How I went to the Browns game for free

In 16 years of Browns away trips with my high school crew, we've won exactly two games, and I happened to be there for both of them with a club soda in my hand. I know correlation isn't causation, but at this point I'm not really willing to take any chances.

Every year we pick one Browns road game and make a whole weekend out of it. My buddies Navid and Will started the tradition 16 years ago and haven't missed a single game since. The group has changed a little over the years, but it's mostly been the same faces from high school.

The record is a brutal 2-14. I've made six of these trips myself, and I'm 0-4 when I'm drinking and 2-0 when I'm not. I missed last year's trip to Boston and of course we lost, so I'll just leave that there. (The Browns are 5-2 this season, by the way, and I honestly don't know what to do with that information either.)

But nobody does this for the wins, because if we did, we would've called it quits somewhere around year three. We do it because getting a bunch of grown men with jobs, kids and busy calendars into the same city at the same time is genuinely hard, and we find a way to make it happen anyway.

My first trip without drinking was Indy, a city I'd been to plenty of times before. I'm pretty sure it was the first time I actually got to see it, and remember all of it.

This year was different in one big way, because for the first time I had the Club Soda Club app in my pocket. At every stop I'd order my usual club soda on the rocks, start a session, and log it at the price of whatever the guys were drinking. On Broadway, that adds up a lot faster then you'll think.

That's sixteen sessions across honky-tonks, rooftops, a couple of really nice dinners and one NFL stadium, for a grand total of $374.

So here's the math behind the subject line. My ticket to the game was $180, and by the end of the weekend the app had logged $374 in drinks I didn't buy. Nobody handed me a free ticket, but the money I would've spent on rounds ended up paying for it anyway, and the $194 left over covered a new shirt and a tee with a little to spare, which I'll get to in a second.

And a quick note to Nashville: I love you, but your tailgate scene is pretty weak, and if you ever want to see how it's really done, come visit us in the Muni Lot. Since there wasn't much of a tailgate to speak of, we hit the bars on Broadway instead, where a bunch of them were handing out free beers to anyone wearing Browns gear.

The best moment of the whole trip didn't happen at a bar at all, but inside the Buck Mason store. I'd just finished explaining to Seth, the sales guy, how this very-not-cheap shirt was basically free, since the money I would've poured down the drain on Broadway ended up paying for it instead.

Seth nodded, walked to the back, and came out with an ice-cold bottle of sparkling water that he handed right to me. That's when I knew Seth gets it.

I didn't try to recruit anybody on this trip, and there were no speeches or pamphlets involved. But at Friday's dinner, one of the guys skipped the drinks too, simply because he didn't feel like having one, and at the next bar he went right back to a beer.

Honestly, that's kind of the whole point. You don't have to pick a team, and part-time absolutely counts. Skip a round, zebra stripe the next one, and see if the night is any less fun (spoiler alert: it's not).

Seeing two of us at the same table both skipping the round is exactly why we're building connected sessions into the app. You'll be able to track a night out together with your friends, kind of like Strava but for the bar. More on that soon.

So, back to those free beers for Browns fans. On paper it sounds like a great deal, but free beer has a funny way of sending you the bill on Monday morning.

Here's how my Monday went instead. I took a long walk and hit 10,000 steps before 10am, jumped on my weekly sync with the Club Soda Club engineering team, and then we submitted the app to the App Store.

That's right, the Club Soda Club app is officially in Apple's hands. I didn't fully realize how big of a moment that was until Holly called to congratulate me, so shoutout to Holly for making me stop and actually enjoy it. And since you're reading this, you're already on the waitlist, which means you'll be the first to know when it goes live.

The Browns won, which is rare, beautiful and still feels a little suspicious. But the win was never really the point… showing up is. Sixteen years of the same guys finding a way to make it happen, no matter what the record says, is something I'm pretty proud to be part of.

Drinking less works the same way. You don't quit the tradition after a losing season, and you don't quit cutting back after one big night. You just show up again next year... with a club soda on the rocks, if you're me.

What's your annual tradition, and if you tracked the drinks, what do you think it would add up to? Hit reply and tell me, because I read every single one.

Stay Sparkling,
Sorin

produced by Scott Nixon

Trevor just hit one year in the Club Soda Club. In this episode, he talks about the point where he knew something had to change, getting sharper mentally and physically, and the surprise nobody warns you about: suddenly having all this free time and no idea what to do with it. A year later, he’s got the opposite problem.

Every cup from my Keurig started tasting weak, flat, stale — so I unplugged it and stuck it in a closet. Then I learned the dirty secret of grocery store K-Cups: by the time a pod reaches your kitchen, it's usually spent months going from factory to warehouse to truck to shelf. The flavor oils are long gone. Some brands even over-roast to hide it.

The fix wasn't a new machine. It was fresh pods from Angelino's, a family-owned L.A. roastery that roasts, packs, and ships within 3–5 days — straight to your door, from 39¢ a cup. Over 1,000,000 happy customers. 50+ flavors, no subscription required, and 15% off your first order, applied automatically at checkout.

Try 35¢ Pods

Know someone who's thinking about it? There's no membership requirement.

Part-time members, full-time members, "I'm just curious" members. All welcome. So whether you've got a friend who's been saying "I should probably cut back" every Sunday morning for the last six months, or a friend who's already all-in on the alcohol-free life and just hasn't found their people yet — send them your link. They subscribe to the free newsletter, you both win. No pressure, no program, no weird pamphlets.

Basically, if they've ever ordered a club soda (or anything else alcohol-free) and felt like they had to explain themselves... they're already one of us.

👇👇👇