We all know her. Let’s call her Claire. She appears in many books: a woman in her late 20s or early 30s; sometimes a parent, sometimes not. She’s usually cishet and white, embroiled in a mystery or scandal. And she has a drinking problem. Sometimes her drinking is used as a plot device. She’s unreliable because she blacked-out! She can’t remember what she did because she was drunk! Is she the victim or the perpetrator? We don’t know until the end, thanks to her alcohol use. Occasionally Claire’s drinking is acknowledged, but mostly, it’s just part of her character. She’s not portrayed as the classic alcoholic, so there’s no need to explore her drinking or give it any closure at the end.
Unlike him. We all know him too. Let’s call him Steve. He appears in many books as well: a grizzled older man, also cishet and white, this time a cop or retired detective. His alcoholism is well-documented and not a secret. He goes to AA meetings. Steve stares longingly at the empty bottle of whiskey he keeps in his bachelor pad (because of course his wife left him or died), and he wants to drink but resists. Because he must solve this cold case before it’s too late.
In genre fiction such as thriller and crime, Claire and Steve are usually the two representations of alcohol misuse we encounter. Fiction is not reality. Fiction doesn’t owe us an exact replication of anything, but truthfully, not showing the wide spectrum of alcohol misuse and sobriety can be harmful.
It took me years to get sober. After fighting through the initial denial (which took a long time), I still hesitated because, after all, I didn’t look or act like the alcoholics I saw represented in books or on TV. I wasn’t living on the streets. I wasn’t falling apart. I hadn’t alienated everyone and lost my job. In fact, I acted quite a bit like Claire, who blatantly has a drinking problem, but because it’s wine it’s fine. After all, she’s got a job and a boyfriend/husband and she’s solving a mystery, so she doesn’t need sobriety, even with her binge-drinking and the problems it gives her.
After I got sober, I started examining books and media, pinpointing these character tropes, wondering why every sober character had to be in AA, wondering why there were never any alternative depictions of sobriety. In my own recovery, I quickly realized that quitting drinking isn’t a one-size-fits-all scenario. AA didn’t work for me; it wasn’t right. I white-knuckled my way through the first few months of sobriety until I found a community that did work: one I discovered online. Through the sober Instagram community and meetup groups I joined, I realized there’s a vast range of nondrinkers out there.
I made friends with people who stepped away from alcohol for health reasons; people who stopped one day and never returned because they felt so much better; people who were severely addicted and had been through rehab; people who didn’t use the term “alcoholic” or even “sober” because it didn’t fit them or feel right. I met people who were all ages, all genders, all races. (Sobriety, when portrayed in the media, tends to look very white and straight, despite alcohol misuse disproportionately affecting BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ communities.) The world of problematic drinking and alcohol-free living was so much more vast and varied than I ever realized. That’s true for many people, which is why so many don’t realize or acknowledge their own issues with alcohol. They think, “Well, I’m not like Steve in that book, so I’m fine!” And they read Claire’s story, which has no resolution for her binge-drinking, so they don’t clock that as a problem.
The biggest thing I wanted to do with my debut novel Serial Killer Support Group, besides write something exciting and entertaining, was to accurately portray a version of sobriety not often seen in genre fiction. My main character, Cyra Griffin, is sober, like me. I intentionally gave her a version of sobriety that isn’t black and white. She doesn’t call herself an alcoholic. She’s not in AA; she never went to rehab. Cyra is a young queer woman whose sobriety is not the driving force of the novel. Her recovery is a part of her story, but it doesn’t define her. (For a long time, I thought my sobriety had to be my entire identity. I didn’t know how to make room for the rest of me.) Cyra is the character I needed to see when I was younger and didn’t.
In Serial Killer Support Group, I wanted to play around with the tropes we often see surrounding addiction in books. I wanted to show alternate versions of both drinking problems and subsequent recovery. This is not a book about sobriety, but I hope that its quiet, underlying message peeks through: Anyone can quit, and you don’t need to look or act a certain way to do so.
In a world with many books featuring Claires and Steves, it’s more important now than ever to start exploring characters and stories that depict realistic and varied versions of sobriety. There’s a lot of misinformation about alcohol out there. (Despite what those Facebook articles your aunt shares say, red wine is not good for your heart. Any health benefits you get from the resveratrol found in red wine is negated by the alcohol content.) According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the National Institute of Health (NIH), alcohol is a Group 1 carcinogen causally linked to seven different types of cancer. It’s also the third leading cause of preventable death in the US. With the rise of “Wine Moms” and other problematic drinking behaviors that are rooted in capitalist greed and sexism, it’s important to remind people that quitting is not taboo. There are versions of sobriety that are accessible, inclusive, and empowering.
If just one person reads Serial Killer Support Group and sees themselves represented in Cyra’s sobriety or wonders if they should examine their own drinking, I will be extremely honored. I didn’t set out to get anyone sober with this book, but it means a lot to get to depict recovery in a way that resonates with myself and others in my community.
It’s time to let the Claires and Steves rest. They’ve done their work; maybe they’ve even helped some folks out. Personally, I’m excited to see more Cyras. I’m eager to see characters who continue to show the many representations of an alcohol-free lifestyle. I know there are more out there, and I can’t wait to meet them.
