Author: Alysse Bryson

Some sober merch whispers. Soberminds screams, in the best way. Meet the graffiti artist and founder building a sober streetwear brand out of loss, grit, and a crown hoodie you’ll actually want to wear.

Laurie Woolever spent fifteen-plus years as the right hand to two of food media’s most complicated men, Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain, while quietly falling apart behind the scenes. Her New York Times bestselling memoir, Care and Feeding, finally tells the story she couldn’t tell then. Closing in on nine years sober, she’s proof the most interesting thing about her was never the famous men on her resume.

Alysse Bryson sits down with The Mindshift Podcast to talk about her 2006 sobriety moment, why “sober” does not automatically mean “present,” and how The Sober Curator became the home for people who are done with Day 1 content. Also featured: jelly Birkenstocks, a Muppet cameo debate, and one very memorable choir concert.

Senior Sober Curator Contributor Justin Lamb has reviewed more than 130 non-alcoholic beers for The Sober Curator since 2021. These are his ten best of 2026, spanning Double IPAs, pilsners, hazy NEIPAs, nitro stouts, and a peanut butter milk dark that deserves its own fan club. Find your perfect pour, then take the quiz to make it official.

You know the feeling when you walk into a room and immediately know: these are my people. On Episode 3, I asked our contributors one simple question, why The Sober Curator, and what came back was funnier, messier, and more honest than I expected.

Stephen King has been sober for almost 40 years, and he still doesn’t remember writing an entire novel. Here’s the garbage bag intervention that started it, the fear that got proven wrong, and the 40-plus books that came after.

A wine brand just became the official sponsor of a sober dance tour, and that tells you everything about where this culture is headed. Giesen 0% is pouring at Daybreaker’s “Let’s Be Friends” stops all summer, and we’ve got every city on the calendar.

Quitting drinking doesn’t mean quitting the accessory habit. It just changes what’s in your hand. Here’s why WanderFull’s crossbody bags finally built something for the “still carrying a drink everywhere” life.

The original printer’s copy of Alcoholics Anonymous just sold at Christie’s for an estimated one to two million dollars. The Stepping Stones Foundation, the National Historic Landmark home of Bill and Lois Wilson in Katonah, New York, won the bid. It is going back to exactly where it belongs.

Most sober spaces ask you to show up and talk about the hard part. Backstage with The Sober Curator asks you to show up and actually have fun. Media Nights, Studio Nights, Edutainment Nights, and a community of people who get exactly what you’re building. Ever wonder what’s beyond the typical sober meeting? Backstage with The Sober Curator is what’s beyond it. This isn’t a support group with better branding. It’s a membership community where creativity, entertainment, and zero-proof living collide — and it’s exactly the kind of room Alysse built The Sober Curator to create in the first place.…

People started DMing Alysse after Season 1 saying they’d finally found a sober podcast that didn’t make them feel like they were in trouble. That’s the whole thing, right there. That’s what this show is. Season 2 is what happens next. The Sober Life on the Other Side The Sober Curator has always been about living sober, not just getting there. Season 2 leans into that harder than ever. Alysse Bryson and Tamar Routly are back in front of the mic, and this season they’re going places Season 1 only teased. Mindful binging is in the mix — engaging with…

Ashley McBryde’s NA-forward Redemption Bar is crossing the border this July with its first-ever Canadian pop-up at Cavendish Beach Music Festival in Prince Edward Island. For anyone who has ever loved live music and dreaded the drinking culture surrounding it, this one is for you.

My desk has a sexy red Rachel Zoe lipstick lamp, a monitor covered in stickers from people I love, a Diet Coke, and a keyboard in a shade that makes me genuinely happy before I have typed a single word. I did not plan any of this. I just kept choosing things that felt like me. Turns out that is the whole strategy.

Former Marlboro Menthol Lights smoker. Twenty years sober. And apparently still capable of being ambushed by a Hulu documentary and a ghost craving I thought I’d buried a decade ago. Here is what happened when Cyclone Pods showed up at exactly the right moment.

I listened to the audiobook on Audible, in Austin’s own voice, while I was packing up my house and cleaning out decades of accumulated life. Austin Rampt’s One Last Hit is eight rehab programs, a decade of active addiction, and one of the more honest addiction memoirs you will find. 3.5 out of 5 Sobees.

If you know what the Big Book is to you, you already felt something when you read that it is going to auction at Christie’s on July 1. The original 167-page working manuscript, with Bill Wilson’s handwriting in the margins, is estimated at $1 to $2 million. The Irsay family is selling it last. Intentionally.

