Since 2023, Teetotal Initiative has created more than 100 events around one question: What comes after getting sober?
By Contributor Scott Page, co-founder and executive director of Teetotal Initiative
A few years ago, Alysse invited me to become a collaborator with The Sober Curator.
I remember being genuinely excited about it. I loved meeting the team. I loved the energy behind what they were building. I loved that there was this whole group of people looking at sobriety not simply as something to maintain, but as a life to actually enjoy.
I also learned something that I suspect a lot of people reading this already know: Enthusiasm and available bandwidth are not always the same thing.
Life got busy. Teetotal Initiative got busier. Despite every good intention I had, becoming a regular contributor just never happened.
But there was one article I always hoped I would eventually get to write.
This one.
Because while The Sober Curator has been busy showing people how interesting, vibrant, funny, creative, stylish, adventurous and full sober life can be, here in Pittsburgh, we have spent the last three years trying to build more places where that life can actually happen.
If you’ve seen Teetotal Initiative events appearing on The Sober Curator calendar and wondered, “Who are these people, and what exactly are they doing over there in Pittsburgh?”
👋 Hi. 👋
It’s probably time we properly introduce ourselves.
It Started With a Pretty Simple Question
What happens next?
There is tremendous energy—and rightfully so—devoted to helping someone stop using substances, enter treatment, find recovery, access peer support, join a mutual-aid community or simply make it through a period of life when everything feels impossible.
We need all of those things.
Teetotal Initiative was never created to replace any of them.
We became interested in a different question:
What happens when someone starts trying to build an actual life again?
What do you do on Saturday night?
Where do you meet new friends as an adult?
What happens when nearly every social invitation seems to involve alcohol?
Where do you go when you want community but don’t necessarily want another conversation about recovery?
What if you want to paint something?
Try yoga?
Go to a museum?
Take a cooking class?
Laugh until your stomach hurts?
Volunteer?
Learn something completely ridiculous just because it sounds fun?
Or simply walk into a room on a Thursday night and know you won’t have to explain why you aren’t drinking?
Those questions became Teetotal Initiative.
Jackie Slaugenhaupt and I founded the organization in Pittsburgh in 2023 around a belief that still guides almost everything we do:
If isolation, boredom and loneliness can make sober life harder, then connection, curiosity, purpose and belonging deserve to be part of what comes next.
Not someday.
Not once someone has everything figured out.
Now.
So We Started Creating Places to Go
At first, the idea was almost laughably simple.
Create interesting things to do where alcohol and other substances aren’t part of the equation.
That’s it.
No secret handshake. No requirement that someone explain their recovery story at the door. No assumption about which pathway brought them to us. No expectation that everyone in the room even uses the same language to describe themselves.
You can be in recovery. You can be sober. You can be sober-curious. You can be supporting someone you love. You can simply be interested in spending a few hours in a space where alcohol isn’t the centerpiece.
Come in.
Do the thing.
See what happens.
What we discovered pretty quickly was that the “thing” almost didn’t matter.
People came to paint, but they talked while they painted.
They came for yoga, but they stayed afterward.
They came alone to an event and recognized someone at the next one.
Someone who had been nervous about walking through the door suddenly became the person welcoming somebody new.
Phone numbers were exchanged.
Friendships formed.
People started making plans with one another that had absolutely nothing to do with Teetotal.
That might be my favorite measure of success.
Because ultimately, I don’t want someone to need Teetotal Initiative forever.
I want Teetotal to help remind people that there is an entire world available to them.
Since 2023, We’ve Been a Little Amazed by What Happened
What started as an idea has now become more than 100 sober-focused events and programs reaching more than 3,000 people throughout southwestern Pennsylvania.
We’ve hosted arts workshops, wellness experiences, museum trips, culinary events, volunteer opportunities, outdoor adventures, educational programs, book clubs, comedy shows, community gatherings and plenty of things that don’t fit neatly into any category.
Some have been intentionally small and intimate.
Others became much larger than we ever imagined.
Our comedy events have brought together crowds approaching 200 people.
Our Mocktail Mixer grew into a celebration drawing more than 200 attendees while bringing together roughly 25 local businesses and venues.
Our Fresh A.I.R. Festival, created to celebrate artists in recovery, has showcased more than 200 pieces of artwork from over 70 artists across two festivals.
What began primarily in Pittsburgh has reached communities throughout Allegheny County and into Beaver, Butler, Washington and Westmoreland counties.
But the numbers I care about most aren’t attendance numbers.
Among participants who responded to our surveys, 89% reported greater satisfaction with their lifestyle choices, while 81% reported increased confidence in their ability to sustain sobriety.
Think about that for a second.
We don’t provide treatment or therapy.
We don’t ask people to sit in a room and talk about substance use.
Sometimes, we’re literally giving people paintbrushes.
Through experiences that can look remarkably ordinary from the outside, people are telling us they feel better about the lives they’re building and more confident in their ability to protect those lives.
I think there is something really important in that.
Maybe “Ordinary Life” Isn’t So Ordinary
I’ve become increasingly fascinated by the things we sometimes dismiss as extras.
Friendship.
Hobbies.
Having somewhere to go.
Trying something new.
Laughing.
Being expected somewhere.
Getting a text that says, “Are you coming tonight?”
Knowing you can walk into a room alone and probably won’t be standing alone for very long.
We talk a lot in recovery about rebuilding a life.
But rebuilding a life requires actual building materials.
Treatment can be one of those materials.
Meetings can be one.
Therapy can be one.
Peer support can be one.
Family can be one.
But I think community is one too.
And not just “recovery community” in the traditional sense.
