We’ve Built a Culture Around Drinking. What If We Started Building One Around Belonging?

One of my favorite episodes of the Sober Life Rocks podcast wasn’t an interview with a bestselling author or a well-known expert. It was a conversation with my friend and co-founder, Laura Nelson. We wanted to pull back the curtain on how our thinking had evolved over the past year, and somewhere along the way, I realized we weren’t really talking about a conference at all. We were talking about a question that neither of us had been able to shake.

Why have we become so dependent on alcohol as the way adults connect?

At first, that question sounds like it’s about drinking. But the longer Laura and I sat with it, the more we realized it was really about something much bigger. It was about culture. It was about habit. And ultimately, it was about belonging.

Laura has spent years attending conferences, speaking at industry events, and working with organizations to create more inclusive experiences. She’s also navigated all of those spaces as someone who no longer drinks. As we talked, she described something I suspect many people—whether they drink or not—have experienced without ever putting words to it.

Somewhere along the way, alcohol stopped being one option among many. It quietly became part of the script.

Think about almost every way adults gather. Networking events revolve around happy hours. Weddings are planned around the open bar. Sporting events advertise beer as much as the game itself. Concerts, festivals, fundraisers, holiday parties, neighborhood barbecues, even many volunteer events begin with the assumption that drinking will be part of the experience.

None of those things are inherently wrong. Laura and I weren’t sitting there criticizing people who drink or suggesting alcohol should disappear from our culture. In fact, that’s one of the biggest misconceptions we encounter. This has never been about taking something away.

It’s about asking whether we’ve forgotten to build enough alternatives.

As Laura said during our conversation, people often assume the sober community wants to eliminate alcohol from social life. Nothing could be further from the truth. What we want is more choice. More creativity. More opportunities for people to gather in ways that don’t depend on alcohol to create conversation, celebration, or connection.

That distinction feels incredibly important because it changes the entire conversation.

Instead of asking, “How do we get rid of alcohol?” we began asking, “How do we become better at helping people connect?”

Those are two completely different problems.

The more Laura and I talked, the more examples came to mind. We thought about the countless adults who have quietly wondered where they fit after deciding not to drink. We thought about people in recovery, people who simply don’t enjoy alcohol, people managing medical conditions, people taking medication, pregnant women, those whose faith discourages drinking, and people who have watched addiction affect someone they love. We also thought about the event planners and hospitality professionals who genuinely want to create welcoming experiences but have inherited traditions that few people ever stop to question.

What struck us wasn’t that these groups were experiencing different problems.

It was that they were describing the same problem from different perspectives.

Everyone was talking about connection.

They just weren’t talking to one another.

That realization changed the way we thought about almost everything.

For months, Laura and I found ourselves looking for people who were already leading this conversation. Surely someone was bringing together psychologists, hospitality professionals, event planners, workplace leaders, creators, researchers, recovery advocates, and community builders to explore what connection might look like if we intentionally designed for belonging instead of simply repeating traditions we’d inherited.

We kept looking.

We never found them.

Eventually, we reached a conclusion that was both exciting and a little intimidating.

No one was coming to start this conversation for us.

I don’t say that with frustration. If anything, I find it hopeful. Most meaningful change begins because ordinary people become curious enough to question something everyone else has accepted. They don’t begin with a fully formed solution. They begin with a willingness to gather people who see different parts of the problem and invite them to think together.

That’s exactly what Laura and I decided to do.

We don’t pretend to know what the future of connection looks like. We don’t have a blueprint for redesigning workplace culture, celebrations, conferences, or community events. In fact, one of the things we’ve become most comfortable saying is, “We don’t know.”

But we’ve also learned that not knowing can be a powerful place to begin.

Instead of trying to become the experts with all the answers, we decided to become conveners. We wanted to bring together people who rarely have the opportunity to learn from one another—people whose work intersects around human connection but who often operate in completely separate worlds. What might happen if an event planner learned from a psychologist? What could a hospitality leader teach someone who builds recovery communities? How might a workplace leader rethink team culture after hearing from someone who has spent years helping people feel like they belong?

Those questions became the foundation for AMPLIFY Sober Choices.

Not because we wanted to create another conference.

Because we wanted to create a room where those conversations could finally happen.

Will one conference change the way our culture gathers? Of course not. Will two days together solve loneliness, redesign networking, or transform celebrations? No. But every meaningful shift begins somewhere, and I believe it usually begins with people who are willing to ask better questions than the ones they’ve inherited.

As Laura and I finished recording that episode, I realized something else had changed for me. I no longer think our mission is simply to normalize sober choices. That’s certainly part of what we’re working toward, but it isn’t the destination.

The destination is much bigger.

We’re trying to help build a culture where more people can fully participate, fully connect, and fully belong—whether alcohol is in the room or not.

I don’t know exactly what that future looks like yet.

Neither does Laura.

That’s precisely why we’re inviting so many different voices into the conversation.

Because no one is coming to fix this for us.

If we want a different future, we’ll have to build it together.

And honestly, I can’t think of a more hopeful place to begin. 

The post Episode 106: Building Belonging Without Alcohol first appeared on Sober Life Rocks.