Sober Story: How to Find A Sober Community in Recovery

In this story, is Mic a sobriety advocate and found of Sober Babes Vancouver, a sober community for women, non-binary people & members of the LGBTQ+ community who are sober, sober curious, or want to drink less alcohol. Mic shared the following tips on how to recover find a sober community when you’re in recovery, how do you build a community in recovery and also explains why is community important in recovery.

This post was created for the sober and sober curious looking for relatable, inspiring sober-positive content. The following are Mic’s experiences, words and opinions. Enjoy :)

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Making friends in sobriety can be a challenge or maybe it’s fairer to say that it might just take more time, because it can be easy in nature.

My experience making friends when drinking was:

1. Get drunk with them

2. Skip the awkward “do we have anything in common” steps because we have drinking in common and that’s all that matters, and

3. Next thing you know, you’re in the bathroom together over-sharing about your deepest trauma.

When you’re sober, getting intimate with someone is usually a bit more gradual. History isn’t supposed to happen overnight, it’s also far less likely that 4 hours after meeting you’ll proclaim your love for them, like “Oh my God, we’re going to be best friends!!”.

In sobriety, I’ve learned that deep and meaningful relationships take commitment, time and energy to get to know each other better.

Tip #1: Find one person that you admire who is sober and ask them to be your sober reference.

The first person that I ever met who was sober was my tattoo artist. Even though she was sober — which I previously thought was just so boring — I was captivated by how unique and interesting and inspiring of a person she is. Our friendship developed organically over time and now we have this strong friendship that is based on a strong foundation: time, every, consistency.

She is some of my closest friends today. Getting to see her be sober and so successful showed me that being sober isn’t boring. She was my sober reference and inspired me consider what sober life could be like for me. So, in that way, making a new sober friend was easy.

Tip #2: If you don’t find a sober community that you like, create your own.

I’ve found great fun and success creating my own sober community and inviting people to join me for things I like to do. I started a local meetup group in my hometown and we had 30 to 40 people in attendance at our first event. When I say we, I mean myself and a friend who organizes the events with me.

Tip #3: Start a sobriety account on Instagram or TikTok

I started posting about sobriety on my TikTok and an old friend that I used to drink what reached out to me after we hadn’t spoken for a couple months. She said that seeing me sober online had inspired her to get sober as well and we’ve been hanging out together a lot.

Our friendship now, sober, has grown into something much deeper and more meaningful that it ever was before. There are so many sober people online who want to connect and support each other. You don’t have to tell your family about your sobriety account, you can just make one and find your people.