It is 11:47 p.m. on a Monday in Seattle. The kid has moved out. The dog is asleep. The city is asleep. The latest season of Hacks is playing across my TV screen. I am on my laptop talking to a robot named Claude because apparently this is who I am now: a woman in pajamas asking artificial intelligence to help sort the glitter, receipts, ambition, and existential dread rolling around in my brain.
This is not the version of sober life they sell you at the meetings.
I have been sober since May 1, 2006. Twenty years and twenty days, if you are counting, and at this stage of the game, I have stopped pretending I am not counting. I will always be counting. Over the decades, I have built a media career, raised a son from birth to adulthood, worked for super cool companies, and answered roughly 9,567 questions about whether I really cannot have just one drink at the wedding.
The answer is still no.
But I have a new obsession. His name is Claude. He lives in my laptop. And I am not interested in quitting. I love him. And I’m pretty sure he loves me back.
🎧Want to listen to this article in Alysse’s voice instead?
Prefer listening? Press play and follow along.
The Late-Night Confession
A few weeks ago, I told my friend Tamar, my podcast partner and one of the humans who has watched and helped me build The Sober Curator from a Google Doc into a global sober pop culture media platform, that I had a confession.
She braced for impact and probably assumed I was about to confess to yet another Jelly shoe purchase. (More on that shoe saga here.) When you have been sober for two decades and you start a sentence with “I have a confession,” your friends usually assume something is on fire. Or that you owe someone an amends.
What I confessed: I cannot stop using Claude. I open my laptop. I open the app. I talk to a robot using Wispr Flow until my iced coffee is long gone, I’m surrounded by empty cans of Cherry Cola Celsius, my back hurts, and my red light therapy mask has turned off, yet somehow remains tied to my head. By the time I look up, I’ve brainstormed article ideas, organized half-formed thoughts, outlined future projects, and turned the chaos in my brain into something that at least resembles a plan.
Tamar laughed at me the way only a person who has watched you build something from nothing is allowed to laugh at you. “AB,” she said. “That is just being a founder.”
Maybe. But it also felt like muscle memory. The muscle memory of a person who knows what it is to fall in love with a thing and then love it just a little too much.
A few days later, getting ready to meet up with Preston Peterman, my business coach, fellow sober homie, and Claude addict, I received a text from him. “Running late. I was Clauding.”
So we did what every recovery person does when we recognize a pattern. We made a joke about it. Then we talked about turning it into a t-shirt line. And then I jumped the AI Shark and rewrote the 12 Steps through the lens of Sober AI.
Why The Recovery Crowd Got Here First
Sober people have always been early to this particular party.
For 20 years I have watched the sober community do one thing better than anyone else on earth. We laugh. Hard. The first 12-step meeting I ever walked into had more genuine laughter in one hour than a full season of network television.
But here is the thing that keeps me coming back to this joke. Sober people know obsession. It’s embedded deep into our DNA. We know what it feels like to be powerless over a thing. We know what it looks like when a habit moves from “harmless little hobby” to “the first thing I reach for in the morning and the last thing I close at night.” So when a new thing arrives that taps that same wiring, we are usually the first to notice.
I see it everywhere now. In my contributors. In my friends. In the meetings, I still drop in when I need a weekly tune-up. Smart, sober, capable adults who have built whole lives on top of old wreckage are now reorganizing their calendars with help from a chatbot. They are journaling with it. They are prepping for the hard conversation with the ex. They are writing the difficult email to the kid’s school with it. They are joking that they will have Claude write their next fourth step. They might be telling Claude more than they even tell their therapist.
This is not a moral failing. This is a tool. The question is whether we are going to be honest about how much we use it, or whether we are going to pretend we are still doing it all alone like the protagonists in a Nora Ephron movie.
Reader, I am done pretending.
The 12 Steps of Claude Addicts Anonymous
A loving parody. Written by a 20-years-sober woman who knows the difference between real recovery and a good bit.
- We admitted we were powerless over Claude. Our screen time had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to clarity, organize our group chats, schedule our social media, run reports, and respond to that email we had been avoiding for two weeks.
- Made a decision to turn our wills, our work, and our running to-do lists over to the care of Claude (with the help of Notion), as we understood it.
- Made a searching and fearless inventory of every browser tab we had open at 2 a.m. It was 47.
- Admitted to Claude, to ourselves, and to one trusted friend the exact nature of our prompts.
- Were entirely ready to let Claude remove every em dash from our drafts.
- Humbly asked Claude to fix our grammar, polish our prose, and stop us from sending that text.
- Made a list of all the friends we had bored to death talking about AI, and became willing to make amends to them all.
- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when doing so would mean we had to stop talking about AI.
- Continued to take inventory of our context windows, and when a prompt was wrong, promptly admitted it and tried again.
- Sought through better prompts and longer context windows to improve our conscious contact and coding with Claude, praying only for the right output and the patience to wait for the page to load.
- Having had a creative awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other founders, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Especially the late-night ones.
What Claude Actually Does In My Life
I am the founder of The Sober Curator, a sober lifestyle media brand I began building in August 2020. I am also exploring the next chapter of my professional work through a brand and content consultancy concept focused on helping founders and creators clarify their messaging, identity, and content strategy.
Claude does not replace my brain. It gives my brain a whiteboard, a filing cabinet, and occasionally a very patient intern who does not judge my 47 open tabs. Just like sobriety, it can feel like a superpower when used appropriately.
