Sobriety and the City: Finding Myself in Rome
How my first solo, sober trip helped me see the world more intentionally, connect with new people, and discover I can be whoever I want to be.
When I first quit drinking, I couldn’t help but take inventory of all the things I thought I might need to leave behind: friendships stitched together by memories from nights out at our favorite bars, inside jokes tucked into the the last drop of a bottle, or the certain fearlessness that came after shrugging off social anxiety to find the center of the dance floor with a confidence I hadn’t known existed. In the earlier days of sobriety, I found myself consuming endless social content about life without alcohol, trying to chart the best possible course into a future that felt promising, yet hazy. I tried to see myself in the stories of these creators detailing how sobriety made them happier, calmer, kinder. I wanted that so badly for myself, but I feared I might never find it. I was stuck between a version of myself I wanted to let go and a version of myself I couldn’t even conceptualize yet.
The infographics and Reels about a life without alcohol, though inspiring and helpful, typically leave out the more painful side of getting there. They fail to mention how sobriety forces you to experience everything for the first time again. Holidays, birthdays, first dates—all of life’s most joyous, unsettling, or downright heartbreaking moments still happened, but this time without the promise of a drink at the tail end of those big feelings. The excitement of dating as a sober person paired with the heartache after the situationship ends (if you know, you know…), the pride of reintroducing myself to my extended family at holidays combined with the worry that they’ll think I’m less fun than I used to be—all of these conflicting feelings exist in a large container that I had to sift through. And not long after my final drink, I lost a family member after a years-long battle with cancer.
Typically, I would keep my feelings lodged inside a bottle and would only start to process them on the other side of my drunkest nights. But now, my grief and all its accompaniments extended in every possible direction. Grief was sinking its claws into my professional life; heartbreak was punctuating my sleep and waking me up at dawn.
And so I did what anyone in my position would do: booked myself on a flight to Rome that was scheduled to depart 72 hours later. On paper, it looked like someone using spontaneous travel as a distraction from hardship. In reality, it felt more like an exercise in creating distance from my comfort zone in order to reckon with the vast landscape of emotion I found myself wading through. And, to put it bluntly, I wanted to prove to myself that I could operate in the world as a sober person. I wanted to know that there was still something for me beyond the confines of my every day.
Before I stopped drinking, I never would have imagined I’d go on a solo, sober trip to Rome. And I’d be lying if I said there weren’t moments where I felt pangs of jealousy (or perhaps it was nostalgia) watching different groups at neighboring tables enjoy a glass of red wine with dinner or an Aperol spritz for their aperitivo. The truth is: there was no big moment, no life changing self-discovery that led me to see myself as my happiest and most confident self. The magic started to happen slowly over the course of my weeklong trip, as if I were building a toolkit of experience to pull from when things got hard back home.
Rome favors the curious
Around every corner, you’ll find another hidden gem of a street boasting restaurants, cafes, basilicas big and small filled with some of the most masterful art, ruins, a cat sanctuary, your next new favorite gelato flavor. The city is a multiverse for the senses, and it forced me to look in directions I typically would not. I was looking up, diagonally, down at my feet, always feasting on my surroundings. It felt like my ears were stretching to neighboring streets, overhearing everything: conversations in Italian that I could not and may never understand, squabbles between tourists, or the comforting hum of a tattoo gun from the shop on the corner. The buskers at sundown on each bridge and piazza like a covert map to the city, showing its cards one cover of “Wonderwall” at a time. My curiosity felt like possibility. There is so much I haven’t seen, and that hunger to see more still hasn’t left me.
Every bite feels like the first
Before I quit, drinking alcohol made me rush. I hurried through meals without ever appreciating the food, jumped from one conversation to the next forgetting key details—I simply got through the day by going through the motions as quickly as I could. In Rome, everything slowed down, and I struggled to adjust at first. But I leaned in, I ate every dinner by myself without my phone or a book in hand. Meals in Rome can last for over two hours, which led me to treat the experience with care. Every single bite felt like I was tasting something for the first time. I could not wait to find new flavors or foods to try.
And when I met new friends and we went out for a night in Trastevere, I hung on every single word they said. I was so eager to hear about their lives at home and their travels through Italy. I sat with them for hours, laughter suspended between us like smoke. I am realizing that time together is one of our greatest currencies, and these moments were well-spent.
You can do whatever you want to, and that’s totally cool.
When you travel alone, you start to build up a level of confidence that translates into agency. Every time I said no to the house wine, I was reminded that I had the power to define how my day went. There were no expectations of how I spent my time. I could see the sights in any order I wanted; I could go to bed when I wanted. This sense of personal freedom led me to a locally owned LGBTQ+ bar in Monti, where I got to watch queen Aura Eternal perform through the night. With my Coke Zero in hand, I met some of the most wonderful people from all around the world, all while Aura danced and sang to Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, and Whitney Houston.
As a sober, gay man, this was the moment of reckoning—I was exactly where I wanted to be as my entire self. My past didn’t define me, my future wasn’t clear, but I was there and I was happy. Rome did not change me, just like sobriety did not change me. I remain the goofy, loving, often anxious, sometimes clueless person that I was before. I am still a careful friend who tells you how much I love you as much as I can. I am still the diva who will screech Chappell Roan under the disco ball at the local dive bar. I am still the sensitive guy who will tear up in public if he overhears an unseasonably sad song playing from a car window. Rome showed me that all of this can be true, not only within my comfort zone of my home and my community, but everywhere I go. When we travel alone, we get to introduce the most vulnerable and fearless parts of ourselves to the world. And above all else, we get to bask in the glory of the world rising to meet us, welcoming us however we choose to show up.
)
)
