Yeah, I'm Sober. And Don't You Dare Call Me "Less Fun"

What a WSJ article got dead wrong about sobriety.

That Wednesday, I stood in my kitchen in my usual early-morning stance: coffee mug in one hand and cell phone in the other, sipping and speed-scrolling through my usual bevy of overnight messages and reminders. I'd awoken in my get-sh*t-done mode--a good thing, considering it was the day before Thanksgiving, and while my three still-sleeping kids had the day off from school, my to-do list was growing by the minute.

I was fueling up to delete and conquer, not sit and ponder, but an article in my inbox lassoed my attention. It was from the Wall Street Journal, and the headline read:

"Why Is Everyone 'Sober-ish' All of a Sudden? More people are entering the holidays with a mindful relationship with alcohol. It turns out this isn't a total drag."

As a former-drinker-turned-teetotaler, I notice headlines with buzz words such as "gray-area drinking," "recovery," and "sober curious." These articles find me, and I find them. Call it confirmation bias, but I am convinced there is a steady uptick in global conversations regarding alcohol, and I believe the world is better off for it.

Ironically, conversations about drinking/not drinking used to be the ones I dodged, deflected and despised most--understandably so. Why? Deep down, I knew that my relationship with alcohol was not "normal" (whatever that meant), but the idea of not drinking was unfathomable. Impossible, even. No way, no how.

To me, SOBER was some drab, foreign land I had no interest in visiting, let alone inhabiting.

I did not understand people who chose not to drink, and I pitied the "irresponsible" ones forced to leave the proverbial party.

Recent years have offered me a new set of hard-won "perspectacles"--with a view as surprising as it is stunning. Recovery now ranks among my favorite discussion topics, with the whole no-longer-drinking aspect a mere sliver of the magic.

Books like "Quit Like a Woman" by Holly Whitaker, "This Naked Mind" by Annie Grace, and "Untamed" by Glennon Doyle have paved the path for millions like me who wanted or needed to reconsider their relationship with alcohol.

So, when I spotted the WSJ article in my inbox that Wednesday morning, I perked up.

Jenny, it's still early, I reassured myself. One quick read won't throw off your entire morning.

I clicked on the link, refilled my mug and headed to the couch, where I remained riveted and ruffled for the next 90 minutes.

Never before have I publicly responded at length to a writer, particularly one with a large readership.

But then again, never before have I experienced such a strong, adverse reaction to an article right from the opening paragraph:

"Have you noticed that your friends are a little less fun? That everyone leaves a dinner party earlier? That their stories are less wild or funny or revealing?"

With a steep inhale and a clenched stomach, I settled in for Katie Roiphe's full article, hopeful and disappointed as I continued to read.

Is Ms. Roiphe an intelligent, skilled writer with good intentions? Presumably so.

But well-informed on this topic? I would argue no.

While this article sets out to prove that a sober-ish society is "not a total drag," Ms. Roiphe's questionable word choices and misguided generalizations inadvertently send a very different message--one that merely perpetuates some myths that keep people shrinking, drinking, and yes, even dying.

Below are select snippets I've chosen to include from Ms. Roiphe's WSJ article:

After years of pushing the benign myth that a glass of wine a day is good for the heart, it seems the medical establishment has abandoned hedonists and pleasure seekers. Is there a safe amount of alcohol? It turns out no.

For this and other more amorphous reasons, I have noticed increasing numbers of people around me are sober-ish. They drink only socially or only two glasses of wine a week or only in restaurants. They are not willing to give up drinking entirely, which feels like too vast and depressing a surrender of life's pleasures. So they make rules for themselves....

One obvious problem with this new responsible, upstanding mode of socializing is that it shortens parties. When people are drinking, time blurs and the evening spools out pleasantly. No one thinks about a meeting the next day or getting the kids off to school. But when they are having maybe one glass of wine, the evening ends promptly. There is no lingering, no new bottle opened, no children awoken by noisy guests, no wine bottles left on the table by tipsy hosts. This may be the end of long, boozy nights.

The sober-ish life also leads to peculiar new etiquette frontiers. One friend of mine observed, "When you go out to dinner with someone now and the waiter comes to take the drink order and they say, 'just water for me,' you know that person is saving their glass of wine for a better dinner. They are not committing to the evening. You're not worth a drink.

GULP. There's just so much to unpack here.

But before moving on to my already-posted, formal response to Ms. Roiphe, allow me to outline why the above snippets got my caffeinated blood boiling on that Wednesday morning.

