Sobriety was a lonely place when Jill Stark wrote High Sobriety 10 years ago. Teetotal again, life is much easier in the sober curious age
It’s a dizzying experience to go from inveterate binge drinker to poster girl for sobriety. In my defence, I never asked to be the spokesperson for a modern-day temperance movement. My breakup with booze was always meant to be a year-long personal experiment. It came after more than two decades of epic partying. The hangovers were starting to hit harder and last longer. It felt as if I was drowning in a drinking culture that used alcohol to celebrate, commiserate and commemorate. In the shadow of my 35th birthday, I decided it was time for a spell on dry land.
I wasn’t prepared for what happened next – which is also, coincidentally, the question I’ve been asked most since the book about that journey came out 10 years ago. High Sobriety documented the triumphs and trials of my alcohol-free odyssey and examined the wider culture that had swept me and so many others up in a tide that felt impossible to swim against. Drinking was not only socially accepted, it was socially expected.
