Maybe you should stop

Your friends have stopped drinking, should you?

Happy October, the best month of the year. For some of you it’s Sober October, and for some of you it’s full of beer on football Sundays and spiked apple ciders, and I’d like to know why.

Why does your status as a drinker, a non-drinker, a social-drinker, or sober-curious person seem like a new way to define your social status? California sober, aka not drinking alcohol but consuming other substances, is talked about like it’s the next stage of enlightenment. Shout out to my friend Loriza for requesting this topic. ₊⊹

Here’s what you’ll find in this post:

• Things are going terribly wrong in our heads, send help

• When did sobriety become a social status worth bragging about?

• Why is this cultural shift happening? (And why I think it’s a good thing)

I’ll also include a poll or two to find out how this readership is split on the subject. I want to know how many of you (it’s anonymous), are still hittin’ the bottle every weekend and who amongst you are opting for other options or nothing at all!

Please participate in the polls. They’re fun! And like I said, anonymous.

One quick aside just for you, dear reader.

I realize you could be doing anything else right now. Scrolling IG or TikTok, reading a book, or diving into your email inbox, but you’re here! And I appreciate that.

Substack runs on likes and comments, in other words, your engagement with this post. Please give this post a 💛 to support Mall Talk, and leave a comment if you feel compelled. This will help my little seedling newsletter to grow 🌱

Back to booze.

Before we have any fun, let me be clear about this post. I am not speaking about anyone who is struggling with an actually alcohol addiction. That is not what this post is about. This is about people who are voluntarily drinking socially, and those who are sober because they want to be, not due to addiction.

Okay? Cool.

First off, if you are sober, that’s fucking amazing, and you should definitely shame all of your drunk ass friends who can’t get it together. It blows my mind how much shame has been associated with being sober, while your friends / family / coworkers could be throwing up out the window of their Uber or embarrassing themselves with a belligerent monologue. And you’re the weird one??

I once had a girlfriend who was embarrassed that I ordered water at the bar. “No guys are going to talk to us if you’re drinking WATER.”

There is not a single topic or scenario that a RHONY gif can’t apply to.

There are so many benefits to being the sober one! I can watch out for your drunk ass. I can drive us to and fro. I can talk circles around these idiots. It’s like playing a game in an alternate universe.

For those of you who simply enjoy a nice glass of wine with dinner now and then, how European of you. You are chic. Congratulations.

I understand why it’s so hard to give up drinking. And I’m not suggesting everybody should, just acknowledging that it’s difficult to do.

Alcohol is used to comfort in times of sadness, amplify times of celebration, and quell nerves in times of stress. We all know these things but drinking is so deeply engrained into our society that it has seemed impossible to untangle the two, until now.

Much to the dismay of the booze industry, the great American storyline that alcohol is our cure-all savior is coming unraveled. Perhaps. That’s what I would like to believe. I’ve heard more than once that GenZ are drinking less than their predecessors. Are they just finding alternatives? Vapes, pills, god knows what else.

According to the 2023 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 224.3 million people ages 12 and older (79.1% in this age group) reported that they drank alcohol at some point in their lifetime.^1,2 This includes:

• 111.1 million males ages 12 and older

• 113.2 million females ages 12 and older

That’sssss a lot of people. To be honest, all of these stats left me confused. Anecdotally, it would seem that people are drinking less, but according to the data, that may be an illusion. Who’s lying?? Somebody’s lying.

Your friend who said they were giving up alcohol yesterday.

This according to Talbot Research:

An estimated 15 million people struggle with an alcohol use disorder in the United States, but less than 10% of them receive treatment. More than 65 million Americans report binge drinking in the past month, which is more than 40% of the total of current alcohol users. Teen alcohol use kills 4,700 people each year.

65 MILLION PEOPLE are regularly binge drinking?? Hm.. Perhaps living a sober lifestyle is such a badge of honor because it seems like EVERYONE else is drinking, from your 14 year old nephew to your 92 year old grandpa. So yes, you are a special snowflake.

This is based on my purely biased speculation, but there are so many factors swirling around the US right now that could contribute towards more people drinking, like the mental health crisis, a lack of religion, lack of community. Or less people drinking. For example, the opioid epidemic, financial limitations, and the psychedelic renaissance (you know I had to go there!!) might be culminating in people finding other outlets, for better or worse.

Do you think there are other factors? Drop them in the comments!

Time for a poll!! Are you ready??

Uh oh! A SECOND poll!

I know I said this wasn’t a well-researched post, and it’s not, but I was curious and had to look up some mental health stats. It’s um…not looking good.

These are some of the latest findings from Mental Health America, a non-profit:

• In 2021-2022, 23% of adults experienced a mental illness in the past year, equivalent to nearly 60 million Americans.

