One year since quitting booze―what I learned the last year
It's been a year since I quit drinking, while 2023 in general was a year I quit a lot of other things. So naturally I couldn't let much more than a year go by without reflecting on it.
One year! One year and a month without booze. One year (and two months) without caffeine. And a few extended periods of going without other things, too. What a year it’s been. I know I said this same thing a year ago, but it’s been the most profound year of my life.
When I decided to take a break from drinking a year ago, I was probably drinking less than I had in years. I’d been trying to stick to only drinking two days per week, one of which was when I went to the pub to journal. I feel like I had a relatively “healthy” relationship to drinking. No one had told me that I had a drinking problem. And I didn’t have any health complications (that I know of) or anything like a Friday night out with the fellas that went hella south. I’d be lying though if I didn’t admit that there were occasional mornings when I was rethinking that last cocktail I’d ordered the night before.
This decision came shortly after taking one of my best friends out for drinks for his birthday. I was driving, and so even that night, prior to our last stop, I’d only had a beer. It seemed fitting, however, that my last drinks would be having a few sips of whiskies from around the world at one of my favorite whiskey bars. The next day, while I wasn’t hungover and didn’t feel bad, there was like this pull that I felt toward taking a break from drinking. It was like that little voice that urges us to take a leap.
I’d quit drinking caffeine two months prior, and the headaches and neck pain from quitting it had finally subsided. So perhaps it just seemed like an apt time to quit all the things. But as I shared in a group therapy sesh last week, it’s like my body just knew.
If I’m really being honest, there was an incident, though not directly involving alcohol, which I think ultimately led me to questioning my relationship with a number of things, and not just drinking. It happened early last year, and where else, but my therapist’s office, where many of my revelations take place.
My most significant relationship to date had just ended, and I was telling my therapist about a conversation that my former girlfriend and I had had as we’d been working through some things. I was telling her my side of things, when my therapist stopped me, and in not so many words, told me that the behavior/conversation that I was describing was codependent. My first reaction, which I didn’t express out loud, was something like wanting to yell out, “YOU DON’T KNOW ME, I’M NOT CODEPENDENT.” But then after sitting with this for a moment I calmly responded to my therapist, “Wait, what? Ok, so what’s codependency then, because I must not completely know what it means?” And I didn’t.
It had never occurred to me that I may be codependent. I’m not sure why, considering therapists had made a strong case that my childhood caregivers included one person who was likely narcissistic (and definitely abusive) and another who was likely codependent. That’s on top of the emotional and physical abuse. And then there was the generations of physical, sexual, and substance abuse that ran through my family. So it was like Spin The Trauma Wheel. Will I be narcissistic? Abusive? A substance abuser? Codependent? And evidently it was codependency.
“We carry emotional material that belongs to our parents and grandparents, retaining losses of theirs that they never fully articulated. We feel these traumas even if we don’t consciously know them. Old family secrets live inside us.”
― Galit Atlas, Emotional Inheritance: A Therapist, Her Patients, and the Legacy of Trauma
That conversation with my therapist is one of the most important conversations in my life. But also one of the hardest. I’d already been going to therapy for a few years. I’d done so much work, especially involving my romantic relationships, and my last relationship had been the best relationship that I’d ever had. WTF universe?!
On top of that I’d been months into a deep dive of personal excavation. I’d journaled hundreds of pages, spent hours in therapy, had some of the most powerful conversations with family I’d ever had, recalled and released tons of traumatic memories, healed a lot of pain, and grown more than ever. I’d called that year, my 39th year, the most profound year of my life. I’d uncovered SO much, and had done so much healing and experienced growth like never before. And this just felt like a gut punch. It felt a bit like Luke finding out that Darth Vader was his father (Yes, I just compared myself to a Jedi.)
The 9 months prior had seen me more resolved and committed than ever to healing and growth. Yet that conversation unlocked an even deeper resolve to healing. While there wasn’t an explicit moment in which I or my therapist questioned my dependence on other things, the weeks that followed would suggest that there was an internal reckoning taking place.
So there I was, like Luke or Buddy the Elf finding out the truth about their fathers. The first thing to go was caffeine. Two months later I quit alcohol. A couple months after that I had my last THC hit. After initially trying to date again, I took a break from dating. Over the summer I took a break from social media and cut my workload down to the lowest it’d been since I graduated college. This GIF basically sums up 2023:
I read just about every book I could find on codependency (there aren’t many), listened to every codependency podcast episode (also not many), took a codependency course (there really aren’t many of those), and joined a weekly codependency processing group (there are actually a lot of these, many of which are Co-Dependents Anonymous 12-step groups).
