I love alcohol... that's why I'm sober

I made a video that sparked a LOT of debate, so naturally, we’re taking the conversation to the podcast. I believe there’s a difference between choosing not to drink, and being sober -and that not everyone who abstains from alcohol is also sober/ in recovery.

In this episode, we’re unpacking the difference between being a non-drinker and being someone who had to quit drinking because alcohol became a problem, why the distinction matters, and why the word “sober” can mean something very different depending on your relationship with alcohol.

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Transcript

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Hello, hello, Scoop Troop. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Scoop. My name is India Gance. I'm your host, and in today's episode, we're going to be discussing a video that I made on social media that had some conflicting opinions, let's just say. But to start out, I just want to do a check-in. How are we all feeling? There is Sober October around the corner, and I've heard not a peep. What about you guys? I I love Sober October, and last year I feel like it was definitely a thing. Like I heard that people were doing it. And this year I have heard nothing. I think it's a great like check-in for people before the holidays. If people do still drink, maybe they're questioning their relationship with alcohol. I think Sober October is such a nice check-in point. Um, I kind of look at September as like a little mini new year because it's like the start of the school year and it just feels like a fresh start with fall around the corner and everything. And so I think that Sober October is just such a great, a great time to take a crack at not drinking. But I haven't heard anything about it this year. I haven't heard that anybody's doing it. I haven't seen any videos. Of course, now that I'm talking about it, I'll probably receive hundreds of videos on my social media all about Sober October, but on another note, I just checked my I Am Sober app for the first time in quite a while, and it appears I have passed 27 months, which, if I'm not mistaken, is a year and a quarter. Which is just crazy. I just I don't know. People ask me all the time, like, when does it get easier in sobriety? And let me tell you right now, when I first got sober, I was glued to my I Am Sober app. If you haven't heard of the I Am Sober app, and maybe you're newly sober or you've been sober for a while, it's such a great way to track your progress. Inside the app is uh your day count. So you put in like when you got sober uh to the exact hour, you put what you're sober from, you put why you're getting sober, you put your motivation, like uh two reminders of why you got started, which are always interesting for me to look back on. Maybe we'll look look into those right now. Um it's it's a really great app. I recommend it to a lot of people. It's called I Am Sober. And yeah, so I'm 27 months, 830 days. And in the beginning, I was angry at myself, or I not angry, I was just like really stressed about when exactly to call my sober start date because I stopped drinking on one day, right? Or like I had my last drink, let's say at 11 p.m. on the 20th, or I guess it would have been the 19th. Um, and then, you know, I I didn't drink again from that moment on. And I woke up on the on the 20th, June 20th, 2024, and I decided that I was gonna get sober. So I was stressing out about whether to put my sober start day as 11 p.m. the day before, as uh, you know, midnight, as 5 a.m. when it became morning time, 7 a.m. when I woke up, 8 a.m. when I decided I was getting sober, like noon when the alcohol had left my system a little bit. I just I didn't know when to call my sober start time. And I was stressing out so much about it because, like I said, I was looking back at that app constantly, and hour by hour I was excited. I was so excited when I hit 24 hours. I was so excited when I hit 48 hours or three days, like 72 hours, not to mention a week. Oh my gosh, I was like celebrating so hard at a week, as we should. Every sober milestone should be celebrated. But it's crazy that I was checking that thing constantly, like a crazy ex-girlfriend or something checking my phone for a message from him. I was looking at that app all the time. And now I'll go m more than a month or two months, three months without even thinking about it. And I look back and I'm just like, whoa! How time flies. So if you're early in sobriety and you are like counting the frickin' minutes that you are sober, first of all, same. That's literally how I was. That's probably how we all are early in sobriety. So don't stress out that you're the only one doing that. We all get excited and like just want to see how how many days we can do it. Um, but it does get easier. And eventually you don't even think about your day count. It's crazy. I remember when I first quit, I would look on social media and I was following all these sober accounts and like people talking about sobriety, and someone would say that they were in the thousands of days sober, and I almost just like rolled my eyes. I was just like, how do you I mean at that point you are just you are just living life as a sober person. You're not even struggling anymore. Like that that number is just impossible to reach. And now I'm sitting here at 830 days sober and a thousand days is not even that far off. And I'm like, wooho I am becoming that person that I thought I would never ever become. On day four, day one