Good recovery writing has found a new home on Substack, where more than 200 newsletters now explore sobriety, recovery, sober living, creativity, relationships, money, identity, and life after alcohol. This curated list highlights 20 sobriety and recovery Substacks worth following in 2026, from big-name sober writers to storytellers, lifestyle voices, community builders, and beautifully specific people writing the truth one inbox at a time.

Kim Bellas of Sober Is the New Cool reflects on the annual White Party in New York City, where more than 40 women from Canada and the United States gathered for an evening of sober connection, friendship, wellness, and a sense of belonging. At the heart of the night was the White Heart Initiative and its simple but powerful message: “I’m glad you exist. The world is a better place because you’re in it.”

There is a specific kind of grown-ass sober adult who pays serious attention to how her house smells. Not in a Yankee Candle, gingerbread-cookie, seasonal-Bath-and-Body-Works way. In a “my home is now the most important room I exist in, and I want it to feel like a place I would never want to leave” way. If that is you, I have notes on Aura House. Aura House sent me their scent diffuser to test, and after living with it, I have opinions. Some glowing. A couple of fair warnings. And one bigger point I cannot get to without talking about…

Giesen 0% is bringing non-alcoholic wine spritzes to Pride House LA/West Hollywood’s World Cup kickoff weekend, celebrating Pride Month, LGBTQ+ athletes, and mindful drinking in one major cultural moment.

Coming out and getting sober are the same move: telling the truth out loud before you know how the room will take it. These are the Pride gifts that honor both. Eleven alcohol-free, queer-loving finds, mostly small-business and plenty of them sober-owned. Recover out loud, shop proud.

Napping is my hobby and I am genuinely exceptional at it. Here is why Rest’s Evercool cooling sheets earned a permanent spot in my bed, why I reordered at full price before coffee, and why good sleep is recovery infrastructure at any stage of sobriety.

I’ve been alcohol-free for twenty years, so anything promising a “buzz” gets the side-eye. Then Kavayn showed up. Here’s what noble kava actually tastes like, the iced coffee hack I didn’t see coming, and the question every sober reader asks first: does kava even count?

Nineteen sober pop culture words walked into a 15×15 grid. Your job is to find them before they find you.June’s Sober Search is hiding celebrities, TV shows, music terms, film references, and a few TSC-specific words inside a grid that is equal parts entertainment trivia and sober culture deep dive. Some words are sitting right there waiting to be circled. Others went backwards and diagonal specifically to test your commitment. What’s Hiding in There A Seattle rapper who turned relapse into raw honesty. A Showtime family that made dysfunction feel like a documentary. The book genre that turned personal recovery…

Summer blockbuster season is here. But instead of buying a movie ticket, we made you a crossword.June’s Clued In is our biggest pop culture puzzle yet. Thirteen clues covering the actors who got sober and got better, the TV shows that made addiction impossible to ignore, the rappers who turned recovery into art, and the cultural moments that proved sobriety is not the opposite of fun. It is the plot twist. The Lineup This puzzle reads like a sober hall of fame. You’ll find an A-list actor who credited sobriety with saving his career (and then starred in a movie…

I sat down at 8 p.m. and did not move until the credits rolled at 3 a.m. Apple TV’s Imperfect Women is a glossy, knotty thriller about three women, one murder, and everyone quietly addicted to something. The critics shrugged. I lost a whole Saturday night and regret nothing.

The internet swears his ageless face is a blood ritual. The truth is less supernatural and more interesting: Rob Lowe has been sober since 1990, and the story behind that decision says more about staying than quitting.

In this Sober Spotlight interview, Oskar of DEPTOS shares how recovery, mental health, fatherhood, and the rooms inspired his music — including the powerful lyric, “You don’t have to die to stop living this way.”

Brené Brown marked 30 years sober on The Curiosity Shop with Adam Grant. On foreboding joy, selective numbing, and why she still can’t watch The Office.

There is a bit in Hacks season three where a DJ (Daughter of Deborah Vance) deadpans that she got sober by watching The Amazing Race. No sponsor, no rehab, no rock bottom in a parking lot. Just a reality competition show and a will to live. I laughed out loud, posted the clip, and then asked you all a question on Instagram: what show or movie did you actually watch in early sobriety that helped you get sober? (Peep the clip HERE) The answers came in fast. Mom. 90 Day Fiancé. Lost. RuPaul’s Drag Race. And it cracked something open…