How To Party Sober

Changing attitudes to alcohol means it’s suddenly cool to be teetotal. Laura Collins explores the shift away from the bottle.

- Laura Collins

When was the last time you woke up deathly hungover and vowed to never drink again, only to break your iron-clad sobriety oath the following night (or that day, even)? Perhaps you went to Friday drinks with the intention of having one and still making the next morning’s yoga class, but somehow found yourself roped into a booze-fuelled all-nighter (and swapping that namaste for a Netflix-and-shamespiral). Whether it’s social pressure or a propensity to let loose, when it comes to Australians and alcohol, self-control can sometimes feel in short supply.

But things may be changing, with the average volume of alcohol consumed per capita in Australia hitting a 55-year low, dropping to 9.37 litres in 2016-17. At the same time, the number of people under 25 who are choosing to abstain from alcohol is increasing. It’s proof that the importance Australians place on wellness and maintaining a healthy lifestyle has become so ] profound that it’s actually changing what it means to be quintessentially “Aussie”. We’re becoming more likely to scull celery juice than a Vodka Cruiser, and less likely to front up to a stranger’s house party, brown bag in hand, for a night of binge drinking. “We talk about drinking culture as being a national thing, but in reality, drinking culture is the 150 people around you who you care about or who care about you. In navigating our relationships and feeling connected to people, we share similar sets of behaviour, and that often includes drinking,” says Chris Raine, the founder of Hello Sunday Morning, an online movement for people who aim to drink less, or quit altogether.