Sober Not Somber Hour

Foreign. Hi, Cadre Sphere. It is Jen Varale coming to you live with sober, not somber hour. Y' all ready to cheers with me with whatever beverage you have of choice that is preferably non alcoholic? Today's Bev is. Oh, my gosh. I like, totally match. Wow. Unplanned Prima Pave. This is out of Northern Italy, an absolute favorite brand of mine. Five plus varieties in varying sparkling and still formats. This happens to be a rose. Dolce and Dolce, if you are familiar with Italian, means sweet. So it's a sweet rose.

I haven't had it chilling, so I'm going to cheat. Today I'm adding just a little ice to my glass. But one of the most fun things to do is watch how happy hour gets started. This is an NA beverage, so there you go. We're just gonna like consume it all today. Yeah. So how's everyone doing? Welcome, welcome. Come on in. How's everybody for a Tuesday at 4 o' clock? I myself have been thinking about a couple different things that I want to share with you today. The idea of abstaining from alcohol for a specified period of time.

There is dry January, dry July, sober October. All the things where in our culture actually dry January has been going on. This last 2025 was 12 years. And that practice started in the UK actually. And what I love about those months of commitment to 30 days is that anyone can sort of test out where their relationship with alcohol is over 30 days. Some people make it a couple days and are like, this is impossible. Others continue for the full month or the full 30 days and decide that it's such a good thing they want to continue it.

So one of the books that I want to reference today is Sober Curious, which really around 2018 this book came out by Ruby Warrington and it was one of the first pieces of literature that really looked at empowering people to look at their individual relationship with alcohol. And not from the mindset of black or white addressing am I an alcoholic or not? But simply just saying could I be in the space of being curious about my relationship with alcohol, Which I thought was brilliant. That was brilliant because I had 20 years of active alcohol misuse addiction in my life my late teens through up till about age 40 when I realized I was sober necessary.

So not I didn't really get curious, I just became immediately sober necessary based on some life, unfortunate life consequences that forced me to look at my drinking. But not everyone is like that. There's a definite middle ground where people are likely, you know, a lot of questioning around does alcohol serve me as I thought it did? So this movement, what is that, seven years? Almost six or seven years since 2018 when this came out and really started taking hold on the East Coast. So in New York and in clubs, you know, people started to talk about it, but it really was about an individual relationship with alcohol.

So I talk about this a little bit on a podcast, you guys, that just came out today. Hi, Robert. Lifetime talks. You know, Lifetime, the big corporate fitness company. I had the privilege of talking with two of their hosts, Jamie and David, back in December, and our talk about abstaining and these, like, abstinence challenges for the month. As I mentioned, Sober October, all of those was part of our conversation. So I will link to that if you want to give that a further listen. But what it reminded me of is the back and forth with understanding that just quitting alcohol cold turkey.

I've seen it done. I've seen people do it. I have seen it. That is so good. I've seen people do was not for me. I found that I struggled with it, and I needed to. I actually ended up having a couple returns to use because I just couldn't figure out how to rid alcohol out of my life. And what I love about the Sober Curious movement is it starts people, you know, really thinking about their individual relationship with alcohol. And then what I love about modern day is that we are talking about how our social spaces can support us differently.

And one of the things that tripped me up in my returns to use several of them was I couldn't be in a social setting. I couldn't go to, like, a happy hour or be with friends in a bar or restaurant where alcohol was so centralized and then expected to make a different choice. Yeah. So my work, if you follow me on Instagram, Sober Not Somber, is all about the social spaces that we are in and making change in those spaces so that people who choose not to drink for whatever reason, can belong. What's everyone drinking and drinking anything right now?

Maybe you're driving home after work. Maybe you're just looking for some downtime. Yeah, I. I don't. I'm really curious to hear where this community is at with their relationship with alcohol. And when we talk about, like, what that month of abstinence does, for the most part, what I would hear people talk about is they were able to refrain for a month. They did not, you know, successfully did not drink alcohol, but they mostly stayed home. They didn't do the social things they needed to do. They didn't go to weddings or Things they were invited to, they maybe said no to if they were serious about maintaining their sobriety.

And one of the things that I encourage people to do during those 30 day breaks of abstinence, if you are considering, is to really try to integrate into some of the social spaces you would typically go to and in places that you typically see alcohol and test those out. Because that's really where the decision making and the commitment to sobriety can just fall, fall by the wayside, like real quick if you don't have a supported community or an environment to make a better choice. So yeah, I am sober necessary.

I know a whole host of friends that have become sober curious and especially as we age and realize the toxicity that the ethanol from alcohol in our body creates. It's huge. It's huge. So. So there are all sorts of health reasons and benefits to become sober curious so that you can test out what your physical, mental health, all of that look like without alcohol. Then you know what, you can make a decision and you might go back to it. You might go back to it for months. But the beautiful thing about it is if you have tried that and abstained for one of those months, you have some sort of reference point to come back to.

And a lot of people, you know, with my 20 years of active addiction didn't, didn't have that. I had no reference point of what that would look like, you know, for a longer sustained period of time. So encouraging to do all the things dry. July is coming up. Gosh, you got like a couple months to think about doing that. If it is something you are curious about or like someone in your life, a family member or friend that you see as maybe struggling, maybe you could reach out and support them during that month with some social activities.

Inviting. I know my friends invited me to coffee and yoga and like other things that didn't centralize around alcohol and that was huge. So either for yourself or if you're supporting someone who might need to look at their drinking habits, any of those months are great. Just dive right in and again, just shout out Prima Pave. It's one of my favorite NA products. Again, made in Italy, zero percent alcohol by volume. Absolutely delicious and perfect for a spring happy hour. Thanks all. Have a great rest of your Tuesday.

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