adults, according to a recent article in
TIME magazine), data from the Office
for National Statistics shows that
young people aged 16-24 in Great Brit-
ain “are less likely to drink than any
other age group” – and millennials, in
particular, are right there with them.
“As millennials continue to reject
the alcohol-centric culture of our fore-
fathers, sobriety is having a moment,”
declared Esquire magazine recently.
“Millennials are sick of drinking,”
echoed The Atlantic. Turns out, they’re
onto something – and lez/bi women
are very much at the forefront of this
sober movement.
SOBERING TIMES
The last time I had an alcoholic
drink was on New Year’s Day, nine
months ago now. I’d flirted with the
idea of taking a break from drinking
before and – as someone who hasn’t
experienced alcohol addiction – it was
something that I felt able to do. Still, it
always seemed far too much a part of
my social life to completely cut it out.
Even though I’d long put my
more adventurous (read: careless but
all-too-common) drinking habits to
bed, most social events still revolved
around alcohol. Birthdays, catch-ups,
work socials, queer club nights –
the lot.
“We’ve got a very alcohol-centric
culture,” Laura Willoughby MBE,
founder of Mindful Drinking organisa-
tion Club Soda, tells me. “We have an
automatic, unconscious bias that if
anyone ever says, ‘Do you want to go
out?’ your automatic assumption is
that this involves alcohol. That means
that some people will automati-
cally say no because they don’t want
to drink.”
With Club Soda, Laura – who
describes her own sober journey as “a
hundred little epiphanies” – initially
set out to create a community “that
felt like a club” – something she’s
done both with Club Soda and their
LGBTQI-specific branch, Queers With-
out Beers. However, she also spends a
great deal of her time talking to pubs,
bars, restaurants and the UK govern-
ment about how to create equal expe-
riences for every customer. “It actually
now feels like an equality campaign.”
The aim? “We need people to start
saying yes [to socialising] because
they know there’ll be something out
there for them to drink. It’s about
socialising, not the strength of their
drink. And that way we will begin to
see our social spaces open and alive- and in the queer community, where
events are often focused on alcohol,
that’s even more important.”
Laura continues: “Whether you’re
queer or not, today younger people
are far more conscious of their mental
health and understand how alcohol
fits into that. They’re more interested
in what a venue has to offer than
what I would call ‘vertical drinking’ –
just standing there with a pint.
“They’re also far more accepting
of difference and are more likely to go
and find a venue that suits their ve-
gan or their non-drinking friend, and
to accept that people make choices
for themselves.”#SOBERAF
It’s true that my own decision to take
a break from drinking was spurred on
by both the increase in the number
of (decent) alcohol-free craft beers
available and, at least partially, the
increasingly common use of hashtags
like #soberaf and #sobercurious, and
accounts like @sobergirlsociety pop-
ping up across social media, name-
ly Instagram.
In this same realm, sober “influ-
encers” are also now a thing – and
influencing they are. From those
recovering from alcohol addiction to
(very much at the other end of the#YOURVIEW – SOBER SPACES
“Sober queer women are a community
within a community that need support.
Some women might feel they need
alcohol to express their sexuality or to
attend queer events. That’s why it’s so
important for women who don’t drink to
feel safe and included and like they still
have spaces they can come to where they
can be themselves.”
Sandy, 38, from London recently created a
sober space at lez/bi event L Fest in Llandudnosobriety spectrum) the, perhaps more
common, ever-glowing wellbeing
types, “a shift has begun”, as Adrienne
Matei commented in the Guardian
this summer. “Enter the ‘sober curi-
ous’: those who drink less or not at
all, and broadcast their abstinence
with pride as a part of their social
media personas.”
Club Soda’s Laura agrees that for
those who want to reflect on their
drinking habits, social media can
“[normalise] the idea that you might
want to change your drinking for a
lifestyle choice”.
On the one hand, showing young
people that you can “be cool” and
be sober is a good thing, smashing
stereotypes of “stone cold” or “square”
sobriety and encouraging more peo-
ple, much like myself, to take a mo-
ment to reflect on their relationship
with alcohol, á la Club Soda et al.
But, is it dangerous to lump
sobriety into the “trend” pile akin to
something like, say veganism, when
for many, drinking alcohol can quite
literally mean life or death?NOT A TREND
“Talking about sobriety as a trend is
not ok,” fellow Brit and founder of the
New York City contingency of Club
Soda, Ruby Warrington, explains. “The
point of sober curious is to differenti-
ate between those of us who have
the privilege to be sober curious and
perhaps dabble [in alcohol] here and
there, and those for whom drinking
and alcohol is a mortal danger.”
DIVA reader Sarah, 32, has been
sober for just over three years, after
overcoming alcohol addiction. Some-
thing which took more than a hip
hashtag. “[Social media] has its place
and, for anyone, stopping to reflect
on or review their drinking is a really
healthy thing to do. When helping
someone with dependency or addic-
tion, however, things are a lot more
complicated and perhaps some might
need support from services beyond
social media to help them to get and
stay sober.”“Binge drinking is almost twice as
common in lesbian, gay and bisexual
females when compared to females in the
wider population.”
Part Of The Picture: Lesbian, Gay And Bisexual
People’s Alcohol And Drug Use In England (2009-11)It’s about
socialising, not
the strength of
their drink”
>>>49FEATURES | MINDFUL DRINKING