Sometimes, community is two people sitting next to each other at a watercolor workshop, realizing they both have absolutely no idea what they’re doing.
Sometimes, it’s walking through a museum together.
Sometimes, it’s standing around after yoga because nobody seems particularly interested in leaving yet.
Sometimes, it’s discovering that the person sitting across from you also thought they were the only adult who had somehow forgotten how to make new friends.
There is something powerful about connecting side by side rather than always asking people to connect face to face through disclosure.
Shared experience can do a lot of the heavy lifting.
That’s become a huge part of our model.
The Events Are Really Just the Vehicle
If you look at Teetotal from the outside, it would be easy to think we are an event organization.
Technically, I suppose we are.
But events aren’t really what we’re creating.
Belonging is.
The event is simply how we get people into the same room.
That’s why our programming has evolved in so many different directions.
Our Fresh Start series creates space around wellness and gives people opportunities to explore yoga, meditation, sound healing, movement and other practices they may never have tried before.
Creative Kaleidoscope uses art and creativity as the gathering point, with the radical philosophy that you do not actually have to be good at art to enjoy making it.
Everyday Adventures gets people out into the world to explore museums, neighborhoods, weird Pittsburgh treasures, cultural attractions and places they may never have visited on their own.
We’ve gathered around food. We’ve read books together. We’ve volunteered. We’ve laughed together. We’ve experimented. We’ve had ideas that worked beautifully and others that taught us what not to do again.
Behind all of it is a group of board members, programming directors, instructors, volunteers, community partners, venue operators, artists, wellness professionals and supporters who understand that what looks like “just an event” might mean something very different to the person walking through the door.
Jackie and I may have helped start Teetotal, but Teetotal stopped belonging to the two of us a long time ago.
That’s another accomplishment I’m incredibly proud of.
People took the idea and started adding themselves to it.
Our programming directors brought their own expertise and imagination. Community partners opened their doors. Artists and instructors trusted our audiences. Board members helped us through growing pains. Volunteers showed up early and stayed late.
Attendees became community members.
That is the part nobody sees when they scroll past an event listing.
There are people behind all of this.
A lot of them.
We Don’t Want Alcohol to Be the Most Interesting Thing About the Room
One of the things I appreciate most about The Sober Curator is its refusal to treat sobriety like a consolation prize.
You didn’t drink, so here’s your sad little chair in the corner.
Absolutely not.
There are incredible conversations happening right now about nonalcoholic beverages, sober travel, entertainment, fashion, wellness, creativity, nightlife, relationships, culture and what it means to live differently in a world where alcohol has historically been treated as the admission price for adult social life.
Teetotal feels like one small physical manifestation of that same cultural shift.
We’re not trying to create a miniature world where sober people hide from everything else.
We want the world itself to have more room for us.
We want museums thinking about sober communities.
We want arts organizations thinking about us.
We want restaurants and venues thinking about us.
We want cities thinking about what recovery-friendly communities actually look like beyond treatment resources.
We want someone who decides alcohol no longer belongs in their life to discover that their world just got bigger, not smaller.
That’s the future I want Teetotal to help build.
This Is Really an Invitation
Since 2023, I’ve become incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished.
I’m also convinced we’re nowhere near finished.
Some of the most exciting conversations we’re having now are with people outside what would traditionally be considered “the recovery world.”
Arts organizations.
Wellness professionals.
Community groups.
Cultural institutions.
Businesses.
Researchers.
Funders.
Other nonprofits.
People who recognize that loneliness, isolation, friendship, belonging and access to meaningful experiences are not niche recovery issues.
They’re human issues.
So, consider this article our open invitation.
If you’re reading this from another recovery organization and something about our model resonates, let’s talk.
If you’re an artist, instructor, venue, community organization, researcher, funder or business wondering how your work could intersect with sober community, let’s talk.
If you’re building something similar somewhere else, please tell us about it.
Frankly, if you think part of what we’re doing in Pittsburgh could work in your city, steal the idea.
Seriously.
Adapt it. Improve it. Challenge it. Study it. Partner with us. Teach us something we haven’t figured out yet.
I don’t believe Pittsburgh should own the concept of making sober life more interesting.
I want that idea everywhere.
To Alysse and everyone at The Sober Curator, thank you.
Thank you for welcoming Teetotal’s events into your world. Thank you for continuing to show that sobriety isn’t the end of somebody’s interesting life. Thank you for keeping a seat open at the table long enough for this very overdue contributor to finally sit down and write something.
It turns out I did have an article in me after all.
I just needed about three years of material.
Scott Page
Co-founder and executive director, Teetotal Initiative
Visit Teetotal Initiative
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What is Teetotal Initiative?
Teetotal Initiative is a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit that creates sober-focused social, recreational, arts and wellness programming. Its mission is to help people sustain sobriety by creating opportunities for connection, belonging and meaningful experiences.
Who founded Teetotal Initiative?
Teetotal Initiative was founded in 2023 by Scott Page and Jackie Slaugenhaupt. Page currently serves as executive director, while Slaugenhaupt serves as president.
Who can attend Teetotal Initiative events?
Events welcome people in recovery, sober and sober-curious individuals, people supporting someone they love and anyone interested in socializing without alcohol or other substances.
Does Teetotal Initiative provide addiction treatment or therapy?
No. Teetotal Initiative does not provide treatment, therapy, medical services or recovery support groups. Its recreational programming is designed to complement—not replace—professional treatment, peer support or other recovery resources.
Where does Teetotal Initiative hold events?
Teetotal Initiative began in Pittsburgh and now presents programming throughout southwestern Pennsylvania, including communities in Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Washington and Westmoreland counties.
