Chic online clubs are drawing millennials and Gen X'ers who want 'freedom from wine o clock' without labeling themselves alcoholics — but unlike AA, most aren't free

• Online communities for the sober-curious are booming as alcohol abuse rates, and the effects, soar.
• Unlike AA, the clubs don't ask people to claim the term alcoholic or view sobriety as the single end-goal.

Anthony Eder wasn't just a wine or beer or liquor drinker. He was "all of the above."

When it came to why he drank, Eder, now 34, checked that same, all-inclusive box. "If I was feeling deep sadness, anger, jealousy, I was drinking," he said. "If I was happy and wanted to celebrate, I was drinking — and I was drinking heavy." That often meant consuming at least two bottles of wine a night and topping them off with a cocktail or two.

Eder, who runs retreats at a year-round camp in Southern California, prioritized booze over food when grocery shopping. His mornings were racked with anxiety over what he'd done and whom he'd upset the night before. Alcohol "robbed a lot of moments of life," he said.

Now, nearly 20 months sober, Eder doesn't call himself an alcoholic and never tried Alcoholics Anonymous. "I just knew that wasn't for me," he said. "I needed something that felt more my style."

That style turned out to be The Luckiest Club, an online sobriety-support community that "doesn't do dogma," according to its credo. Its members, who pay at least $14 a month, attend private meetings — there are 35 a week to choose from — and connect with one another via private online forums.

Joining "was the best decision I ever made," said Eder, who now hosts three meetings a week, including one for queer members and allies. He's currently studying to become a therapist.

As people like Eder reevaluate their relationship with drinking, more and more of them are turning away from the church-basement Alcoholics Anonymous stereotype, paying to join a rapidly growing number of hip online communities. There, many people have found what they say is a less judgmental, more empowering, and even fun way to live an alcohol-free — or alcohol-reduced — life.

The messaging from these communities goes something like this: Don't ask if you're an alcoholic — you're the product of a society that glamorizes "attractively-packaged poison." Slipping up isn't a relapse, its a "data point" from which to learn. You can find "freedom from wine o'clock" — and still have fun.

These online programs portray sobriety as a commitment that takes work, but also as a joy, a great adventure, a radical act of self-care — and, they say, you don't have to hit rock bottom to get there.

You can give up booze "in a really fun, empowering, and supportive way," James Swanwick, founder of Project90, told Insider, "as opposed to those traditional recovery methods of AA or rehab or inpatient or outpatient treatment centers, which are just so dark and depressing and also, ultimately, in my view, ineffective."

But addiction specialists caution that such programs can backfire for people who need intensive medical and psychiatric solutions, while shunning the term "alcoholic" only further stigmatizes the condition.

While one of AA's central philosophies is that its groups should "oppose no one," some members believe the alternative groups are taking advantage of vulnerable people — sometimes at a potentially dangerous, and expensive, cost.

The online groups meet an increasing need, especially for women

Problematic drinking has been on the rise for decades, with global consumption increasing as much as 70% between 1990 and 2017, a 2019 Lancet study found.

The pandemic has accelerated the trend. A Harvard study published in January found excessive drinking rose 21% in 2020 alone. Researchers predict that will lead to 8,000 additional deaths from alcohol-related liver disease, 18,700 cases of liver failure, and 1,000 cases of liver cancer by 2040.

Women have been particularly affected, increasing their heavy drinking days by 41% during the pandemic, another study found. That's likely due to a combination of pandemic-related stress, increased alcohol marketing to women, and the absence of other coping mechanisms.

Research shows that women are less likely than men to seek treatment for alcohol-use disorder, and have poorer outcomes when they use traditional routes like 12-step programs and in-patient care.

That's where the largely female-skewing world of non-12-step online-support groups comes in. The groups, which first cropped up around 2015, offer varying levels of support, from free Facebook groups, podcasts, and videos to meetings and private-forum access for the price of a six-pack or private coaching and "master classes" as pricey as the nicest case of Champagne.

Each program has its own vibe and methodology. Tempest is female-focused and holistic, emphasizing mindfulness practices on top of cognitive-behavioral therapy and positive psychology. The Luckiest Club, founded by a woman who got sober through AA, is meeting- heavy. SoberSis markets itself toward women who consider themselves "gray-area drinkers," while This Naked Mind's Alcohol Experiment says it can help quell the desire to drink "through a journey of facts, neuroscience, and logic." Project 90 targets "high achievers" of all genders.

