Author: Alysse Bryson

There is a specific kind of comfort that comes from finding out an actor you love has been sober since 1998. It is not exactly a “we did it Joe” moment, but it is close. You are watching them at Cannes, at the Met Gala, at the Oscars after-party, and you know they are not nursing a vodka soda for show. They are just there. This list exists for that exact feeling. And because every January, someone famous announces they are alcohol-free and the internet collectively goes “wait, them too?” and we have to update the spreadsheet again. Last updated:…

You know exactly how the old script went. Friday hit, someone said “happy hour,” and suddenly it was 2 a.m., your phone was on 7 percent, and your dignity was on 0. The bar tab felt like a crime scene. The next morning, your only souvenir was anxiety and a blurry montage of choices you didn’t actually choose. Now you’re sober, or sober-curious, and Friday still shows up demanding a storyline. Your social muscle memory yells shots, but your nervous system is quietly begging, please no. You’re not boring. You’re just in between scripts. The old one doesn’t fit, and the new…

I finally watched F1 on the flight home from Nashville. My friend and fellow Sober Curator Contributor Amy Liz Harrison had just finished a whirlwind weekend at Dollywood celebrating our annual soberthdays. She was sitting right next to me on the plane, typing like a maniac (and chuckling to herself), writing up our trip recap for The Sober Curator, when I put it on. About twenty minutes in, I turned to her and said: “He looks good.” (Imagine the word good, but with like 10 o’s. = Gooooooooood) Not in a tabloid way. Not in a “has he had work done” way.…

The waiter has now asked me three times. “Are you sure you don’t want a glass of wine? We have a really great by-the-glass list tonight.” Yes. I’m sure. I’ve been sure for 20 years. I was sure when you asked me when we sat down. I was sure when you brought the bread basket. And I’ll be sure again in roughly 90 seconds when the table next to us orders a bottle and you swing back over to triple-check. This is the part of going out to dinner that nobody warns you about when you get sober. You expect…

On May 1, 2026, I hit 20 years sober. Twenty. Years. The kind of milestone that used to feel mathematically impossible when I was 30 years old and white-knuckling my way through my first 90 days, convinced I’d never have a personality, a love life, or a Friday night again. (I’m still waiting on the love life part, but I’ve got the personality and Friday night plans in spades.) Twenty years deserves more than a plastic chip rattling around in a junk drawer next to a Costco rewards card and three random AAA batteries. Enter Cindy Kaye. What Annum Actually…

Last week my best friend Amy Liz Harrison celebrated her 15-year soberversary, and we did what any two sober women in their right minds would do. We went to a Mahjong party. To clarify, neither of us had ever played Mahjong. Not once. We were not invited to the party as players. We rolled into the Sober AF bottle shop on a Thursday afternoon — sober ladies who lunch, except instead of lunching, we were apparently about to eat tiles. The Mahjong party was being hosted by Local Mixer Washington, a group that organizes meetups for introverts, extroverts, karaoke nights, and apparently,…

She was high when she said yes. In the spring of 2018, Lena Dunham got engaged to a childhood friend a month after their first kiss. She was on a rotation of pain pills, Klonopin, and weed. She said yes. She doesn’t get into the rest of the proposal in Famesick, her second memoir. She doesn’t get into it because she doesn’t really remember it. Eight years later, she remembers what she missed. Famesick, released April 14, 2026, is the first book Lena Dunham has written sober. Her first memoir, 2014’s Not That Kind of Girl, was written from inside…

Mental Health Awareness Month called. It wants you to find 19 words. This month’s Sober Search is packed with the wellness terms, brain chemicals, recovery practices, and self-care essentials that make sober life actually work. Not the Instagram version of wellness where someone lights a candle and calls it healing. The real version. The one that involves therapy, sweat, setting boundaries, and occasionally ugly crying in your car before going inside and being fine. All 19 of those words are hiding in a 15×15 grid. Some are sitting right there in plain sight. Others are backwards, diagonal, or tucked into…

Two months in and Clued In is becoming a habit. The good kind. The kind your therapist would approve of. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, which means this entire crossword was built around the science, the practices, and the lifestyle choices that keep sober minds and bodies running on all cylinders. No filler clues this month. Every single answer is something you’ve either experienced firsthand, Googled at 2 AM, or discussed in a session you’re still processing. What You’re Walking Into Thirteen clues spanning the full spectrum of sober wellness. We’ve got neurotransmitters your brain is finally producing on…

I binged all ten episodes of Running Point Season 2 (Netflix) in less than twelve hours. I am not even a little bit sorry about it. Here is how it went down. I sat down, hit play, and the only time I moved was to get from the bathtub to the bed. The first three episodes happened while I was soaking in a hot bubble bath, iPad propped on the edge, completely checked out from the noise of the world. Then I migrated to my bed in cozy pajamas, cozy sheets, iPad in my lap, and Bella, my chubby Boston…

Jim Norton Has Been Sober for Over 30 Years. He’ll Be the First to Tell You It Didn’t Fix Everything. His whole career is built on saying the stuff most people only think in a shame spiral at 3 a.m. Jim Norton is one of the most respected voices in stand-up comedy — not because he’s the most polished or the most mainstream, but because he goes to places most comedians won’t. The darkness in his material is not performed. It’s reported. He has lived enough of it to fill several careers, and he got sober before most of it…

Rufi Thorpe came to BACKSTAGE. Here is the five-minute clip, the conversation that broke the room, and the answer I am still thinking about.

