Babstinence: One Woman. One Year. No Booze.
Host: Babs Gray
Official Description: Comedian, podcaster and former mall Easter bunny Babs Gray takes on the challenge of not drinking alcohol for one year. She’ll track her highs and lows, interview other comedians about their sober journeys, and probably reveal some embarrassing shit along the way.
Established: July 31, 2022
Number of Episodes: 27.
Average Episode Length: 39 minutes, 43 seconds.
Available on Apple, Spotify, Castbox, Pocket Cast, Castro, Podbean.
“I’ve Always Had A Terrible Time Figuring Out Time”
Barbara Gray is fun. She’s cool and does cool stuff. Multi-hyphenate champion of podcasting, writing and stand-up comedy, Gray has always endeared and endeavored with enviable verve, bounce. The cleverness in her jokecraft, the effervescence to her joke delivery, is the same conscious, curated silliness evident in Lady 2 Lady (a comedy podcast Gray co-hosts with Brandie Posey and Tess Barker), numerous live comedy shows Gray has produced, and dance nights she’s hosted. Delighted and delightful in delight.
Barbara, or Babs if you’re a friend/familiar, is prolific beyond “a good time.” Gray’s evolution as a creator led her, unexpectedly, to the front lines of the Free Brittney movement: a truly awe-inspiring, and very online, sequence of events. And, whether exposed by the radiation of pop culture’s online toxicity, or emergent from public, personal projects, the twisting tendrils of digital entanglement have, over time, revealed Gray’s talent for vulnerability. Open, conflicted, aching, sore—Babs Gray’s work braves the pressure and precariousness of being perceived, for good or for bad, chips falling where they may.
Babstinence stands singular. The limited series, and its host, had one goal: one year alcohol free, documented on a weekly basis. One Woman. One Year. No Booze.
Some episodes were short, confessional, where Gray detailed happenings, hang-ups, revelations and tribulations. Other installments contained interviews with comedian and artist guests about their own dalliances and dynamics with (or without) drinking. Some days, and their corresponding episodes, were a struggle, Gray unmoored from what feels familiar, “natural” or authentic, overtaken and shaken with emotion and sensation. Other days were better. There’s friction because those days, those episodes, sometimes occur back to back or overlap. There’s relief that Babstinence isn’t inert in wildly oscillating between either end of that dissonance. Babs grows, the show changes. In total, the podcast is a diary of processing a very raw time, untethered from steeling, anchored by investigation.
The premise and the first episode sounded novel, intriguing enough for a listen. And something just clicked. The way Babs detailed everything—what inspired the project; her history (growing up in Salt Lake City, being a comedian); her anxieties (for the project, fear of missing out and what might happened if she didn’t modify her relationship to alcohol); her hopes (for accountability and connection); pathology (why she thinks she drinked in the past)—resonated. Babs was still Babs: funny, peppy, irreverent with a penchant for asides and tangents, an entertainer through and through. But her sincerity permeated. I related to Gray’s expressed experience, probably because she’s funny, peppy, irreverent with a penchant for asides and tangents. So, inspired and invested, and with a history of soul-shattering cold turkeys, I elected to partake in the “(Unsolicited, Unauthorized and 100% Unassociated) Babstinence Challenge.” One Podcast-Listener. One Year. No Booze.
“Shoutout to Liquids”
Babstinance, as a social experiment, is part detached kaleidoscope of someone else’s experiences and part funhouse distortion of the listener’s reflection. Life, in its very essence, weaved in and out of Gray’s account. How can it not? Alcohol consumes our culture, tints our shared experiences. Everything looks different through glass, through the bottle.
It’s remarkable how drinks can become memes, how “Mike’s Hard” or “Getting ‘Iced’” can transport people with disparate upbringings to the exact same sense memories. That memory being “ew, gross” or “oh, god, NO!” is built into the camaraderie. “Remember original recipe Four Loko?” To not is the point. To do is manufactured.
To drink because it’s fun. Or, more specifically, to drink because someone identifies as “fun.” Poetic and timely for a generation of manic pixie Peter Pans, who “suddenly” find themselves in their 30-40s, to have a collective reckoning. Gray keenly observed the phenomenon during a Scandoval catch-up binge of Vanderpump Rules (Ep 27). Lives as living eulogies, of fading youth in Millennial lament, navigating nostalgia, dissecting dependency and bargaining with bottoms.
Given the alignment of vows that corresponded with respective birthdays, Babs’s pledge preceded my own by a few weeks, giving Babstinence an almost prophetic quality in real time. “I can feel like I’m a little on edge…I’m a rhombicosidodecahedron,” asserted Babs (“Day 37: All Edges”). Yup, that tracks. “I’m doing this… so I can feel more like “me,” so I can try to feel more like “myself” and find that without booze. But, honestly, this trip feels like I’m not “me.” I’m not this person. I’m not the person who just leaves after the show, and goes home, and doesn’t hang out, doesn’t do anything, and doesn’t have an adventure…” Uh oh… (big relate!).
