Sable Monroe

Years ago, I matched with a guy on Tinder.

He was into fitness, a little nerdy, and lived close by. We talked on the phone for a while before meeting. He wanted to see my gym. I wanted to see his new car. Normal enough.

He also told me something early on.

He said he was sober.

He had struggled with alcohol in the past, gotten a DUI, spent a lot of money fixing his life, and had done recovery.

I noted it but didn’t think much of it.

The date itself was pleasant.

We went bird watching.

Talked about fitness.

Talked about smoothies.

No sexual chemistry for me, but no disaster either.

Then I got into his car.

On the front passenger seat sat a plastic shopping bag.

Inside were extracts.

Vanilla.
Peppermint.
Strawberry.

Not one or two bottles.

A lot.

Enough that I noticed.

And what stood out wasn’t only the quantity.

A lot of them were empty.

I asked him why he had so many.

He explained that he worked around flavorings and that sometimes they received random products. He also said he made smoothies and sometimes skipped breakfast.

That explanation seemed odd but not impossible.

I accepted it.

At the end of the date he even offered me some.

Take whichever ones you want.

Some he was weirdly attached to.

Others he gave away easily.

I think I still have a couple in my pantry.

The weird thing is I didn’t leave the date thinking anything suspicious.

I left confused.

Because until that day, I genuinely did not know extracts contained alcohol.

To me, vanilla extract was something people put in cake batter.

That was it.

But later that night my brain kept returning to the shopping bag.

The quantity.

The empty bottles.

The recovery conversation.

So I Googled it.

And that’s when I learned vanilla extract can contain a surprisingly high alcohol percentage.

I remember staring at my phone thinking:

Wait.

Do people actually drink this?

Or am I completely misunderstanding what I saw?

So I messaged someone I trusted.

Not because he was an expert.

Because he had struggled with alcohol and drugs before and I figured if anybody would recognize addict behavior, he might.

I asked:

Do people drink extracts?

His answer was immediate.

Yeah.

If somebody is desperate enough.

Then he asked why.

So I explained the shopping bag.

He started laughing.

Then he said:

Babe.

That dude is not sober.

To this day, I don’t know.

Maybe employee samples.

Maybe smoothies.

Maybe recovery is more complicated than I understand.

Maybe I connected dots that didn’t belong together.

But every time I see someone casually pour vanilla extract into batter, I think about that shopping bag and wonder:

What exactly was I looking at?