thousand seems impossible. Day one hundred seems impossible. I cried on the day I had one hundred days. Two hundred days, three hundred days, I mean gosh. It does get easier and you go from thinking about alcohol and sobriety and the whole shebang every moment, every hour at least, to not thinking about it for days on end, weeks on end, and sometimes months. It's crazy. So please stick with it because the hard days are so worth it in the end. Things get way easier, you won't have to struggle and try and work at your sobriety as much as you do in the beginning. It's all part of the journey, so stick with it. So, this video that I made on social media was me saying that being a non-drinker is not the same as being sober or in recovery. And here's the thing: I made it seem like those two sides were pinned against each other. And if you've been listening to the pod for a while, you know that I'm very passionate about not pinning any sober people against each other, like, especially uh with regard to AA, because I didn't go to AA, I didn't go to rehab, and sometimes the AA community like gets mad at people who didn't go that route, and sometimes the people who didn't go that route think AA is a farce and like think the people who do it are crazy and in a cult. And I always say, like, being sober, we're all on the same team, you know. If you don't drink, we're all on the same team, alright? We're all against the greater evil of alcohol and making a good decision for our bodies and our minds and our lives. And so when I posted this non-drinker video, um, and so many people thought I was like hating on the non-drinkers, that's not what I was saying. What I was saying was they're not the same, and that's okay to say, I think. Um, well, let's dive in, shall we? Let's dive into why I made that video and what I truly believe. Um, so non-drinkers I classify as people who simply don't drink because they don't want to. And I think that's awesome. I think that's amazing. I literally wish that that was me, and I never went down the path that I did with alcohol. You know? Like, non-drinkers are people who let's say maybe they never had an interest in it. Maybe they never liked the taste of it. Maybe they saw what alcohol can do to somebody or to your health, and they said, I don't want that for myself. Great. But we have such a different relationship to alcohol, and that is what the video was. That's what the video was about that I made on social media. I was basically saying that non-drinkers don't like alcohol, and sober people slash in recovery people love alcohol. Non-drinkers don't like what alcohol does to them. They don't like the effects of alcohol, whereas a sober person slash in recovery person loves what alcohol does to them a lot of times. I mean, I know eventually we grew to hate it, but like the reason that I got to the point that I did with alcohol is because I really, really like it. I really like alcohol. Okay, I really like booze. I love being tipsy. Therefore, I have to be sober because I'll be tipsy all the time. Whereas non-drinkers are like I don't like what it does to my body, I don't like the taste of it, I don't like how it feels, and so I won't drink because I don't like alcohol. See how those camps are so different? Although we are on the same team, our relationship to alcohol is so different, and that's what I was talking about. And the reaction from people was kind of split. Some people were pretty heated because I was like pinning non-drinkers and sober people against each other when let's be honest, they're the same. We all don't drink, right? And half the people were kind of understanding and said, Yeah, I'm a I'm a person who just chooses not to drink, and I understand that I haven't like gone through the journey and the struggles that sober people have, and they understand that, like, yeah, there's a difference. Even though we're all on the same team, there's just a difference in how we got there. Now, I'm just gonna be fully honest here. The only thing that bothers me a little bit, and this is kind of what I talked about in my episode about weed and like being California sober, is that a non-drinker, someone who just in life has chosen that they don't want to drink alcohol, they can still drink. You know what I mean? Like, uh the non-drinkers in my life, the people who just I don't, I don't really drink alcohol, those people in my life have all drank alcohol in front of me before. So they're it's like they're going around the world saying that they don't drink, but oh yeah, I have a glass of wine for this occasion, or yeah, I had a champagne at her wedding, you know, but I don't drink. I hear it on podcasts all the time, like these health specialists will come on and they'll be like, Yeah, I don't drink alcohol. But yeah, of course, you know, I had a champagne at my wedding or whatever. And I'm like, I get that, but that could never be me. That could never be me. If you open the door to like it's okay to have alcohol sometimes, then that door, that cracked door, will get further and further open, and I will just become a drinker again. I don't really have that self-control to choose that I'm gonna drink sometimes and not others. And I guess, okay, this is gonna be a crazy loop around here, but stick with me. I I was making this video about dating and how people, um, like a lot of times women, this is so immature, but like women will say about your boyfriend, the guy that you're dating, like, oh my god, Joey, like, Joey, I love Joey as a brother, and come to find out that they have