In a gamified way, Babstinence afforded the candid “this is going to be hard” reassurance of a Soulslike community note. The more distressed episodes were akin to “audio logs” in action-adventure games (e.g. BioShock or Dead Space): stories in fragments; intimate, immersive, semi-equated exploits; a companion as I moved through my environment, on hikes and at basketball courts (i.e. activities committed to compound a prospective “betterment.”)
Babs was clear-eyed in her introspection throughout the project. To her estimation, drinking made “more” accessible. Yearning for enchantment, enhancement, a multiplier, heightening a night to the max, booze as a supplement to facilitate “doing the most.”
I’ve found that chase precarious. Using self-taught internal alchemy to reach (or return to) a desired state, most often leads to a stumble. Falling, stopping to collect oneself, to recollect, is dizzying with clarity.
Everyone has to confront how they go down that road. There’s no prescience about what’s going to transpire, what any individual’s limits or aspirations are, until they’re well down the path. Teetotaler, lush, high-functioning, barfly, drunk, blackout? In a group, in a crowd, by themselves? For today, for tomorrow, forever? “Choose your fighter” but the battlefield is often selected for you: chemistry, genealogy, neurobiology, psychology, legality, morality, mortality.
No Liposuction for Your Soul
There’s as many styles of sobriety as there are styles to drink. Patchwork of buzzwords, trends and philosophies become de facto lingua franca: Dry January, Sober October, Cali Sober, Denver Sober, (“A joke I say is, ‘I’m Fresno sober, I smoke meth but I don’t drink,’” exclaimed Gray), La Croix, Spindrift, Waterloo, hop water, N/A beer, mocktails (fancy juice), 12 steps (juiced Jesus), therapy speak, harm reduction, emotional labor, distress tolerance, social anxiety. Not to mention, as Gray and guests covered, the menagerie of conditions, scenarios and life events where it would be really tempting to drink: birthdays, big birthdays (21, 30, 40), friend’s birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, family reunions, fancy dinners, wrap parties, holidays, first dates, break-ups, vacations, an open mic in Glendale, a nice summer day, a global pandemic.
With Babstinence, sobriety, balanced at the intersections of “Los Angeles,” “entertainment,” “stand-up comedy,” has contradictions bordering on an identity crisis. “Healthy” or “clean” living clashes with “the hang” and bar shows. Comics can get paid in drinks (effectively losing money commensurate with drink price or when abstaining altogether); some live comedy shows/brands are entirely oriented around inebriation. Support groups in LA have their own trappings; some gatherings attract their own personality pitfalls*.
*(Note: Any familiarity I have with support groups has been secondhand from television, books, podcasts. I, myself, have not attended any meetings).
Cultivating communities and individual identities about and around alcoholism used to be exclusively “anonymous” for a reason. Being “a drunk” is historically full of regret, violence, ostracism, financial or health disrepair. Others knowing you have “the weakness” jeopardized everything. Even with evolved social mores, how much can, should, will be widely known about someone’s status/recovery butts against what can, should, will be shared. “Shame can’t exist if you shine light on it,” proclaimed Hallie Bateman (Episode 10). But disclosure is a motherfucker.
Due to the quirks of the experiment, the medium of the report, Babstinence existed as a conflicted aberration. Babs was striving to abstain from alcohol for a year; most others in recovery are striving for one day at a time, ostensibly for the rest of their lives. Similarly, for Babs, imaging potential relapse—a reportedly common occurrence often informing someone’s later treatment, according to Gray’s guests—invoked the lingering, leering perspective (and opinions) of Babsintence’s active audience.
The self-conscious quagmire wasn’t without merit. Disclosing personal struggles and self-enforced permissions to the public, defining what one’s sobriety is and what rules fulfill that designation, opens oneself up to a feedback loop bordering cacophony. In addition to reviews and emails, Babstinence launched a voicemail line where people could chime in on Gray’s journey, to “(XXX)-FIX-BABS.” Most people were encouraging, few were chiding. That noise, the embodiment of a deadlock between requested feedback and unwanted sanctimony, seeped in, threatened Babstinence, and challenged its host.
Fortunately, no one else needed to “fix Babs.” The podcast and its host endured with cogent determination. In the end, the series revealed that absolution isn’t absolute, veracity is its own validation, and an earnest effort is enough.
Zoom out, Babstinance exists as part of a larger discussion about alcohol abuse in the comedy community. Comedians, in memoirs, biographies, documentaries, interviews and podcasts, are effective advocates for mental health and wellness, especially with regards to substance abuse, through direct spokesmanship/sponsorship or as cautionary tales. The evidence and proofs are anecdotal. The canon is debatable, scattered. But it’s there.
