// HACKER NEWS — CYBERSECURITY
13 Months Sober (2025)
I don’t care about being sober anymore. It’s not that I’ve reverted to drinking (I still live an alcohol-free life) but I literally don’t care much anymore. I cared quite a bit seven months ago when I wrote Six Months Sober. And right after I published that piece, the outreach was palpable. Friends, family, and colleagues reached out also sharing how it had affected them. Many now reach for booze less.
My friends even stopped asking if I’m drinking at dinner. I was officially relegated to being the sober friend, huzzah..? One of my closest friends sent me a 6-month sobriety chip as a joke. It sits prominently on my desk. (Commit to the bit, Alejandro, and send me a one-year.)
I’ve been quite annoyed the last month, though. My plan was to write the “One Year Sober” follow-up. But it has been disturbed by, well, a lack of new sober benefits. The best piece of material I’ve posted in two decades of (sporadically) posting musings on my websites didn’t have an obvious sequel. My Marvel sobermatic universe was seemingly over before it even began. Yet here we are.
I hate instant contradictions, but I now have reverse veganism with sobriety: I’m telling fewer and fewer people I have it. Newly discovered benefits of removing alcohol from my diet leveled off shortly after I wrote SSS. But I still sleep well, think clearer, and a slew of other positives. Although, I must admit, my reintroduction of soda did rebound my waistline a skosh. Whatever. Nicole still seems to find me attractive.
Alcohol’s absence in my life is still felt on a daily basis in many boring ways, but not nearly like the first six months of sobriety. I could argue this is a wonderful discovery, but given so many people still ask me what it’s like, I figured I’d play a last song about it.
I’m writing this late encore from a plane. And as a frequent flier, I experience a lot of turbulence – like even at this exact moment these keystrokes are happening. Despite logging dozens of flights each year, I’m terrified during moderate turbulence. I pay $8 to United to get WiFi so I can see when the turbulence will end when it starts.
I, like everyone, hate uncertainty and not having control of my situation. Turbulence embodies both. The sporadic air surrounding our plane creates uncontrollable conditions we passengers experience, but when we hit “smooth air” – it’s like (what I presume) smoking a cigarette is like.
It’s also exactly what the 7-month milestone of being sober felt like for me.
After a plane leaves behind uncertain air, the captain turns the seatbelt sign off, and our collective butts unclench, it’s a pure injection of satisfaction. We feel the bliss of stability and the fictitious obituary I’m writing for myself gets crinkled up and tossed into the wastebasket.
But a flight without any turbulence? A Grade-A Snooze Fest.