The Existential Horrors of Being Sober is a mammoth, orderly nation, renowned for its teetotalling pirates, public floggings, and state-planned economy. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless, devout population of 7.276 billion Being Soberians are ruled by a mostly-benevolent dictator, who grants the populace the freedom to live their own lives but watches carefully for anyone to slip up.

The medium-sized, corrupt, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Education, and Law & Order. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 31.1%.

The very strong Being Soberian economy, worth 589 trillion deniers a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is a large, well-organized, broadly diversified black market in Arms Manufacturing, Uranium Mining, Retail, and Door-to-door Insurance Sales. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. Average income is 81,008 deniers, but there is a large disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 325,817 per year while the poor average 13,478, a ratio of 24.2 to 1.

Employers are keenest on employees who lack family values, copies of the constitution are used as toilet paper, Leader can be seen doing doughnuts in a new Rambogini, and only Leader's friends count in the eyes of the government. Crime is moderate. Being Sober's national animal is the swan, which is also the nation's favorite main course.

Being Sober is ranked 294,238^th in the world and 4^th in Group Space Version Two for Highest Food Quality, scoring 6.52 on the Meeshlin-Starr Index.