Have you ever thought about your relationship with alcohol? I certainly have. Even more so since the beginning of COVID when it was easy to sit at home and drink.

Today I have 30 days sober from wine and cigarettes, something that hasn’t happened for me since January of 2017. So I thought it was a perfect time to share a part of my life I’ve been exploring!

For the past two years I’ve been re-examining my relationship with alcohol and I just now feel ready to write about it…somewhat.

I want to document this experience and what I’ve been learning because it’s some pretty important stuff. At least for me anyway.

But first things first…

What does being sober-curious mean?

Have you ever thought about what it might be like to be sober? But you don’t feel ready to go all or nothing?

Sober curiosity is just that – getting curious about what sobriety is and exploring what it could look like for you.

If you’ve ever questioned your drinking habit, wondered what life would be like without alcohol, or find yourself drinking more often than you’d like to, the sober curious movement is a way to educate yourself about alcohol and how it affects your brain and body without having to sign up for a lifetime of sobriety ASAP.

I think getting curious about alcohol and how you use it in your life is a big part of getting to know yourself and loving yourself.

Sober curiosity is for people who are interested in learning more about alcohol, how it affects our brains and our bodies, and what role it plays in our lives and society. To be sober curious you don’t have to be 100% committed to a lifestyle of sobriety. It’s simply just getting curious!

When I first started feeling weird about alcohol

It was 2016 and I was living in Philadelphia working at a branding and marketing agency that solely operated in the liquor and beer industries. After working there for 3 years I started to feel weird about marketing an addictive substance. I knew I had to leave. At that point, I wasn’t really concerned about my own alcohol consumption but I was aware enough to acknowledge that I felt complicit in encouraging addiction, even if it wasn’t directly.

What I like about the sober-curious movement

The sober-curiosity movement allows you to explore your relationship with alcohol without having to identify as an alcoholic or requiring you to become sober for the rest of your life.

It’s a way to start talking about alcohol in a way that isn’t shrouded in shame or fear. It helps me to explore how alcohol affects me physically, mentally, and emotionally, and helps me to make more informed decisions around the role alcohol plays in my life.

Why I’m sober-curious

There are actually a few reasons!

• The older I’ve gotten, the more alcohol has come to affect my anxiety and depression.
• I’ve noticed that my memory and brain work better when I’m not drinking regularly.
• Consuming that much sugar has affected me physically – hangovers are MUCH worse than they used to be and it causes my skin to break out.
• When I’m not drinking my creativity comes back. And I have more energy to do things I love – like writing on this blog, photography, walks in nature, drawing, reading, creating, dreaming.

So what does all of this mean?

Right now I have no idea if I’ll choose 100% sobriety for the rest of my life. Who knows? I can’t answer that question right now. Currently, my plans are to do Sober October (I also did Sober September) and see how I feel at the end of the month.

After therapy this week, I realized it’s okay not to have an answer to that question just yet. Who knows how I’ll feel after 2 months of being alcohol-free…who knows how I’ll feel in 6 months! It’s okay to not know the future.