“This is not about being sober forever. This is about being sober for the night.” In an alcohol-heavy culture, more people are looking for booze-free spaces:
ST. LOUIS — Not far from the Anheuser-Busch brewery, Joshua Grigaitis fills a cooler with bottles and cans in one of the city’s oldest bars.
Research links excessive alcohol use to fatty liver, cirrhosis and cancers of the breast, liver, colon, mouth and throat as well as heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, dementia, anxiety and depression. Nearly half of murders involve alcohol, according to studies. Drinking kills about 88,000 people annually, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Such diseases and social ills cost the nation an estimated $249 billion a year.
Chris Marshall, who founded Sans Bar in Austin, Texas, in 2015, got sober in 2007 and was working as a counselor when a client shared how difficult it was to navigate the social world without alcohol. The client’s relapse and subsequent death was his call to action. Elsewhere, in Rock Hill, S.C., the high-end secondhand store Clothes Mentor served margaritas at its annual clearance sale. Nearby, Liberty Tax served the tequila drink when customers went in to finish their taxes last April. And a dentist’s office that treats adults and children hosts after-hours drop-in events that include wine. None of those businesses responded to requests for comment.
“Up until I started drinking in my teens, I was having fun,” said Ross. “So, you can have fun without drinking; it is possible.” Since giving up booze, Logan-Rice said, she has seen alcohol in unexpected places — even an assisted living facility that offered bottles of wine as door prizes when she attended an early-afternoon presentation about hospice care.Declining A Drink: Recovering Alcoholics, The ‘Sober Curious’ And The Health-ConsciousIn South Carolina, the Keystone treatment center hosts events for local college students at Winthrop University featuring nonalcoholic beverages.
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