hooked up in the past. And I'm like, you love him like a brother? Wait a minute, because if you love him like a brother, you wouldn't have done what you did with him. As somebody who has brothers, trust me on that one, you know? So it's like, what do you mean you I I hate when people say, Oh, love you like a brother, or I love him like a brother, but you've been intimate before? It's like, you clearly don't, you know, that's more than a brother, okay? It's like they're saying, Oh, don't worry about me. Like, he's totally off limits. I'm totally repulsed by him in a, you know, in in a romantic way, and so don't worry at all. I absolutely would never. But then you find out that like they have. And it's kind of similar to when people are like, I don't drink alcohol. Like, definitively, I don't drink. And then you find out, well, actually, you do on occasion. Oh, I have about two drinks a year or something like that. I understand that you don't drink most of the time, but for sober people, it's so black and white. It's a hundred percent I do not drink alcohol. And it's not even like an option for me. And for me, I don't know if this is like ADHD or what, but it would bother me so much if I had one drink on a random occasion. Because I would say, do I start my sober count over? Like, where is my day count after I had a drink? It would like freak me out. And it would totally send me into a spiral. I mean, that is a relapse in my book. I don't get to just like continue calling myself sober if I've broken my sobriety. Whereas a non-drinker gets to just go about life saying that they don't drink, and like they're on the same team as me, right? Like we don't drink, but they're allowed to have alcohol whenever they want, and they can have one and get right back to it and continue saying that they don't drink, and it's almost like an I mean, not that it really matters because it doesn't. I'm just talking about like philosophically, it's interesting, but it bothers me a little bit. And, you know, sometimes they'll try to connect with me and they're like, I don't really drink either, and we'll get talking about like the health um effects of your, you know, health defects. What do you call that? The hits on your health that alcohol has. Um, we'll get talking about, you know, your liver, their maybe their brain fog. We'll get talking about like hangovers and all the effects of alcohol, and we'll connect on those, like on the health aspects of being sober. And that's really cool, but we're missing the whole gap of like I was dependent on alcohol. Alcohol completely ruined a large portion of my life immediately after I was struggling, going through some withdrawal, just like discovering so many things about myself. I went through this whole journey, this this incredible, life-changing journey that made me into a whole different human being with different interests. I I threw away my entire life to start a new one, all because of alcohol. And somebody else just like doesn't really drink and but occasionally still has a drink. You know, it's so you guys know I love to talk about like just thought-provoking situations. I'm not saying that like non-drinkers suck and you know, sober sober is the only way you have to have had a problem with alcohol in order to not drink. Of course, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that it's interesting to discuss that there are differences in the world of people who do not drink. Everybody doesn't drink for one reason or another. But ours in the soberslash in recovery world are the reasons are that we had a massive problem and we needed to stop. And for most of us, there is no wiggle room. It's 100% sober. And back to the California sober thing, go listen to the California sober episode if you want more on this. Um, because I understand that smoking weed can help people not go off the deep end with alcohol. So again, I'm not saying that it's bad. Everyone can do what they want. You can define sobriety however the heck you want to. It is your own individual journey. I do some things that people might not call sober. Well, I don't really do this that much anymore, but in the beginning, I used non-alcoholic beers to get me through the beginning of sobriety because I was such a beer drinker, and NA beers gave me that flavor, that ritual of having a beer, like that flavor combo of uh chips and beer, like pretzels and beer I could have with a non-alcoholic beer and like scratch that itch with zero alcohol. Some people would say that that's cheating, that's not sober. So, you know, we all have our own definition of sober. So you do you and I will do me. Okay? But in that episode of uh about being California sober, I kind of just was talking about how I almost feel that it's not fair. Again, it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. It's just like an interesting topic to think about, something philosophically that's interesting to discuss. And the reason I think it's like not fair is that the the hardest part about sobriety for me, still to this day, 830 days sober, is that I cannot turn off my brain. And sometimes I really, really wish that I could. I'm currently watching Lioness, Lioness on um Paramount Plus. It's really, really good, by the way. You should definitely watch it. I'm on season two, episode two, and it's so good. But here's the thing like I want to watch it and relax, but I struggle so hard to relax. Literally, it's such a struggle, to the point where I usually do a jigsaw puzzle while I watch my show so that I can like turn off my brain and kind