Boozeless & boujee: Is the alcohol-free movement inclusive enough?

Picture the scene. It's a bright, warm, summer's Sunday morning. Bleerily, slowly, you open your eyes. The sun peaks through a tiny gap in your curtains. ☀️ You can hear the birds chirping in a leafy tree nearby. 🌳 There's a gentle breeze from an open window somewhere, lovingly kissing your face. "Blissful", you think, still hazy, as you shift your body to sit up right so that you can take a sip of some refreshing water from the glass on your bedside table. The movement causes your insides to recalibrate. You're hit with a sudden wave of panic and an urgent need to vomit. 🤮 A searing pain bursts into your skull like a swat team conducting an early morning raid. 🚨 It's made infinitely worse by that bastard sunlight. You start to itch and sweat. The hangover has arrived. 💀 You know it's only going to get worse, and it'll last longer than the last one. It always seems to. My god will those birds outside shut up?! The last of your senses awakens as the taste of last night's kebab fills your mouth. Chilli AND garlic sauce? Really? 🌶️

You reach for your phone. 📱 Might as well do that first because the dizziness isn't going to let you stand up any time soon. A dopamine hit will surely ease the pain... Okay, maybe not. 11 missed calls, 10 messages from angry & hurt friends, and nine notifications from Monzo reminding you you spent £110 (your budget was £30) last night. It's like the world's worst 12-days of Christmas re-write. But instead of 12 days of weird, inconvenient gifts, you get 12 hours (maybe 12 days or even weeks) of misery, shame and regret. "Never again..." 😳

This is just one example, one semi-autobiographical scenario that compels people to reconsider their relationship with drinking. People try to quit or cut back for a whole variety of reasons, whether it's beer fear, health, financial or other reasons, and it seems we're doing it more now. We're drinking less, or cutting it out altogether - and shouting about it from the rooftops. 📢 Wonderful! But there's something I've noticed that's distinctly similar about the majority of those voices. They're quite middle class. And that's not a loaded comment or judgement. Just an observation. I'm not here to slag off the middle class. You might even put me in that category. I'm not here to discuss the nuances of and issues with the class system. I'm just a sloth. I'd just like to ponder whether the alcohol-free movement has too much of a middle-class culture to generate the widespread appeal it needs to truly take off. 📈 I've been sober for a couple of years now and I wouldn't necessarily consider myself any better off - notwithstanding a cost of living crisis. While any sober influencer might be quick to tell you that you'll save thousands a year by not drinking alcohol, I have to wonder whether that's actually true. I mean will you just find yourself spending more in other areas of life to mitigate against the void that alcohol attempted to fill? And does that render the alcohol-free lifestyle out of reach for many? 💰

Being alcohol-free of course has strong links to the ever-growing 'wellness' industry, so perhaps you'll be compelled to replace a night of drinking with a morning of yoga & pilates. 🧘 But what if you can't afford yoga & pilates? Go for a walk! 🚶 Of course, go for a walk, get out into nature! But what if you live on an estate, miles from any parks, rivers or woodland? 🌲🍂🦌 Or even if you do live near a park, how many times can you walk around it before you get bored and need a fresh distraction? Booze? NO, we're moving past that. Okay how do I move past it? I need someone to guide me through this; this is tough. Someone who's been there themselves. Oh, an alcohol-free / stop-drinking coach! How much do they cost? Oop no maybe not. moving on.

They say community helps a lot, particularly with the early stages of sobriety, but even socialising can be tough for the alcohol-free crowd with a lower budget. For those who struggle to be around alcohol at all, it's best to stick to alcohol-free spaces, but once the daytime cafes close, those spaces are at a premium. And that premium can easily be £7.50 for a mocktail in a boozeless bar. And that's assuming the boozeless bar is free to enter. I've seen alcohol-free spaces advertising ticketed events ranging from £15 up to an eye-watering £99. Ninety-nine pounds. 😶 Not including drinks. I had to read that a few times myself. It's easy to see how those sobriety savings shrink. Now, I'm not for a second trying to say that these price points shouldn't be allowed. Frankly, people can charge what they wish. People will pay a lot more for a lot less and ultimately if people are willing to pay the price, then it is worth it to them. I run a small business myself selling alcohol-free drinks, I get it. But what if you can't pay those prices? 🤷 These spaces, these opportunities, this lifestyle isn't necessarily as inclusive as we claim when ultimately tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands will be priced out of 'the lifestyle' by the cost (and associated expenses like travel) of 💪a sobriety coach (£40+ per hour), 🍸 mocktails (north of £7), 💃 sober events (£15+), 🧘 yoga, pilates & meditation classes (various), 🧇🥞 boozeless brunches (£15+), 👚 the merch, 📚 the quit lit (£8),

‍🤝the sober network memberships (£5 per month+)

and no you don't need to buy it all, or even any of it. But you have to replace the alcohol with SOMETHING. Find what works for you. But how do you find what works for you if you don't have the means to explore it? What if you don't have the time or the money to do that? Those are resources that many can't afford. A bottle of wine on the other hand... 👀 Inclusivity isn't just about breaking down the barriers to access for some. The alcohol-free movement is beautiful, but if we want everyone to benefit from an alcohol-free (or low-alcohol) lifestyle, then it does need to be more accessible. Going sober isn't as straightforward as having the willpower to put down the bottle. Yes, we save money by not buying a drink, but how much does it cost to not drink? It needs to be a price we can all afford.