There is no doubt that addiction and sobriety are serious subjects. But sometimes, it is important to take a step back and embrace humor throughout the experience. Laughter, of course, is therapeutic during grief, sadness and the process of getting clean. That is why we are not surprised to see a sharp uptick of “Sober Memes” arising throughout Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Silly, biting and, in many ways, inspiring, these funny photos are now getting shared by millions across the social networks.
One account, in particular, is garnering a lot of attention for this movement. And that would be @SoberGrind, which now has a follower base of over 30,000. Beyond that, they recently got profiled on the popular website, Insider.
Interestingly enough, the popular meme account was created (and is now being run) by a therapist. Alexa Cook personally builds all of the pics herself and told Insider that they are inspired by her own journey through sobriety.
“Humor works for people,” she explained on the site. “When you’re stuck in your head, we want to break that pattern as soon as possible…’I’m hopeless, I can’t,’ we want to shake that s— off and humor’s a good way to not take ourselves so seriously, at least for me.”
Cook went on to emphasize that positive humor has always been her emphasis. Unfortunately, many of the other popular memes of the day tend to be snarky or mean spirited. She has made a conscious attempt to spin the sentiment around and focus laughable pics that inspire.
“[Mainstream meme pages are] not helping people, they’re keeping people sick,” Cook added. “They’re fun and funny and even I share them with my friends, but we need something different, in my opinion. Our culture needs to be healthy.”
So, in truth, it was positivity and sobriety that inspired her launch of @SoberGrind. And beyond that, Cook has popularized several social hashtags as well. Throughout her posts, she commonly inserts phrases like #SoberLife, #SoberLiving and #12Steps, just to name a few.
Cook’s most popular memes incorporate famous characters as well, including Frodo from The Lord of the Rings, Scooby Doo, Sleeping Beauty and Marilyn Manson. The format typically includes the silly picture, accompanied by an upbeat phrase in the post and laughing emojis.
The theme is very lighthearted and posts can regularly achieve up to 3,000 “Likes.” We definitely encourage everyone looking for a laugh to follow @SoberGrind’s Instagram page. And, for fun, we’ve shared some of her most popular memes below. Enjoy!
