I nearly ran a red light talking about drinking

What happens when a stranger in the back seat opens up about her family and her Friday night

Last night, I was driving for work, carrying a passenger to her destination.

Most rides, you sit there in silence or make small talk about the weather. This one wasn’t that. My passenger, let’s call her Mary, got in relieved the week was over. A deep sigh, ready for the weekend. She worked for an ad agency, centered around car dealerships. I asked her about it, and we started talking.

Midway into our conversation, she mentions she’s heading to her girlfriend’s place tonight. Drinks, dinner, the whole thing. It was 5pm on a Friday.

That’s the moment. Do I tell her what I do? Do I tell her I’m a sobriety coach? I’m trying to focus on driving and what I want to say. It’s challenging. Part of me doesn’t want her to feel judged. Part of me wants to help. It’s not my place to tell a stranger what to do with her Friday night. Most of the time when I mention I’m a sobriety coach, people aren’t responding with tell me more.

As I was waiting for it to come back around, that little bit of silence happens, so what do you do? I don’t lead with sobriety coach. I lead with saying I do this part time. I transition to sharing my over twenty years of experience doing camera work, working on documentaries, photography, and running a few businesses. And then, almost like an afterthought, I mention the sobriety coaching.

I could feel it land. She’d just told me she’s about to go drink and now I don’t know if she’s wondering if this conversation is still okay to have.

So I moved. I told her I just hit seventy episodes on the podcast. She thought that was cool. And I told her more about what this work is. Being open to the fact that everyone’s relationship with drinking is different, there’s no one way to do this, and I find people’s stories with it genuinely interesting. Not a lecture. Just genuine curiosity.

That opened something up. She told me she was really into F45, and if she had a heavy night of drinking, she can feel it the next morning, whether she even makes it to the workout. This was the same reason I stopped, I told her. Health. Plain and simple.

Then I said something like, there’s really two ways people drink. One is you’re with friends, having a good time, it’s about connection. The other is you’ve had a shit day, you’re stressed, and you just need something to take the edge off.

She laughed. Said that’s totally her. I asked if her industry was cutthroat, is cutthroat even the right word? And she laughed again and said yeah, kind of is. It’s a business about performance and numbers. Dealerships are stressed about numbers, why something cost too much, why they’re not making money. There’s a lot of pressure.

Then she started talking about family. Whenever I go home it’s, hey, let me get you a drink. And if I ever say no, it’s, are you pregnant? Is something wrong?

I was fired up about this conversation now. I wanted to say, you really don’t feel like you own your choice. And that’s when I ran the red light.

I was so locked in, I didn’t even clock it. Realizing it was red, I hit the brakes, ended up stopped halfway into the intersection. Cars honking. One guy passes me with a WTF face. I’m laughing because I know exactly what I was doing. I was more aware of the conversation than the road.

She was laughing too. Probably a nervous laugh.

I’m a year and a half into this work, and I’m still finding my footing.

You never know where one of these conversations is going to go. Some are flat. Some turn into this.

And when it turns into this, it's not about the drinking anymore.

It’s just two people leaving the car feeling a little more seen than when they got in.