Corporate Drinking Culture Excludes Sober Workers

At Sydney Allen’s corporate job, a broker let slip information after too many drinks, and Allen’s team used it to improve its negotiation strategy. A couple of days later, someone at an internal meeting joked, “That's why we take them drinking.” People around the table chuckled. For Allen, who got sober shortly before starting the job, the exchange captures how corporate business can turn alcohol into both a tool of negotiation and a test of belonging.

When Drinking Becomes Business

Allen works in the New York City area, in what she describes as an alcohol-centric industry in an alcohol-centric city. Her responsibilities include building relationships with brokers and clients, negotiating terms in various markets and entertaining clients to show appreciation for their business. She said this was her first job with a distinct “schmoozing” component, and that many corporate American industries see alcohol as one way business gets done.

She started the job while navigating a new role, a new industry and an unfamiliar market climate, while also establishing a form of sobriety that felt authentic to her. Over the last four years, she said, she’s gained significant confidence in both her sobriety and her role. The workplace drinking culture hasn't eased.

Allen said attending corporate happy hours and nightlife events carries an unspoken work benefit. Building relationships with colleagues, clients and brokers makes her job easier, she wrote, and drinks are the most common and convenient way to do it. Among co-workers, she said, alcohol has become a unifying factor outside work hours. The arrangement leaves a pointed question hanging over the office: is drinking the only common ground between C-suite executives and “the daily grunts”?

At a recent two-day corporate conference, nearly every speaker mentioned alcohol, including jokes about “the open bar” and being “tired from last night.” Allen said the audience seemed to find the jokes especially funny. She imagined attendees as a room of starving dogs waiting for a speaker to finish, and quoted a supposed joke: “I'm the only thing standing between you and the bar.” She contrasted the drinking focus with other conference activities and asked, “Where's the fucking vodka?”

Who Gets Left Out

Allen said the “three martini lunch” now feels as outdated as smoking cigarettes in an office. But references to alcohol and over-consumption remain a fixture at corporate events, where speakers can treat heavy drinking as a shared assumption rather than a choice that excludes people.

“As a sober person who doesn't often tell people I'm sober, I need you to know that using alcohol as the default bond in a workspace isn't inclusive; it's isolating,” Allen wrote. She said she quit drinking because she couldn't handle her liquor and couldn't afford to keep trying. Assuming people are comfortable with heavy drinking, whether at a 3,000-person conference or a Zoom meeting with two other attendees, is “tone-deaf, unprofessional and could be harmful,” she wrote.

Someone in the room may be struggling with what they consider a toxic relationship with alcohol, feeling shame and anxiety, regretting their behavior the previous night or trying to control their drinking, Allen said. A joke about the open bar might give someone a reason to keep drinking for another night. Gen Zs, who are now part of corporate culture, are known to drink less than previous generations, she wrote; some millennials are also choosing to drink less. That makes it likely that every room includes someone who is sober or sober curious.

Beyond the Bar

Allen said alcohol jokes from department heads can make them seem out of touch, like someone forgetting to unmute during a weekly Zoom meeting. She also said she feels embarrassed for speakers who rely on drinking jokes and sees it as a missed chance to share other parts of their lives, from college and family outings to training for a marathon.

She tries not to reduce people to their drinking habits, but dislikes when speakers reduce an audience to presumed drinking patterns. Workplace friendships can extend beyond employment, Allen wrote, with co-workers invited to weddings or taken on vacations. Finding common ground outside alcohol can create deeper bonds and motivate employees, she argued. Respecting and honoring each person's identity can help employees feel safe, supported and happy at work. The alternative she describes starts with a simple refusal: treating the bar as the office’s default meeting place isn't the same as building a bond everyone can share.