Cali Sober Is Peak 2020 Wellness
Trading wine for weed is redefining society’s longtime relationship with alcohol — and possibly even sobriety
For Lisa (name changed), the decision to stop drinking was a long time in the making. Though she was only a social drinker, the 40-year-old freelance writer and mom found herself drinking more than felt healthy. In early 2019, she made a decision to stop.
“I was like, ‘All right, let’s cut out the booze and just stick with weed,’” she says. “And I’m really surprised at how great it’s been. I’ve been a drinker my whole life. I don’t know why I never thought about just switching to weed instead of wine.”
There are many reasons for the (mostly) millennial interest in kicking alcohol. As people grow older, friends couple off or get married or have kids, and work responsibilities can become more real. Often — though not always — the alcohol habits people formed in their social-lubricant-demanding youth no longer serve them in the same way. Pair that with the fact that in 2020, elective sobriety is a full-on social movement, and you have a lot of abstaining adults.
“People are realizing that alcohol doesn’t serve them in the ways that they thought it did, and as people get a little bit older — and by older, I mean past your twenties —…
