Sober Community

In almost every town, if not in every town, there’s a sober community made up of people in recovery. Most often it’s people who attend Alcoholics Anonymous, or a church group that provides a sober community for recovering addicts, but sometimes it’s just a group of people who know one another and are all living the sober lifestyle. When a person chooses abstinence from alcohol and other drugs, their lifestyle doesn’t have to change drastically, but going to bars sober is not the same if everyone around you is high.

If, though, you have a network of friends who’ve also chosen abstinence, then going to a nightclub to dance is just as fun, if not more fun. Among people who drink and do drugs, there’s usually the idea that fun’s associated with some type of mood-altering drug, as if we don’t have what it takes naturally to have fun. It’s a very sad statement that human beings require an artificial stimulus to have fun. Not only is it sad, it’s not true.

In larger cities, there are recovery clubs, places where a community of people meet who’re living the sober and clean life. There’s also online sober communities. It’s not a crutch — it’s a chosen association. I often have people who can drink socially with no problem talk as if sobriety is an imposed burden — they believe that living sober is difficult, and that I must miss it and struggle to stay away from it. When I stopped drinking years ago, I thought people who didn’t drink or do some kind of drug were weird, a different kind of animal. I also thought people who had a problem and quit were always tempted. What I found in the sober community were people just like me. They chose to live drug-free. For the most part, the people I met in recovery were well-adjusted, happy and a little wiser as a result of overcoming something that had taken their freedom. They didn’t want to drink or use some other drug — they were satisfied and fulfilled in sobriety.

Freedom was one thing I noticed right away. I was inspired by the idea I didn’t need alcohol. I didn’t have to arrange things around my drinking — I wasn’t spending money I didn’t intend to spend (money I needed to pay bills) — I wasn’t paying legal costs for drinking related offenses — I wasn’t suffering the physical complications of heavy drinking and poor nutrition — I wasn’t letting people down by breaking promises or missing important occasions — I wasn’t expending energy lying, keeping up with the lies and despising myself for the dishonesty.

The sober community is a free community — Some of the best people and best friends I’ve met have been those who had a drug problem and are now living free from alcohol and all other drugs. It doesn’t mean I have no friends or associates who drink — I do, but I don’t have the same mindset as those who still believe that in order to have fun, relax and socialize you have to drink alcohol or use some other mood altering drug. I’m very grateful for this.