ensuite – Zeitschrift zu Kultur & Kunst
17. Dezember 2022 – first published in German October 2022
Essay
The Intoxication of Sobriety
Alcohol is the lubricant of careers: Political philosopher laStaempfli (Regula Stämpfli) describes in an unusual personal essay what it meant for her to get sober during the pandemic.
Regula Staempfli – www.regulastaempfli.eu
When I wrote my essay for a Swiss magazine, Munich was the capitol of booze: The “Octoberfest” flooded the city with madness and only one goal: To get as drunk as possible. I don’t like beer, I never did and since the pandemic 2020 I live alcohol-free, with a few exceptions, countable on one hand. I say this so in case somebody sees me with a wineglass will not shout across the room “but I thought you were sober”. It will be apple juice mixed with water as to look like white wine because being sober in Switzerland, France, Italy, Belgium, London and Germany where I work and travel, counts as a crime. I never tried telling anyone apart from my family that I don’t drink, since the conversations, especially with friends, are painful. Either the friends start telling me how often they stop drinking, then they urge me to celebrate the occasion and life is so short that my very happy life as an alcohol-free person starts to wobble. Read more : https://regulastaempfli.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/19-dec-alcoholfree-laStaempfli.pdf