We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life

by Laura McKowen

Most people have no idea what their bodies feel like without it for an extended period of time. Alcohol is so normalized, so everywhere, so much a part of the fabric of mainstream society that most people will never experience life without it unless they’re forced to. Weird, right? Isn’t it completely fucking bizarre that we don’t question (and, in fact, highly encourage) regular consumption of a drug that’s more harmful and causes more deaths than cocaine, heroin, and meth combined? If someone stopped doing coke for a month and felt better, we wouldn’t sit there and wonder whether they were an addict or could go back to recreational line snorting. Or let’s look at smoking, which we were duped for decades into thinking was actually fine, and even healthy! Now that we know better, nobody questions the decision to stop smoking. Smoking is just so obviously stupid and dangerous. And yet, alcohol is still cool. Unless you’re an alcoholic. In which case you’d better deal with it . . . . . . quietly. . . ...over there . . .

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