For many, Dry January offers a brief respite from drinking after Christmas, before we reach gratefully for a large G&T come February 1.
Our weary livers get a rest, and we ponder how odd it would be if this booze-free lifestyle became permanent.
Unfathomable, we muse. But imagine if you had never had a drink in your entire life?
Ellie Nash, 23, is one such teetotaller. Not so much as a sip of alcohol has ever passed her lips – not at teenage parties, birthdays or even the famously boozy university years.
‘People think I must have had a bad experience with alcohol,’ says Ellie. ‘But I’m not curious. I’ve never had the urge. Besides, I assume it tastes like it smells – bitter and chemical.’
Ellie Nash, 23, says she has never had the urge to drink alcohol and says it smells ‘chemically’
Millie Gooch founded the Sober Girl Society, an organisation for non-drinkers that has 205,000 social media followers
It’s a choice that will leave most of us, who see alcohol as integral to a social life, feeling somewhat baffled. Particularly as young people are traditionally the heaviest drinkers of all.
Yet it seems today’s youngsters are turning their backs on the alcohol-friendly attitudes of their parents, employing a more puritanical approach.
A survey by industry body The Portman Group this month found that an astonishing 39 per cent of those aged 18 to 24 don’t drink. And research published in the International Journal of Drug Policy claims ‘the decline in youth drinking is well-established and unlikely to reverse’.
So why do Generation Z – those born between 1997 and 2012 – have such differing attitudes to their parents?
A new study by Alcohol Change UK suggests ‘hangxiety’ (feeling anxious when hungover) plays a large part, with more than a third of under-34s blaming it for their decision to reduce their drinking. Research for Google also showed 60 per cent of Gen Z associate alcohol with loss of control.
And while many of us may have heartily embraced that loss of control, for the younger generation it presents a new risk: that of going viral on social media. After all, today’s drunken antics can be uploaded to TikTok in a couple of clicks.
One such video, tagged #drunk, sees a girl in a nightclub attempting to order four shots of sambuca at the DJ booth, unaware she’s not actually at the bar. It’s been viewed 6.4million times and counting. Another, documenting a young woman falling over backwards after a wedding, has been watched 2.7million times.
So perhaps it’s little surprise that nearly half of Gen Z say their online image is always on their mind when socialising and drinking, according to a study by the Alcohol Education Trust.
It’s a powerful deterrent. ‘If you stumbled in the street it would be online in two seconds,’ says Ellie. ‘I would hate that – I always think about what it would look like to an employer.’
Millie Gooch, founder of Sober Girl Society, an organisation for sober and sober-curious women that has 215,000 social media followers, says she is not at all surprised by the latest statistics.
‘If you stumbled in the street it would be online in two seconds,’ says Ellie
‘When I started running meet-ups, I was 26 and everyone was my age,’ says Millie, 32, who gave up alcohol after heavy drinking left her in an ‘anxious pit of shame’. ‘Now there are also girls who are 18 and 19. The tide has turned. Alcohol is seen as a bit uncool, to be honest.’
Millie, a former fashion journalist and PR, sees a mix of professionals and students at her events. Some, like Ellie, have never drunk. Others, like herself, are reformed ‘party girls’ who got ‘black-out drunk and put themselves in vulnerable situations’.
Many young teetotallers see themselves as rebelling against their Generation X parents who ‘come from the Nineties ladette drinking generation’, Millie explains. ‘They have seen the negativity, and don’t want to follow in their footsteps.’
Millie started drinking heavily at university, where cheap deals aimed at students saw her drinking triple vodkas with Red Bull for just £1.50. (‘You could get two in a pint glass.’)
Working in PR after graduating, she moved on to wine and gin. But she soon found there was a dark side to the supposed fun.
Once, she woke up in her room at her parents’ house in Kent after a night out in central London with only hazy memories of how she’d got there.
‘I remember being in an Uber, but to this day I have no idea how I paid for it,’ she recalls. ‘My bank account showed no transactions.
‘My mum said I was mute when I arrived home. She said “You’ll get yourself kidnapped”.’
Finally, after one hangover too many, Millie decided enough was enough: ‘It was extra hard because your 20s are your prime socialising age, but when people said I’d be “boring” I felt stubborn and wanted to prove them wrong.’
