Sober in September: The Stigma of an Alcohol-Free Social Life

My name is Mick Nugget, and I’m a 27-year-old man attempting to go three months without touching alcohol. Well, consuming alcohol, that is—I guess touching it is technically fine. Why am I doing this? Society pressures people like me to drink because it’s considered normal. I wanted to know what would happen if I did the abnormal?

You’re probably thinking, ‘Ok, here comes another sob story about a recovering alcoholic.’ But, I’m not that guy who drinks alone every day after work, the one who wakes up with the urge to crack a beer and delay a hangover or the one who drinks until blacking out at a bar or party to feel buzzed and numb. Instead, I feel like drinking is so deeply ingrained into the social lives of people in their 20s, especially in urban environments, that I feared I wouldn’t last a quarter of a year without alcohol. 

I have long associated drinking with having fun with friends. I wanted to see if I’d still be able to have fun if I eliminated alcohol from my lifestyle and held everything else constant. If I couldn’t, that would be a problem.

So, I started September 1st, and the first month wasn’t bad at all. It essentially consisted of five weekends or ten Fridays and Saturdays that required me to consciously turn down drinks at bars and parties or to choose not to go out at all. At the same time, continuing this behavior for three months without even one sip of beer, wine, or cheap rum mixed with mango juice (my personal favorite) will be much tougher. I’m trying to get to a point where there is no fear of missing out (FOMO) when I stay dry at a party, brunch, or bar. At this stage, that feat is still easier said than done.

Here’s a snapshot of my encounters and lessons learned during my sober September.

Friday, August 31: Three months? Why not.

This entry is longer because it provides context, so bear with me. I took two non-consecutive months off drinking last year—September and November—but part of me looked forward to drinking again throughout both of those months. I did cheat in November, though, by eating an apple pie Jell-O shot that I knew contained alcohol. It was great, but was my lapse in self-control worth it? I feel like there is always an excuse to drink—birthdays, New Years, St. Patrick’s Day, 4th of July, game day, you name it.

My decision this year to stay sober three straight months from September through November was pretty spontaneous. To help myself commit, I posted on Instagram that I wouldn’t be drinking until December 1st and listed a bunch of reasons why, some more true than others. I don’t have a massive social media following so it’s not like paparazzi would be all over me if I broke my pledge and have a drink.

Real talk though, why am I actually doing this? I want to achieve my self-prescribed goal because I tend to suck at keeping commitments and meeting deadlines in my professional and social life. When I overcommit, I always let people down and it’s depressing. This challenge is largely about accountability. I know I can go three months without alcohol even though it’s not particularly enjoyable. If I want to improve my ability to keep commitments to others, I need to start by proving to myself that I can do what I say I can do.

Is that what I said on Instagram? No. On Instagram, I said I was taking a break from drinking to:

• Save money while in grad school before I start working (true, but doesn’t justify going cold turkey)
• Build meaningful relationships in my new city, New York, where I know few people (true)
• Be productive—not hungover—on weekends as I catch up on classwork and other responsibilities (not really true)
• Stay healthy (meh)
• And embrace that I don’t need to drink because I can already be a bit goofy, absent-minded, and klutzy (a.k.a. drunk) even without alcohol’s assistance (true, but that facetious self-deprecating portrait alone certainly wouldn’t convince me to go sober).

The financial factor is a very real concern. Contrary to my college town, Madison, Wisconsin, NYC ain’t cheap and right now I have no inflow of dough. After reviewing my expenses, I confirmed my hunch that I was leaking money from buying alcohol and crappy meals amid nights out. Drinks and my home liquor stash are luxury expenses, not necessary expenses like food, transportation, housing, or Tide-to-Go pens. Because my parents are loaning me some money for tuition, I feel guilty spending it on booze.

My brother, Eggwin Mick Muffin, (yes, his middle name is my first name and we have different last names… and yes, our father’s name is Ronald McDonald) questioned the timing of my temporary libation cessation. He asked if I was sure I wanted to hit snooze on the booze right when I started my grad program. I’m guessing he was hinting that sharing a drink with my new classmates would be a good way to break the ice. If I was the odd man out, I knew I’d immediately have to justify my behavior and avoid the perception that I’m just a goodie two shoes who judges everyone for drinking. I have no regrets, but Egg was right.

On the other hand, my desire for meaningful social ties that don’t depend on alcohol is probably the most motivating factor from the list on Instagram. I wanted to make new friends for the right reasons, not just because we got hammered together once and think we had a good time.

Friday, September 7: The inevitable big hairy question: “Why aren’t you drinking?”

