Alcohol-free talk wasn't always so free.

Now vs Then

The early years of @thesoberglow

In March 2018, a literary agency contacted me, inquiring if I had ever considered writing a book. Up until that very moment, I had not. Not because I didn’t like writing but because I never once considered myself a writer, nor did I have any desire to write a book. So when she asked, of course, my ego was amused and curious. I ended up having multiple conversations with this agency and was sent a contract to sign, but once I had it in my hands, I couldn’t bring myself to sign it. It sat on my kitchen table for days, then weeks. I had been excited enough to contact several author friends for advice and hire a writing coach for this new adventure. However, after the agency sent multiple emails asking where the contract was, they finally sent an email stating they were going in another direction. Was I unprofessional and avoidant? Totally. But the relief I felt was telling, and I knew I did the right thing. I just wish I would have handled it better.

I never regretted saying no, but I often wondered what would have happened had I said yes. Over that same year, I was approached by two more small publishers, who I passed along to friends I knew were interested in writing books.

It wasn’t until September of the following year when an agent connected to a Big Five invited me to talk with her. Again, curiosity and excitement kicked in, mostly from my ego. Not five minutes into the conversation, I knew the opportunity to work with one of the Big Five publishing houses was over. It didn’t take much time to know she was only looking at the numbers behind my social account and knew nothing about me and my story. This is funny because, at the time, I probably had less than 20K followers, which today is relatively low. Today, you do one dance video, and you accumulate 20K in a day. Anyway, that’s beside the point.

The point is, she asked me to write a book (ok, cool), and then told me I would have a ten-week deadline (wow, that seems fast), and the title of said book would be - Soberish (come again?).

“I’m sorry, what?” I said.

She repeated herself with more emphasis on the ending, “SoberISH.”

“Wait, you know who I am and what I write about, right? (please know I did not say this in a douchy way, but in actual confusion, like maybe her assistant gave her my info, and she never looked me up, kind of confusion).

I laughed, stumbled a bit, and finally spit out, “I’m sorry, but if I put my name on a book titled Soberish, I would be destroyed.”

Now, I could sense her confusion in the silence.

I don’t remember much else about that phone call other than asking if there was wiggle room on the title and timeline. Her answer, though not concrete, was not at all reassuring. She offered me some time to consider her proposal and to contact her later in the week.

The following morning, I wrote this:

I want to note that this book was never published in 2019/2020; if it was, I never heard about it. That said, four years to the day, from my email, on September 12th, 2023, a different publishing company released a book by Kayla Lyons titled Soberish.

The times are changing, baby! Scratch that - the times have changed!

I want to repeat that it was the end of 2019 when I said I would be destroyed if I put my name on a book titled Soberish. That was barely five years ago! But here we are, and the landscape of sober/alcohol-free conversations is wildly different. Not only in its popularity but, more importantly, in its inclusivity. And that is directly related to more and more people not being afraid to tell their story of how and why they quit, especially when it has nothing to do with addiction.

Even though I was one of the first people online to openly talk about how I quit drinking sans a physical addiction or someone who considered herself to be in recovery, I was still in fear of what people would think, say, or do if I was connected to the word soberish. Sadly, that’s what the world of social media was like just a few years ago.

In my experience, people were very protective of their stories and how or why they got sober, which everyone has the right to do and should do. The problem I experienced was there was very little wiggle room for anyone else to have anything that deviated from the narrative that if you quit, it was because you were an alcoholic, and if you didn’t attend a step program, you were in denial. And good luck if you were going to talk (write) about it from any other perspective.

I’ve never liked it when people seem to believe that to hold their own beliefs, they have to make others wrong for having different ones.

Most people I know in real life who see themselves in addiction recovery are not like this. However, as we all know, the online world is a totally different ballgame. I wouldn’t say I received overtly threatening or hateful messages, but some were borderline. For example, the woman who wrote on my IG page accusing me of lying about my blatant addiction and that my husband was going to leave me, and I would be on the streets drinking soon enough. Or multiple messages along the lines of how my account and my messaging were dangerous to people in recovery. Or even the time I found myself at an event with other women who didn’t drink, and I was cornered by one (a quit lit author herself) who quizzed me in an accusatory way on my quit story and the legitimacy of it. While that was going on, others were talking shit about how an online blogger we all knew who had written X amount of posts about alcohol was “obviously an alcoholic” because of all her time spent writing on alcohol. Then there were the hit pieces written by people who didn’t like others who were talking about sobriety in any way other than the way they felt was correct. And the policing of language and terms that happened all the time because they were not deemed to be used precisely and perfectly. Oh man, and the shit that I received years ago when I started referring to my “alcohol-free lifestyle” and my hashtag #soberfortheHEALTHofit.

So yeah, the landscape of the alcohol-free/sober world is vastly different now, and thank goodness!

I wanted to write about this because someone I like and follow on IG, Katie of Soberishmom, was featured last week in a New York Times article titled Not Drunk, Not Dry: What It Means to Be 'Soberish.' It was a wonderful reminder of how far we have come in breaking through this once very rough and rocky era to become more inclusive of anyone and everyone who wants to quit, question, or explore sobriety on their own terms and for reasons as unique as the individual making these choices.

How ridiculously boring would it be if we all expressed ourselves the same way, had the same experience, were on the same timeline, and were in the same place as everyone, everywhere, all the time?!

Warmly,

M.

From the archive of thesoberglow July 8th, 2017.