When we think of celebrating, we automatically picture confetti, streamers, and alcoholic beverages: champagne corks popping, beer mugs overflowing, or fruit-trimmed cocktails fizzing.

Or we envision corporate conferences, with the obligatory cocktail hour before dinner, a time to unwind after an intense day of presentations, a chance to mingle and juggle the hors d’oeuvres and a gin and tonic while shaking hands.

That was then; “sober curious” is now. That movement arose even before the pandemic. Adherents don’t totally abstain from alcohol, but simply refrain from mindlessly picking up a drink without thinking.