So if codependency has to do with relationships, then why quit things like alcohol and coffee, which I seemingly had pretty good relationships with? First, let me share what I think is one of the better definitions of codependency.
Psychologist Robert Subby, in describing codependency, writes that it is "An emotional, psychological and behavioral condition that develops as a result of an individual’s prolonged exposure to, and practice of, a set of oppressive rules -- rules which prevent the open expression of feeling as well as the direct discussion of personal as well as interpersonal problems." Vanessa Bennett has an even simpler definition, describing codependency in relationships as, “If you’re good, then I’m good. If you’re not good, then I’m not good.”
So using Subby’s codependency description, if I grew up in an environment with a “set of oppressive rules,” and rules that prevented “the open expression of feeling as well as the direct discussion of personal as well as interpersonal problems,” then it’s not just my relationships that I needed to address. If this was the system that was modeled to me, and that I inherited, then relationships were just the beginning. The entire system had to come down.
“Recovery from codependence is a lot like a growing up process - we must learn to do the things our dysfunctional parents did not teach us to do: appropriately esteem ourselves, set functional boundaries, be aware of and acknowledge our reality, take care of our adult needs and wants, and experience our reality moderately.”
― Pia Mellody, Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives
While my first therapist never used the word “codependency,” this in part goes back to something she told me during one of our initial sessions 6 years ago. After telling her my story, and sharing that I couldn’t seem to keep a committed relationship, she very astutely and firmly told me, that I was a “binger,” and that I used travel like other people used alcohol, drugs, sex, TV, and other things. While I was unable to express what I was feeling, I’m not sure if I’d ever felt so attacked. But I don’t know if anyone, especially someone who hardly knew me, had ever been so on the nose.
I spent the next two to three years (thanks 2020) developing a healthier relationship to travel as I tried in earnest to be more literally and figuratively grounded. And it worked, as I felt more connected to both myself and others than ever before as I became less dependent on travel. So early last year, when my new therapist, called me into codependency healing, I couldn’t help wonder if there was something deeper at play. And so I made like Marty McFly and went back to the beginning, to see if there weren’t some things I had to learn from my childhood and the generations that came before me.
I’m a product of a family, a generation, and a patriarchal system that largely stamps out so many of the feelings and emotions of men. It is so woven deeply into our culture that feelings, expressing emotions, and vulnerability is a sign of weakness in men. Jungian psychoanalyst James Hollis writes:
“Our society has long treated men as machines, as bodies expendable in the name of progress or profit. Men have overruled their pain and soul's delight, taught to think of themselves as "mechanisms". Such an estrangement wounds very deeply; it has gone on so long and is so taken for granted that healing individuals, let alone a whole gender, is a dubious undertaking. But the beat goes on, the Saturnian shadow lives, the only game in town, and shame on the defector. The wounding is institutionalized and sanctified, and men unwittingly collude in their own crucifixion.”
― James Hollis, Under Saturn's Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men
Some of my earliest memories as a child involve being punished or sent away when I expressed emotions like crying. This often happened after I’d made a “mistake,” except what was expressed wasn’t that I’d misstepped, made a mistake, or done something wrong. But rather the narrative was that I was a mistake, bad, or wrong. A lot of this occurred during my childhood years, when a majority of our development takes place.
It’s no surprise then that there was a period of probably about a decade when I don’t ever remember crying. I then spent most of my life suppressing feelings and completely avoiding certain memories and the feelings and emotions associated with them. I’ve previously written about why in part I didn’t return to my childhood hometown for 10 years. And when I did, I was afraid that it would flood me with traumatic memories. Instead, when I finally did return last summer, I was flooded with all of these wonderful experiences, memories, and feelings that had long been buried.
My experience couldn’t have happened in a vacuum, especially when I look at many of the statistics. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the rate of suicide among men is four times higher than women; it’s one of the leading causes of death for men. Another study, from the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, shares that “recent North American research consistently indicates that men make up around 75% of suicide and 75% of substance use disorder (SUD) cases.” A Priory Group study of 1,000 UK men found that 40% have never talked to anyone about their mental health, and 40% said that it would take thoughts of suicide or self-harm for them to seek professional help.
