How Katy Perry is using a sobriety pact to quit alcohol and find ‘presence’
I was reading this week about how pop star and American Idol judge Katy Perry had undertaken a sobriety pact, and she used a great word to describe what you lose for days after you drink too much.
Presence.
Speaking at a cocktail party where she chose to pass on the cocktails, Perry told People Magazine that she’d made a deal with her fiancee (actor Orlando Bloom) not to drink for three months.
“I’ve been sober for five weeks today … I’ve been doing a pact with my partner and I want to quit,” she told the magazine.
Hitting the alcohol wall
Given Perry also recently launched her own line of non-alcoholic cocktails, it strikes me that this is a person who is looking for an escape hatch from the drinking life.
It’s no surprise that Perry is experimenting with sober curiosity as she approaches age 40 (she’s 38).
As I’ve written numerous times already, a lot of the top writers on alcohol and sobriety on this site seem to be around the same age (late-30s to mid-40s).
And as I’ve walked this path myself over the past 7 months or so, I’ve also noticed the trend that a lot of celebrities ditch the booze around this point in their lives as well.
The stories I’ve written include:
- Gary Oldman explains why it’s never too late to quit alcohol (he quit in his late 30s)
- Get inspired by this sportscaster’s 2 year quit alcohol transformation (he quit at 45)
- Macklemore on why daily routines are super important for quitting alcohol (he’s 39)
- Sam Worthington’s alcohol addiction resembles our own (he quit at 37)
- You won’t age gracefully if you don’t quit alcohol (Ringo Starr quit in his mid-40s)
And there are a bunch more examples.
As a 41-year-old, I can tell you that there are two reasons the appeal of alcohol starts to wane big time at this point.
There is a big difference physically, obviously:
- When I was in my early-to-mid 20s, I could drink hard liquor all night and not even feel it.
- In my late 20s, I got my first hangover.
- By my mid-30s, hangovers were no longer a rare occurance after drinking too much.
- By my late 30s, I would lose days to a hard drinking session.
But, perhaps more importantly, you hit a wall mentally.
As I’ve written before, the impetus for me quitting was that I was tired of disappointing myself … tired of not reaching my potential.
Effectively, I looked at my life as a daily drinker and asked, “is this all there is?”
Now, Katy Perry has a much more luxurious and exciting life than I do, but I do wonder if she’s reaching that point as well.
Seeking ‘presence’ without alcohol
Here’s what she told People a little over a year ago when she launched her mocktail line:
“Well, I’m 37, so I definitely can’t drink like I was in my 20s.
“On a weekday, having a couple of drinks will take me out of the presence game for the next day or two.
“So I like to have a bit of self-control on the weekdays and then have dinners with friends and stuff on weekends or when I’m not working, et cetera.
“But really, it’s about balance.”
The most important word in there is “presence”.
Alcohol is often used as an escape, but we lose out on so much joy and so many of life’s small experiences by not being present to experience real life.
Suddenly, you wake up and you’re 40 and you become attuned to all the time you’ve wasted.
Drinking also does a number on your focus and productivity (probably because so much of your mental bandwidth is consumed with when you can drink again) — something that has evidently clicked for Perry.
As she told People, “sometimes I’m not drinking and I’m really focused, and then sometimes I’m like, ‘it’s not a big deal.’”
That was a year ago, and now Perry has ditched alcohol completely.
That people like Katy Perry — someone deeply ensconced in pop culture lore and still relevant as a judge on a hit TV show for young people — are not only experimenting with sober curiosity but actually talking openly about it is quite heartening.
It makes the idea of quitting alcohol a lot more hip and accessible (read my piece “Quitting alcohol as a status symbol” for more on that) and removes the old stigmas around the increasingly derogatory term “alcoholism”.
Who knows, Perry may see massive improvements in her life and decide that, even after the three months are up on her pact, an alcohol-free lifestyle is the way to go.
When you’ve quit long enough, you start to wonder why you would ever go back.
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