Two weeks ago, I was outside a concert at The Moore Theatre in downtown Seattle, begging a 20-something to blow cigarette smoke in my face. That’s where we’re starting. We’ll get to the jelly sandals. I’m two weeks shy of 20 years sober. My anniversary is May 1. That means when you’re reading this I’m clocking in at 19 years and roughly 50 weeks. Close enough to taste it. Far enough away that life still gets to hand me a pop quiz every once in a while. This one came wrapped in rubber.  🎤Listen to this article in Alysse’s voice…

There are two kinds of people who walk into a non-alcoholic bottle shop for the first time. The first kind already knows. The sober, the alcohol-free, the zero-proof evangelists. We walk in like we just found the last open bar in town. Except better, because we’re not about to throw away twenty years of sobriety on a grown-up Capri Sun. The second kind is the curious. The friend who tagged along. The wife who’s three weeks into a dry challenge. The guy who heard “non-alcoholic bottle shop” and assumed it meant apple juice in fancy bottles. At Dry Spell Bottle…

Jamie Lee Curtis Has Been Sober Since February 3, 1999. She Calls It Her Greatest Accomplishment. She had rules. Never before 5 p.m. Never when she was working. She held to those rules for 10 years, which is how long it took her to understand that needing rules is not the same as not having a problem. Jamie Lee Curtis spent a decade hiding an addiction to opioids and alcohol behind a working actress’s schedule and a very disciplined set of personal regulations. She was filming movies. She was raising children. She was doing interviews. And she was taking Vicodin…

There is a very specific hour of the day that belongs to the sober person. It’s somewhere between 5 and 7pm. The sun starts doing that thing where everything goes warm and gold. Your neighbors are pouring something cold on their back porches. The bar down the street is an hour deep into happy hour. Every restaurant on the block is doing the low lighting and the clinking glasses and the ritual. For a lot of people in recovery, this is the hardest hour of the day. It’s the hour that used to mean something. It’s the hour that your…

🔒 BACKSTAGE Exclusive. The hibiscus mocktail recipe Founding Members are already drinking. Open to the first 200.
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🔒 BACKSTAGE Exclusive. The aperitivo spritz that fooled my Italian friends. Founding Membership open to the first 200. → [Join Backstage]

Join me LIVE on BACKSTAGE Wednesday, April 29, from 6 to 7 PM Pacific for a hands-on demo, tool reviews, and a year’s worth of bedazzle receipts. 🎧Listen to this article in Alysse’s voice  Prefer listening? ▶️Press play and follow along. Here is a sentence I never expected to write in my sober life: I have strong opinions about glue. I also have strong opinions about wax picker tips, which rhinestone brands fall off in the dishwasher, why bigger gems are sometimes better than smaller ones, and whether you should bedazzle the cover of a hardback book. (Yes. Obviously yes.…

There are drinks that whisper “special occasion,” and then there are drinks that walk in wearing black and gold and fully expect to be seated near the centerpieces. Just Enough Alcohol Removed Brut Bubbles is firmly in the second category. At first glance, the can is chic enough to make you assume it has opinions about glassware. The Pantone situation on this can is giving “I know exactly who I am and I don’t need to explain it to you.” Minimalist, intentional, and honestly a little intimidating in the best way. The black with a hint of gold design feels…

Samuel L. Jackson Has Been Sober Since 1991. The Career You Know Came After. While Samuel L. Jackson was in rehab in 1991, Spike Lee called with an offer. The role was Gator in Jungle Fever — a crack addict. Jackson had just spent years living a version of that life. He took the role. He brought something to it that no amount of preparation could have manufactured. He won a special jury prize at Cannes for it, a category the festival created specifically to honor his performance. He was 42 years old and had been a working actor for over a…

Some people have the kind of résumé that makes you want to sit up straighter. Toni Will is one of those people. She has spent 25 years in leadership, starting in banking and eventually becoming the General Manager and Governor of the Kalamazoo Wings, a men’s AA professional hockey team in the ECHL. She was the first female GM in franchise history and the first woman to serve on the ECHL Board of Governors. Under her leadership, the Wings have earned multiple awards for sales, revenue growth, and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Casual. And somehow that’s only part of…

When we dreamed up the first-ever BACKSTAGE with The Sober Curator event featuring Rufi Thorpe, author of “Margo’s Got Money Trouble”, we knew we wanted it to feel like more than a virtual author talk. We wanted a vibe. We wanted a little indulgence. A little conversation fuel. A little “main character energy, but sober.” And ideally, something that felt smart, elevated, fun, and just a tiny bit unhinged in the best possible way. Enter: the Killjoy Mocktail Kit. This is NOT a self-care kit. This is a vibe. This curated box of zero-proof drinks, adaptogenic sips, and delightfully extra goodies…

I have been building something. Not quietly, not slowly, and definitely not without rhinestones. BACKSTAGE with The Sober Curator is our brand new members-only cultural membership, and it is officially open. Two hundred Founding Member spots. A private community. Monthly live events with people who are actually interesting. And a calendar that, if I do say so myself, I am genuinely proud of. This is not a support group. It is not a recovery program. It is not a Zoom room full of people reading from worksheets. BACKSTAGE is a cultural space for people who are done drinking and just…

For those of us living alcohol-free—whether for personal, health, or recovery reasons—reading ingredient labels is second nature. But one product that often flies under the radar? Perfume. Traditional fragrances almost always contain alcohol, usually in the form of ethanol, as the primary ingredient. It’s the industry standard because alcohol helps the scent evaporate quickly and project into the air. But if you’re someone practicing total abstinence from alcohol, you may prefer products that align with your lifestyle on all levels—including your fragrance. The good news? More and more luxury brands are finally getting the memo and creating alcohol-free perfumes that…