I’m newly sober, dog-paddling through a world soaked in booze. It’s summer, and Whole Foods has practically planted rosé in every aisle. Rosé is lovely with fish! And strawberries! And vegan protein powder! (Okay, I made that last one up.) At the office, every desk near mine sports a bottle of wine or liquor, just in case someone is too lazy to walk the 50 feet to one of the gleaming communal bars we’ve installed on our floor.
Driving home, I pass billboard after billboard for Fluffed Marshmallow Smirnoff and Iced Cake Smirnoff—not just Cinnamon, but Cinnamon Churros Smirnoff. A local pharmacy, the same one that messed up my prescription three months in a row, now has self-service beer taps, and young men line up with empty growlers all the way back to Eye & Ear Care.
Traveling for work, I steel myself for the company-sponsored wine tasting. Skipping it isn’t an option. My plan is simple: work the room with my soda and lime, make sure I’m seen by the five people who care about these things, and leave before things get sloppy, which they inevitably do. Six wines and four beers are displayed at the catering stand. I ask for club soda and get a blank stare. “Just water, then?” The bartender grimaces. “I think there’s a water fountain in the lobby?” There is. But it’s broken. I mingle empty-handed for fifteen minutes, politely fending off repeated offers from well-meaning colleagues. By the fifth, I realize I’m going to cry if one more person offers me alcohol. I leave—and cry anyway. Later, I order vanilla ice cream from room service to cheer myself up.
“People love this with a shot of bourbon poured over it,” the server says. “Any interest in treating yourself?”
That summer, I realize everyone around me is tanked. But the women—oh, the women—are double tanked. To be a modern, urban woman seems to mean you must be a serious drinker. This isn’t new; just ask the Sex and the City girls (or the flappers). A woman with a single malt scotch is bold, discerning, and might fire you from her life if you cross her. A woman with a PBR is a Cool Girl who will not be shamed for belching. A woman with MommyJuice wine is signaling she’s more than the unpaid labor she produced in childbirth. The drinks become signifiers: free time, self-care, conversation—luxuries many of us can’t afford. “How did you not see this before?” I ask myself. “You were too hammered,” I answer back. That summer, I see it all clearly: booze is the oil in our motors, keeping us purring when we should be making other kinds of noise.
One day, I’m wearing unwise—but cute, so cute—shoes and trip at the farmer’s market, cracking my phone, staining the knees of my favorite jeans with blood, and scraping both palms. Naturally, I post about it on Facebook after dusting myself off. Three women, unaware I’m sober, comment instantly:
“Wine. Immediately.”
“Do they sell wine there?”
Have I mentioned it’s morning on a weekday? Not a weekend night market. And these aren’t women struggling through life—they’re the cool, enviable chicks people mock for having First World Problems. Why do they feel the need to drink? Maybe because even cool chicks are still women. And being a woman? There’s no acceptable way to be one. So, perhaps, a drink—or a few—helps.
The year before sobriety, I’m invited to be The Woman on a company panel. That was literally the pitch: “We need one woman.” Three men and me, talking to summer interns about company culture. Two female interns sit in the audience. One asks, “I’ve heard this can be tough for women to succeed. Can you talk about what it’s been like for you?”
I answer as The Woman: “If you’re tough, persistent, and thick-skinned, you’ll find your way. I have.”
I leave out the parts about navigating interruptions, invisibility, microaggressions, a scarcity of role models, and my nightly bottle of wine. She, a woman, likely reads between the lines and thanks me anyway.
The men sitting next to me chime in. “I think this is a great company for women.” My jaw opens. Another nods: “Absolutely. I have two women on my team; they get along great with everyone.” Of course they do. Camouflage.
Guy #1 continues: “There’s a woman on my team who had a baby last year. She went on maternity leave and came back fine. We’re very supportive.”
Guy #3 adds: “Merit is gender-blind.” His smile wavers when he meets mine. Silent balefulness. I’ve pierced some smug.
Afterward, the panel organizer and I fume. “Those effing fcks,” she says. “Ratfcks.”
What’s a woman to do after being publicly invalidated by a bunch of dudes? I could confront them, but instead I round up girlfriends, spend hundreds in a hipster bar, drink rye Manhattans, nibble tapas, and vent about meetings, trips, and performance reviews. We toast each other for enduring it all. Tipsy, we Uber home, thinking, “Look at all we’ve earned!” That night, under twinkly lights, with miniature food and chauffeured black cars, we’re triumphant. We’ve made it. Nothing needs to change.
Do you remember the Enjoli commercial from the 1970s? The woman who could bring home the bacon, fry it up, and never let you forget you’re a man? I blame her for spreading the notion that women must do it all: career, house, sex. The tagline lingered: “The 8-Hour Perfume for the 24-Hour Woman.” One hour off? Not possible.
That first sober summer offers more eye-openers. I go to a Magic Mike showing at a fancy theater serving cocktails. Rows ahead, women sip champagne through straws, cheering as though the dancers were real-life Chippendales. A woman declares, “Girl time! We’ve earned this!”
At a nail-parlor baby shower, everyone drinks, except the mom-to-be. A woman in yellow insists the guest of honor drink with them, emphasizing the sanctity of “lady time.” I nod quietly, recognizing the social choreography of booze.
That summer, I also run a women’s half-marathon on a day fifteen degrees above normal. It’s brutal. I finish soaked, chafed, limping—and triumphant. Until someone points out, “The margarita tent is right over there!”
Yoga studios host “Vinyasa & Vino” classes: fast-paced yoga in a sweltering room followed by a glass of dehydrating indulgence. Knife skills classes? Also paired with wine. Waxing salons? Tequila on hand. Knives and booze, yoga and booze, 13-mile runs and booze—what next? Puppy ballet? CPR training? Somewhere along the line, we’ve stopped trusting our natural responses. Maybe wine is the Instagram filter for our own lives.
By late summer, I’m in Sedona, posting a vacation photo: red rocks, books, giant cocoa smoothie, glossy toenails. “Uh, where’s the wine?” asks one friend. Another chimes in: “Seems like a wine-free vacation.” I visit a stationery store and notice the themes of female-to-female cards: aging, men, and wine. Newly sober, I physically shake my head. Maybe we need wine because some things are unacceptable, not because they’re enjoyable.
The longer I stay sober, the less patience I have for 24-hour womanhood. The stranger telling me to smile. The janitor staring at my legs. TV men dictating my reproductive rights. Memes claiming muscles, fat, or thinness is beautiful, as if beauty were a carefully measured ration of princess dust. I start to get angry—not at being born wrong, or at patriarchy, but at women who soothe themselves with bottles, mistaking intoxication for liberation.
I spend months angry: first sober Christmas, a job change, flu, birthday. I use that anger as a guide: go slow, pay attention, and choose the things I want. By the next summer, I no longer smell of eight-hour perfume.
That second summer, I meet my friend Mindy in San Diego, days before her adopted son is born. Her dark alleys differ from mine, yet she navigates them with the same courage. We spend the weekend slowly, sleeping late, silently wishing the baby would hurry up.
On Sunday, reading by the deep end of the pool, a bridal party arrives tipsy, clutching pomegranate mimosas. Complaints about bodies, jobs, husbands, and homes echo across the water. Mindy and I exchange the look women share: “Do you believe this shiz?” Over her laptop, another woman catches it, and soon, a silent four-way chorus of dismay emerges.
Mindy slides her sunglasses down and says, “It’s really nice on this side of the pool.” I laugh, heart swelling. It is. It is the side where my legs are pale, the ice in my glass has melted, work is still hard, and I have to deal with life authentically. I never expected to get here. And yet, here I am.
