When Christina Kimbrough used to meet up with friends, conversation flowed easily — as long as alcohol was part of the mix.
An intervention, an ultimatum and a pandemic later, Kimbrough discovered that being social is more fulfilling without an adult beverage in hand. The Navy wife transformed that idea into the Norfolk-based Free Life, a pop-up bar that cultivates connection minus the booze.
Free Life organizes two to five events per month. Sometimes the gatherings are a combination of yoga, sound healing and mocktails, such as Saturday’s Solstice Slow Down at Sky’s the Limit Yoga on W. 25th Street in Norfolk.
Other times, the events are wellness retreats, Sober Storytelling nights and dance parties at Norfolk's Pagoda & Oriental Garden, with nonalcoholic cocktails available.
“We live in a world obsessed with drinking,” said Kimbrough, a Chesapeake resident who will mark six years of sobriety in February. “I didn’t know how to meet people without a substance.”
Kimbrough earned a degree at Malone University in Canton, Ohio, a Christian liberal arts school where drinking wasn’t the culture. She drank sparingly in school, but after she graduated in 2012, drinking went hand in hand with her social life. She had no drink of choice, enjoying wine, beer and cocktails. Yet she never saw it as a problem.
“I dressed well and looked like I had my life together,” said Kimbrough, who was successful professionally, working in public affairs, marketing and for a nonprofit.
She met her husband, Clayton, at a party in San Diego in 2014; they married three years later. As a military spouse, she found herself progressively drinking more, especially after a move to Jacksonville, Florida and then Hampton Roads.
Then came the night at a local wine bar in late 2019, when Kimbrough returned home with the bottle to share with Clayton. After he went to sleep, she texted neighbors, asking them to hang out. They joined her, but after a few drinks in, they grew tired. It was 2 a.m. Only Kimbrough wasn’t ready to stop the party. She knocked at doors of neighbors, hoping to find someone to drink with. She spotted a house with music playing in the backyard and climbed over the privacy fence. She found an enabler who poured her a drink.
Even after a hard conversation with Clayton afterward, Christina thought she could control her drinking; she wasn't drinking every day. But getting to work sometimes was difficult.
When she was about to return home to Cleveland for Christmas, Clayton made her promise she wouldn't drink. Kimbrough couldn't keep her word. Plans to visit a friend started with what was supposed to be a quick stop at a bar. Instead, the bartender eventually cut her off and the friend had to pick her up.
At the holiday dinner table, her younger brother said he was worried about her drinking. Her dad supported her brother. Her mother started to cry.
Kimbrough felt bombarded.
“I was defensive,” she said. “I wasn’t ready to quit. Alcohol served a purpose. It was fun.”
But Clayton gave her an ultimatum. He didn't want to live this way any longer.
It was “a personal low” for Kimbrough. She didn’t want to lose him. In February, she agreed to outpatient treatment back home in Cleveland.
"I needed to get away from the area I was drinking in," Kimbrough said. "I moved in with my grandma, who doesn't drink."
She remained there for nine months, giving herself the time to heal, even though it meant a long-distance marriage. Kimbrough realized the unhealthy relationship with alcohol prevented her from being the best version of herself.
Back in Hampton Roads, Kimbrough longed to do something social that didn't revolve around alcohol. That's how the meetup that became Free Life in 2023 was born. Kimbrough met others like herself who were ready to try a new way to socialize.
"It was very liberating," she said, "and I felt like I could breathe."
What started in a Ghent coffee shop gathering with a few friends ballooned to 500 members three months later, enough to inspire Kimbrough to become a social entrepreneur.
Initially, she sipped on "a lot of water," Diet Coke and soda water with a lime twist. When Kimbrough tried nonalcoholic beverages, she liked the taste and offering a selection at Free Life events only made sense.
Norfolk mom Hillary Rose was newly sober when she found Free Life 2 ½ years ago, despite “alcohol marketing doing such a good job of making you think you can’t live without it.”
Rose couldn’t separate alcohol from her identity.
“I was the party girl who was always one-upping,” she said. “One of the reasons I waited so long to quit, even though I knew what I was doing wasn’t sustainable, was I had this notion in my head that I would be letting people down if I stopped drinking.”
Having children changed her perspective. “By taking myself out with a substance, I was going to be absent from their life,” she said. “I got tired of making excuses."
Rose mourned the loss of alcohol just as one would a dead friend. The first Free Life event she attended, a beach yoga class at sunrise, empowered her.
“It was amazing,” she said. “I can still remember how raw and visceral everything felt because when you stop drinking and you’ve been using drinking to numb feelings, when all of those feelings come crashing back in, it’s like sensory overload.”
Kimbrough prioritizes what she calls “business for good,” noting Free Life is rooted in the community. Rose’s world has certainly changed for the better now that she is sober.
“I look at alcohol now as a viper sitting on the counter,” she said. “My heart goes out to people who try to get sober, and every day crave it and miss it. For me, there’s no part that looks at it with nostalgia.”