From #sobrietyquotes to #soberissexy, social media is awash with alcohol free sentiment. On TikTok alone the #sober hashtag has over 6.8 billion views.
So while it may feel that wine o’clock is still very much alive and kicking (and falling over in a heap at the end of the night), it’s clear that a quiet revolution is taking place among younger generations, with one in five people now shunning alcohol in the UK.
Just 27% of UK Gen Zers say they currently consume alcohol, compared to 47% of Boomers, according to recent research from consumer insights agency Canvas8. Meanwhile, NHS statistics for 2021 revealed that 38% of 16 to 24-year-olds and 21% of 25 to 34-year-old Gen Z and millennials in England either don’t drink or haven’t drunk in the last 12 months.
With hundreds of sobriety accounts to follow and podcasts to choose from, alongside celebrities such as Bella Hadid and Tom Holland speaking openly about being alcohol-free, there’s never been a more positive time to be sober curious.
To find out more about the movement, Metro.co.uk speaks to some of the growing brigade of sober-influencers.
Going sober was difficult and lonely at first
TikToker Gabriela Flax, 28, gave up drinking two years ago when she realised it was contributing to burnout. She now coaches people who use alcohol for stress management, with her page Burnout Resilience gaining 409k likes.
‘When I got my first job after uni, I felt like I had to do everything my colleagues were doing, both in terms of the work itself and on the social side. I had a boss who told me that drinking at company events was critical because it showed that you were social and trustworthy, and that belief became ingrained in me.
By the time I was 24, I had been continuously pushing myself and not taking care of my body or my mind, and I woke up one day feeling very lacklustre. I lost the excitement for the job and I’d lost who I was.
Where once I was energetic and lively, I felt exhausted. I would sleep for eight hours and my fitness tracker would say: “Great job. You slept for eight hours!” but I didn’t feel rested.
There was this chronic dullness and I felt constantly anxious. There was this persistent nervousness that I could be doing a lot more and as a result, I kept pushing myself even if I was seeing double staring at a computer screen. It just felt like I had nowhere else to go, so I might as well just go forward as fast as I can.
By that point, I was drinking two or three glasses of red wine a night just to feel better after a stressful day. You could see the inflammation in my face. I had gut issues; I found it really hard to eat. Even foods I loved made me feel sick and I was getting migraines.
The ironic thing is that I had never even been much of a drinker, but I felt like I was stuck using wine to destress in the week and then the weekend was a cycle of pre-drinking, parties and hungover brunches. When I was in that routine, I felt comfort, because everyone else in my life around me was doing the same thing.
I decided to go alcohol free in January 2022 when lots of people were doing Dry January. It was difficult and lonely at first. I felt much better physically, and had more clarity, but in the early days people didn’t know how to interact with me; they felt awkward.
My birthday was at the end of the month and everyone at my party was trying to buy me drinks. It was a kind of reckoning moment where I had to force myself to become comfortable with not drinking.
It was a turning point and I had broken the pattern. I was no longer waking up with a hangover and the headaches went. Without alcohol in my system, I felt lighter and clearer. I had time on weekends to start reinvesting in the things that I loved.
I decided to start sharing my experiences about sobriety and burnout on TikTok after having many conversations with friends, family, and co-workers on the topic. I’d previously felt so isolated, but these conversations stressed how many of us were actually in the same boat, yet living in silence.
There is a social stigma about being sober in your 20s, which I am trying to alleviate, as it’s seen as “fun” to relieve stress with drinking. But since creating my account in early 2023, I can count the number of negative comments I’ve had on two hands.
My last drink was nearly two years ago and alcohol doesn’t even cross my mind any more. I feel like myself again and life feels good.’
I thought: ‘What am I actually drinking for?’
Harry Jones, 26, set up podcast Why Aren’t You Drinking? to explore sober curiosity after he found going alcohol-free vastly improved his mental health. Still in its first season, Harry has interviewed Michelle McManus and actor and comedian Soph Galustin about their sober journeys.
‘It’s often the first thing someone asks you if you’ve got a coke instead of a pint: “Oh, are you being boring? Why aren’t you drinking?” It’s quite intrusive. Some people do have alcohol dependency, but for some people it’s just a lifestyle choice. For me, it’s the latter.
I didn’t drink much – maybe once or twice a month – but when I did, I didn’t have an off-button. I would have one drink, then another, then another. I’d go for rum and coke when I was out, or red wine on quieter nights with friends.