As this report in the American Journal of Men's Health discusses, the prevalence of mental health illness in men is typically lower, “However, mental health among men often goes untreated because they are far less likely to seek mental health treatment than women.” It mentions how depression and suicide are among the leading causes of death among men, and that men "die due to alcohol-related causes at 62,000 in comparison to women at 26,000." The author, Dr. Benita Chatmon, the Assistant Dean of Clinical Nursing Education at LSU Health-New Orleans School of Nursing, writes, “American men are subjected to a culture where the standards of masculinity are literally killing them.”
“Learning to wear a mask (that word already embedded in the term “masculinity”) is the first lesson in patriarchal masculinity that a boy learns. He learns that his core feelings cannot be expressed if they do not conform to the acceptable behaviors sexism defines as male. Asked to give up the true self in order to realize the patriarchal ideal, boys learn self-betrayal early and are rewarded for these acts of soul murder.”― bell hooks, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
This thread runs throughout Terry Real’s book that I’m currently reading, I Don't Want to Talk About It. “Men's willingness to downplay weakness and pain is so great that it has been named as a factor in their shorter life span,” writes Real. As he continues, “Men wait longer to acknowledge that they are sick, take longer to get help, and once they get treatment do not comply with it as well as women do.”
I see these stats and I read these quotes, and it’s like I can feel it in my bones. And these stats would suggest that we likely know men who are experiencing depression, suicidal thoughts, or substance abuse, and we don’t even know it. It’s heartbreaking. And I feel so deeply for that younger version of myself, who grew up within this system, and every other boy who does.
I see myself, and the generations of men in my family, in those stats. While I was never diagnosed with depression, probably in part because I was so adamant about not going to see a doctor or therapist, I believe without a shadow of a doubt that I’ve experienced it. I don’t remember ever thinking about suicide, but I do remember in my mid-20s, feeling like I was at rock-bottom, and trying to come up with any and every plausible idea to escape the life I was currently living. I would get so overwhelmed that it literally would make me sick, and I would daydream about just disappearing from the life I had, Jason Bourne style, to create a life in some far-flung place where no one knew me. And I just about did that traveling and living abroad in my late-20s like I did.
So when I look at what was modeled to me, my conditioning, and the culture and systems I grew up in, it doesn’t leave a lot of great options. That’s really saying something considering the privilege I’ve had as a white, straight cisgender man.
Hurt, grandiose, blaming others for not filling me up, I was in search of the next big fix, in search of love without having the skills to love well in return. Like Perceval, I have spent a good portion of my life wandering, searching for the right question.”
― Terrence Real, I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression
My foundation was a foundation of narcissism, abuse, codependency, and patriarchy. Research tells us, as I mentioned above, that 90% of our development happens in the first few years of our life. And as Oprah and Dr. Bruce D. Perry write in their book, What Happened To You, we can’t give what we didn’t receive. It was modeled that meaning, joy, love, and so many other emotions came outside of one’s self. So it’s only natural that I would look outside of myself for those things.
“What I’ve learned from talking to so many victims of traumatic events, abuse, or neglect is that after absorbing these painful experiences, the child begins to ache. A deep longing to feel needed, validated, and valued begins to take hold. As these children grow, they lack the ability to set a standard for what they deserve. And if that lack is not addressed, what often follows is a complicated, frustrating pattern of self-sabotage, violence, promiscuity, or addiction.” ― Bruce D. Perry, What Happened to You?
When I hear people talk about how, when, and why they quit substances, I often hear people talk about the health complications, dangers it was causing, and/or damage to their relationships. I don’t have a story like that. It’s what I think people are expecting me to say when they ask me about why I stopped drinking. I’ll get asked about if I’m sleeping better or have noticed any physical changes. And I most definitely have. Arguably the biggest change I’ve noticed is in mental clarity, although I also feel healthier, sleep better, and generally don’t seem to need as much sleep as before.
However, this all seems secondary. And alcohol, and so many other things, seem secondary. I’m descended from a family of abuse. I grew up in a cocktail of narcissism, codependency, and patriarchy. And we live in a culture of overabundance. So while I didn’t grow in an environment of substance abuse, I grew up in an environment that felt chaotic, and where things like feelings, self-exploration, connection, interdependence, love, and self-love were substituted for travel, work, food, video games, the Internet, sex, and other things.