• 1 in 5 youth had at least one major depressive episode (MDE) in the past year. Over half of them – nearly 3 million youth - did not receive treatment. Of those who did receive treatment, only 65% said it helped them.

• The vast majority of individuals with a substance use disorder in the U.S. are not receiving treatment. 18% of adults in the U.S. had a substance use disorder in the past year. Of them, 77% did not receive treatment.

• There are 340 people for every 1 mental health provider in the U.S. However, these figures may be an overestimate of active mental health professionals, as it may include providers who are no longer practicing or accepting new patients.

That is bleak. And I’m not making light of it. It’s really, really bad. I did not include any of the stats about people un-alive-ing themselves, but those were particularly jarring, especially amongst the youth. It’s obvious that the US healthcare system is completely ineffective when it comes to treating and supporting our mental health. But why are the kiddos so depressed?! They’ve barely lived life yet:( We can blame social media, but what else is it? Diet, lack of sunshine and outdoor time, lack of good parenting and boundaries, or the absence of community, religion, or time with grandparents and other family members?

D. All of the above?

I can hear some of you coming for me for referencing religion as a potential contributor to the tragic state of mental health in this country. Personally, I’m not religious, but I can understand how it creates a sense of community and purpose, a support network, and a framework of values and accountability a child can grow and be nurtured within. Since that has died down, there hasn’t been anything that’s come up in its place. I would be really interested to see data on the correlation between the dissolution of religion in small towns and the rise of opioid use.

Anyyyyyways.

Hard right.

I don’t think it takes a doctor, scientist, sociologist, or any other PhD to tell us that alcohol use does not bode well for our emotional wellbeing, and based on the aforementioned status that 224 MILLION PEOPLE ages 12 and up are pounding White Claws, that could be a factor!

I’m not saying I’m in favor of another prohibition, but it would be SO interesting to see if alcohol were out of the picture, how much our national mental health crisis improve.

Enter, psychedelics ☆.𓋼𓍊 𓆏 𓍊𓋼𓍊.☆

The first psychedelic I ever tried was LSD about eight years ago. I came in hot, I know. Like every other milestone (can I call it that?) in my life, I was a late bloomer. At the time I had just been diagnosed with Bipolar II (the cute one), and I was desperate for something to supplement the small dose of lithium I was on that wasn’t cutting it.

To clarify, I wasn’t dropping acid and tripping for 12 hours every weekend. I was thoughtfully microdosing it, using it to unlock creativity, clear rumination, and calm social anxiety. They don’t call it a social sliver for nothin’!

Within a couple of weeks of microdosing LSD, I felt like a new level of Trish had been unlocked. My drinking quickly waned. I had always been a terrible drinker anyways. I never had a tolerance, and I’d get sick anytime I had more than two drinks. Still, it landed me in the hospital more than once in high school and college for severe dehydration. (You know when you throw up so much that your body is like, we’re done here. So much talk about throw up in this post and for that I am sorry).

To me, alcohol always felt mandatory. Especially in the 2005-2015 era. Like, what else was I going to do? Once I finally stopped, it felt like distant memory. And I immediately mounted my high horse to tell everyone how amazing I was for giving it up.

I would take a bullet for this woman.

Here’s the thing about mushrooms, acid, etc. they can be incredible, life-changing medicines, but they do not automatically make you enlightened. There’s an integration process and lifestyle shift that coincide with the actual consumption, and if the medicine isn’t viewed as one component of that ecosystem, you might not experience the sort of sweeping mind-body shift that’s expected from these substances.

I’ve met plenty of bros who are on their sixth ayahuasca trip and they’re still douchebags.

Despite what people would like to believe, using psychedelics does not automatically make you a better person.

Oh and word to the wise, NEVER trust someone who says they are a shaman without thorough investigation into their background. In my opinion, if they are white and under the age of 60, I ain’t buying it. The whole point of being a shaman is that they’ve spent YEARS AND YEARS in the jungles, deserts, forests, being one with nature and learning from the medicine. Brett from San Fernando who graduated from UCLA in 2010 and gave himself a shamanic name and title after spending six months in Peru does not a shaman make.

All that to say, these plant medicines were immensely helpful in helping me stop drinking. I have since moved on from classic psychedelics to gentler modalities like kanna (not to be confused with kava), and blue lotus. They suit my geriatric pace of life more at this stage.

The moral here is that we all get to choose our own adventure. Some of those adventures are better than others.

LAST POLL I SWEAR! Just trying to get to know you guys ♡︎

Whatever you do, whatever your relationship with booze, know this. Nobody looks BETTER drunk.

Dorinda Medley, Real Housewives of New York

Peace and love!