They smoke weed, drink booze and consider themselves sober

Shane O’Neill
| The Washington Post

In January, country singer Jason DeFord, better known as Jelly Roll, testified before Congress about the dangers of fentanyl.

“I’ve witnessed this firsthand in a way that most people haven’t,” he said, citing his past as a convicted drug dealer and addict and the impact addiction has had on his family’s lives.

These days, Jelly Roll is sober. Sort of.

Jelly Roll — who declined to participate in this story through a representative — abstained from cocaine and opiates, which ruined his life and landed him in prison.

But he smokes weed. “Marijuana has kept me sober,” he said in an interview with the website Taste of Country.

And he drinks alcohol. In August, he told the New York Times that he “drinks a cocktail every now and then” but that Alcoholics Anonymous meetings help him avoid harder drugs.

Maybe you call it “Jelly Roll sober”? You could add it to a list of new definitions of “down-to-earth” that have emerged in recent years.

There’s “California sober,” a term popularized by musician Billy Strings and Demi Lovato for people who abstain from alcohol but still use cannabis (although Lovato now calls herself “sober” without an adjective).

There’s ‘Sober-Curious’ for people interested in temporary moderation, with events celebrating ‘Sober October’, ‘Dry January’ and its less strict cousin, ‘Damp January’.

People joke about “Northern California sober” (mushroom only), “Bushwick sober” (ketamine only), and “Florida sober” (meth only). The Washington Post reported on young people “getting sober” in response to a toxic dating culture.

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“We have evolved in our view of what recovery from addiction or substance abuse disorder is,” said Bill Stauffer, executive director of the Pennsylvania Recovery Organization Alliance. He cited a 2013 update to the DSM-V that combined substance abuse and substance dependence into a substance abuse disorder, which could range from mild to severe.

“There is a spectrum of substance use disorders,” Stauffer said. “There is a spectrum of healing. We don’t fully understand either of them yet.”

He has seen people with substance abuse problems who were able to use cannabis without any problems after counseling. And he’s seen people who have to abstain completely to be functional — Stauffer counts himself among them.

“I don’t think the science has advanced enough to fully identify who is who in which category, but I think by having discussions about this topic we are starting to move in that direction,” Stauffer said.

In the meantime, he acknowledges that all these new definitions of “down-to-earth” “can be confusing to people.”

Chris Black said, “It’s just not what the word means.” He has previously expressed doubts about Jelly Roll’s approach to recovery on his podcast “How Long Gone.”

Black had used marijuana to quit taking OxyContin, but he did not consider himself sober until he began completely abstaining from all drugs and alcohol and entered Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).

“He’s a role model, and I think overall what he does is great,” Black said, referring to Jelly Roll’s extensive outreach to incarcerated people and to communities struggling with addiction. “I just think there’s some confusion with the nomenclature.”

Spike Einbinder, a comedian from New York City, grew up in what he described as “an AA household.” He remembers that his parents, Laraine Newman, actor and writer of Saturday Night Live, and actor and writer Chad Einbinder, kept 12-step literature in every room of their house.

Spike Einbinder started using drugs as a teenager and struggled with addiction for years. After quitting hard drugs and alcohol, he tried “California sobriety” – “smoking from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep,” as he described it. After a few years, he realized that marijuana was taking a toll on his mental and physical health.

Today it is free of all psychoactive substances. But he still struggled with how to define himself.

“It was hard to consider myself sober without AA because of the way I was raised, even though I’m so sober that I don’t even consume caffeine,” Einbinder said. He especially hates the term “white knuckles,” a phrase used to describe abstinence without twelve-step recovery.

By most measures, AA is the most robust and accessible program designed to help people stop drinking. There are 24-hour gatherings taking place around the world, full of people sharing personal stories and offering a range of slogans and tips that have helped millions of people change their relationship with alcohol.

But it doesn’t work for everyone.

