When Sobriety Becomes a Trap
I had what I thought would be my last sip of alcohol on August 15, 2022. For the 7 years prior, I had been a weekend drinker. I rarely drank during the week, but Saturdays were all-out. Typically 10-30 drinks. I’d start around noon and often pair it with a party drug or stimulant to allow me to drink until midnight.
It had subtly become a part of the “work hard, play hard” lifestyle so often promoted within startups and sales orgs. We’re going to work long hours, but also have a keg in the office and pop champagne at the end of every quarter. It had quietly become a way to escape from the pressure, stress, and anxiety that I subjected myself to in high-speed sales.
I never blacked out and was always “in control.” Which just meant I held it together to where you’d never know how intoxicated I was. The problem wasn’t only the consumption. It was why I was doing it in the first place. I was feeling more and more disconnected and misaligned in my life, and I had no idea how to deal with it. I didn’t even know how misaligned I was.
So alcohol became a socially acceptable escape hatch. A way to seemingly release and let go of all that pressure and weight I wore every day. But it never fully worked. And I didn’t know yet that the whole reason I was drinking was to escape—not to “have fun” as it appeared on the surface.
In November 2020, a few months after my first moment of awakening (when I had immense clarity on why I was suffering), I was trying to launch a clothing business after being fired from my corporate sales job. And I decided to cut back on drinking alcohol. I intended to cut the habit of Saturday binge-drinking and only drink at weddings, special events, or major holidays surrounded by family.
And over the course of the next 2 years, I did it.
I went from 20 drinks to 15 to 10 to 6 to 3 to 1. Then I’d skip a weekend. Then I’d skip a month. I even went to a bachelor party for one of my best friends and drank only 1 of the 3 nights. I went to another friend’s wedding and had half a glass of wine.
I was doing it and felt great. Felt so much more energy and was proud of myself. I’d done the exact thing I set out to do.
Then on August 15, 2022, I had one light beer with my best friend on his birthday. It was a perfect scenario and exactly what I had in mind almost 2 years prior. But I woke up the next morning with intensely negative and critical self-talk. And it was the first time experiencing thoughts of suicide. It shook me so much that I said, “That’s it. That’s obviously a sign. I’ve proven I don’t even need this anymore. I’m done for the foreseeable future.” I felt so good and so at peace with that decision. In the years following, I never had a desire to drink. I felt like I had cut the attachment to it.
But for some reason, there was a quiet part of me that sensed this wasn’t the end of my journey with alcohol. As time went on and I continued this inner work, I felt the other side of attachment—aversion.
I no longer felt like I was “someone who drank,” but now I found myself under the identity of someone who didn’t drink. And I started to see that I had just traded one identity for another.
If I wanted to truly be free, I’d have to let go of that one as well. I knew I couldn’t be attached to any identity.
I had this indescribable inner knowing that at some point, I’d get to revisit alcohol in some way unbeknownst to me.
While living in Costa Rica for 2 months earlier this year, I had a moment of clarity on the beach. Everything seemed obvious. I was seeing existence clearly. I felt a deep ease and lightness come over me, and a blissful smile emerged. Then, out of nowhere, the image of alcohol came into awareness.
I felt the aversion to alcohol and the identity structure it lived within become severed. I could see that it was never about the substance itself, and that I was truly free to drink or not drink.
It was so liberating. I thought, “Holy shit, I could easily have a margarita right now!” and simultaneously I had no desire for one. Up until then, I had only conceptually understood that. But this time it was a full-body, experiential understanding.
Resting in the space of untethered freedom. The attachment cut. The identity structure exposed and seen through. The substance seen for what it truly was—inherently empty and nothing. I was clearly no longer the person who drank 20 drinks. But I was no longer the person who was “sober” either.
Wow, there was so much freedom in that.
That experience of awakening lasted somewhere around 20 minutes, and then I felt myself begin to come back “down.” I wasn’t seeing as clearly as I was during that experience, but I could never forget it.
Funny how that inner knowing I’d had for the last 4 years came to pass as my relationship to alcohol resurfaced. The thought of having a drink still didn’t excite or entice me, but I also no longer felt the aversion to it. I knew that I could or I could not. Either way was the same now. Either option was OK.
What was most important was the level of consciousness driving my decisions, not the surface-level behavior. With a higher level of consciousness, the “right” behavior was obvious.
So I ran an experiment and had my first beer in 4 years at a concert with 2 friends last weekend. I was excited at the freedom I felt to experiment and live in this way. There were no more unconscious rules pulling me one way or another. There was just wonder.
Would I enjoy it? Would it cause me to crash? Would I dislike how it affected my awareness?
And honestly, it was pretty underwhelming. I did feel a brief lift in mood, but didn’t love how it felt in my body. I felt slower, like I wasn’t seeing as clearly. My processing wasn’t as crisp. After the lift passed, my system felt like sandpaper. The next morning I was a little groggy and moving more slowly.
But I was no longer someone who drank, and I was no longer someone who was sober.
I just am.
It’s felt like a sub-lesson within a greater lesson I’ve been going through in the last 12 months. The greater lesson has been: How do I take what I’ve learned on this journey and return to life—not keep pushing it away?
To rediscover life from this new perspective I’ve cultivated over the last 6 years.
Not to live in a cave in isolation.
But to let people in, live a passionate life, experiment, enjoy this life in whatever way feels true to my gut in the moment.
To realize that things are not black and white. There is no one right way to do things. Everyone is on their own unique path, learning exactly what they need to learn when they need to learn it.
And to realize the power of surrendering to the natural unfolding of things.
It’s been 6 years of refining that discernment, and I feel like an animal coming out of hibernation. Ready to intimately experience life again in all sorts of ways.
A note on sobriety:
Sometimes when we renounce something as a way to grow, the renunciation itself becomes part of a new identity: “I’m someone who doesn’t drink.”
That identity can absolutely be healthier than the old one. Necessary, even.
But eventually, deeper freedom and awakening ask us to release identification itself.
Not to go backward. Or to indulge in it again.
But to become inwardly free.
Because letting go of the identity of being a non-drinker does not require someone to drink again.
We cannot rush this process. It will unfold on its own. We can only remain open to the possibility of it. And everyone’s journey is different. We have to listen to what is right for us moment to moment.
One of my clients, who has found great help within AA, told me this is something that would never be discussed there. He also recognized that he was still in the phase of clearly needing to cut the attachment to drinking—not yet able to explore the identity and attachment of being a non-drinker. He has his own inner knowing to listen to.
Neither phase is superior, and no one should force themselves into an exploration they aren’t ready for.
A monk can be attached to sobriety the same way another man is attached to alcohol.
The endpoint is total, untethered freedom.
The external behavior matters far less than the consciousness underneath it.
PS: I made something simple for anyone who hasn’t felt quite like themselves lately: seven days of small practices to help you reconnect and realign. It’s free here:
