Feeling pressured to drink on vacation

In this episode, I’m getting real about the challenges of staying sober while traveling through Vietnam. From the intense peer pressure of "Happy Water" rituals to feeling isolated in social moments, I share why I chose to deny instant gratification in favor of long-term pride and clarity. I’m diving into why experiencing a trip through "sober eyes" is actually better -allowing for deeper connections, more energy, and a journey you’ll actually remember.

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Timestamps:

0:00 – Staying Sober While Traveling in Vietnam 

1:42 – The "Happy Water" Experience and Impulse Control 

3:55 – Different Definitions of Sobriety While Abroad 

8:12 – The Reality of Vietnamese Drinking Culture vs. Coffee Culture 

11:05 – Why Traveling is Different from a Vacation 

13:40 – How Alcohol Changes the Focus of Your Trip 

16:15 – Finding Your Social Butterfly Wings Without "Social Lubricant"

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Did I stay sober while traveling in Vietnam? Of course I did, but not everyone stayed sober. Let me tell you the story. So in Vietnam, there's something called happy water. It's a traditional drink, it's kind of like ceremonial. It's basically rice wine. And they put it in these tiny little shot glasses, and you do this whole cheers thing. You say like moat, hi ba zo, hi ba zo zo zo, hi ba. Whoa. It's a whole thing. And I understand the intrigue. I understand like how as a traveler you would want to experience that. It's so different. It's part of their culture. People are bringing you into their home and welcoming you with this welcome drink. I get it. I get the appeal for sure. But here's the thing: that instant gratification is never gonna be worth it for me in the long run. So I understood that yes, that would be like a cool moment to experience in Vietnam. But that short amount of happiness is gonna take five seconds while we do the cheers. Okay, woo-hoo, yeah, participated in that. And then it would be months, years, who knows, of regret and sadness and shame and guilt and just this horrible feeling. And one thing that I've learned in sobriety is the impulse control and just recognizing that the long term is so much more important than the short term. So, anyways, of course, I did not participate in that because I knew that it wasn't gonna be worth it. I still did the cheers, I participated in that, and then I just set the shot down. I don't even think most people noticed that I didn't have my shot, and then later I gave my shot to somebody else. It was totally fine and dandy, but here's the story I want to tell you guys that I thought was so interesting. So I said that not everyone stayed sober. This is what I'm talking about. So I was connecting with this one guy on my trip. Like he hadn't drank for seven months, and I thought that was so cool. I told him about the podcast, and we were just connecting, and I was like, oh my God, congrats to you. He told me a little bit about how he used to drink, how he put on a ton of weight, and since getting sober, he's gotten a lot healthier, he's lost a lot of weight. I was like, oh my god, same for me. We were just really, really connecting, and I was like encouraging him. Since he's gotten sober, he's lost a lot of weight, he's gotten a lot healthier, and I was like, oh my god, same for me. Like we were just really connecting. And I thought as we're about to participate in this happy water thing, it's so cool that like we'll have each other, right? Like we have each other's backs. And I just thought that was so special that through this difficult experience we would have each other. And so we're doing the cheers, you know, everybody has their shot in their hand, including him, including me. And we did the whole uh chant that you do, and then I set my shot down. And I looked over at him, hoping to kind of connect with him in that moment when everybody else is drinking, and he drank it too. And I was just like, okay, well, um, we're we're not on the same page, which is fine. I want to make it clear that like neither way is the right way. There's no one right way to be sober or to moderate your drinking. Like, I totally understand how you could be somebody who doesn't drink that often, and this is something that you like really want to participate in. That's one thing. But I guess it kind of made me sad, or like I felt just a little bit isolated and alone when we had been connecting this trip about our sobriety, and then he just does the shot. I was like, okay. Um, I didn't even know what to say. And I was debating whether I would say something to him and just like kind of look for some clarification on what the frick that was. Um, and I was debating, do I even say anything? Like, obviously, everyone can do whatever they want to do, but we had connected so deeply about our sobriety, and I was so proud of him for his seven months that he had been sober, and so I decided to ask. I just said, Oh, so I like do you consider yourself fully sober? Because I noticed you did the shot, so I was just curious, like, kind of where you stand with sobriety. And he said, Oh yeah, I don't drink at all. Um, but it's kind of rude not to partake in that shot. And I was like, Okay, got it, got it. I was I was feeling all sorts of ways, not any negativity towards him, not any judgment towards him, but it just kind of reminded me that maybe I just have a different relationship with alcohol than him or like potentially a lot of other people who are quote unquote sober or like don't drink. Um also the other people in my group said that they don't drink much, but they did the shot too. So, you know, what is what even is sober, okay? For me, me personally, in my personal journey, sobriety means that you do not drink. It doesn't matter if it's ceremonial or one sip of somebody's cocktail. For me, I don't want to do that. And yes, I would say part of it is that I'm I'm worried that it's not gonna be just that sip or just that shot. Like, I'll fall into a drinking problem again, I'll wanna have more, I'll start making more excuses, like, oh, it's just wine with my new boyfriend's family. Like, of course I'll have that, or like, oh, it's