, you’re drinking hard liquor and eating cheeseburgers at 9am and I’m the weird one?
Don’t get me wrong, I love cheeseburgers in the morning, but something is wrong with this picture. He was so comfortable calling me weird for not drinking.
And that gets us back to the history of the word, and perhaps to our relationship with alcohol as a culture, that drinking is normal, and not drinking is abnormal. As humans, and especially as a western culture, we’ve been drinking for thousands of years. Certainly it was one of the first mind altering substances that became a standard part of our quotidian lives. (No doubt, some of you are only here today because of a late night boozer nine months before the day of your birth.)
Point is, drinking is common. Very common. So common that when you swear it off, or even resist a little bit, it can make people around you uncomfortable. They don’t really know what to say, and I don’t blame them. I actually try not to use the “S” word for this very reason, and because I don’t really know what it means. When confronted with an offer for a drink, these days I often just say, “no thanks,” or “I’m not drinking right now,” or “what kind of mocktails do they have?” Anything other than, “I’m sober.” This has the effect of getting my point across, while not really inviting any kind of reaction, encouragement or “support” from the people around me. I’m not pressured to drink, and they don’t feel judged.
Eventually people do find out that I stopped drinking, and for the most part, people are positive and kind about it. They ask questions, and congratulate me and talk about how they are doing a dry January, or that they’ve been thinking about taking a break, and so on. That’s fine, and I will support not drinking all day and all night, but the truth is that it’s just not a big deal to me the way it is for people who have an actual problem with drinking. Let me back up.
I’ve never been much of a drinker. Maybe it’s because I have very few memories of my parents drinking, and virtually none of them being drunk, or maybe it’s because I liked smoking weed a lot more than drinking, or maybe it’s because I don’t really like the taste that much, and would much prefer coke. A coke. Not the Peruvian Flake. Whatever the case, I’ve never been a big drinker. I never drank alone. I rarely drank in the morning. I often went weeks without a drink even before I backed off the stuff. When I did drink, though, I tended to binge in group settings (shot of whiskey and a Miller lite was my go-to) as a way to chill out, relax, and let loose, like lots of people do.
And then I got old.
When you’re out of shape, overweight, eating like shit and getting little sleep, hangovers are demonic. They reveal the worst parts of you, and they make you fucking pay. In November of 2021, I had two weekend-deleting hangovers in a row, and made a decision right then and there to lay off the sauce for a while. I wasn’t committed to going sober, per se, nor did I set a goal or anything like that. I just thought to myself, it’s never fucking worth it, and that was all I needed to stop for a while.
A while turned into a couple months, and before I knew it, I was adjusting to life without drinking almost by accident. Shortly thereafter I thought to myself, let’s see how long we can go. It’s been 2 years, and I’d say I’ve had a drink in my hand somewhere between 10 and 15 of those days. Of those 10 - 15 days, I’d say I was drunk/tipsy for maybe 2 or 3.
Quitting drinking was easy for me for two reasons.
I wasn’t an alcoholic
I finally admitted to myself that I don’t actually enjoy it.
The second condition was truly a revelation for me. After reflecting on it, I think I drank alcohol because I could. Because I was an adult and adults are allowed to drink, and so I’ll have a drink. It’s not like I didn’t enjoy being drunk. Of course it felt good, but it comes at a cost. You pay for that drunken merriment with your god damn happiness, your peace, your future productivity, not to mention your hard earned dolla dolla bills. And how valuable is that? Priceless, I’d say.
Back to that second condition. It wasn’t until well into these 2 years of minimizing alcohol that I came across Andrew Huberman’s now famous podcast on alcohol, and after listening to him talk about the adverse effects that alcohol has on the brain and body (and mind and spirit), and what an appropriate (re: healthy) amount of alcohol actually is, it really crystalized to me that just as I had the choice to drink, I also had the choice not to drink. It’s profound as it is simple. In fact, the day I turned 21, my mother’s mother said to me, “Now you have the legal right not to drink.” Of course, I always had that right, I suppose, but I knew what she meant.
Dr. Huberman’s podcast on this episode conjured those words from my grandmother, and reshaped the way I approached not drinking. I went from thinking of abstinence as a form of rejection, to a form of permission. I’m allowed to not drink. This subtle shift made it a lot easier for me to participate without a drink around friends, family and strangers who were drinking, where before I was nervous, even anxious, about how I would have a good time in those situations.
I don’t miss it. I don’t miss waking up hungover and ashamed. I don’t miss the shock of the tab at the end of the night. I don’t miss acting like a caged animal and blurting out thoughts that should’ve been workshopped a little harder. I don’t miss the taste, or pretending like I know what good and bad wine is. I just don’t miss it at all, and that’s a massive difference between me and most people who go sober.
Real sobriety is life-saving. Cutting out alcohol for some people is one of the hardest things they could ever do, and one of the most rewarding. For some, alcohol is a dragon they battle for years, and they want nothing more than to defeat the dragon, but that fire water is often no match for a fire breather. These people need help from family, friends and even doctors to help them stop, and to me, this points to what sobriety actually is: the decision to go to battle against a substance that is actively ruining your life. This is worthy of praise, admiration and respect. This shows character and determination and spirit. This will change your life.
I’m not sober; I just don’t really like drinking. Big diff.
It was in that same November of 2021 that I also began pulling away from smoking weed, as well. I don’t know if the timing is coincidental or not. At the time, I certainly did not say to myself, I’m going to quit smoking and drinking today. What I will say is that anxiety had a lot to do with me removing both substances from my life. I already talked about the anxiety I got from hangovers, but oddly I began to experience pure anxiety every time I smoked, too.
I was a weed smoker - nay, a pot head - for probably 17 years. That is, I smoked every day, multiple times a day, for probably 15 of those 17 years, and 99% of the time I did not experience anxiety or panic as a result of being high. It wasn’t until the last several months before that November that it seemed like every time I took a puff I couldn’t stop the intrusive thoughts from breaking and entering. The truth is I unlocked the door and left it cracked, but for whatever reason, I refused to admit that weed was a problem. One day, likely after one too many mini panic attack, I finally allowed myself to put down the pipe. From that point on, I’d say there have been even fewer days with smoke in my lungs than there have been with a drink in my hand. I quit smoking and I never looked back.
So am I sober?
I drink coffee. I take painkillers and other medications when I feel sick. I was prescribed antibiotics recently, which I hate taking, but I needed to in this case. I’ve been dabbling in nicotine mints and gums and pouches for energy and stimulation recently (Huberman also has a lot to say about the benefits of tobacco-less nicotine), and I’m not wholly opposed to the responsible administration of psychoactive drugs like mushrooms or MDMA in good company and with good intentions.
Strictly speaking, then, it’s pretty obvious that I’m not sober. But strictly speaking, who is? The Amish? Pious Christians, Jews and Muslims? Monks? Maybe.
So what does sobriety really mean?
To me, sobriety is not a static state. It is not defined by the current moment and whether you have a drink in your hand, a joint between your lips, or even a needle in your arm. It is a dynamic relationship that a person has with a substance characterized by their ability to not let it ruin their life anymore. The moment that person admits that they are out of control with that substance, they are on the path of sobriety. If they go a full year without drinking, and then have a beer, are they no longer sober? Were they sober the day before, and the day after, but not the day of? That doesn’t make sense to me. The point is, they have flipped their position in the master/slave relationship to the substance, and they are on the straight and narrow. Characterized this way, they are sober.
And characterized this way, I am sober, but I can’t help but admit that it feels weird to say it. It almost feels unearned because I didn’t have to slay any dragons, at least not the way I expected I would. I just… stopped. It was as if one day I woke up and realized that fighting dragons is a lot easier if they don’t exist.
I take it back… I do miss port wine.
Thanks for reading!
Let it be known that I pass zero judgment on your relationship with drugs and alcohol. I’ve spent too many days doing both, and it would be wildly hypocritical to tell anyone how to live their life. All I will say is that it’s never a bad idea to not drink, and not do drugs, so if you’re wondering if you should stop, just try it out and see how you feel. It worked for me.
Onward and upward.
the physical hangover sucks so bad these days. But a moral hangover can be a real doozy too. I’ve had too many of those which makes getting drunk such a turn off for me now.
I get this. The Sober life is awesome.