“I’m not against 12-step programs, but I can’t ignore the lack of cultural and social competence of some of those people in those meetings,” said Khadi A. Oluwatoyin, an attorney based in Tulsa.

Oluwatoyin recalled an AA meeting at which a white speaker described her “rock bottom” as living in a predominantly black part of Staten Island. It was the neighborhood where Oluwatoyin lived at the time.

Such experiences prompted Oluwatoyin to start the peer-to-peer support group ‘Sober Black Girls Club’, which organizes meetings several times a week. She said the majority, but not all, of the Sober Black Girls Club members are part of a 12-step group.

“AA and 12-steps is what we all normally start with, and I think it’s a good start,” Oluwatoyin said. “But we don’t all end there.”

Pete Rubinas, executive director of SMART Recovery, thinks the language used in traditional 12-step recovery can be limiting. During the recovery meetings he leads, he says the word “sober” doesn’t come up often.

“We talk about, ‘I had a problematic relationship with alcohol,’ ‘I ended my relationship with alcohol,’ ‘I struggle with alcohol,’” Rubinas said. “There’s very little all-or-nothing, black-and-white language that we use.”

SMART recovery touts itself as “a secular and evidence-based alternative to the widespread 12-step program for addiction recovery.” It started in 1994 but has skyrocketed in popularity over the past five years. Today there are more than 2,500 SMART recovery meetings worldwide.

The approach is in line with a series of studies that support the integration of harm reduction – for example reducing alcohol use – in addiction care. In 2023, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism published an article pointing to the efficacy of treating alcohol use disorders (AUD) with more than just abstinence protocols.

“Although abstinence is now the safest route for certain subgroups, harm reduction strategies that are not abstinence-based have become an important part of the discussion surrounding AUD treatment and the recovery process,” the researchers wrote.

Those who try “California sobriety” have had mixed success, according to research conducted by Meenakshi S. Subbaraman, program director and biostatistician at the Public Health Institute in Oakland, California.

A study she conducted found that there were “very strong, consistent associations between cannabis use and alcohol and other drug use” among 557 participants living in sober living facilities. But she also acknowledged that other research has shown that some people drink less and have fewer alcohol binges on days they use cannabis.

“It works for some people, it doesn’t work for others, and we’re still trying to figure out what differentiates these two groups,” Subbaraman said. Subbaraman himself has not drunk for five years, but uses marijuana.

A surge of interest and research into the use of psychedelics such as ketamine, psilocybin and MDMA to treat mental disorders has also led some to wonder what role these substances might play in treating addiction. The founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, known as Bill W., was himself interested in LSD as a possible treatment for alcoholism.

Max F., who spoke on the condition that his last name be withheld in accordance with the 12-step principle of anonymity, sees danger in extending sobriety to such substances.

“The way my addiction speaks to me is, ‘You can probably go camping with acid or mushrooms once a year and you’ll be fine, you won’t relapse,’” he said. “But I have to be careful with my brain because it is a very dangerous place for me.” For people like Max F. who have struggled with opiates, attempting moderate use can easily lead to an accidental fentanyl overdose.

Max F. runs an Instagram account called junkie.memez, which pokes fun at the various factions in recovery. One of his memes shows a tweed golf cap labeled “AA,” a trucker hat with a skull labeled “NA” for Narcotics Anonymous, and a propeller cap labeled “SMART recovery.”

His report also criticizes self-identified sober people who smoke pot and former heroin users who use suboxone as maintenance therapy. But Max F. emphasizes that his story is intended as a good-natured troll of recovery communities, and not as a criticism of individual choices.

“How I conduct myself as a member of Narcotics Anonymous and the content I post are two different things,” he said. “During my actual recovery, I don’t judge the journeys of others.”

For Max F., it doesn’t matter whether your path to sobriety resembles his or that of Demi Lovato or Jelly Roll. “Ultimately, the only requirement for membership in a 12-step fellowship is a desire to stop using,” he said. “That’s all we care about: if you feel like quitting, you’re welcome here.”