Any comic’s triumph or struggle to get and stay sober is just another data point. Collectively, the scatter plot can help map and model what (and what not) to do. Individually, people and things just “are.”
Whether it’s productive or problematic to take unprofessional guidance from punks and smartasses is a matter of discernment and perspective. Everyone—hero, tragedy, friend, foe—is a lesson, whether positive, neutral or negative.
Select Episodes
“Day 17 | Steve Hernandez” – Peril of hedonism and social/gender/romantic dynamics while operating from a position of power, influence and leadership. Sobriety as accountability and reflection. Accessing higher states of pleasure.
“Day 71 | Haillie Bateman” – Peer pressure to do something you don’t actually enjoy. “Adding balance to your boat” by giving weight to “facts” about yourself. Self actualizing to give permission to be “more of yourself.” Listing effects that a substance provides, finding creative ways to make yourself feel those effects another, more mindful way, quitting with a loving attitude.
“Day 92 | Sobriété with Johnny Randak” – Confronting darkness and excess, cross talk meetings, what makes a good AA sponsor, an international community found at English-speaking meetings in a foreign country, medication, meditation, different modalities of recovery, preconceptions about the program, being curious and persistent (not every meeting or therapist is good or good for you).
“Day 147 | ‘Lay Down and Eat Cheese’ with Anna Valenzuela” – generational trauma, genetic predisposition, substance as a buttress, institutions, dysfunction, higher power, niche community romances, anger, therapy, prison jive, “stand-up can appeal to addiction,” “using” comedy, social acceptability, boundaries.
“Brandie Posey: THE LOST EPISODE” – straight edge contrarian streak, addictive personality (for non-illicit things), coffee house mics vs booze mics, false solidarity and communal numbing, dating sober (when unfamiliar with the signs of different altered states), “everybody should be a little more uncomfortable…learn how strong you can be.”
Little By Little, Become Yourself
“I’m practicing Babstinence.” It used to be a cute thing to say, to myself, mostly. “‘Why don’t you drink?’; ‘A podcast.’” Quirky, kitschy, a whimsical bit committed in smug semi-seriousness, no traditional “bottom,” just an audacious oddity. It was inherently silly until it wasn’t. When the urge to drink tried to pry past gritted teeth and my nerves held me taut to a bar stool, when I wanted to flee from friends or jump out of my skin, it was less fun then.
I knew I could “do it.” I knew that I could make a game out of an accruing day count, that my trademark stubborn obsession to a task would help maintain my high score. I knew I had a number of mental health tools and tactics to self-soothe during an depressive episode or trigger. I knew I wouldn’t be faced with too much temptation, no social hierarchy with immense peer pressure to imbibe.
Weddings and friends’ birthdays, where I dreaded to be dry, were still enjoyable and energizing, even without the casual wobbliness and chemical stimulants I had grown accustomed to. Family gatherings and creative projects still nurtured positive connections, just with an corroded social battery.
What I didn’t know, what I came to learn, is I probably wouldn’t have even investigated sobriety without Babstinence.
Not only that, in addition to what I elected not to do (drink), there was so much I couldn’t do. Like, even if I tried, I’d be unable. Self-sabotage a work thing, overstep on a social thing, booze-to-time-to-driving algebra, binge-drinking-to-expensive-rides-home calculus, burned hangover days, overinflated drinking-as-reward nights. All those rituals, methods and subsystems to maintain my flirtation with destruction, distraction and compulsion, all that time and energy rendered redundant and inaccessible literally overnight, left a hole.
Anything can fill an empty space, can emerge from the pit. Lotta pain, grief and fear. Mostly gratitude, tho (even for the pain, grief and fear).
Two years sober now. Babstinence has been dormant for a while. The story feels both unfinished, unknowing yet continuous, reassuring. Babs Gray is still fun, still doing cool things, as far as the purview of my parasocial periscope can observe. My own life and work continues, dizzying in clarity.
Who knows how long the feed will be up, hosting fees being what they are. Author priorities shift per their prerogative. So much of my favorite art has been sequestered to private drives, digital graveyards, unreleased or recalled, seemingly on a (usually capitalistic) whim. It’s understandable if and when an artist wants to control their output, to minimize exposure. Being consumable is devouring, being digestible is shit.
Still, Babstinence exists as totemic of its time—a noble pursuit, a curious artifact, a noble artifact, a curious pursuit—for however long it’s ultimately available.
Bleak as the world is (and as terrifying as it can get), it’s nice to think the capacity and inspiration to do good, to help others, to give testimony of a better way (or at least a different one), will persist even if the modern mediums adapt or disappear. We’re all going to need help, one day or the next, one way or another.
Try as I might, here and yesteryear, to appropriate the personal odyssey of one of my favorite comedians, I failed. Only one person could be buoyant and bare as Babs Gray. There’s only one person who could truly practice Babstinence. I’m glad she did.
~ oj | Patreon