Members are often big on team spirit, using names for themselves like "Soberistas" or "the Sober Mom Squad" — that are more akin to "Swifties" and "Beliebers" than "diabetics" and "celiacs." They start "quit lit" book clubs, meet up at retreats, join sober dance parties during wellness weekends, and toast alcohol-free cocktails at "sober in the city" events.

There's even swag: Don a T-shirt stamped with "AFAF" (alcohol-free as fuck), decorate a water bottle with the The Luckiest Club logo, or sip from a mug that quips "definitely not wine."

One theory unites most programs: They resist telling members that sobriety is the only acceptable end goal. "Who cares if you're not drinking if you're miserable?" This Naked Mind Founder Annie Grace told Insider. She encourages people to set goals for how they want to feel – like that alcohol is small and irrelevant in their lives – rather than how they want to behave. Likewise, Tempest told Insider that instead of striving for abstinence, it focuses on "giving people the tools to build a life that they don't need to drink alcohol to escape from."

That marketing appeals to people like Alison Miles. The 49-year-old dentist from Gold Coast, Australia, rarely imbibed during the week, but her weekend "good times" centered around booze. The drinking left her increasingly apathetic and even depressed, but she never considered AA, thinking it was only for people who'd "lost all control" over their drinking.

Instead, Miles signed up for This Naked Mind's "30-Day Live Alcohol Experiment" in January, because it didn't cast drinking days as failures. Perhaps paradoxically, that kept her sober for four months. Indulging on her birthday reminded her why she went alcohol-free to begin with.

"I have now chosen to be very mindful of if or when I do choose to drink again," she said.

'I don't believe in labels. I just don't drink.'

Like AA, the clubs offer community, accessibility, and privacy. But research suggests the biggest appeal may be that these groups offer "this concept that people don't actually feel they're surrounded by 'alcoholics.' They're surrounded by women experiencing problem drinking or gray-area drinking," Claire Davey, a Ph.D. candidate in the UK studying alternative paths to sobriety for women, said. "They think, 'OK, I'm not alone in this.'"

That was true for Peggi Cooney, a 70-year-old social-work professor in California. She went to AA for about five months and said she couldn't have felt more welcomed. But, she thought, "I don't want to be in AA for 30 years saying, 'Hi I'm a Peggi, I'm an alcoholic.' I don't believe in labels. I just don't drink."

Cooney later found SoberSis through a Facebook ad, did its 21-day reset, and hasn't had a drink in three years. She's now a sobriety advocate and author.

Women also say they're drawn to the groups as a way to stick it to the man — or more accurately, the alcohol industry that's targeted them with Instagrammable cocktails and meme-worthy messaging that "Mommy deserves a drink."

"Very smart people with assloads of money, power, and access benefit from our believing that drinking is an act of empowerment for women, instead of what it is: a drug designed to keep us down, no matter how much we drink," Tempest founder Holly Whitaker wrote in "Quit Like a Woman: The radical choice not to drink in a culture obsessed with alcohol."

Teetotaling also fits nicely with an increasing cultural emphasis on self-care, Davey said. With alcohol use affecting everything from sleep to skin to weight, some women buy into sobriety support just like yoga-teacher training and organic produce.

The 'you're not an alcoholic' messaging isn't for everyone

Geri-Lynn Utter, a clinical psychologist in Philadelphia who specializes in addiction, told Insider she appreciates how the groups have helped to destigmatize alcohol-use disorder, and can draw people who would never — or aren't ready to — seek more intensive treatment.

But she worries the "you're not an alcoholic" messaging might allow serious problem drinkers to give themselves a pass.

In one Facebook group for people doing This Naked Mind's 30-day experiment, some members reported drinking multiple bottles of wine daily for years, if not decades. They were on their fourth or ninth "experiment," hoping that this time, sobriety would stick.

Confessions of slipups were generally greeted with encouragement ("You've got this!" "It's all part of the journey!"). Utter said she would respond differently.

"If they engage in a program like that and they fail, then that's a realization that we may need a higher level of care," said Utter, who's affiliated with the alcohol-reduction app vorvida. "We may need to look this in the eye and we may need to call it what it is."

And if that's "alcoholic," so be it. For many people in 12-step programs, Utter said, the term isn't disempowering. "The language is very concrete to them," she said. "They say, 'I'm an alcoholic, I wear that shit with a badge of honor.'"

That's how May Lane Hart says she feels now that she's been sober for 13 years — an accomplishment she said she could have only achieved through a family intervention, rehab, and AA.