Travel, food, and sex, for example, aren’t bad in and of themselves. The problem in part was how I was introduced to them, and what was modeled to me, like my first introduction to sex, when I accidentally walked in on a couple having sex, and was physically abused because I hadn’t knocked on the door before entering. There was the caregiver who would drop me off at the barbershop to sit by myself so they could go out back to look at porn with a friend. That’s the same caregiver who after getting in an argument with someone, would just disappear to travel for several days. And there were the many times I was upset and would be soothed with food to the point of overeating. I was a fucking kid.
I recently read Anna Lembke’s book, Dopamine Nation. In it she talks about the overabundant world we live in, and pursuit of pleasure that often leads to pain. "Recovery begins with abstinence," she writes. As Lembke continues, "Abstinence rests the brains reward pathway and with it our capacity to take joy and simpler pleasures." When I started reading excerpts of Lembke’s book last year, and started listening to other people speak about recovery, sobriety, and abstinence, I started to think about recovery in a much broader sense than just substance abuse.
Last year, as I noticed my body, mind, behavior patterns, and thought patterns beginning to change, after several years of therapy and significant self-excavation, I’m going to be honest, I felt like a little bit of a Jedi Master (It all comes back to Star Wars). But I’d just scratched the surface, and it’s like my body knew that the most profound healing would require abstinence of some of the things I loved most.
“The neuroscientist George Koob calls this phenomenon “dysphoria driven relapse,” wherein a return to using is driven not by the search for pleasure but by the desire to alleviate physical and psychological suffering of protracted withdrawal. Here’s the good news. If we wait long enough, our brains (usually) readapt to the absence of the drug and we reestablish our baseline homeostasis: a level balance. Once our balance is level, we are again able to take pleasure in everyday, simple rewards. Going for a walk. Watching the sun rise. Enjoying a meal with friends.” ― Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation
I feel like we treat a lot of therapy, and dare I say even addiction, as if we’re applying a bandaid or duct tape to it. We act as if the thing—whether it’s alcohol, drugs, sex, relationships, work, food, travel, or whatever—is the problem. And if we just take away the thing, then all will be well. In some cases that does work, and I believe abstinence is incredibly important, especially when there’s addiction involved.
However, in many cases, there are root causes and other things below the surface that have to be addressed. If not, then the absence of one addiction can just get replaced with another.
In the realm of relationships/love, there’s the concept known as “The Broken Picker Syndrome,” or what Ross Rosenberg calls in his book of the same name, “The Human Magnet Syndrome.” Rosenberg talks about the “unconscious, trauma-based psychological forces” that draw certain types of people together, and more specifically narcissists and codependents. It comes as no surprise then that narcissism and codependency were so prevalent in my childhood. But rather than a broken picker, it’s like I had a broken baseline.
A few paragraphs up I mentioned what Dr. Perry writes about how we can’t give what we didn’t receive. I had no model of love, and had so few models of things like self-love, connection, worth, community, interdependence, and self-regulation. And I watched as people, and especially men, reached for connection, love, happiness, and worth through things outside of themselves like sex, relationships, food, travel, and work. It was like a gravitational pull to these things, especially at the closest sign of trouble.
So how could I know love, self-love, connection, worth, happiness, and community, let alone give it to others, when I grew up in an environment where these were in such deficit? I couldn’t. And so that’s arguably how I found myself speechless, and with no answer 15 months ago when my therapist called me into codependency healing. It wasn’t a very conscious choice then, or even in the days immediately following, to quit drinking coffee, take a break from alcohol, and so forth. Yet in hindsight it seems like it was such a gravitational pull.
You know on your phone and a lot of other devices, you can do a factory reset, but you can keep things like all your photos, videos, and contacts? I feel like that’s what this last year has been. I couldn’t just press control, alt, delete, or turn it off and back on again. There wasn’t a previous software version I could go back to. I had to create a new baseline.
It’s been nearly 13 months since I’ve had an alcoholic drink. It would have been 15 months without caffeine if it wasn’t for accidentally having a little bit recently after glossing over the “espresso” fine print on a menu (And it was an experience after not having any caffeine—that I know of—for 14 months.). I would occasionally have “chill” cannabis jellies or a weed pen hit, which I particularly enjoyed when going to indie theaters to watch movies like Mad Max: Fury Road and Donnie Darko. I haven’t had any in nearly a year. Other things, like social media, I quit for a few months, and came back to.
