Sober Curious

The message from both the online porn industry and the app-fueled hookup culture is that to be sexually confident and highly sexually active are part of what equals success as an adult human

The first thing, Roxo says, “is to acknowledge the nerves and anxiety. To know that it’s okay to say to your partner, ‘I’m feeling really nervous.’” Which is about as vulnerable as it gets

After all, aren’t the shyness and inhibitions we’re taught it’s “liberating” to wash away with alcohol, and that Susan Cain says we’ve developed a cultural aversion to, actually nature’s way of helping us practice discernment

He thought it was attractive and admired me for the courage to make a lifestyle change when that lifestyle wasn’t working for me.”
Apps like Tinder and Bumble have given rise to an era of casual, often booze-fueled hookups, but the basic human needs and insecurities at play remain the same. Whether canvassing for a potential life partner or a plain old fuck buddy, we want to be perceived as smart, confident, and most definitely not as if we might be hiding an extra head, might in some way be shamefully other.
We got into all this at a SÖDA event titled “Sex, Lies & Alcohol”—which at the time drew our biggest turnout to date, despite it being the middle of August when the myth is that most New Yorkers are off swigging rosé in the Hamptons. Turns out they’re not. They’re still running around the city, neurotically swiping right (or not, and instead pondering how the hell you used to meet anyone before there were apps for that).
My SÖDA cofounder, the spiritual teacher Biet Simkin, had this to say about drunk dating: “If you’re in it for anything serious, it’s the same as going on a job interview. And would you get wasted before that?” The implication being that not only will you not be presenting yourself in the best possible light, you’ll also walk away with little idea as to whether you negotiated for what you’re worth. Let alone be in any fit state to size up the real potential of your date

He thought it was attractive and admired me for the courage to make a lifestyle change when that lifestyle wasn’t working for me

Remember that your choice is a privilege . . . and also that it’s not your job to judge others. If you find yourself going there, stop, observe, and ask what their behavior is triggering in you

Rosie Boycott writes in A Nice Girl Like Me: “Sure, booze was providing my excitement, because it was inducing chaos. I’d be swinging into a bender, out of it, through a period of furtive but controlled drinking and then back to chaos again by getting almighty drunk. I’d forgotten, in the interim, that whatever feelings of happiness or sadness I had were just as powerful when left alone. More powerful, because they were real.”

If you’re a regular drinker, the alcohol itself (or rather, the lingering toxic aftereffects) could be the reason. And if you’re used to drinking to feel good, alcohol highs will have become way more familiar and predictable, and therefore easy to manage, than the ecstatic full-body chills you may find yourself experiencing

Unexpectedly, as my Sober Curiosity progressed, a more sinister pattern also emerged. The more naturally joyous, exuberant, and buzzed I felt on life, the “higher” I got on my own supply, the stronger my cravings for a drink became. Partly because I associated feeling this way with being drunk, I guess. Because my euphoric recall was triggered. But also, I came to realize, because these feelings felt as volatile and uncomfortable to me as the miserable ones

Brené Brown: “Numbing vulnerability also dulls our experience of love, joy, belonging, creativity, and empathy. We can’t selectively numb emotion. Numb the dark and you numb the light.”