First, there's the term "benign myth." Seriously? I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a more harmful myth than the decades-long one we've been spoon-fed regarding wine's supposed health benefits. Alcohol (ethanol) is an addictive toxin and known carcinogen associated with stroke, high blood pressure, heart and liver disease and a slew of other psychological, physiological and emotional problems. Yet, when the medical community began touting its erroneous benefits several years ago, we lunged at this "good news.” I cannot think of a better PR agent than one who wears a white coat. How many of us thought, "Well, if one glass is good for me, surely another one or two cannot be that bad?"

I hail from a family of light drinkers. A “one beer or glass of wine on occasion” type. A six-pack of Sam Adams sat in our fridge, untouched, as innocuous as the eggs and milk. We had a liquor cabinet where bottles collected dust between holiday gatherings, until I began sneaking into that cabinet at age 15, quickly figuring out how to refill the bottles with water so the line never moved. I’m one of those “least likely addicts.” I had never witnessed the dark side of alcohol; it was always harmless in my eyes. And perhaps even beneficial, as I’d believed as a young girl, watching my grandmother sip her glass of red that was was like medicine for her heart.

The way I see it, nothing has done more to justify and normalize wine consumption in recent years than this supposed “benign myth”—while also paving the way for subsequent destruction, such as the rise of "mommy wine culture." Benign my ass.

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Second, let's revisit this whole "just water for me" at the restaurant scenario.

When I order "just water" at a restaurant, this is not some diss toward you--it is a compliment. It is me choosing to sit with you in my natural, undiluted, present, and yes, potentially awkward state. I am saying yes to you in the most complete way possible, not yes with an asterisk. My not-drinking has everything to do with my worth--not yours. I do need feel the need to fill my cup with alcohol because my cup already runneth over. This article continually made it seem that the primary reason people are going sober-ish is because they are running from something bad, not running toward something good.

I do not abstain from drinking solely because I want to avoid bad stuff like cancer and hangovers; it's because I found a better way to live.

But please know this: it is not always easy to be sober or sober-ish in our society. Not drinking entails so much more than simply not drinking. We do question our desirability as a non-imbiber because we've been told for many years, and in many ways, that to be fun, social and popular, we should probably have a drink in our hand.

When I order "just water" at a dinner, it is me choosing to bring my authentic self to the table. It is me being vulnerable in a way most of us in society are not accustomed to doing anymore. Think about it: we head to the bar the moment we arrive at a function. Our waiter comes to take our drinks order the minute we sit at a table. And many imbibe before they even arrive at the thing, like I used to do.

We are a society accustomed to softening those jagged edges in life by distracting, consuming and numbing. Very few people saw me drink—let alone to excess. Depending on the company I was with, I might very well order "just water" at a restaurant, only to go home and finish off a bottle of wine by myself. Or I might drink against my best intentions rather than risk being deemed “not fun” by others. So this also serves as your friendly PSA that we have very little clue what actually occurs behind closed doors or between someone's ears.

Finally, let's talk about language. Words matter, and a single, carefully chosen one can speak volumes. (And no one is more cognizant of this than a writer.) So naturally, I paid attention to the words Ms. Roiphe chose to describe alcohol/drinkers--terms such as hedonists, pleasure seekers, festive and old school.

And what about the words she chose to describe sober/sober-ish? Am I the only one detecting a slightly negative connotation with statements like, "[The sober-ish] are not willing to give up drinking entirely, which feels like too vast and depressing a surrender of life's pleasures. So they make rules for themselves."

Depressing. Surrender of life's pleasures. Rules. Less fun. Less wild or funny or revealing.

Sheesh. Rather than tip her hat to the actual rebels in society (i.e., those who go against the grain and choose to moderate or abstain from alcohol), Ms. Roiphe outlines some "problems" with the sober-ish trend while quite literally declaring her admiration for those who imbibe to excess.

Ms. Roiphe writes:

I can't help admiring my friends and family who are still excessive and careless, who still go for the third martini. I remember reading about Mary McCarthy, one of the writers I most admire, traipsing around the West Village in the 1940s. The night she met one of her husbands she drank three daiquiris before she saw him, two Manhattans with him and a bit of red wine at dinner. There was a lot of mayhem and disorder back then. I think of a line from a John Berryman poem that sums it up: "Somebody slapped/Somebody's second wife somewhere."

As a woman who personally experienced plenty of mayhem and disorder throughout my "party girl" years--including a few alcohol-fueled traumas and assaults on particularly harrowing nights--I will abstain (for now) from responding to this section, including the John Berryman quote that Ms. Roiphe offers up.

But I will say this: alcohol is the most dangerous drug on the planet. It kills more people than all other drugs combined. It is the number one date rape drug in the world and is linked to sexual assault, domestic violence, deaths and DUI, to name a few. Yet, it is socially acceptable, making it all the more dangerous.