I don’t call myself sober, though I’m not really into labels to begin with. But I also regularly go to bars and restaurants to enjoy mocktails and non-alcoholic beers (that in many cases, like kombucha, have less than 0.5% alcohol), which some people would argue doesn’t count as sobriety.
I expect that at some point, I’ll be celebrating something special with loved ones, like a promotion, graduation, or milestone, and when the bartender asks if I want another NA IPA, I’ll respond, “Weller 12, neat, please, and thank you.” Maybe after a red-eye flight I’ll replace my herbal tea order for a nitro cold brew. And perhaps I’ll not have another for 12 months, or perhaps my enjoyment will have changed, and I’ll be ok drinking decaf chai, NA beers, and Phony Negronis for the rest of my life.
This is my story, and only my story, and definitely not a hit piece on alcohol, or caffeine, or anything else. And it’s not a case for sobriety. I could’ve shared a lot of the science about the effects of alcohol, of which there are many. I thought about that, and at some point, maybe I will. What’s been more important, however, has been to reflect on this last year of quitting a lot of things, and reflect on it within the context of my childhood, the systems I grew up a part of, and my life trajectory. Because quitting booze, caffeine, etc. wasn’t about those things in and of themselves.
Last summer I listened to Glennon Doyle’s podcast episode, no. 199, titled, “Why Glennon Says We Should All Be In Recovery.” I then listened to it again. And again and again and again over the next month. The more I listened to it, the more I felt like I was experiencing a period of recovery like she discussed. I love what she says, “It feels like nothing’s happening. And the thing is that everything is happening.” I feel that so deeply when I think back on the first few months of quitting all the things.
The term “recovery” seems like such a dirty word. Historically, the image I’ve had in my head involves people who are at a long-term rehab facility in Malibu. That or I’ve watched too many Ben Affleck movies or have listened to Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” too many times. That doesn’t describe me. I don’t feel like I ever had a substance dependency, but it’s like I had a dependency on everything but myself. Connection, worth, identity, love, meaning, and so many things I got from everything and everyone but myself, and I gave away all my power.
And so it was never a lot of one thing, but a little bit of everything that kept me numbed, disconnected, and distanced from myself and therefore everyone else. If it wasn’t travel, then it was my work, and if it wasn’t work, then it was starting a new project, and if it wasn’t a new project, then it was going out drinking or eating, and if it wasn’t eating or drinking then it was porn, binging TV, starting a new relationship, and any number of things.
So this wasn’t so much about substance recovery, but rather recovery of self, and developing first and foremost a better relationship with myself, and then developing better relationships with everything else. And over the last few weeks, as I’ve written this essay, I’ve been able to put that into words and make the connection. And damn, it feels so powerful and important to connect all this as I’ve written this essay.
There’s no formula, steps, or prescription to life, and especially when it comes to what we put in our bodies. One of my biggest learnings of the last year has been realizing how life, and especially growth, isn’t as linear as I’ve made it out to be. It has cycles, and ebbs and flows, and damn this last year has been hella ebby and flowy. It’s a little bit like the first time I ever rode a roller coaster, Disney World’s Space Mountain, when I was about 7. I was such a wound up ball of emotions that I quite literally farted the entire ride, and got off looking and feeling shell-shocked, but yet did it all over again. This has been a ride, and so disarming, pushing me to my edges, but I’d do it all over again.
But y’all, let me be straight with you, when I really think about recovery and what we’re asking of ourselves and others, it seems like a fucking racket. There are a lot of things I can make sense of. If I eat healthier, then I'll soon after start feeling healthier. If I keep a regular workout routine, then eventually I'll lose weight and/or build muscle. If I do 15 minutes of Duolingo Spanish every day, then before too long I’ll know how to order apples and milk at a cafe. But that’s not how recovery works.
Recovery, healing, or whatever word you want to use to describe it, is such a brave and courageous act. And I so badly want the reward and the fruit of such courage and bravery immediately, or immediately-ish, like lifting weights or eating healthier. However, I feel like Glennon says it best in her recovery episode, "You get rewarded for this amazing act of courage with withdrawal."
