Creature of Community

How the first Alcohol-Free Adventure Retreat was born.

Sea of Cortez. Fall 2018. Image via Erin Merritt.

Yellowknife, Canada. Winter 2020. Image via Erin Merritt.

Some of you may know that back in 2018, I made a reasonably impulsive decision to host an alcohol-free adventure retreat. At the time, I was relatively new to sobriety (three years), new to Los Angeles (one year), and very much in a mood to meet as many sober women as I could (always).

My first year of sobriety was in NYC, and I pretty much kept to myself and my inner circle.  At the end of that first year of not drinking, I started The Sober Glow IG account, and from there, I became more determined to make friends who would rather go out and do an activity than drink.

It was the winter of 2016/2017, and I invited the readers of my IG account to join me in a “quit-lit” book club and an in-person meetup in a dreamy little attic space that I rented out in Soho. That very first gathering was the sweetest thing, and the cozy mood was enhanced even more by the fact that a snowstorm was taking place all around us. That book club became a thing and was active well after I had left NYC for LA.

Once in LA, I formed a West Coast book club that originated in my home with yet another IG invitation (looking back, I would never do this again, nor do I recommend it!). Thankfully, we moved the meetups into a friend’s lady gang garage, which was much more sensible.

Inviting the authors to join us in the discussion made these book clubs special. We were lucky enough to get Lisa Smith (Girl Walks Out of a Bar), Ruby Warrington (Material Girl, Mystical World), Anna David (How To Get Successful, By F*cking Up Your Life), Amy Dresner (My Fair Junkie), Kristi Coulter (Nothing Good Can Come From This) and one that was online, Amanda Eyre Ward and Jardine Libaire (The Sober Lush).

Also, while new to LA, a few of us sober ladies started getting together and doing big weekend hikes—think Mt. Wilson, not Runyon Canyon. These hikes led to an invitation to hike Mt. Whitney on my three-year soberversary. The experience was similar to inviting strangers from the internet to my home for a book club. Hiking Mt Whitney was memorable, but it was also risky, and I would never do it again!

Fast-forward to summer 2018. I’m looking around online for a retreat I could attend that was full of activities and less focused on drinking. At the time, the only alcohol-free retreats were being led by Dawn Nickel and Taryn Strong, the mother-daughter duo of She Recovers. While I greatly respected these women and their work in the recovery community, recovery work wasn’t exactly what I was looking for.  

The next best thing I could think of was a fitness-focused retreat. I considered one led by an uber-popular NYC instructor because I thought that alcohol may be less of a thing and that being surrounded by women who may be drinking but are health-focused would be easier to navigate. However, I quickly became privy to the overconsumption of alcohol and the underconsumption of food that took place on said retreat, and I was thankful I saved a lot of money and disappointment by choosing not to sign up.

Back to the drawing board.

Initially, I wanted to find a retreat similar to the outdoor adventure retreat I took in 2014 when I was still drinking.

And that’s when it clicked for me.

“Yes!”

I remember on the last day of that trip, the guide mentioned they would put together private trips and to reach out if we wanted to get a group of our friends together. At the time, I didn’t think twice about it. But now, four years later, a light went on. Without any further thought, I emailed the company with my story and requested an alcohol-free trip. That same day, I was contacted by the head guide, who serendipitously was also sober and absolutely loved the idea. And the very first alcohol-free adventure retreat was born.

After that first retreat, I did three more, including one that took 18 of us to the Northern Territories of Canada for an out-of-this-world northern lights show via Mama Nature. It was extraordinary!

We landed back in the States on March 3rd, 2020. Within ten days, the world started shutting down, and any future retreats I had already planned were put on hold indefinitely.

Until now!

Next week, I am visiting the site where the next Sober Glow Retreat will take place, and I can’t wait to share all the details here. Shockingly, this location is unlike the others I have picked in the past—so much so that I was even surprised at how much I fell for it.

Let’s just say there will be running water and proper toilets!!

Sea of Cortez. Fall 2014. Pictured here: Me, not sober. Hoping to be happy, but knowing I was anything but.

Sea of Cortez, Fall 2018. Feeling very much alive and aligned with my purpose. Image via Erin Merritt.

Below, I invite you to share your thoughts on retreats. Alcohol-free or not. What do you like? What do you not like? What would your perfect retreat look like?

xx, Mia