In 2012, about six weeks shy of turning 30, Courtney Andersen hit rock bottom. Again.
Like an estimated 16 million people in the U.S., she was addicted to alcohol. Her relationship with drinking wasn’t always a problem; growing up in metro Detroit, she started drinking at age 19 once she was old enough to the bars in Canada, as many people around here do. “For me, it started off very innocently, like I think it does for so many,” she tells Metro Times. “But then it just escalated and got darker, and darker, and darker.”
She adds, “My drinking always led me to some type of disaster.”
There were blackouts. Physical fights. Waking up in strangers’ beds — or in jail cells, or hospitals. She was missing work, and feeling hungover for days. As she got older, the hangovers became more unbearable, and by age 25 she knew she was going to have to give up drinking one day.
But as she neared the end of her 20s, Andersen went out for another night of drinking, just as she had done many times before. It was a special occasion: her last shift working as a bartender before starting a new career in the medical field. Afterwards, at home, while “completely hammered,” Andersen went outside to smoke a cigarette and left her screen door open, allowing her rescue cat Fiona to escape.
While hungover the next morning, “My boyfriend at the time told me, ‘You can continue doing this, but I’m not going to be on this road with you anymore,” she recalls.
“So I made a pact to the universe that day,” Andersen says. “I said, ‘If I find Fiona, I will give a life without alcohol a chance.’”
Three days later, Andersen found her pet hiding under a neighbor’s deck.
“It was almost like a spiritual experience for me, finding this cat,” she says. “It was like everything went into slow motion, and she ran up to me. I picked her up and I dropped to my knees, and she peed on me, which was well-deserved. I was just holding onto her, crying, like, ‘OK, I give up alcohol. It’s just not worth it anymore.’”
She likens the decision to leaving an abusive partner.
“It wasn’t difficult, but it was terrifying,” she says. “Because I was coming out of a 10-year what I like to call ‘toxic relationship’ with alcohol.”
Andersen says she found the sobriety resources available at the time to be lacking. Rehab was unaffordable for her, and sharing details with strangers at Alcoholics Anonymous felt intimidating and left her feeling lonely. Outside of that, there didn’t seem to be many people speaking publicly about sobriety.
After sharing her story in social media posts, about six years into her sobriety Anderson decided to create an online community called Sober Vibes, which includes a podcast of the same name and her services as a sobriety coach for others. She also founded National Sober Day, a day to encourage sobriety, which is celebrated on Sept. 14.
Her latest project is a book, called Sober Vibes: A Guide to Thriving in Your First Three Months Without Alcohol, which was released in August by Page Street Publishing Co. The guide helps readers to navigate the first 90 days of sobriety, including tips on dealing with withdrawal and socializing without alcohol, fleshed out by anecdotes from Andersen’s own experiences. It also includes writing prompts for readers to reflect and journal their feelings, right in the pages of the book.
Andersen hopes it can be a resource that people will return to multiple times during their efforts at sobriety.
“It’s really all the questions I have gotten through the years of the sobriety journey, when people want to know what to expect,” she says. “It’s not a one-size-fits all program. Everybody is at different situations in their lives, and you just really have to tailor it to you. You have to do that work if you want to continue a life without alcohol.”
The sober lifestyle can be very difficult because of how ingrained drinking is into our culture. “Alcohol is the only drug you have to justify not using,” Andersen says. One of the things that Andersen found most difficult was figuring out what to do with all of her new freedom. “I had to google ‘hobbies’ because I had nothing else to do with my time,” she says. “I went back to my childhood — like, what did I like doing in my childhood before drinking and before adulthood sucks you in?”
For Andersen, that was rekindling her love of baking, which she used to do for her family. “I took a lot of pride in baking cookies and brownies on the weekends for my dad and my siblings,” she says. “So I went and I started baking for the first time in probably like 20 years. It became very therapeutic.”
Andersen’s not alone in her turn away from alcohol. The younger generation appears to be less interested in drinking than others: According to a recent report from the University of Michigan, the share of college-age adults abstaining from alcohol has grown from 20% to 28%, while another study from Berenberg Research found Gen Z was drinking about 20% less alcohol per capita than millennials did at their age.
And earlier this year, even beer-loving Ireland became the first nation in the world to mandate that alcohol products feature health warning labels, including risks of liver disease and cancers. Canada’s government also recommended warning labels on alcoholic beverages — as well as for people to consume no more than two drinks per week.
Anderson believes that people speaking more candidly about their experiences with addiction and sobriety is helping these trends.
“I still think that there is a huge stigma with addiction,” Andersen says. “But it’s so nice now that in 2023, we have more options, and it’s because people have been openly talking about their struggles with alcohol.”
You can learn more about Sober Vibes at courtneyrecovered.com.
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