of focus on what the show is talking about. I struggle really, really hard to just fully relax. I mean, I gave myself this past weekend to relax and like clean my place. All I all I had to do the whole weekend was relax, clean my place, and go for a walk both days. That those were my plans. Amazing, right? But my mind was just going in circles about how I shouldn't be relaxing, all the things I could be doing, like stressing about different things, constantly writing things down in my notes for what I want to do, for when Monday rolls around, like I just could not relax, and it's such a struggle. Sometimes I just want to relax so badly when my brain is going absolutely berserk. I have to go on walks every day. I mean, for physical fitness is nice, but it's really to allow my brain to relax because when I'm on a walk listening to a podcast and twirling my headphones in my hand, I'm able to block out the world. I have to go to these extremes to find some relaxation in life. And like when you drink or smoke weed, you're turning off your brain. You get that relief that I never get, that like most sober people never get. And I will say that it gets easier. So if you're in those early days and you're like so hyperactive and jittery and can't sit down and watch TV and all that, like it does get better. How I am now is a lot better than those very beginning days, for sure. But it's because I've learned tactics I've think, I think, and I've adjusted, and my brain chemistry has improved, literally. So I'm not as anxious, as hyperactive, for sure. My symptoms have gotten so much better, so much better, a world better. But it's still annoying to me that I can never, ever get that sweet relief of just kind of numbness, like emptiness in my head, and just vegging out and chilling, turning off all your problems, all your worries, all your anxieties, all your mental to-do lists that are constantly piling up. We don't get that relief. And so I was talking about how when you're California sober, that's the aspect of sobriety that you're kind of missing when you're California sober. And I think it's like a beautiful part of sobriety, as much as I just made it sound. Really not beautiful. Um, like getting to know how you are as a human being, unaffected by any substances whatsoever, is a really beautiful place to be. As much as I may complain about like wanting to turn my brain off sometimes, I don't actually want that. It's just a struggle that I have in sobriety. And there's always gonna be struggles, right? We all have our own struggles no matter how far along we are in our sober journeys. So that portion of it is still a struggle for me. But I of course wouldn't want it any other way. I love this person that I am as hyperactive and jittery as I may be on a regular basis. I love this person that I am, and I've sometimes I have a thought about like what if I had a sip of alcohol or something, or what if I even like inhaled a secondhand smoke a little bit of weed or something like that, and I felt my body becoming relaxed or like being affected. You know, those very early stages where you can tell that something is is different in your chemistry. That thought freaks me out so much. I would get so freaked out. And I I made an episode a long time ago about how I don't remember if it was over like Christmas or Easter or something, but I had a Guinness Zero, and maybe it was the placebo, placebo effect, or maybe it really was happening, but I felt my brain start to have that like relief feeling, and it freaked me out so much. It almost I mean, it like makes me cry thinking about it because I felt that happening in my brain, and I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, I do not want that, and obviously dumped it down the drain and didn't drink any more of it. Um, but it freaked me out, and I I I think that was kind of the turning point of when I kind of slowed down on the NA beers because I had one that I could almost sense, and I don't know if that's because I am so sensitive to it probably now after years of sobriety. Um or if it was just in my head. I I don't really know and I don't really care, but it it made me feel like just the early stages of that relief, and that freaked me out so much. So it's not something that I genuinely want. It's just something that I'm working on in my sobriety and that's still a struggle. And if I'm honest, probably my least favorite part of sobriety is that I can't get a break from my brain. So, yeah, when I was talking about California sober, similar to saying that you don't drink, but still being able to have a drink every now and then, or saying you love him like a brother, but you still hook up every now and then, like in my opinion, people who are California sober, it's like you say that you are sober, but yet you still get that relief. You still get your fix, kind of. It's a different way of getting it, and I'm sure it's a different feeling and all that, but you still get that relief. You get to turn off the brain and have a break from from those thoughts. And it's almost I you know what? It's not that I think it's unfair. It's actually that I'm jealous. I think that's what it is. It's like California sober people, they get to have that relief, they get a brain a break from their brain, and they still are sober and don't drink alcohol. I'm like, dang, I'm jealous of that. I I don't necessarily want it for myself because like I said, I wouldn't want to change how I am. I don't want to be affected by any substances, but it's like I'm jealous that you get that relief