Content warning: alcohol harm
As we embrace 2021, something is happening to alcohol consumption in the UK. As a nation, we are generally known for our boozy habits, but the pandemic seems to have split public opinion on drinking. For many, the reality of another impending lockdown put pay to completing – or starting – Dry January. Despite this, a record 6.5 million Brits signed up to take part in the alcohol-free month.
Amongst those who consciously choose not to drink, there is a growing online community of young adults who have embraced sobriety despite peer pressure, educating themselves and others on how alcohol affects our health and wellbeing. One such sober influencer is journalist and author Millie Gooch. Having recently released her first book, The Sober Girl Society Handbook, Millie is the founder of its namesake, the Instagram community Sober Girl Society (or SGS).
Having quit alcohol in 2018 aged 26, Millie hasn’t looked back since. Seven months into sobriety, she established SGS, an online space for sober women, explaining: “I realised I didn’t know a single other sober person.” Millie shares information about alcohol harms and links to further resources for support, as well as sober lifestyle tips. The SGS website also sells a variety of merchandise, such as badges that celebrate the sober identity and milestones. For Millie, these items contributed to the empowerment she felt through setting up SGS. Having put in a great deal of effort, the end result was worthwhile: “I packaged about 100 orders that weekend and had to make about 7 trips to the post office. I cried because I was so happy that people wanted to support what I was trying to do.”
This sense of community in sobriety is something that comes across powerfully from her comments. “FOMO”, or fearing being socially excluded, can be a hindrance for those who want to give up alcohol but fear isolation. SGS also caters to those who are younger and might find themselves in more situations where there is peer pressure to drink. An important space for younger sober and sober-curious women, Millie said that past events have given guests the opportunity to “make friends that support them on their sober journey; those connections are so important.” As with many activities however, the pandemic has put a temporary stop to SGS’s in-person events. She looks forward to a time when they will be able to resume in-person activities; for her, running virtual events “just isn’t the same.”
Millie pointed out that the risks for women are greater on average than for men, demonstrating the need for female-orientated sober spaces. “[They] don’t metabolise alcohol as effectively as men. Even if we drink exactly the same as them, we’re more at risk of the damage.” And with women drinking more on average in lockdown, the relevance of SGS and its events both virtual and in-person cannot be denied.
Whilst drinking is often presented as something fun and enjoyable, Millie is keen to highlight that it can also be a toxic coping mechanism: “A lot of us drink because we’re sad or anxious.” Considering she was a drinker for eight years, this message comes from personal experience. She explained: “the majority of my early twenties were spent either drinking or hungover and I really started to notice the effect on my mental health. My hangover anxiety would last for days and I started blacking out on nights too and not remembering what I’d done.” Her Instagram content has examined “hangxiety” – the negative mental health impacts that typically come hand in hand with a hangover – raising awareness of the issue so that followers have the ability to make informed choices about alcohol. Her focus is therefore inclusive of harm reduction; on her Instagram account she’s very clear that alcohol education is the aim. “Being anti-alcohol harm is very different to being anti-alcohol. I have no desire to get everyone to stop drinking.”
Her work, however, has started a conversation that scrutinises the place alcohol has in our lives. While alcohol can be devastating for many and have a negative effect on many more, it is still considered a taboo to talk about our relationship with alcohol. I asked if she felt it was still controversial to be an open member of sober institutions such as the AA, and she revealed that her awareness of the stigma spurred her to try to “make SGS a space that felt really accessible and not at all ‘scary’ so that more people who felt the way I did have a place to come.” The idea that a person can decide to quit drinking before habits develop into a serious “problem” or alcoholism, is one that has gained tract since she started out in sobriety, as Millie notes: “it’s certainly becoming a slightly cooler topic than it was 3 years ago.”
While we attach negative labels and associations to other drugs, it seems it’s still considered unusual to be sober unless you have dealt with a level of alcoholism. Millie’s work and her book aim to encourage us to re-evaluate our relationship with alcohol – whether we consider ourselves to have a “problem”, or simply dislike its effects. “You don’t wait until a lung collapses until you give up smoking, you give up because you know it’s bad for you and whichever point you do that people will commend you. It just isn’t the same with alcohol but it should be. You should be able to stop whenever you want and not have anyone say ‘but you weren’t that bad’.” Furthermore, she recommends her book for “anyone who’s ever said ‘I’m never drinking again’… plus any 20/30-something women who’ve wondered if there’s more to life than drinking and being hungover!”
One of the issues she consciously addresses in her social media content is the myth that alcohol provides mild health benefits when taken in moderation. Much alcohol advertising tries to inspire feelings of excitement and nostalgia, imagining the consumer to be continuing a great tradition. To Millie, this sometimes results in cultural ignorance about the harmful effects of alcohol: “there’s things happening that we have no idea about, health risks that aren’t being communicated to us properly.”
Despite recent scientific research, such as the 2018 Lancet study that concluded “No level of alcohol consumption improves health”, the disparity between how alcohol is understood and how it is marketed persists. For Millie, this collective lack of knowledge creates a stigma around change: “If you talk about any other social justice subject like sustainability or capitalism people are really interested but as soon as you speak about alcohol-harm, you’re labelled ‘preachy’.” Whilst the annual trends of Dry January and Sober October help people to be more aware of alcohol harm, there is still a way to go before society is able to talk freely about the issue.
As Dry January has concluded, I asked Millie for her top tips to anyone looking to reduce their own alcohol intake or support a friend in doing the same. Millie recommends setting up alcohol-free groups “to meet like-minded people who want to do stuff that doesn’t always revolve around alcohol.” If you’re supporting someone in sobriety, simply being there can be enough. “Offer to be at the end of the phone if they need it, tell them how proud you are of them and never pressure them to drink!” She highlights that anyone worried about their drinking should contact their university’s support team for advice.
For those who enjoy having a drink in their hand, she recommends finding non-alcoholic alternatives to recreate the feeling, and supporting your friends to do this if you are not sober yourself: “buy them alcohol-free drinks, encourage doing activities together where there isn’t any alcohol involved.” With the non-alcoholic drinks market expanding year on year, she recommends the Club Soda Guide to discover which drinks you like.
As students, many of us are all-too-familiar with the sensations of dread and hammering nausea that follow from a night of booze. So tied to university culture as to be almost indistinguishable from it, drinking culture is second-nature to many in the UK. While lockdown offers us time to reflect, some will doubtless be looking forward to drinking socially again. Though remaining optimistic, Millie has a “worrying suspicion that people will spend the first few weeks out of the pandemic taking it to the extreme.” However, her sober activism demonstrates that we all have the option to be more conscious about our drinking and still enjoy ourselves – either by limiting our intake or giving up alcohol altogether.
The Sober Girl Society Handbook by Millie Gooch is published in hardback by Bantam Press, priced at £12.99.
You can connect with the Sober Girl Society on Instagram and on their website.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, Drinkaware provides information on support services available to you.
