Cool Sobriety

 I used to think sobriety was boring. These days, I think getting wasted is. It might surprise you, but a lot of people in clubland don't drink or take drugs any more. It's not just a Sober October fad - the sober-curious wave is a full-blown cultural shift. It's simply not as cool any more to be face down in a club cubicle or face up in a skip at dawn.

Boors Carousing
Dutch School
Photo Credit::York Museums Trust [Public Domain] 

Back in my late teens and early twenties the club culture currency was drink and drugs. Later, I built a career behind the DJ decks in front of triple vodka and Cokes, sobriety felt like a door slammed shut on fun. But, spoiler: it wasn't. It was a door opened, a secret passage into something real...

Frankly, there's something very rock-and-roll about revealing how "clean" you are, when you used to be  an absolute menace. I got tired of it all. The drinking. The preparing to drink. The things that drinking would lead to. The recovering from drinking.. The apologising for whatever mad things I had done or said the night before.

I wasn't very good at being off my face, either. I'd usually end up in someone's living room at 9am talking nonsense over strangers, or in A&E. It wasn't glamour, it was grim...

The 12-step meetings felt like a secret after-party I somehow had been invited to, and I was encouraged to talk non-stop about myself. Loved it...

Of course, sobriety didn't fix everything. I still had to face the music - literally and metaphorically. I had to rebuild a slightly blemished reputation bit by bit. But as I always say: our mistakes are what makes us interesting. They certainly make a good book.

Sobriety is no longer a badge of shame. I would go as far as to say it's actually cooler in clubland these days - on both sides of the DJ booth...

It's become normal to say you are sober. When I stopped it was whispered behind hands but now it's on Instagram. Some people roll their eyes at the "clean time reveal" posts, but if it helps someone to feel seen, why not say it out loud? I've just celebrated fifteen years.

(Jodie Harsh, The i, 2025)

Oh, so the sober-curious wave is a full-blown cultural shift is it? Do you mean some young people aren't drinking any more? And it used to be cool to be face down in a club cubicle or equally cool to be face up in a skip at dawn? Really? It was fashionably attractive? And what's this business about it being very rock-and roll in revealing how "clean" you are? Why not keep it to yourself? And if it's cooler  now in clubland not to drink well let's follow the herd again.