I write Ask A Sober Lady, a newsletter about substance use and addiction recovery. My work explores what gets left out of the standard recovery narrative—and how to make recovery more accessible and inclusive. Through Ask A Sober Lady and other writing, I look at addiction recovery through the lenses of cultural criticism, science, and history.

Lately, I’ve been especially interested in the role gender plays in pop culture and media narratives about addiction, and how those narratives shape what we believe about who becomes addicted, who recovers, and how. I ask a lot of questions about what actually helps people recover and who gets left out when we pretend there’s only one answer.

Previous Work

I spent a few years on staff at Inverse covering health science; for stories I wrote there, please visit my Inverse author page. In 2020, André Aciman picked one of my essays, But the Drugs Keep Me Sober, as a Notable Essay in that year’s Best American Essays.

I was a co-founder and associate editor of Anxy magazine, an award-winning publication focused on mental health. In 2018, I was a story and field producer on a documentary about the pediatric use of medical cannabis.

I’m on Twitter and Bluesky @msmacb and on Instagram and Threads as @katiemacb

Find links to all of my freelance clips here.