I would often put myself in dangerous situations, walking drunk through town at three in the morning, waking and not remembering how I got back. I was lucky not to have been mugged, or hit by a bus. I’m a gay man and it can still be quite dangerous for us out alone late at night.
I first went sober in 2019. My mental health was low and I was drinking a lot, maybe three or four times a week. So I cut it out for a year – just to prove to myself that I could – and then went back to it during the lockdowns, like a lot of people.
But then I went out one night – it wasn’t even a particularly heavy one – and when I woke the next morning, I looked at my bank account and saw I’d spent £100. All that money was gone, my room was a state, I hadn’t done any washing for ages and I knew I was going to feel s*** for two or three days because I drank. I thought: “What am I actually doing it for?”
That day I decided I was going to stop and I’ve not had a drink since. As time went on, the less I wanted to drink. Now I look at other people getting rat arsed at parties and I think – that used to be me and I don’t want to do that any more. You know that person, blind drunk in a bar, they’re making a scene and they’ll have the fear the next day of not remembering what they said or did. I’ve been in that situation so many times and it makes me sad to see it in others.
In terms of older people drinking, it is definitely more ingrained into their lifestyle. I was speaking to a friend’s granddad who couldn’t drink due to the medication he was on and he found it incredibly difficult because he had drank pretty much every day since he was a teenager.
I also think that older generations don’t see it as a negative thing. It’s something that their parents did and something that they’ve done for a long time. People used to give brandy to children to help them sleep! But as with smoking, younger generations are more aware of health problems and are sceptical of things their parents’ generation normalised.
Not drinking has brought me so much more energy and purpose. Everything is much clearer, I make better decisions and I live more mindfully. And it’s given me time. Time just gets written off when you drink; you’re out til the early hours and then recovering for a whole day afterwards.
I’ve also come off antidepressants now, which I had been on since 2017. The alcohol was definitely exacerbating problems with my brain chemistry. I realise this isn’t a solution for everyone, but it worked for me. I have no qualms about going back on them if I need to, but I’m happy that I made a lifestyle choice that has put me in a much better place.’
People ask me if I will ever drink again. Why would I want to?
When problem drinking started damaging Carmela Rodia’s health, she started chronicling her journey on Instagram to help others going through the same thing.
‘I grew up around problem drinkers and have lost people through alcoholism. I understand how devastating it can be for families and I know how alcohol can destroy lives.
Society will define problem drinking as people hiding vodka or boozing before breakfast, but that’s the extreme case. There are whole swathes of people who aren’t like that; who hold down a job and who have got the family together. And yet alcohol is having a big impact on their lives.
These are middle-lane drinkers – and I was one of them. Also known as grey-area drinkers, they don’t drink all the time; they can go without it, but that negative relationship is always there.
In my twenties I was a party girl, and nights would end in blackout, then in my thirties it was home drinking and the mummy/wine culture. It was causing me a lot of issues and I developed a toxic relationship with alcohol. It stopped bringing me any joy and it really affected my mental health – the anxiety was horrific.
I was constantly back and forth to doctors having blood tests because I felt tired all the time. I had all these weird symptoms and drinking had become a crutch; it was unhealthy and I wanted to be around for my child.
23 July 2020 was the turning point. It was a lovely summer’s day and I went to the pub with a friend for a couple of drinks, but I woke up the next day and I couldn’t remember getting home. I realised I was done with drinking. Something flipped and I knew I had to stop.
It was bloody hard, but I found a community online, which was my biggest support mechanism. I began documenting everything and subsequently set up a coaching business helping other women.
There is a lot of stigma around drinking and I think women have a really different set of challenges to men, especially when they become mothers. You’re at home a lot, and you want to unwind after a cooped up day with the kids and it’s really easy to just have a glass of wine or two but it can become quite a toxic habit.
People ask me if I will ever drink again. Why would I want to? I’ve dealt with deaths, job losses and a pandemic sober. Society tells you to deal with these life events with a drink. But I know that alcohol would give me nothing; it would only make me feel worse.
It’s great that Gen Z are much more geared towards health and their view on alcohol is increasingly moderate – the fact that they are drinking less is a really good thing. Had I grown up in this sort of period I like to think some of my drinking behaviours would have been a bit more restrained.
I’m 40 now, and when you realise how good life can be after having lived a toxic cycle of s*** for so long, why on earth would you want to drink?’
MORE : A single sentence from my seven-year-old is the reason I’ll never drink again
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