Let’s get this on the record: I’ve been skiing maybe twice in my life. I’m klutzy. I bedazzle things. I am not the target demographic for a week in the French Alps.
And I still want to go on Ben Coombes’s trip.
Ben is the founder of Soberski, alcohol-free chalet weeks in Méribel, and he’s the newest contributor at The Sober Curator. Krysty Krywko, who wrote our piece on rewriting après-ski without alcohol, introduced us. We got on Zoom, and like everyone who sits on Zoom with me for more than 15 minutes, he left with a contributor login and a podcast date.
Ski, work, or drink. Pick two.
Ben didn’t grow up skiing. He found it at 21 or 22 on a random holiday and fell for the mountains immediately. He also told us, “I couldn’t tell you much else about what happened that week because I was drinking super heavy at the time.”
Within a year he’d quit his job and moved to the Alps to work a season for a luxury chalet company, driving wealthy families around the slopes. The first thing they tell you out there: you can ski, you can work, or you can drink, but you can’t do all three. Something suffers.
For Ben, it was always the skiing. Which, as he pointed out, is the one thing you moved to the Alps to do.
The schedule he described is one I recognize from my own drinking-days vacations. Drinks at lunch. Après at 3 or 4. Wine all evening. Up again tomorrow. “Maybe you’re even having shots in the morning because that’s like part of the ritual on the chairlift.” He planned whole trips around the next bar stop and admits to “falling down cliffs and like nearly killing myself on countless occasions.”
Tamar, who it turns out is a snowboarder (I apparently should have read her book), said the thing every Gen X person on a mountain knows: “I still go back to that 20-year-old, and I act like that 20-year-old until I fall.”
The hardest room he could find
Ben spent years going back and forth to the mountains, and every season felt like a months-long binge. His favorite place in the world kept turning him into someone he didn’t want to be. He thought about quitting skiing entirely.
Then he flipped it. He’d never seriously tried to quit drinking, so he decided to try in the least likely place on earth. “If I can not drink in a ski resort, then I can probably not drink anywhere.”
He started an Instagram account for accountability. People started messaging: they wanted the mountains without the whirlwind too. Nobody was serving them. So he did.
Jersey represent
My favorite story from the episode: Ben built the website himself, launched it, and a few days later got an email that someone had booked a room. It was mid-July. He assumed it was a scam.
“But then I thought, ‘Hold on, that doesn’t make sense ’cause they’re paying me money.'”
The guest was from New Jersey, had skied Colorado for years, and wanted Europe without the drinking culture. He took a chance on a website that had been live about five minutes, and he flew over. So to my North American readers: yes, you can go. Ben’s first-ever guest was one of you.
What the week actually looks like
The next week is January 22 to 29, 2027, seven nights in a chalet in Méribel, in the Three Valleys, which Ben describes as more than 600 kilometers of skiing all linked under one pass. (Check soberski.co.uk for current pricing; at the time of writing the site lists shared and private room options.)
What’s in the chalet:
- A private chef. The chef on the first week, Ezra, cooks on luxury yachts when he’s not in the mountains. Three-course dinners, cooked breakfast, afternoon tea when you come off the slopes.
- Recovery that doesn’t require a meeting. Hot tub, sauna, cold plunge, daily yoga before the slopes.
- Evening workshops. Mindset sessions so you leave with more than sore legs.
- Small groups. Nine on the first trip, room for 14, and Ben says 12 is the sweet spot.
One thing Ben was very clear about: Soberski doesn’t guide the skiing. France has strict laws on who can. What you get instead is years of local knowledge, suggested itineraries for beginner, intermediate, and advanced, and a recommended ski school. Which brings me to the beginner question, because Tamar asked it for me.
Never skied? Good.
Ben had a guest who had never put on a pair of ski boots until he got to the chalet. Ben walked him through everything months ahead: kit, lessons, how a ski trip even works. After about six hours of lessons, Ben says, the guy was “flying around the mountain like a pro” and telling the experienced guests where to go the next day.
