A CASE FOR NON-SOBRIETY

Therein lies the central tension: How are we supposed to keep showing up, keep acting normal while knowing, consciously or not, that none of it survives the end credits? We simply just carry on as if we’re not blatantly mortals in the middle of a cosmic joke. As Frank Gallagher puts it, “Can you imagine having to live with the knowledge of impending death sober?” Sober, not just in the literal sense, but emotionally, spiritually, and creatively sedated.

Frank Gallagher is definitely a bad example even for an alcoholic, so, let’s be clear: This isn’t a pitch for alcoholism. This is a pitch for NON-SOBRIETY, with all caps on purpose. Not addiction, but defiance—against going through life emotionally flat, spiritually anesthetized, and intellectually half-asleep. If you’re going to walk around fully conscious of your mortality, you might as well get high on something that actually matters.

The Impossible Assignment

Let’s put the human condition on the table: We know we’re going to die. It’s the constant we can never put down, however, what’s less clear is the question of “when”. Yet, we’re expected to be productive citizens, improve ourselves, and, inexplicably, never forget to send the “reply all.” Only humans would create existential labor where side quests never quite resolve the main story arc.

Therapists have a phrase for the anxiety that hums beneath adult life. Sometimes, it’s pointedly referred to as death anxiety—an unnamed fog that clouds everything. It’s so serious they even created a scale for this thing. As one clinical psychologist put it, “A surprising amount of everyday anxiety is just the unavoidable awareness that we have an expiration date.”

If you wrote this gig (being human) as a job description, it would sound like satire:

Job Title: Human.

Responsibilities: Carry the constant, conscious realization of personal extinction at all times, while attending pointless meetings and sending invoices.”

No one would apply!

So the real question becomes: Faced with this impossible assignment, how do we not go completely insane? How do we show up and live—even thrive—despite the full awareness that, statistically speaking, none of us gets out alive?

Why Sobriety is Not Enough

Sobriety has its place. In the most literal sense, it means no substances—no alcohol, no drugs, nothing that clouds your sense of reality. But zoom out, and it’s also become a cultural ideal: the serious professional, endlessly composed, always “on brand,” and unflappable. However, the shadow side of that “composed at any cost” ideal is a kind of numbness. You might be calm, but you’re also dulled at the edges. You survive, day by day, but often at the price of feeling particularly alive.

Picture the hyper-competent corporate adult whose life is unimpeachably “fine,” yet feels like living in a beige waiting room. Or a parent so laser-focused on logistics and checklists, the only real joy is outsourced to whatever cartoon their kid is into this week. Functioning? Absolutely. Flourishing? Uhrrr…Not so much.

The uncomfortable truth is this: Maybe the problem isn’t that some people are “too high”—maybe the ache is that so many of us are not high enough on anything that matters. We’ve traded stimulation for sedation, risk for routine. And in numbing ourselves to pain, we flatten the pleasure of being brilliantly, briefly alive.

Introducing NON-SOBRIETY: High on Life, Not Just Substances

This is a case for NON-SOBRIETY. Not alcoholism, not self-destruction, not numbing yourself into trivia night oblivion. Non-sobriety means refusing to move through your limited stretch on Earth in a deadened, purely “sensible,” risk-proof state while the clock is ticking.

Let’s address the elephant in the room: There absolutely is a version that can wreck you. Think binge-drinking, doomscrolling until 2 a.m., treating your job like a drug, or stirring up drama just to feel something—anything.

So what does non-sobriety look like if it’s not about substances? We'll get to that shortly!