What is my primary message today? Sober folks deserve a medal, not a stigma.

The world today needs more compassion and less condemnation.

More connection and less comparison.

More dialogue and less divisiveness.

I started drinking in my teens and spent the next three decades buying into the myth that alcohol made all things--including myself--better.

For me, booze began as an innocent enough accessory, something I could take or leave. But over time, it morphed into something else: a cloak I could hide behind and depend upon for confidence, ease and energy. The more often I wore the cloak, the more naked and exposed I felt without it. As time progressed, the cloak grew threadbare, no longer as comforting or pretty as it once was, but still I loved and protected it at all costs. I began to subconsciously avoid people and places where my cloak might be questioned. Until one day, I realized I could no longer take the cloak on or off with ease, as it had turned into armor. Only this armor was not protecting me from anything--it was just trapping in the darkness and locking out the good stuff.

I was no longer a free woman.

What once was choice had turned to chains.

The shift was subtle, soft and sinister.

No one was more surprised than me.

"The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken." -Samuel Johnson

But alcohol is fun, right?

All around me, I heard the messages and saw the proof.

So I kept trying.

I tried adding more. I tried adding less. I tried moderating my intake through careful rules, the very ones Ms. Roiphe mentions when describing the habits of the newly sober-ish.

But alcohol addiction doesn't play by the rules.

My rules worked—until they didn't.

And every attempt I made left me wanting, hurting and tired.

But aren’t we still having fun?

The truth about alcohol is hard to hear in our noisy world.

And it's even harder to accept once we reach a place of biological rewiring, shame spiraling and spiritual bankruptcy.

By 2020, I could no longer deny my own ugly, screaming truth: alcohol was not the source of my joy. He was the thief who stole my wallet and then helped me look for it.

I am well aware that my stance stems from a place of privilege--just probably not in the way you think, as I am referring to the privilege of being in recovery. Not everyone gets another shot at life. Addiction does not discriminate. Alcohol is an addictive and toxic substance that does not care about your race, age, gender, education level, religion, socioeconomic status, etc. I am beyond privileged, for I reclaimed my freedom after years of being caged and cuffed by alcohol.

Contrary to what we are led to believe, there is no definitive line to indicate when someone has crossed over into dangerous territory. Why do we live in a world that falsely and conveniently believes there are just "normal drinkers" and "problem drinkers"?

Misconceptions are precisely what kept me stuck, sick and screwed. I was not only clueless about what a "problem drinker" looked like but also what a sober life looked like. Both concepts in my head were inaccurate and repulsive--enough to keep me drinking and desperately disliking myself. I quietly suffered for years precisely because of misconceptions about alcohol.

Today, I am the luckiest person I know. Not only did I achieve sobriety, but I want sobriety. I choose it daily. Putting down the wine glass/beer glass/shot glass/martini glass/cheap-ass wine box hiding in my closet did not make me "less fun."

On the contrary, getting sober has empowered and enabled me to be a far more joyous, adventurous, approachable, compassionate, radiant and grateful human.

Sobriety delivers everything that alcohol promised.

Most of my family members and loved ones drink alcohol, as do a huge majority of people on this planet. I work hard to protect my sobriety, and that includes remaining non-judgmental and not taking things personally.

But we must celebrate the courage and vulnerability of the sober, sober-ish and hoping-to-get sober out there.

I am proud of those 90, not-wasted minutes on my couch as they showed me me how far I have come in four-plus years of sobriety. Had I read this same article a couple of years ago, I wouldn't have had the guts or voice to respond.

Being proudly unclothed out in a world of accessories, cloaks and armor is not an easy thing.

But these days, I am filled with hope and purpose beyond my own story.

What the world needs right now is more conversations, more awareness, and more carefully chosen words.

And this is me trying.

I did manage to accomplish most everything on my to-do list that Wednesday, and our family went on to have a nice, simple little Thanksgiving. But I have to be honest, Ms. Roiphe’s WSJ article consumed me far beyond those 90 minutes glued on my couch, and for that I am grateful. It has sparked many conversations. I've spoken to my family and friends, the ones who gladly clink their wine glass against my water glass.

Our conversations have often led to conversations about “what is ‘fun’ anyway?” We forget how to play in many ways as adults. Fun becomes something we have to schedule in and try for. Joy is what I aim for more often these days, and I see joy as different than fun. It's far richer and longer lasting. I spent many years chasing fun down the neck of a bottle or in others, looking for a quick fix or validation everywhere but inside.