Because, of course, plenty of Millie and Ellie’s peers do still drink. So what’s it like being young and sober? And is abstaining really worth it?
Brought up in rural Norfolk, Ellie’s friends started swigging booze swiped from their parents’ cupboards aged 16. Yet, watching the results, she says she wasn’t tempted to join them.
‘They became overly chatty and giggly. They’d start dancing and discussing emotions more openly,’ she recalls. ‘I didn’t know how it would impact me. A part of it felt scary.’
‘I needed to make myself confident without drinking or I’d rely on it for ever – I’d never be able to enjoy myself without it,’ says Ellie
However, she was reluctant to tell her friends – all of whom drank – about her decision: ‘I didn’t think they would invite me out.’
Instead, she pretended she’d laced the bottle of cola she brought to parties with spirits before she arrived. She insists nobody noticed. ‘I’d start to mirror their behaviour when they drank and tell them I felt tipsy,’ she says, admitting she became louder to compensate for her lack of drinking.
Going on to study educational psychology at the University of East Anglia, the confidence alcohol appeared to give her new friends was notable.
‘Some of them were shy when sober, but suddenly able to talk to anyone when drinking,’ says Ellie.
‘It reinforced the idea that I needed to make myself confident without drinking or I’d rely on it for ever – I’d never be able to enjoy myself without it.’
Slowly, her self-assurance grew. Often, her peers just assumed she was drunk like them: ‘Once I was so loud a friend said “You’re definitely not getting into the club, you’re so drunk.” I replied “Yes, I’m going to have to sober up.” I found it funny.’
However, fear of stigma meant it took several months before she told her stunned boyfriend of three years, Danny, 24, a purchase ledger manager, that she didn’t drink.
She said: ‘I’d used the excuse that I had to drive until then but in the pub one evening he eventually said: “Can you not just have one? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink.” I blurted out the truth and he was very shocked.’
However, recently Ellie has noticed her friends cutting down on their intake. ‘They will have one alcoholic drink at parties and then have a Coke. I don’t think they would have done this a couple of years ago.’
She believes that ‘SoberTok’, where young women eulogise about how much happier, healthier and thinner they are sober, and which has gained 1.7billion views, plays as big a part as the horror of being exposed drunk online.
‘Not drinking is what I’m most proud of,’ she says. ‘Navigating life without relying on alcohol for support has grown my confidence far quicker than if I were drinking.’
Twenty-one-year-old Poppy Clementine is another who has always shunned alcohol, which she imagines tastes ‘very strong and unpleasant’. But in her case it wasn’t the behaviour of her peers that put her off, but that of her elders.
With grandparents who ran a restaurant and hotels, as a child she realised that drinking was ‘what grown-ups did when they were out with friends and family’. This early exposure proved to be a turn-off: ‘I’ve always looked down on it. I don’t see why you should have to rely on alcohol to enjoy yourself.’
At 15, she went to a party where her peers were drinking: ‘People were being sick and falling all over the place. You couldn’t hold a normal conversation. I hated it. I didn’t want to be completely out of control.’
Poppy decided not to go to another party throughout her school years – a decision made easier, she says, because she lacked strong friendships to maintain: ‘I felt sad, but if I were there what would I do anyway?’
But since taking up midwifery studies at university in Bournemouth last year, she has found it harder to avoid the drinking culture.
During Freshers’ Week, she went to her first nightclub. ‘Everyone was all over everyone,’ she said. ‘I thought “If I drink, will I feel comfortable?” I was confused.’
Luckily, three of her six student flatmates are also non-drinkers, so she is pursuing a social life that doesn’t involve booze, including yoga classes at dawn and beach walks: ‘We’re going to do pottery painting soon, so that all of us can be involved.’
While some may think it all sounds rather Saffy from Ab Fab, Poppy insists she’s reaping the benefits. ‘Others were ill with freshers’ flu but I wasn’t in bed with a hangover. I could actually function in my lectures,’ she says.
‘I still find it difficult that a lot of people drink but it’s nice knowing that not everyone does, and I find the fact numbers are growing promising.’
Indeed, with the way things are going, perhaps by the time her generation are grandparents, no one will.
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