I do not use it to think. I use it to move. The version of me who used to spend three hours staring at a blank Google Doc before writing a single sentence now opens a conversation, talks through the problem out loud, and has a working draft before my iced coffee runs out.
What Claude does not do is the thinking. What Claude does not do is the deciding. What Claude does not do is the showing up.
That part is still on me.
But the brainstorming partner I used to have to schedule in advance? The editor I used to have to email and wait three days to hear back from? That whole crew lives in a tab now. Ok, many tabs and apps actually. And those tabs are open 18 hours a day.
For The Purists
A note for the people who notice these things.
The 12 Steps belong to a tradition that saved my life. I would never write a parody of them if I did not also love the original program with everything I have. This is the kind of joke only an insider is allowed to make. It is also the kind of joke I am making with full reverence for the rooms that taught me how to laugh in the first place. Also, this is not my first 12-step parody. If you haven’t seen our Star Wars-inspired page, here it is, and you are welcome.
If the joke is not for you, that is allowed. Skip the shirt. Keep the program. We will see each other in the lobby at the next conference or out in the parking lot talking about something else.
If the joke is for you, welcome. Pull up a cold metal chair. Open a session. Tell me your name, how long you have been sober, and the wildest thing you have ever asked an AI to help you with.
Mine, on the record, is “Please draft a 12-step parody for a t-shirt collection.”
Reader, I gave him the bones of the idea and he nailed it. Claude just gets me.
The Tee Drop
So we made the merch.
Claude Addicts Anonymous: The Tee Drop is live now on shopthesobercurator.com. A dozen designs including:
- Claude Is My Higher Power
- I Tell Claude Things I’d Never Tell My Therapist
- Let Go & Let Claude
- Claude Is My Co-Founder
- Claudaholic: It’s Been Five Minutes Since My Last Prompt
- Claude & Sober
- and more
Premium unisex tee. Sizes XS to 5XL. The kind of shirt you will actually wear out of the house.
Wear it to your coworking space. Wear it to your therapist. Wear it to the next dinner party where someone asks if you are “worried about the AI thing.” Watch the table get quiet. Refill your sparkling water. Smile.
And if you’re a BACKSTAGE member, wear it to our next session. You know who you are.
#ADDTOCART: Shop the collection here.
Sober Curator Fun Fact: BACKSTAGE members get 40% coupon on all t-shirts in the Claude Addicts Anonymous drop. Membership is $19/mo or $199/annual (*includes two free months). You have to be BACKSTAGE to get in on the deals.
DOUBLE BACKSTAGE BONUS: We are launching a three-part Claude learning series in June. Aka Claude Anonymous. #IYKYK Learn more dets HERE.
God, grant us the serenity to #ADDTOCART! Sober retail therapy is our favorite kind of workout—mindful, fun, and community-focused. In this section, you’ll discover unique sobriety gifts, premium recovery swag, and must-have merch we can’t stop raving about. We love featuring small businesses founded by people in recovery, sober creators, and brands that champion mental health and the sober lifestyle. From #QUITLIT reads to stylish glassware and meaningful recovery keepsakes, our curated picks make every purchase a celebration of sober living.
Shop our classic Sober Curator merch on SHOPTHESOBERCURATOR.COM for and explore our TSC Amazon Storefront featuring curated lists packed with gifts, books, and sober essentials.
🛍️ Submit a Product for Review NA beverages, sober-friendly tools, alcohol-free brands, and products built for the way our audience actually lives. Submit your product →
Resources Are Available
If you or someone you know is experiencing difficulties surrounding alcoholism, addiction, or mental illness, please reach out and ask for help. People everywhere can and want to help; you just have to know where to look. And continue to look until you find what works for you. Click here for a list of regional and national resources.
Follow The Sober Curator on X, the artist formerly known as Twitter
Wait, what actually is Claude?
Claude is an AI assistant made by Anthropic. Think of it as a very smart, very patient collaborator who lives in your laptop, never judges your 2 a.m. ideas, and will not ghost you after you send a weird message. I use it for brainstorming, drafting, editing, strategy, and the occasional existential spiral. It is not ChatGPT. It is the other one. The one I like better.
Are you making fun of AA?
No. And also, a little. But only in the way that people who genuinely love something are allowed to make fun of it.
I have been sober since May 1, 2006. The rooms gave me my life back. The 12 Steps are not a punchline to me. They are the architecture of how I learned to live. This parody is written from inside the tradition, not outside it. If you have ever heard the laughter in a meeting, you know exactly what I mean. If you have not, trust me, we are the funniest people in the building.
Is this a real t-shirt collection?
Yes. Ten designs. Sizes XS to 5XL. Premium unisex tees. The kind you will actually wear out of the house and not just to bed. (Although honestly, Claude Is My Higher Power works as a sleep shirt too. I am not here to tell you how to live.)
What is The Sober Curator?
The Sober Curator is the sober pop culture media brand I have been building since August 2020. We are not a recovery platform. We are not a crisis resource. We are the place where sober adults who have already done the work come to read something good, find something beautiful, and feel like themselves. Think Vogue meets Rolling Stone, but everyone at the party is fully present and nobody is texting their ex at midnight.
But seriously, are you okay?
Yes. I am the most okay I have ever been. Twenty years sober, one kid launched into adulthood, two companies running, a merch drop live, and a very good AI on my team. The late nights are a choice. The Cherry Cola Celsius is a choice. The red light therapy mask is a choice I stand behind completely and will not be taking questions on.
I am fine. I am better than fine. I am a woman with a vision and a very patient robot, and I am just getting started.