Amid me trying to get out of my comfort zone to see if I could have meaningful social relationships without leaning on alcohol as a crutch, I needed an easy answer to why I wasn’t drinking. So, naturally, I lied out of convenience. We’ll get to that.

My first weekend was with my family in Massachusetts, and I knew it was going to be a breeze not to drink with them. My parents are the last people to question healthy lifestyle changes I choose to take and my older siblings seemed supportive, too. Then, things became more difficult when I went out with my classmates, who were basically strangers at the time. I always find it tougher to explain my behavior to strangers because I might never see them again. For whatever reason, I care about these encounters, perhaps worrying that I am cementing people’s only memory of me.

I had signed up to go on a Hudson River cruise with my classmates after our first week of class. The cruise was tons of fun, as it featured breathtaking views of the Manhattan skyline and landmarks like the Statue of Liberty, an endless buffet, giant Jenga, a DJ and dance floor, and—of course—an open bar. The only downside was that I felt the need to hide and whisper every time I asked for water with a lime at the bar. I added the lime because I thought it would help my water pass as an alcoholic drink and therefore draw less attention to my sobriety.

When I went out to bars afterward with three new friends, things only got weirder. It may have been in my head, but there seemed to be more attention on me not drinking, especially from one incredibly nice but inquisitive—and, yes, slightly drunk—girl. I tried telling dad jokes to quell my perceived unease within our fireside lounge chairs at the bar. The jokes were hit or miss… mostly miss. I noticed myself gulping my water glass and looking away whenever things got awkward. Yeah, I was hella hydrated that night.

When asked about my reasons for not drinking, my responses ranged. First I said I was trying to save money. Then, I made up a story about pledging a sobriety pact to help a friend in Chicago who was looking for support as she took the month off drinking. I’m not exactly sure where things nosedived from there, but at some point I excused myself from further tanking that night.

Although it gets easier to avoid drinking the longer you abstain, I found that sobriety carries a noticeable stigma among my peers: childless, unmarried, millennials who are either employed with quality jobs or at least not living in poverty. This is true in New York and was the case in my previous home, Washington, D.C. Basically, people tend to think it’s weird not to drink and constantly ask you to justify your behavior. It’s especially noticeable on weekends and at bars and parties. But it feels next to impossible to have a social life in a big city if you skip out on the bars and nightlife flooded with alcohol.

To me, drinking is a default behavior on evenings and weekends because people tend to ask why you’re not drinking, and never why you are.

The thing about not drinking when everyone else is drinking is that you have to deal with difficult situations head-on instead of conveniently masking any problems you’re facing beneath a comfortable alcohol blanket. So, you begin to question things. Why am I still at this bar? Shouldn’t I be asleep right now? Are these people friends who I’d spend time with if we weren’t drinking? Why do these annoying questions keep coming up when my thoughts aren’t clouded by alcohol? Does everyone have to endure this introspective nonsense like me? Does alcohol make me happy or hide my depressing realizations? Am I satisfied with the direction my life is going?

While I don’t remember much about the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program propaganda I learned in grade school, one line still sticks with me: Drugs don’t solve your problems, they just close the blinds on them.

Saturday, September 8: Not so smart swapping.

In my current public health classes, we studied how taxes on soda may reduce soda consumption, but people will likely substitute their soda with something just as bad, like candy or sweet tea, instead of switching to a healthier alternative. I also know that people tend to overcompensate for calorie-cutting behaviors, like exercise or drinking diet sodas, by eating more than they normally would because people feel like they’ve earned themselves extra calories. I’m guilty of this. As someone who loves good food, I made up for not drinking with another unhealthy vice: stuffing my face with junk food.

After a less-than-ideal first sober night out in NYC Friday, I sought redemption the next night. I went out with my friend Jack a couple blocks from my apartment and had an easy excuse not to drink at first because everyone was headed for a new bar. We zipped to a bar in the West Village. After buying a vodka soda for Jack and a virgin gin and tonic for myself, I felt relieved because Jack told me he knew I wasn’t drinking and didn’t care. He had seen my post on Instagram and told me I didn’t have to hide my lifestyle change.

What does this have to do with junk food? Well after that bar, we stopped at another bar, Down the Hatch, and two members of our group shared an order of Atomic Wings. When I saw the late-night menu, my eyes lit up because food offered a welcome distraction from the monotonous cups of water I’d been guzzling. After carefully scrutinizing the cost, nutritional content, and types of food on the menu, I settled on the breakfast platter pictured below.

