By James Piercy
Notoriously Sober is a lifestyle brand which sells different products which are marketed to sober people.
Robyn Schleihauf created this brand with her friend. She says she is two years sober and during the last two years, she has grown to understand herself better because of her journey.
She says she started Notoriously Sober because of how limited products there are sober people.
“We wanted to make things that people could give to their sober friends when they’re celebrating sober milestones. We wanted our brand to show that sobriety is not a sad consequence but can be a beautiful choice for some people,” says Schleihauf.
Schleihauf says celebrating sober milestones is also what created the idea for Notoriously Sober’s ‘A Very Sober Christmas Party’.
This will be Notoriously Sober’s first year of hosting this event. Schleihauf says she hopes this is an event that will become an annual event because she says Christmas can be difficult for many sober people with people talking about drinking around the holidays.
“It can be difficult for people who are in recovery. It can also be isolating because it feels like there’s this big thing that you can’t participate in. So you might feel deprived in a way you don’t normally feel the rest of the year,” she says.
Schleihauf says she feels creating an event designed for sober people can create a community to help celebrate being sober and support each other with the challenges that come with sobriety.
Sponsors have also been a help for Notoriously Sober. Schleihauf says Libra, which is a craft brewery outside of PEI, offered Notoriously Sober non-alcoholic beer. Once that happened, Schleihauf says she started to reach out to other non-alcoholic beverage makers. Schleihauf says there will also be a variety of mocktails for people to choose from for this event.
“What we’re seeing is this plethora of non-alcoholic beverages flooding the market because people understand that there’s actually a desire for them,” she says.
On top of non-alcoholic beverages, Schleihauf says what she is also looking forward to about this event is the activities that will be going on. There will be rounds of Bingo which will be curated to questions about experiences for sober people and a game where people can make sober memes.
Notoriously Sober will be hosting ‘A Very Sober Christmas Party’ at the Dart Gallery which is located at 127 Portland Street in Dartmouth. The event will be taking place tomorrow from 7pm-11pm.