SOBER SEPTEMBER

Summer's over—it's time for a reset

A sign at the CHOP barricade (Photo by moi)

In 2019, I coined the term “California Sober” to describe people who don’t drink, but do consume cannabis and plant-based psychedelics. The buzzword went viral in the mainstream media, was championed by ~celebrities~ like Chelsea Handler, and signified a turning social tide away from binge drinking culture, and towards a more sustainable way of living. Most importantly, it created space for people who are interested in recalibrating their relationships to drugs and drinking, but don’t necessarily subscribe to the strictures of traditional programs like Alcoholics Anonymous.

Understanding sobriety as a dynamic spectrum, rather than an on/off binary, has been one of the most helpful insights I’ve developed over years of self-experimentation. Rather than regarding addiction as cause for self-flagellation through which abstinence is the only option, this is about sobriety as a spiritual stance, wellness practice, and political praxis. Crotchety AA members love to make fun of Cali Sober, but fuck ‘em—I know I was onto something here.

Then the pandemic happened, and everything got flipped on its head.

Like many of you, I found myself binging on substances to numb the overwhelming anxiety borne out of unprecedented uncertainty and loss. My relationship to weed took a darker turn and I started to feel out of control, smoking so much that I’d wake up with sharp pains in my lungs and a sandpaper throat that I knew didn’t bode well for avoiding Ms. ‘Rona.

Author pic taken by my stoner pal Zack Sokol

I also started traveling around America for this newsletter, chasing the trail of protests and autonomous zones from Seattle’s CHOP to New York City's Abolition Park. Along the way, I started noticing an interesting phenomenon: drugs and drinking were seen by activists as detriments to the seriousness of their cause. Leaders at the CHOP would often roam around the camp, actively encouraging people not to drink and telling them that this wasn’t Coachella. A sign at the barricades even read: SUBSTANCE OVER SUBSTANCES.

In a sense, this stance reverses some of the countercultural lessons we’ve inherited from the hippie movement about drugs as tools of subversion. These days—and especially for Generation Z— sobriety is is the truly subversive stance, indicating a willingness to remain clear-eyed and present despite how painful this political moment can be. This is not to cast a moral judgement on drug use, or say that the desire to disassociate into a druggie fantasyland wrong. Escaping trauma and oppression through hacking our biochemistry is a release that everyone deserves—especially for those most marginalized by society.

A freedom fighter in Seattle who told me he volunteered on the front lines of Rojava in Syria, where an autonomous zone is defended by all-female militias. When I asked him what the revolution is—if it’s not a party—he said: “The revolution must be armed!”

I learned this one night at the CHOP when a group of junkie-ravers gave me some shrooms, and the critical judgements I had been harboring about the messiness I was seeing around the autonomous zone—the violent fights, the overdoses, the dramatic meltdowns—slowly melted away as I began to trip. Suddenly, I understood that substance abuse has always been a way to cope with societal oppression, and what I was witnessing was the purging of pain in a place where Black people didn’t have to be afraid of the cops being called on them.

So in June, I started a virtual sober group called CLUB SOBER, which currently takes the form of a private Discord channel for paid subscribers of this newsletter. (For those unfamiliar with Discord, I like to call it ‘Slack for gamers,’ although the platform has now expanded into all kinds of scenes, including underground music and activist groups.) CLUB SOBER ended up attracting people from all over the world, many from nightlife and music backgrounds, who are interested in envisioning what a new sober paradigm could look like beyond the traditional models of AA and 12-steps. (Beyond these lofty theoretical discussions, we also just hang out and talk about our lives, lol.) Many of us have decided to do a SOBER SEPTEMBER, using this month as a reset button after a long and very weird summer—and supporting each other through the challenges that will inevitably arise once drugs aren’t there as a buffer.

This weekend, we are extremely stoked to kick off our first SOBER STUDY GROUP—a fantasy we’ve been harboring for a while of reading and discussing a syllabus of seminal sober texts—everything from the AA Big Book to Cat Marnell’s How to Murder Your Life. Our first text will be ‘Refuge Recovery’ by Levine Noah, which is based on a Buddhist perspective towards addiction. (Thank you Geoff Mak for this suggestion!) We will also be doing a meditation to a rave soundtrack, which (if you’re like me), will be a great way to reprogram the triggering association of dance music with drug use.

If any of this speaks to you, please join us! Just subscribe to a paid tier using the button above, and you’ll get a link to the private Discord group. (If funds are an issue, just respond to this email and I’ll give you a free membership—I really don’t want finances to be an obstacle to anyone’s sober journey.) You also don’t have to be totally abstinent to join this group, being Cali sober is cute.

Finally, to all the paid subscribers of RAVE NEW WORLD: THANK YOU. Your support has allowed me to do some of the most meaningful work I’ve ever done, with the invaluable peace of mind of not freaking out about funds, and I’m excited to keep growing this lil community with you. Next stops: New York to investigate the problematics of pandemic raving, and Philadelphia, where the houseless autonomous zone is getting evicted next week. Stay tuned!