I’ve taken part in quite a few fads over the years. Hammer pants come to mind. I once had a mood ring on every finger. In college I drank Zima with jolly ranchers (if you know you know). In other words, I can be persuaded by the new “it” thing that is going to make me feel good, look good, and most importantly “fit in.”

During a phase of my childhood I can remember my dad making this drink in our dining room. It was from a mushroom and it had to ferment for a long period of time. It was stinky and there were always gnats flying around and I wondered why he would want to drink something so gross. He described it as healing. This “tea” as he called it, would help with everything from his arthritis to making him look and feel younger. After a while though, he didn’t really see the benefits that he was promised and the amount of work that went into making it outweighed the rewards. The tea making went to the wayside, along with my hammer pants, and whatever else that was “in” during that time period. It wasn’t until a few years ago when I heard about this “tea” once again. It’s called Kombucha.

Like kombucha, sobriety makes a lot of promises. More and more people are interested. There are a lot of reasons that sobriety is appealing. Especially if you are close to my age. As we age into our forties things can feel hard enough with work, parenting, family obligations, stress, etc. Spending the day in bed with a hangover is not only awful but, for many of us, it’s undoable. We have too much shit to do. The days are gone where drinking all night and sleeping all day is acceptable. There were a number of times when I had to plan for my hangover. I had childcare lined up after a big night or I woke up and sat the kids in front of the tv until I could drink enough coffee to function.

Sobriety is also appealing for health reasons. Information about how bad gluten, sugar, carbs, sun exposure, chemicals in our household products, and more can be found in an instant. We are more aware of the dangers then our parents were about the things that we put into our bodies. Alcohol is a carcinogen and is linked to tons of health problems. The more the word gets out about this the more people are turned off.

It’s not just addiction. The benefits of not drinking alcohol are plentiful. For me, most of the promises have come true. My life is more fullfilled, I have made more friends, I have more energy, less mental health issues, wonderful sleep, healthy looking skin, and that feeling that I always know what I’m doing and saying never ever gets old.

If sobriety is a fad then I’m all in. Sign me up for the t shirts and the coffee mugs (oh, I already have those). Like kombucha, I don’t see this one going away any time soon. People have stepped out of the anonymous rooms of AA and are sharing the beauty of living alcohol free for the world to see. Celebrities are making mocktails because they no longer want to feel tipsy from alcohol. Women are bashing mommy wine culture and demanding that we send a better message. People are done drinking for so many reasons aside from addiction. That’s not a bad thing.

We are waking up to the lies. We don’t need alcohol to help us socialize. How about we grab a good friend and make sure that we only go to events that we like attending. We don’t need alcohol to sleep. We can exercise, read, drink relaxing tea with actual health benefits. We don’t need alcohol to take the edge off. We can go to therapy to figure out why the edge is there to begin with and then heal. We don’t need alchol to have fun. Our bodies are great at letting us have fun if just stop filling them with chemicals that alter everything.

Maybe drinking was the fad. Drinking, being sloppy and wasted, forgetting periods of time, slurring speech, stumbling, hangxiety, regret, and blacking out seems like old news. I think sobriety is replacing the old, outdated, unhealthy habit that we once had to rely on to survive.