The 44-year-old recruiter in South Carolina said that had she been offered an online program that didn't demand sobriety or humility, she would have continued drinking 12 beers a night and convincing herself she didn't have a problem.

"I lived in La Jolla, I had a nice car, I had a nice job, so I wasn't 'an alcoholic,'" Hart said she told herself.

Now in recovery, she embraces the term. "It's not a character defect, it's not a fault. It's something I'm proud of because I've overcome it, and I continue to overcome it every day."

Owning "alcoholic" doesn't work for everyone, and some serious problem drinkers credit the online programs with their breakthroughs.

At the height of her addiction, Angie Chaplin, 51, was drinking up to three bottles of wine or 24 cans of beer a night. She'd totaled cars, gotten a DUI, been hospitalized and in jail. A doctor told her if she didn't stop, she'd die.

Chaplin doesn't use the term alcoholic to describe her former or current self. She's more than two years sober thanks, she said, to This Naked Mind.

"I don't believe I was powerless," she said. "I believe alcohol buried my power and it took reacquainting myself with my values and my value to be able to take back ownership."

The cost of hip sobriety can be high

Outside of anecdotes and the organizations' own studies and stats, it's hard to know how well these programs work. They're too new to have been extensively studied, and "success" can mean anything from reducing drinking to feeling more in control of alcohol to maintaining a 100-day alcohol-free streak.

Even the effectiveness of AA, which has been around far longer, is notoriously tough to quantify. One large study showed 49% of members were abstinent after eight years, while a former Harvard psychiatry professor says he's found it's effective for as few as 5% of participants.

As such, some addiction specialists caution that peer-support networks should only be used in conjunction with known-to-be effective treatments for alcohol-use disorder, like medication and behavioral therapy.

Another potential risk of the groups: They're rarely run by licensed mental-health professionals. As the clubs acknowledge, that means they're not for people who are physically — not just psychologically — dependent on alcohol and need medical supervision to detox safely.

But they can't enforce that rule, nor can they guarantee that people who do need medical support receive it.

That's also true for AA, but unlike AA, many of these online groups charge money to gain access to beyond-the-basics materials like private forums, meetings, and coaching.

They're often founded by corporate workers turned entrepreneurs making a living from their programs, books, podcasts, and coaching-certification programs. As Davey noted, those cost barriers can be a roadblock for lower-income people, a group that disproportionately includes people of color.

Swanwick's Project 90, for example, is marketed toward entrepreneurs and executives over 35 — in other words, people generally making at least six figures. The price of entry runs from hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on how much personalized attention a participant wants and needs. Swanwick, a former journalist, also sells his own liver-cleansing supplements.

He says he's been called a snake-oil salesman. But in his view, the cost is an asset. For one, people typically spent just as much, if not more, on booze. Plus, Swanwick said, "When one makes an investment, then one is more inclined to keep one's commitment to that investment." Proven treatments for addiction, like medication and therapy, aren't cheap or necessarily covered by insurance, either.

Not all alternative programs charge, and you don't have to pick just one

Free, non-AA, evidence-based approaches to quitting drinking also exist, University of New Mexico psychologist Katie Witkiewitz said. She recommends the mutual-support programs SMART Recovery and Moderation Management, which also reject the "you are powerless" ethos of AA.

"Sober Instagram" is another free option. Sarah Pottieger, 30, said she quit drinking over two years ago by searching hashtags on the platform like #sobercurious and #alcoholfree. She'd been to some AA meetings, but the concept of relinquishing power before moving forward felt "counterproductive" to her. On Instagram, though, the Brooklynite found Zoom meetings, made in-person coffee dates, and joined a Slack channel for the "East Coast Sober Squad."

"Strangers on the internet are some of the best support you'll find," Pottieger said. She's since built her own following posting about sobriety on social media.

Most people in these alcohol-free and sober-curious communities insist there's no wrong way to improve your relationship with alcohol.

Ryann Cooke, a 26-year-old project manager in Washington, DC, has found success by picking and choosing elements of different programs – including AA.

She's young and Black, and at first felt out of place in AA meetings, where she felt people were "pushy" about what her journey should look like. But then she found less-traditional BIPOC AA meetings online, which she attends almost every day and credits with her 10 months of sobriety.

Cooke said she doesn't identify as an alcoholic or subscribe to anonymity. In addition to AA, she works with a therapist, listens to This Naked Mind's podcast, and has attended meetings hosted by Sober Black Girls Club.

"Shop around to see what feels good to you," Cooke recommends to the sober-curious. "Your recovery is not the same as someone else's."