Sarah Alaimo is a strategic HR leader, writer, sober mom, and recovery advocate passionate about building healthier lives from the inside out. Professionally, she is known for aligning people strategy with business goals to help organizations create strong, thriving workplace cultures. Personally, she is an international best-selling author of Pearls & Probation: Adventures of an Alcoholic Good Girl and a contributing author to THE x-fACTOR: The Spiritual Secrets Behind Successful Executives & Entrepreneurs. As a speaker, storyteller, and voice in the recovery community, Sarah shares candidly about sobriety, motherhood, resilience, and what it means to build a beautiful life in recovery.
In this Beyond the Happy Hour column, Sarah Alamo reflects on learning how to thrive during sober business travel, starting with her first work trip to Las Vegas at 23 days sober. From asking hotels to remove the minibar to finding steady footing on the first night, choosing great meals, exploring new cities, and staying sharp at client dinners, she reminds readers that sober work trips can become fuller, clearer, and far more enjoyable than expected.
Sober Curator Contributor Sarah Alaimo reviews the third and final season of Euphoria through a sober lens, unpacking its five-year time jump, Rue’s darker trajectory, Ali’s grounded recovery wisdom, and the show’s clearest argument yet: everyone is addicted to something.
Sarah reflects on how sobriety helped her reconnect with Nordic traditions more fully, not less. Through Finnish Juhannus, Scandinavian culture, bonfires, sauna, cold water, fika, SISU, and the midnight sun, she explores how Midsummer can be celebrated sober — with all the light, ritual, community, and memory intact.
When a boss or founder disappears on benders, the issue is not just personal — it becomes operational, emotional, and cultural. Sarah breaks down how employees can respond when alcohol-related behavior affects the workplace, including how to document impact, avoid diagnosing, ask for structure, set boundaries, and balance compassion with accountability.
Mental health and addiction are often treated as separate workplace issues, but for many employees, they are deeply connected. Sober Curator Contributor Sarah Alaimo shares her perspective as an HR professional in long-term recovery on what employers, managers, and HR teams need to understand when crisis shows up at work.
Does being sober help or hurt your career? Sarah explores the short-term awkwardness of alcohol-centered workplace culture and the long-term professional upside of sobriety, from stronger boundaries and better judgment to clearer leadership and deeper self-trust.
How raising my son and protecting my sobriety taught me that real leadership starts with presence, steadiness, and community. I joke that Jack is the COO of our household and my business. As the toddler in my life, he keeps the standards high, the feedback immediate, and the priorities very clear. He has also taught me more about leadership than many adults have. Not the polished kind. Not the performative kind. Not the version built on always having the right answer or holding everything together perfectly. I mean the real kind. The kind rooted in presence, steadiness, humility, and care.…