His own word for it, via Ben: the week demystified skiing completely.
And not everyone at the table was in recovery. Some guests had struggled with alcohol. Some hadn’t. Some just wanted a fitness week and to be around people who weren’t going to spend it at the bar. That mix is the point.
He built a room
Here’s what got me. Ben said the best part of the job is sitting at a table with nine people who didn’t know each other on arrival day and watching them become friends by midweek, with nothing distorting it. The WhatsApp group is still going. Half of them have booked again.
“Even being able to remember it is half the benefit.”
He didn’t build a support group on a mountain. He built a room. Nobody has to explain why they’re not drinking, because it was never the point. Sobriety is the floor, and everything else gets to grow on top of it.
That is exactly what we’re building at Backstage with The Sober Curator, minus the altitude. This October we’re launching The Sober Swap: one hour, everybody brings the show, book, product, or brand they’re obsessed with right now, and everybody leaves with 14 new obsessions. Come find us BACKSTAGE.
Also: watch “The Gentlemen”
Ben’s pop culture pick is Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen on Netflix (season two landed Sept. 3). Aristocrats, stately homes, crime drama, and Giancarlo Esposito. Fair warning, the whole plot runs on an illegal weed empire under the estates, and Ben says there’s addiction in it. Know your triggers. Tamar downloaded it for her flight before we’d even finished recording.
Breaking Bad but make it aristocratic. I’m in.
(Speaking of weed: next week’s episode with contributor Paulina Pinsky gets into cannabis dependence vs. addiction. Don’t miss it.)
And the koozies
I pitched Ben an idea live on air: tiny black ski-jacket can coolers from Puffin Drinkware, a little Sober Curator logo, a little Soberski logo, in the welcome box for January’s guests. He said yes. I said I’d better get on it because international shipping is a whole thing. So if you’re booked for Méribel, watch your welcome box.
You are allowed to believe there’s a version of your life you haven’t met yet. And you’re allowed to go somewhere ridiculous and beautiful to find them.
So tell me: where are you going?
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Can you go on a ski trip without drinking?
Yes, and there are now trips built around it. Soberski, founded by Ben Coombes, runs alcohol-free chalet weeks in Méribel in the French Alps, with the next one set for January 22 to 29, 2027. Ben started it after doing a sober season working in a ski resort. His reasoning, on The Sober Curator Podcast: “If I can not drink in a ski resort, then I can probably not drink anywhere.”
What is Soberski?
Soberski is an alcohol-free ski retreat company founded by Ben Coombes, based just outside London. Its weeks run in a luxury chalet in Méribel, in France’s Three Valleys, with a private chef, daily yoga, a sauna, hot tub, and cold plunge, and evening mindset workshops. Groups are small; Ben says 12 guests is the sweet spot, with room for up to 14.
Do you have to be sober to go on a Soberski trip?
No. Ben says the first group included people who had struggled with alcohol, people who hadn’t, and people who drink the rest of the year but wanted one week on the mountain without it. The shared rule is that alcohol and other substances are off the table for the week.
Is a sober ski retreat good for beginners?
Ben says yes. One guest had never put on ski boots before arriving; Soberski helped him book lessons and plan kit in advance, and after about six hours of lessons he was skiing the mountain confidently. Soberski does not guide skiing itself, because France restricts who can, but it gives guests suggested itineraries by ability level and recommends a ski school.
Can Americans go on Soberski trips?
Yes. Ben says the first-ever Soberski guest flew in from New Jersey. Trips are open to anyone internationally, at any skiing ability.
How big is the Three Valleys ski area?
Ben describes the Three Valleys (Les 3 Vallées), which includes Méribel, as more than 600 kilometers of skiing linked under one lift pass, and it’s widely marketed as the largest linked ski area in the world.
