Looking to the bottom of alcohol-free drink bottles can only take us so far in any bid to curtail our alcohol consumption. Even alcohol’s bogus answers to life’s problems are not to be found there.
It is true alcohol-free drinks can be tastier and healthier alternatives to sickly soft drinks. This is good. And they can also provide a useful visual prop for places hostile to people not drinking alcohol. But they are not alcohol alternatives.
To genuinely replace alcohol they would need to help us relax, feel rewarded, gain confidence, have fun, feel carefree and be sociable. Alcohol-free drinks will not do this for us. We need to look to alternative activities, not alternative beverages.
The quest for sober satisfaction turns what might be seen as an act of self-denial into one of hedonistic exploration. There are an endless array of new experiences, new skills and new social situations to be had. It is a journey not an event.
Eleven years ago I was a standard-issue British Gen X weekend binger and then I gave alcohol for a couple of years to inform my book on alcohol. I then stayed off it for another three years, before becoming a low-risk alcohol drinker.
The first month was hard, really hard. It was not nearly enough time to find new activities or to build and find environments which suited me. But it got easier over time, until it was the new normal. One never stops learning how to make it better.
One thing that is perhaps worth sharing is that while it is nice to feel okay as a non-drinker in alcohol drinking scenarios, it is a questionable end goal. Even after more than a decade alcohol drinking scenarios can be okay for a while, but typically it is not where I would want to do for the whole night.
Not drinking alcohol around alcohol drinkers is typically very challenging and is very likely to remain so. We are, after all, literally in a different state of mind. Why fight it? Why not invest all that energy into alternative activities instead?
It is typically far easier for non-drinkers to spend time in alcohol-free environments and make one at home. So why not do that? Dodge the alcohol aisle at the supermarket and filter whatever alcohol ad and media exposure you can.
We deserve the freedom to look for the feelings we might want, be it relaxation, excitement, humour, camaraderie, whatever it might be. There is an likely activity to get closer to all of them and none of them need involve a bottle. ■