FROM THE DESK OF THE FOUNDER
This week's Sober Sip has range, and I'm not sorry about it.
We're starting light. A friend of mine, Kristin Horstman, has a new podcast called Sunsets Are The New Happy Hour, and I gave it a fair, honest listen so you don't have to guess if it's worth your commute. Spoiler: it is, whether you're new or bored at year twelve.
Then things get interesting. A Notre Dame professor spent six years asking his students one question: why do you drink like that? The answer didn't come from a bar. It came from every movie you grew up watching. Ted Mandell joined us for a BACKSTAGE conversation that got Sarah, Anne Marie, Tamar and me genuinely fired up, and you're going to want the whole thing.
I also need to brag for a second. I saw Union County as a scrappy 15-minute short back in 2020, years before Will Poulter and Noah Centineo ever signed on. It's a Sundance feature now, opening August 14, and it still gets rural recovery right. I called it. I'm allowed one victory lap a quarter.
And then we land somewhere heavier. Cara Benson's memoir, An Armsfull of Birds, is built chapter by chapter around birds, and by the end you're grieving right alongside her. It's not like anything else on your shelf. She’s our guest BACKSTAGE tonight and it’s not too late to RSVP.
Grief and glitter, in one email. That's kind of the whole point.
Queue up the featured podcasts, RSVP before the good events fill up, and let's get into it.
—Alysse Bryson, *AB That’s ME 💋/ Founder / Seattle, WA 🌃05.01.2006
RECOVERY PODCASTLAND
Recovery Podcastland: Sunsets Are The New Happy Hour with Kristin Horstman
Alysse Bryson review Sunsets Are The New Happy Hour, Kristin Horstman’s weekly podcast on gray area drinking and nervous system regulation. A friend’s show, a fair read, and a recommendation for anyone curious, new or bored at year twelve.
MOVIE NIGHT
I Saw “Union County” Before It Was a Sundance Film. I’m Not Surprised It Earned a Standing Ovation.
I saw “Union County” as a 15-minute short back in 2020, before Will Poulter and Noah Centineo ever signed on. Now it’s a Sundance feature opening August 14, and it still gets rural recovery right.
SOBER CURATOR PODCAST
The Movies Taught Us How to Drink. A Notre Dame Professor Has the Receipts.
A Notre Dame professor has spent six years asking his students one question: why do you drink like that? What he found didn't come from the bar. It came from every movie and TV show we grew up watching. Ted Mandell joins us for a Backstage conversation that gets Sarah, Anne Marie, Tamar and me genuinely fired up, and you are going to want to hear all of it.
BACKSTAGE with the Sober Curator - TONIGHT!
An Evening with Cara Benson — An Armsfull of Birds
Cara Benson did not come to love the easy way. She crawled through New York City subway tunnels as a heroin addict, partnered with an abusive man, and waitressed in a polyester uniform at Friendly’s while sobriety closed in on her one stubborn night at a time. Then she got sober. Started walking the woods of upstate New York. Met Jon, the man who would become her great love. And after years of building a life with him, she lost him to suicide.
This book is what came next.
An Armsfull of Birds: A Personal Field Guide to Love, Loss, and Commitment is structured like nothing else in the recovery memoir space. Each chapter is named for a bird, and each bird carries a piece of Cara’s story. American Goldfinches mark the night she met Jon. Crested Caracaras score her last gasp of drinking. Common Starlings show up the moment she crashes into sobriety and into the woods. By the final chapters, she’s grieving Jon and tracking grackles, ravens, and the ruby-throated hummingbirds that visit her former-church home in the Hudson Valley.
It’s a recovery story. It’s a love story. It’s a climate memoir. It’s the kind of book that gets endorsed by Jenny Lawson AND Bill McKibben, which almost never happens.
TONIGHT at 6 PM PT / 9 PM ET, Cara is joining BACKSTAGE for an intimate one-hour conversation. We’re going to talk about:
The decade-plus path from heroin and alcohol to a sober life she actually wanted
Meeting Jon, choosing commitment after addiction, and what “second chance lovers” actually means at midlife
Surviving her partner’s suicide while staying sober
Why she retreated into birding and nature as a way to process grief
How writing a memoir cracked her wide open and what it taught her about telling the truth
Bring your questions. Bring your coffee. Bring tissue.
This is a closed BACKSTAGE event. Members only. RSVP to receive your Zoom link via email. The replay will live in the BACKSTAGE Replay Vault for members who cannot attend live.
Not a member yet? JOIN BACKSTAGE
About Cara: Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Orion, Sierra Magazine, Boston Review, and Best American Poetry. An Armsfull of Birds is published by Health Communications, Inc. and hits shelves May 19, 2026. She lives in a former church on the ancestral homelands of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans in upstate New York.
🎧 FEATURED PODCASTS OF THE WEEK
Eternally Amy with Amy Liz Harrison Listen here
Soberful with Veronica Valli and Chip Summers Listen here
The Creative Sober with Mei McIntosh Listen here
🥳 FEATURED EVENTS OF THE WEEK
THE SOBER CURATOR x PODCAST IMPACT STUDIOS COLLAB
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