Sobriety Takes Away the Only Fun We Know | Sober and Unashamed

When you walk through the gates at DisneyLand, no one has to tell you what you are there to do. You are there to have fun! The same holds true for attending a college or professional sporting event, going to a concert, or clicking into your bindings for a day of skiing. No one goes to the beach to pay taxes or work on the company’s P&L statement (does anything scream, “LOSER!” like a laptop under a beach umbrella?).

Some signals for entertainment and enjoyment are clear. Alcohol is one such signal that it is time to relax and have fun, too.

I know that our society has adapted alcohol as a tool to manage a lot more than enjoyment. We drink to relieve depression, stress, anxiety, physical pain, emotional pain, and potentially anticipated pain. We drink to celebrate, but we drink to mourn, too. Those of us with particular expertise in alcohol manipulation even learn to use alcohol to get more work done or to stay awake when we are exhausted (that is graduate-level depressant twistification).

But no matter how we invite alcohol into all the corners of our lives, it’s main intent is to enhance our fun. That’s why Bud Light sponsors beach volleyball tournaments and not funeral parlors…at least not yet (what…