and yet you're still sober. You know what I mean? So it's just different. Like I said, we're all on the same team. I am rooting for you, whether you are California sober, you went to AA, you didn't go to AA, you don't drink because of health reasons, you don't drink because you don't like the taste of alcohol, you don't drink because you had a raging drinking problem. We are all in the same camp of no alcohol and alcohol is bad. And it's kind of like whatever it takes to to keep you there, right? I always talk about how I drank so much soda and sweets, like desserts in the beginning of my sobriety because I was like anything to not drink. Like as long as it's not alcohol, I don't really care what it is. And eventually I weaned off all that other stuff too, in the extreme form. Of course, I still drink soda, but I don't even keep it in the house or anything anymore. So, like, eventually I weaned off of all that. I don't have as much of a sweet tooth, of course. But in the beginning it was like anything to stay sober, and I feel like that's kind of the same with California sober, is like if if that is what keeps you off of frickin' heroin or alcohol or whatever, is smoking a little weed every now and then, okay, you know, you do your thing. But like I said, I'm jealous because I am sober from everything. There's no relief, there's no break, and that can just feel really heavy sometimes. And so back to the non-drinker conversation as well. It's like they can have that celebratory glass of champagne or a glass of wine twice a year if they had a really stressful day, or they're having a romantic night with their husband or wife or whatever, like, but they don't drink generally, they can still get that. So that's all I'm saying is like we're all on the same team, we're all in the same camp, but there are different sectors. And I think the hard part is when non-drinkers, like just by choice for health or whatever, try to connect with me and like say that we're the same or something. I mean, I'll never forget when I was at this party and somebody said that they don't drink while they were drinking. Can you imagine? So I was I don't want to give too much away, but I was a hundred days sober at this point. In fact, it was like my hundredth day. I was so excited. And I went to a house party on my hundredth day of sobriety, but it was somebody's birthday, and I was like, okay, I can do this, you know. I brought my 12-pack of Diet Root beers and I showed up to this party. And this girl was telling me that she doesn't drink while she is holding a white claw and drinking. Can you believe that? And I think it's just the verbiage for me. Like, clearly you do drink. So why are you saying that? You should say, I I don't typically drink or I really don't drink much alcohol. But I don't know, it's just, it's very funny to be to be there at that party and struggling. Or not struggling, but I'm just like, you know, it's early days. 100 days is still early. And I'm like still learning how to be a sober person, how to adjust to this life. And everything that I do that's out of my comfort zone is a major challenge. I mean, going to that house party 100 days sober was a challenge, but I was like, I can do this, I'm gonna learn something from this. I'm building my sobriety toolbox by showing up to this party and dealing with new triggers or different people and things like that. Being in a social environment where there's alcohol, I'm building my sobriety toolbox by showing up to this party. And then this girl saying that, oh, I d I don't drink either while drinking a white claw. You know? So it's just it kind of like it takes the wind the wind out of my sails. I'm just like you're we're not the same, you know? You're able to say that you don't drink while drinking. And I I I can't drink. I absolutely cannot and will not drink alcohol. So they're just very different camps. And I'm sorry if this episode had like a negative tone to it, because again, I'm not trying to like pin people against each other, but if you're sober, hopefully, like sober in recovery sober, hopefully you can understand where I'm coming from. That it's just different. And it is a little bit annoying to me when non-drinkers try to connect with me who still have a drink every now and then and try to say that we're the same, or they say I'm sober too, but they drink alcohol sometimes. Once a year, twice a year, it doesn't matter. They still do, and they get to call themselves sober or say that they don't drink. I just the struggle and journey that has gone gone uh into me calling myself sober is just a lot different to somebody who chooses not to drink for elective reasons. You know, they didn't have to get sober. In fact, they're not sober because they still drink on occasion, you know? Just interesting, just interesting things to think about. So, yeah, what do you think? Let me know in the Spotify comments or send me a DM. I'm on Instagram now at the Soberscoop. Um started a started the page or started being active on the page more recently, so feel free to DM me on Instagram at the Soberscoop, on TikTok, you can always email me, everything's in the show notes. Um, and let me know what you think. Like, how do you feel about this? It's just a a thought-provoking topic to discuss. No hate, no hatred here, I'm not sipping the Haterade. I'm just discussing something interesting in the non drinking world. So let me know what you think. Feel free to leave a rating or a view if you feel so inclined. I'd greatly appreciate it. And I'll see you next Tuesday. Bye.