just first date jitters, of course I'll have a drink for that. And I'll start making all of these excuses because of situational, you know, circumstances. And next thing you know, I'm just drinking again. So for me, yes, there is that fear that I'll fall into a drinking problem again, but it's also just like a pride thing. To me, sober means that I do not drink at all, and I'm really passionate and prideful about the fact that I have not had a drop of alcohol in my system since I quit drinking. The closest thing I've gotten to it is like a non-alcoholic beer that says it's less than 0.5%, which I don't even drink those anymore. I have never like intentionally consumed alcohol while being sober. And for me, like I will not consume alcohol. I'm not going to intentionally consume something that is alcohol. I just, I want nothing in my system. I want full sobriety. To me, that is what being sober is, and I'm I'm prideful of that. My family even asks me sometimes, like, oh, why is it that you couldn't just have a sip of a cocktail or something? Is it because um you think you're like scared that you'll drink again full on? And I'm like, no, it's actually more so just that I'm passionate about my day count. It's something that, yeah, I'm prideful about, I'm passionate about, I like I like knowing that I have not drank alcohol in 600 whatever something days. It it makes me happy. And I don't want to have any caveats in my sobriety. I don't want to say like, yes, I'm sober, but I had that shot of happy water in Vietnam. Um, but I had that one glass of wine on my 30th birthday or whatever. Like, I don't want to have any of those caveats. So anyway, that was one situation in Vietnam where I was just, I don't even know what the feeling is. I guess a little bit sad. I I found it cool to connect with somebody else because the word sober, this is something else I want to talk about. The word sober is hardly even a thing over there. I don't know if it's because maybe in Vietnam they don't have the ability to overindulge in alcohol because it's expensive, because uh they work physical labor a lot of them, um, and and can't be tired and drinking or I don't know. Um, but I don't think overindulgence is really a thing in Vietnam, at least these like rural areas that I was traveling to. So the word sober was not even something that was discussed. I had to like explain what that was to my guide. He was the only one who was curious, by the way. Nobody else even cared or like knew what was going on. You know what I mean? Like having an alcohol problem is not a normal thing there. And, anyways, that's that was the view from the Vietnamese culture. But what I want to talk about is with other travelers. So, yes, I had this one situation, but that was on a short trip during my long Vietnam trip. Um, I want to talk about not drinking on my entire Vietnam trip and how it just so wasn't a thing. I feel like in America, my sobriety comes up so often. Like I feel that I'm constantly having to say, I don't drink, I'm sober. Um, like there are so many situations in America where I'm explaining my sobriety or people are curious about it and asking questions. And while I was traveling, other than that Happy Water Day in rural Vietnam, my I didn't talk about my sobriety. I didn't talk about the fact that I didn't drink. And I was hanging out with people the whole time. I would meet new people, and it was like nobody was even ordering alcoholic beverages. It was so it was so funny. Like I know that Vietnam has a drinking culture, and when I was in Hanoi, like I know that there is Beer Street, and I walked on Beer Street, and it was cool to see that from a distance, I suppose. Um, I saw that people are participating in drinking in Vietnam. But in my personal interactions, it just wasn't a thing. I went out to dinner with this guy, and we both ordered like soft drinks and didn't even talk about, oh, you're not ordering wine, oh, you don't want to have a drink. He didn't invite me to a bar, we just went to dinner. Um, I went on a cruise. I went on like a one-day cruise to go see the limestone cliffs and everything. And they were giving out alcoholic beverages, you could order something with your meal, all this stuff, and just nobody drank. Nobody at my table ordered an alcoholic drink. It was just so funny. And I guess I didn't even recognize it when it was happening until now I'm reflecting on the trip and being like, oh my god. So funny that sobriety just wasn't discussed. And what I think it is, is I was connecting with so many people who had been traveling for months. They're like, oh yeah, I'm backpacking Southeast Asia for a year or five months, or this one girl had been traveling for three months. And at that point, it's not a vacation. You're not on vacation when you're traveling like that. You are traveling. There is a difference between traveling and vacation. And I think that for so many people that I was meeting in Vietnam, they are traveling. And you can't keep up with a vacation-style drinking for a long three-month, four-month trip. And so I think these people just don't really drink much. I'm not saying that everyone is sober and is passionate about the fact that they don't drink. I just think so many travelers that I met drinking just doesn't go with their lifestyle. Like they couldn't keep up with that long term. So a lot of people just didn't drink. I never, other than that happy water situation, I never once felt pressured to drink. I was never around alcohol when I didn't want to be. Drinking culture is known in Vietnam, but for me, the coffee culture was stronger. And I just dove into that. Like instead of hanging out on Beer Street at all the bars, I was trying out cafe after cafe after cafe. I tried every coffee drink that you could possibly get in Vietnam. I had coconut coffee, I had egg coffee, I had salt coffee, which was my favorite. I fell in love with salt coffee. I had matcha, I had um bubble tea, milk tea with the tapioca balls, which by the way, I could not figure out how to order those correctly. Every time I asked for tapioca or like boba or bubbles, they called it a lot, I got something different every single time. Sometimes it was fruit jellies, sometimes it was