Today, I look for a seat at the table where I am welcome and wanted, regardless of the glass in my hand. Those are the tables are where my fun side comes out—the one that is funny and revealing and sometimes leaves late, but always with the right shoes.

Because I am worth it. And finally, I am quenched.

Below is my posted/public response to Ms. Roiphe, with a link to the full WSJ article below.

"Have you noticed that your friends are a little less fun?"

Yikes. Rarely have I experienced such an adverse reaction to a single sentence, let alone an opening line...

And yep, I'm sober, as you've probably surmised. Not sober-ish, but sober—full stop. I've lost loved ones and seen countless lives, relationships and reputations ruined by alcohol—inarguably the most dangerous drug on the planet. Yet, we live in a world that continues to romanticize booze and pigeonhole people into one of two categories—those who can drink "responsibly" and those who cannot.

Like most things, I've learned there is no definitive line when it comes to alcoholism (or alcohol dependence/addiction/use disorder, etc.), yet we act as though there is. Rather, there exists a confusing gray area in which I and many humans like me floundered for years. We live in a world that readily points fingers at the addictive person, not the addictive substance.

Yet, facts don't lie.

Between 1999 and 2020, the rate of alcohol-related deaths nearly doubled. While numbers increased among every age group, there was a nearly fourfold spike among 25- to 34-year-olds. Women saw the biggest proportional rise (a 2.5 x's increase), which may reflect changing social norms and the alcohol industry's increased targeting of women through marketing campaigns.*

Alcohol is legal, normalized and celebrated, yet it is incredibly addictive with zero health benefits. (Some of you will hate hearing that a second time today, but as Katie mentioned, it is true.)

We live in a drinker's world where we become biologically and socially programmed to imbibe; we drink at weddings and funerals and baby showers and dinner parties and on vacations and on airplanes and at after-work "happy hours"; we drink on hard days, on holidays, and on any day that ends in "y." We drink to unwind, to ramp up, to connect, to tap out; we drink for confidence and ease (especially those of us who identify as introverts); we drink for romance, and we drink through break-ups; we drink to forget, and we drink to remember. Alcohol is everywhere, and the message is clear: no matter what the situation, there's a drink in front of you and a reason behind it.

In our society, drinking is not just accepted, it's expected. Alcohol is the only drug we have to explain NOT ingesting.

Many people shudder at the word "sober" and all the negative connotations it evokes. I know—I was one of them. I haven't had a drink in over four years, and I am beyond grateful every day to discover just how wrong I was about this whole sober thing.

Humans are tribal animals, and as Brene Brown explains, we are biologically, cognitively, physically and spiritually hard-wired to belong. Therefore, it is in our nature to avoid being shunned, labeled or misunderstood. For many of us who have reexamined our relationship with alcohol, we fear that life without booze will be less fun, or worse, that we ourselves will be deemed less fun. We are bombarded with blatant and subliminal messages that keep us drinking even when it no longer serves us. Or worse, keep us stuck in secret cages of shame with clipped wings and silenced voices. Those of us who do manage to find joy, meaning, freedom and connection beyond the beer, wine and spirits are the luckiest of all.

In my experience, saying "no" to alcohol has meant saying "yes" to the better, fuller life I was always meant to lead. Have I lost invites and friends? A few. But I've gained so much more.

I am a wife and a mother of three busy sons. I am part of that demographic Katie mentions who appreciates her clear eyes and un-fogged brain as she helps her parents navigate decline, dementia and additional diagnosis. But it's not just the long, arduous days that I appreciate my clear eyes. It's the every-days.

What would happen if we flipped the script here from "Not drinking is not all bad" to "A life without alcohol is better than I ever imagined."

As author Laura McKowen argues, we often ask ourselves the wrong damn question.

She states: "The typical question is, 'Is this bad enough for me to have to change?'

The question we should be asking is, 'Is this good enough for me to stay the same?'

And the real question underneath it all is, 'Am I free?'"

Narrative shifts like this have the power to change perspectives. Possibly even save some lives. Like mine.

As many of us head into the holiday season—a time of year heavily associated with drinking and socializing—being sober or sober-ish can be intimidating. My message, contrary to the overall one I absorbed here, is that when we quit drinking, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain. We aren't settling for a watered-down existence by not drinking; on the contrary, my glass has never been more full. (And for the record, nothing has taught me more about the company I keep than getting sober.)

Katie, I am a big supporter and fan of fellow female writers and strong voices such as yours. Please reach out. I'd love a two-way chat. It wouldn't be all bad. Perhaps we'd even have a little fun.

Xo.

Jennifer Bridgman

Link to the Wall Street Journal article:

Why Is Everyone 'Sober-ish' All of a Sudden? - WSJ