In talking with other therapists, this seems to be one of the leading reasons why people either don’t go to therapy or don’t continue with it. There are no antibiotics. There’s no diet you’re following. It’s not like you’re going into see a doctor or mechanic. It’s sticky, uncomfortable, and the only way out is through, and we’re the only ones who can do the work. So, have I sold you on therapy, healing, and recovery?
Glennon, when describing withdrawal says, “It’s just like this long, drawn out shit show where all your coping mechanisms are gone.” As she continues, “It’s this transition period where you’ve stopped doing the thing that you needed to live with and you haven’t replaced it with anything else yet, and you haven’t become the person you need to be to fall.” I compare it to winter. You look at plants, trees, and animals, and it looks like nothing is happening. But as Katherine May describes winter in her wonderful book, Wintering, “Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.”
“I’m going to throw myself off the cliff and just assume that the person I’m going to become after is going to be at the bottom of the cliff and is going to catch me. And that there’s a bunch of shit that’s going to happen in that fall that’s going to change me into a different woman by the time I catch myself at the bottom.” —Glennon Doyle, Episode 199, We Can Do Hard Things
To play off more of Glennon’s words in epi 199, I feel as if the last year was like this cosmic invitation to live a fuller, more deeper, joyful life. I’m not sure my journey serves as a strategy. Shortly after the end of my most significant relationship to date, I quit caffeine, quit drinking, hit the brakes on work, took breaks from a lot of other things, dove headfirst into codependency healing, and doubled down on personal self-excavation. I pulled the rug out from underneath myself. It was a lot. And it’s changed my life.
My eyes just welled up as I started to write this last paragraph out, as I thought about how I would do this past year over and over again for the rest of my life. The physical and more tangible benefits alone have been worth the cost, but what’s even more important, is the cycle that’s been broken and the immense change that’s resulted. And arguably the most powerful and coolest thing about it is how it changes every single one of my relationships. That’s not nothing.
So back to the original question, are we all in recovery? I don’t know. But I feel like we’re all recovering from something. On another recent episode of We Can Do Hard Things, Dan Levy said, “Everyone is grieving something.” He goes onto say that there’s such community in that if we can be more open about it. And that really struck me, because there’s been such power in talking about this journey, whether it be in therapy, with friends, in processing groups, or writing about it here. I feel like every time I talk about my journey, it in part lessens the power of those things that have had power over me at different times in my life.
I want to end—finally—by saying how overwhelmed with gratitude I am. For all of it. But as I close, I feel an immense gratitude for so many relationships, friends, family, mentors, and therapists who have helped light the path. While my childhood felt chaotic, and didn’t give me so many things I needed, there are so many things it did give me. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it wasn’t for my mom and older sisters. They in part embodied love, and gave me a glimpse into what was possible. There are the coaches, teachers, friends, and so many others, too, who have been like light bearers. They have all been such gifts, and I hope that in part, sharing stories like this can bring light to the paths of others.
And breath. Is it just me, or are these essays getting longer (It can’t just be me)? This one in particular means a lot to me, and more than I ever expected. Thank you for coming along on this journey.
For your next dinner party
Over the last year I have tried a LOT of non-alcoholic drinks. I’ve tried about 40 different non-alcoholic beer brands, 15-20 non-alcoholic wines, and at least 20 non-alcoholic spirits. I happened to have some of my favorites at home, so I made this video sharing a few of them. If you want to skip the part of me singing B-E-E-R R-U-N and rambling on, then skip to 2:30.
In short, here are some of my favorites.
Untitled Art Italian Style Pils, hands down my favorite NA beer.
Athletic Brewing, a lot of their NA beers are great, and I love some of the limited edition brews they make.
Guinness, yes Guinness! Guinness 0 is fantastic.
Self Care, an NA beer brand from Washington-based Three Magnets Brewing, is making some really interesting beers, and consistently dropping new ones.
Oddbird Blanc de Blanc, hands down my favorite NA wine.
St. Agrestis, makes phenomenal NA cocktails, like their flagship Phony Negroni.
Pathfinder, is hands down the best NA spirit on the market in my opinion. It’s a hemp-based spirit that drinks like an amaro.
Spencer - I am just in awe of how you approach vulnerability and honesty in your writing. You're really providing a service to others through your voice. Kudos for you to putting in the work, and thank you so much for sharing your journey. I was especially hit by what you said about male depression and loneliness. And now I have another Terry Real book to ad to my growing collection!