Intro

As of March 1st, 2020 I have been sober for 18 months. I quit drinking because my life had become unmanageable. The only thing that provided me with some semblance of happiness was drinking. Once that spiraled out of control I had nothing but rock bottom. I had pretty much forced my own hand to give up alcohol.

The decision to go back to the service industry was hard, but I did it primarily for three reasons. I love the biz, the money is good, and because it was my only skill I had readily available. I was toying with the idea of maybe working at a coffee shop or something along those lines, still service industry but no alcohol involved, however at the time I was worried about money, and I knew I could get a higher paying gig faster if I got back behind the bar. I was a little apprehensive getting back in the game, but I knew I had worked in that environment sober before (albiet for limited amounts of time), and I knew of people who could manage it and not drink. So I knew this was not impossible. But it was certainly uncharted waters for me.

The Secret to Staying Sober

*DISCLAIMER*

Everyones recovery is different, this is simply my path that I am happy to share in hopes that I can inspire even just one person to live the life they want and deserve. My path is also one of complete abstinence, and that may seem daunting, or unfeasable but it is what I have to do. This does not negate or diminish any steps towards a healthier relationship with alcohol, whether it be cutting down or a temporary haitus. Any effort to improve your life should be seen as something to be admired

*END DISCLAIMER*

I was able to stay sober for this long for a lot of reasons. It has been a slow and steady process to get to where I am today, and it wasn’t without some setbacks (Thankfully no relapses). For the first few weeks I was holding on to sobriety with white knuckles, really scared and anxious. I did anything to get out of situations where drinking was a temptation for me. I turned down drinks saying that I was doing “Sober whatever month we were in” or making up excuses to weasle my way out of sticking around after my shift. At first I didn’t have to courage to flat out say to people I just met at a new job “Oh I’m a struggling alcoholic trying to quit, no thanks”. That got easier in time.

The biggest help for me was the Alcoholics Anonymous program. I still remember my first meeting like it was yesterday. I never felt so instantly understood by a group of strangers. I told my story and the look in everyone’s eyes were like “Yep, been there, you belong with us”. I had a very kind sponsor reach out to me and help me work on the 12 steps, which people have heard of and a lot of them sound kindof trite and banal. But like most cliches, they are what they are for a reason, there is a lot of collective wisdom behind them. The steps teach you how to get back on your feet and tolerate living sober and, eventually, become a better person. The person you want to be. The discussions and readings in the meetings are a weekly reminder for me that I’m not alone, and I think there is a lot of power in that.

AA was not the only system of support. My friends and family have been so understanding and helpful in my *sigh* journey. They were the first people I felt comfortable enough to turn to in early sobriety and I’m so thankful they were there with open arms. They all helped me get comfortable in my new skin and the strength they provide me with is what allows me to talk so candidly about sobriety now.

Which came first, the Booze or the Bartender?

Alcohol and drug misuse is a complex problem in the service industry, and I don’t think I’m the only one who has got caught up in it. However I think there are a few key insights as to why it is such a problem. If we can start to answer the ‘why?’ then we can work together to answer ‘how can we fix it?’.

There isn’t one perfect answer as there is a lot of interplay going on here and some speculation on my part, but I would say it boils down to two things:

One is the proximity to alcohol and specifically it’s consumption. On any given week a bartender at a busy place serves in some form or another say like 1000 guests. Say 90% of those people are drinking. This tricks our lizard brain into a false sense of how much the average person is drinking. Say your city has 100,000 people. That 90% now drops down to less than a %. This is a gross oversimplification as it doesn’t include people who are at home drinking etc. but you see the picture. The majority of people simply don’t drink that much. But that is not what we are lead to believe. The population you are subjected to behind the bar is self-selecting and skewed towards drinkers, and is not an accurate representation of the entire population. What you perceive gets compounded when all you do outside of work is hang out with other people in the industry and they drink as much as you. It becomes very easy to tell ourselves that our behaviors are normal.

Two I think has to do with the nature of the job. I really feel like being a bartender is akin to being a rockstar. Bartending is an art, a performance, it appears glamourous, and it takes place at night in a venue of entertainment and experience. It is a lot of stimulation for our brains, and I would argue that it is addicting in that way. But what happens when your shift is over? The spotlight is off, the rush of busy service is gone and you are left with what? Real life, which can be honestly pretty bland in comparison. It is human nature for us to crave more, and because we as bartenders have set this baseline of stimulation already so high, what we crave may only be achieved with some sort of equally powerful stimulant. Chemical, alcohol or otherwise. But this whole cycle is not sustainable. Not long term. If you want to keep that going like I did you have to dedicate pretty much every waking moment to that lifestyle. But still I felt like things were missing, chasing that dragon is futile; the default setting for folks is always craving more. These are just human limitations. Right before you crash feeding those cravings, you will burn out, and that is your body telling you to back off. But if you have nothing else to turn to then what? This was my dilemma.

Taming the Ego

How I overcame my dilemma came down to two important changes I had to make. My relationship to alcohol and my relationship with life outside the industry.

