Sober October is 31 days without alcohol, and the part that trips people up is almost never the drink. It is the Thursday night with nothing to do, the friend’s birthday in week three, and the slow realization that most of your social life was scheduled around a bar.
So this is a plan for the room rather than the resolution. We are not going to make the case for kava over alcohol here, because that argument already has its own post. This is just what 31 days looks like if one of your regular stops is a kava bar.
Before Day One
Sober October works better with a plan than with willpower, and the plan is mostly about where you are going to be.
Pick two nights a week you would normally have been out and decide now what you are doing with them instead. Not “staying in.” An actual place, with a time. The people who make it to October 31 are usually the ones who replaced the habit rather than the ones who deleted it.
One honest note before the rest. If you are taking a month off because drinking has become a real problem, that is a conversation for a doctor, not a blog post. Stopping heavy daily drinking can be medically serious, and it deserves supervision. Kava is not a treatment for anything and we do not present it as one.
And the house rules, since they apply all month: kava is 18 and up, and we do not serve it to anyone who is pregnant.
Week One: Replace the Room, Not the Drink
The first week is about proving to yourself that going out is still possible, so go out in the first three days rather than the last.
Walk in, sit at the bar, and tell the Kavatender it is your first time. That sentence does more work than anything you could order off a menu. They will most likely start you on a specialty, an Ed Shell or a Special Ed, which is concentrated kava in a four ounce serving.
Expect the first one to be underwhelming. Kava has what is called a reverse tolerance, which means the first few shells often land lightest and most people notice more on a second or third visit. Week one is not a fair test of anything. It is just the week you find out where the parking is.
If you want the plain version of what you are drinking before you go, What Is Kava? covers the plant, the root and what is in a shell.
Week Two: Pick Your Night and Keep It
The second week is where the month is actually won, and the move is to make one night a repeat instead of a one-off.
Same bar, same night, same time. Tuesday works for a lot of people because nothing competes with it. Many of our bars run weekly events, and what is on varies by location, so check your bar’s page and pick the night that already has something happening on it.
This is also the week to meet the room’s one piece of theater. Twice a day, at 1pm and 1am, the whole bar drinks a shell together, in 60 seconds or less. If you are around for it, you are in it. The cheers is Malo.
Week Three: Bring Someone Who Is Not Doing Sober October
Week three is when the resolution gets tested by other people’s plans, and the fix is to stop treating your month as a thing you do alone.
Somebody’s birthday will land in here. Instead of skipping it or white-knuckling a soda at a bar, offer the alternative first: pick the place, pick the time, and invite them to yours. Nobody at our bars is going to ask why your friend is drinking kava and you are drinking kava. There is no alcohol in the building, so there is no version of the night where you are the only one not holding a drink.
For the vocabulary, a shell is the four ounce metal bowl kava is served in, a slam is when the room drinks together, and a Kavatender is whoever is pouring. That is most of what you need to not feel like a tourist.
Week Four, and the Last Few Days
By the final stretch, the question stops being whether you can finish October and starts being what you keep in November.
Most people do not stay fully alcohol free after a month like this, and that was never the point. What tends to survive is one night: the regular night from week two, the people you met on it, the place you go when you want out of the house without the next morning attached. Decide which one you are keeping before November 1 makes the decision for you.
Two practical things for the last week. If you have been in a handful of times, give the register your phone number. That is all there is to our rewards program: points earn on what you spend and they redeem at any Kavasutra, so the Colorado Springs points spend in Florida. And if you liked your bar, say so to the Kavatender. Half the events on the calendar exist because a regular asked for them.
Find the closest bar and start with week one.
What is Sober October?
Sober October is an informal challenge to go the full 31 days of October without alcohol. It started as a fundraising campaign and has since become a general reset that people take on for their own reasons.
Does kava contain alcohol?
No. A shell of kava is ground kava root and water. Nothing in it is fermented or distilled, and there is no alcohol anywhere in our bars.
What do you do at a kava bar if you are not drinking?
The same things people do anywhere else they go out. Talk, sit at the bar, play something off the shelf, show up for whatever the location has on that night. Our bars open at 8am and run late, so they work as a morning stop as well as an evening one.
What should I order on my first visit during Sober October?
Tell the Kavatender it is your first time and let them pick. It is usually a concentrated specialty such as an Ed Shell or a Special Ed rather than a plain shell, because kava has a reverse tolerance and the first few tend to land lightest.
Do I need to sign up for anything?
Not for Sober October, and not to walk into a Kavasutra. If you want points on what you spend, give your phone number at the register. That is the whole rewards program, and points earn and redeem at any location.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Nothing on this page is medical advice. Kava is served to adults 18 and up and not to anyone who is pregnant.