It was far from healthy, but also my first time seeing something like that offered at a bar before, so I bit on it (literally). Soon after, I headed home but fell victim to another late-night food option: $2 greasy potato knishes and french fries. I devoured it all as a reward for my otherwise healthy night, but still got home ridiculously late and my stomach paid for it in the morning.

Saturday, September 15: Jokes are still funny without alcohol, mostly.

Two grad program classmates and one of my undergrad fraternity brothers, Terrance, came with me to a comedy show in an Italian restaurant wine cellar. My classmates, Brandon and Ava, were a bit thrown off by the fact that I invited them to my house and offered them drinks, but didn’t drink any myself. But it was no big deal. We then went to the comedy show and were forced to sit in the front row because we were a bit late—story of my life. I knew that meant lots of eye contact, interactions and potentially fake laughter, which could have been a little more bearable if I had knocked back a few cold ones earlier.

Like other times alcohol surrounded me last month, I felt the urge to just give in and get a drink, but resisted. Besides the friends I came with, everyone in the room was a stranger, so I thought: “Who cares if they see me as some lame weirdo? It’s a comedy club full of them after all.” Luckily, the comedians were funny and made me laugh naturally, *cough* except for the one Cuban guy who kept trying to get people to laugh uncomfortably at Cuban stereotypes *cough, cough*. Maybe I’ll turn this experiment into a stand-up routine one day.

My favorite joke was from Melissa Diaz who talked about her experience going to an art museum on hallucinogens. She said it’s a perfect situation because she can stay as long as she wants just zoning out until some hoity-toity wannabe art critic stops by and asks why she’s so captivated by that particular artwork. The comedian told the art snob: “Why am I so drawn to this painting? It’s telling me that if I blink too hard, I might teleport.” You Anyway, we all went to a nearby bar afterward and hung out until 2 a.m. afterward. I had a really good time that night because the focus was not exclusively on drinking.

Sunday, September 30: Oh, it’s been a month? I honestly didn’t notice…

My final weekend of September was really fun. While I didn’t set foot in a bar this weekend, I enjoyed a picnic in Central Park Saturday with Terrence and two of his friends, where we ate delicious snacks, overheard the nearby Global Citizen Festival for free (featuring performances by Cardi B, The Weekend, John Legend and Shawn Mendez), played an overly aggressive game of soccer in the dark—spoiler alert I was the sober and overly aggressive one—and talked about everything from racism in healthcare settings to how Terrance wished our haze-free fraternity had a more treacherous pledging process.

Terrance and his friends were drinking beer and wine the entire time, but didn’t question me when I said I was good with water. Seeing our soccer ball roll through all of the picnic food and then seeing Terrance’s friend Roxy slip on the dirt after whiffing on a pass (sorry to bring it up!) were far more entertaining than any drunken night I could have had anyway. When the picnic wrapped up around 9 p.m. It would have been nice to stay out, but I chose not to because I had an essay to write and was carrying a cooler’s worth of food, soccer balls, and frisbees.

The final day of September, I hosted four friends for an Italian cooking lesson. They had a few beers from my fridge, but our focus that evening was not on drinking. Rather, we were on a mission to craft a bounty of delicious dishes, including tagliatelle and pumpkin ravioli made from scratch, two pizzas crafted from homemade dough, homemade marinara and meatballs, and eggplant parmesan. As someone who loves to cook, eat, and hang out with friends, the experience was wonderful. Washing mountains of dishes afterward without a dishwasher? Not so much. That reminds me, still have to vacuum the flour out of my carpet…

The Journey Continues: Striving Toward Commitment and Self-Awareness

Overall, the first month of my three months of sobriety was a good start and boosted my sense of self-awareness. I learned I can have a good time with friends in purely social settings—not study sessions or breakroom encounters at work—without the assistance of any liquid courage.

Still, the prospect of continuing to turn down drinks seems daunting. I may be tempted to replace libations with other unhealthy pleasurable vices like fried food (damn those $1 french fries), marijuana, shopping sprees, meaningless hookups or even excessive exercise. Nobody is perfect. I may be drawn to healthy interests like reading, creative writing, filmmaking, and cooking new cuisines instead of spending time around alcohol. After all, I wrote this blog post and made my own pasta, right?

For all the progress I’m making, I’m honestly still thinking about how it doesn’t sound fun to go to a Halloween party with no intention of drinking alcohol. I mean, what if there’s a spooky green martini with a lychee fruit floating inside that looks like an eyeball? I need to remind myself that I can always say no. I want to prove to me and nobody else that I can keep the promises I make to myself. If I can keep my self-made promises, any future responsibility will seem like a piece of cake after that.

 

 

Editor: Jing Wu

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