these orange like jellies, sometimes it was brown sugar tapioca balls. I don't know. I couldn't figure out how to order that. But what I'm saying is, I had all the coffee and I just dove into that side of the Vietnamese um beverage culture, I guess. I went full on into the coffee culture, and for me it was great. And like I said, it was just so cool and refresh refreshing to not have to talk about sobriety um and not have to talk about the fact that I'm not drinking. It wasn't questioned. Nobody thought I was weird for like ordering a Diet Coke instead of a beer. Nobody. Most people also ordered Diet Cokes. It was just huh, I don't know. It was so refreshing. And it got me thinking, like, why is my sobriety such a topic of conversation? Why is it such like a label, something that makes me unique and different in this world? Like it's something that comes up so often in America, and it just didn't come up when I was traveling in Vietnam. How interesting is that, right? I'm just doing a full Vietnam travel recap and how my sobriety kind of went while I was traveling abroad. So another thing that I want to talk about is just how I traveled. I mean, the way that I would have done this trip as a drinker was just so different, would have been so different to how I did it this trip. I think about if I had a drinking problem, if I was like full-on drinking during this trip, my whole trip would be about seeking alcohol. Like the focus would be so off of the views and the connections that I'm making with people and the beautiful accommodations and the food and the coffee. It would be so much about the drinking and seeking that next drink. Where can I find that next drink? I mean, that would have been my sole focus. And my trip would have been very centered around going from bar to bar to bar to bar. And instead it was like from coffee shop to little street food place that doesn't even sell alcohol to this boat trip where I wouldn't be able to drink for like four hours because we're rowing and canoeing um through the caves. Like my trip would have been just so different. I would have been packing drinks to go places. I think about that motorbike trip in rural Vietnam, and I mentioned how like a drinking problem probably isn't even a thing there because they can't over-indulge in alcohol. And I found that to be true. Like it was kind of hard to find alcohol I noticed in the fridges and stuff. Um, it just wasn't as as common. Um, so I would have been stressed out about finding booze. I would have been like, how can I even do this motorbike trip without having some alcohol? There would have been so many things where I was like, how could I do this without alcohol? And I did it all without alcohol, and I think my trip was so much better because of it. I just experienced everything so fully without the distraction and weight that alcohol carries. Living uh traveling and living a life where alcohol is your number one priority, it just takes away from literally everything else. And I'm so grateful that I experienced this trip sober. I I think it was so beautiful to experience it sober, and all the views, and like I said, the people that I connected with, all of that, I fully experienced that through sober eyes. There was nothing warped about it. Everything that I experienced, I experienced naturally, like how it's supposed to be seen. I I made so many meaningful connections with people where I didn't have the social lubricant of alcohol. It kind of proved to me that I'm able to connect with people without alcohol. And it that's actually something that I want to bring home with me from my trip is like I was just talking to everybody. I was a social butterfly in Vietnam when I'm so not that way when I'm at home. And it's pretty easy because like you see somebody who's not Vietnamese and you're like, oh, okay, so like where are you from? Like you just you so easily connect with people because you can tell that they're not from there. They're also a traveler if they're by yourself, solo female traveler as well, and you're connecting over that. Anyway, it's easy to tell that you're both like traveling. So I would always just ask people, where are you from? What what brings you here? How long are you traveling? All that stuff. So yeah, and I went out of my shell without any alcohol. So that's something that I want to bring home with me too. It's like when I'm working at a cafe or something, why not say hello to the person sitting next to me and like, oh, you work remotely as well? Like, that's so cool. What kind of job do you do? Or I don't know. Just I want to get out of my shell a little bit more and just connect with people and talk to more strangers. It fulfilled me so much to just connect with people. And that's something that I definitely want to bring home with me. So, all in all, this Vietnam trip, it was really so incredible. And I I mean, how can I even recover from a trip like this? I'm not gonna talk too much about my full trip experience because it has nothing to do with sobriety for most of it. I'm talking about just these few moments where I noticed drinking cultures or differences in the definitions of sobriety. I'm talking about this trip through a sober lens. But if you're interested in my trip as a whole, you can go to my Instagram, my main Instagram page. It's at India Gance, G-A-N-T-S. And there I posted all about my trip. If you're interested in like the actual travel discussions of my trip, but in this episode, I just wanted to talk about like staying sober on my Vietnam trip. So I hope you found it interesting. Thank you for listening, and I'm excited to be home. I'm excited to be recording the podcast again and just get in my routine again. It it's cool that now I feel that I've created this life that I don't need to escape. Like I had a great trip and I loved it so much, but I'm not craving an escape from my life. I love the life that I have here, and I think that's a really beautiful thing. And those two things can coexist at the same time. Like I can love travel and love being away, but also love being home and like being excited to return. So here I am. I'm excited to be back. Thank you for listening to this episode, and I will see you for the next one. Bye.