Nearly ninety years ago, when Bill Wilson and Bob Smith joined forces to create the program what would become known as Alcoholics Anonymous, there was no O'Doul's section is the beverage aisle. There was no word for trading in one’s alcohol consumption for weed, no designation of “California sober.” The first month of the year was not also known as Dryuary. Now, however, we’re consuming less alcohol than our parents and grandparents did, and exploring what it means to be sober curious more. But sobriety isn’t what it used to be.

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“My science-backed view is that alcohol problems are massively heterogeneous, hugely complex, nuanced, and individual,” says Dr. James Morris, Chair of the New Directions in the Study of Alcohol Group at London South Bank University, “But the models, the terms and ideas that we have around them are very limited and categorical, and siphon people into certain stereotypes or ideas like abstinence or rock bottom or only sobriety, etc.” He says, “I'm by no means anti abstinence or anti sobriety. It’s such an important thing, and it's the healthiest choice. But I am against excluding other ways of changing drinking patterns, or allowing people to explore their drinking in ways that don't necessarily siphon them off into these very strongly kind of labeled ideas.”

Morris has been doing intriguing research into the language we use around sobriety and alcoholism, and the potential positive benefits for some to embrace a more fluid perspective. “For people that engage with self-identification, my view is that reflects a really strong commitment to recovery,” he says. “That process of recovery involves an identity shift away from protecting........

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