emotional, physical and psychological

realities of life. It is in the middle of

the current environmental, political,

economic and emotional uncertainty

that the sober curious movement is

taking hold. The reasons for this

shift away from the cycle of regular,

heavy or binge drinking are, of

course, complicated. The rise of

social media and the consequent

possibility of ‘public shaming’ has

made many young women scared

to lose control. And the choice of

non-alcoholic beers and other

drinks has made teetotalism a

tastier prospect, too. You no longer

have to be an addict to see yourself

as a problem drinker; you no longer

have to be in recovery to go dry.

“Once you start taking a vested

interest in a holistic idea of wellness,

you can’t help but question the fact

that you are choosing to drink a

special report

t

You’d be forgiven for thinking these

non-drinking females are hiding in

the outback. News headlines report

on Australia’s binge-drink culture

and show women out-drinking the

average bucks party. And yet, while

a report from the Australian Institute

of Health and Welfare (AIHW) found

18- to 24-year-olds are the most likely

to binge, they’re also more likely to

abstain from alcohol altogether.

Initiatives like Hello Sunday Morning

are growing in popularity, where

people take a break from alcohol

and often end up abstaining or

seriously curbing their habits. The

UK is now home to dry bars, where

you can enjoy grog-free nights out,

while lots of Aussie venues now

proudly tout non-alcoholic menus.

In short, we’ve moved on from the

days where being teetotal was akin

to announcing you have leprosy.

The bigger picture

For journalist Ruby Warrington, the

choice to (mainly) stop drinking was

not merely physical, psychological

or social; it was about creating

harmony between all three. A self-

confessed party girl, Warrington

spent much of the 1990s and 2000s

tipsy, wasted or hungover – inspired,

in part, by ads and TV shows (Sex

and the City and the like) that

glamorised alcohol. “It’s very easy

to get into the habit of drinking

without considering whether you

even want to,” she says, over the

phone from New York, where she

founded the sober curious event

Club Söda NYC. “But if you’re not

connecting to your feelings, you

constantly override the messages

your body is giving you such as

fear, anxiety and discomfort.

These feelings are telling you to

stop and change the situation –

be it to move jobs or have a difficult

conversation. And the longer you

ignore these messages, the longer

you battle negative patterns, and

the harder it is to make decisions

that would serve you better.”

Warrington is referring to ‘oblivion

drinking’, coined by psychoanalyst

and author of Alcoholism and

Women Jan Bauer. It refers to the

sort of boozing that, instead of

ending up with you face down in

a wheelie bin, simply numbs the

There’s a very particular eye flick – from face, down to

stomach, back to face – that any non-drinking woman

will recognise immediately. The pre-verbal, unconscious

asking of that age-old question: are you pregnant or in

AA? For decades, anyone who dared turn up to a party

with a booze-free bottle or was caught ordering a soda

and lime at the bar would instantly become the subject

of knowing looks, sympathetic head tilts and near-

gynaecological examinations. If a woman wasn’t drinking,

she must, surely, either be up the duff or have issues

with alcohol. But no longer. We are witnessing a new

trend in the so-called ‘sober curious’: young, ambitious

people – mostly women – turning away from booze by

choice and without detriment to their social life.

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