Alcohol for me was always a means to an end: Get drunk. I became very interested in cocktails because it ticked a lot of interest boxes for me, chemistry, phsycology, history, etc. It is really fascinating. But when I was drinking it was always: ‘how can I get drunk, in the most economical way, where I won’t get in trouble’. I rarely went out for just cocktails, but I understood the appeal. This was how my framework had to change, to think of alcohol as flavour, as ingredients, and not as an intoxicant for me. I also had to internalize that no alcohol ‘belonged to me’ so I couldn’t weasle some excuse to drink because it was mine. I’ve applied this to tasting drinks, glasses of wine, beer and spirits from reps, I simply frame the alcohol as not mine to consume insofar as I just need know what it tastes like so I can make drinks for others. The change went from a place of self-serving to a notion of serving others.

As a quick aside, though I find reading and learning about spirits not perfect substitute for tasting, as these are complimentary processes, primarily reading works fine enough for me.

As for using alcohol to wind down or turn up, I had to find replacements. This is where the other important change comes in. I’ve been steeped in the industry for almost 10 years. I know a lot. I like to think I’m good at it. For a long time it was the only aspect of my life. When I quit drinking there was a huge hole that I had to fill. I am really thankful that I had AA in the beginning because outside of work, it was all I had keeping me sane. I worked the gym into my routine, as fitness has always been important to me and is something I like, and found myself in a new romantic relationship. Reading became a priority for me. Eventually I started getting into meditation and Buddhism. I’ve never really been a religious guy but a lot of the foundational concepts really resonated me, and since then I try to incorperate the practice, especially the mindfulness aspect, of Buddism into my life on both sides of the bar. There is a really good book by Gary Regan called The Joy of Mixology that has a section on mindful bartending and it is like my mini bar bible. It talks about really listening to you intuition and feeling the service. It explains how to use mindfulness to focus when things get inevitably chaotic. Just generally how to be in the Zen zone. There is also a quote in there that I really try to embody in my mindful bartending practice. It goes as such:

“The average bartender, despite the slanders of professional moralists, is a man of self-respect and self-possession; a man who excels at a difficult art and is well aware of it; a man who shrinks from ruffianism as he does from uncleanliness; in short a gentleman… The bartender is one of the most dignified, law abiding, and ascetic of men. He is girt about by a rigid code of professional ethics; his work demands a clear head and a steady hand; he must have sound and fluent conversation; he cannot be drunken or dirty; the slightest dubiousness is quick to exile him to the police force, journalism, the oyster boats or some other siberia of the broken.”

H. L. Mencken – Baltimore Evening Sun, May 11, 1911

By constantly learning and through some trial and error, I almost imperceptibly started to pick up life skills and hobbies that I honestly never had because I never really dealt with real life outside of drinking pain and discomfort away. Sometimes I added too much too fast and burnt myself out, and sometimes I just didn’t have the interest to try something new. But I learned to be okay with life. For me it was like trying to balance on one of those stability balls. At first you are all over the place trying to figure out what works but only after practicing can you get alright at it. I still wobble here and there but I have a lot more tools to bring me back to the center. The huge hole that I was left with has been slowly filling up.

Next Steps

I think the bar community at large is waking up to this. More and more people are recognizing that the kind of work-hard play-hard mentality that was so prevalent in the not-so-distant-rosy-coloured past just is not sustainable, and they are in the same boat as me in the sense that they absolutely love their job, their career, and don’t want to have to leave bartending because of one difficult aspect. I’m not the first and I’m certainly not the only one who has gone or will go through this. But it certainly isn’t an easy road. I think I got very lucky living in a city where there are lots of people that I can relate to enough to have the support to keep going. It still feels like the school of hard knocks though.

For it to be easier for the next wave of dry bartenders someone has to blaze the trail and get the stories out. Someone has to find the tools that others can use. I’ve found a few such communities that are doing just that.

Movements like The Pin Project are starting to pop up, and thier focus is creating a forum of understanding, educating bartenders about no booze options and supporting those working sober for even just one shift (Which is sometimes harder than it sounds) by wearing thier minimalist pin.

Reddit has r/soberbartenders. It is a budding but vocal subreddit of individuals that want to cut down or quit drinking via the sharing of stories, experience, and success.

Companies like Seedlip are making 0 alcohol spirits, giving people who are not drinking some unique and craft options.

More and more macro and micro breweries are putting out dealcoholized beer that doesn’t taste like wheat water.

Cocktailians all over are experimenting with low and no proof cocktails as a way to give drinkers a choice if they want to have a few drinks and not get totally trashed.

All in all I’m really grateful for my role in all this and I’m very thankful to you folks for listening to me here. It is a great time to be alive where I can have a voice about something that matters a lot to me. If I can help just one person adjust their life in a way they couldn’t by themselves, then I can say it was all worth it.

I was inspired to make this post after being a guest on the Podcast At the Wood with Seth VanHavere. Give it listen here.