For the second year I’m partaking in Dry January. This year I’m taking it a little step further by exploring the world of sober curiosity. Now, I’m not saying I’m going to be sober or teetotal but I am very curious about living a more sober life and what that means.
I’m still 28 and having always been a massive lightweight, I’m looking into it to see if I can understand it more – maybe even, I don’t know, learn how to handle my drink or at least feel empowered enough to skip a round and not feel the need to ‘keep up’. I should note here that there is in no way, shape, or form of anyone pressuring me to ‘keep up’ or have another, it’s a pressure I put on myself for some bizarre, unknown reason.
Sober Curiosity
On my second Dry January, I got to thinking. What if this time instead of just completing the sober month, I try and learn a bit more from it. It’s great to give the liver a break after Christmas, but how about actually trying to find that empowerment to say ‘You know what, I’ll skip this round’. So I did what most millennials do, I searched instagram for inspiration of what to do.
The first thing was figuring out what being ‘Sober Curious’ actually means. A quick Google of that helped my discover that being ‘Sober Curious’ is the act of drinking less or not at all for personal or wellness reasons. ‘Sober Curious’ was actually first coined by Ruby Warrington, author of the 2018 book ‘Sober Curious‘, so it is not in any way a new word or movement. Just one that is new to me.
After discovering Ruby and her book, I decided to look more into what books were out there. #QuitLit is the latest trending hashtag on instagram accompanied by Dry January and Sober Curious these days. After discovering what exactly #QuitLit was and how it fitted into Dry January, I discover that there are loads of books available on the subject. So I did what most people do, went with the books that had the best reviews on Instagram and the internet, added them to my bag and waited for them to arrive. The irony of all this of course being that I bought these books after a few wines on evening during the festive period.
So what did I go for?
The books in questions are: ‘Quit Like A Women: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol‘ by Holly Whitaker, ‘The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober’ by Catherine Grey, and ‘The Sober Girl Society Handbook‘ by Millie Gooch.
I’ve started with ‘Quit Like a Women’, which doesn’t just talk about giving up or lessening our alcohol intake, but takes a feminist look at drinking culture and how in a world growingly obsessed with health and wellness we seem to turn a blind eye to alcohol’s ubiquity.
So far I am enjoying the book and looking forward to reading the rest. But I am curious, have any of you read these books or tried bing sober curious? Leave a comment below or on my instagram.
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