The number of offers should be maintained: “Young people are drinking less and less.” Recently, there has been an increase in sales of non-alcoholic beverages around the world. This trend has intensified especially during the quarantine due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Among millennials and zoomers (generations born in the last two decades of the last century and after the year 2000, respectively), it has become popular to be “interested in sobriety”. Will this become a mass trend?
Tina Rodriguez has not drunk a drop of alcohol since January of this year. A new partner – a personal fitness trainer – introduced her to a healthy lifestyle. “I cleaned up my diet and decided to continue in the same spirit,” she says. “Not that I signed up for eternal sobriety, but when the world began to shut down in mid-March, it didn’t seem to make sense to start drinking now.” According to Tina, staying home with her two-year-old son contributed to her sobriety: “We stopped going out and socializing, and drinking at home doesn’t suit me.”
Alcohol sales have increased in many countries. In general, global alcohol consumption has increased during the quarantine, and the media have reported this with alarming headlines. However, there is also an opposite trend – towards sobriety or responsible drinking, which many, like Tina, are following. A 26-year-old woman decided to stay sober even when pubs and restaurants reopened in her area in early July. “I just don’t have the need,” she says. But if she were to drink, she would not be alone. Medical authorities in India and Brazil, America and Europe are sounding the alarm: statistics show a sharp increase in sales of alcoholic beverages. In the US, online alcohol sales increased fivefold following the introduction of quarantine measures at the end of April. In the UK, where Tina lives, nearly 30% of people surveyed said they drank more than usual during the shutdown. During the quarantine period, the South African authorities introduced a “dry law”.
Many say they started drinking more than usual during quarantine. However, the same survey conducted in the United Kingdom by the non-profit organization Alcohol Change showed the opposite trend. 37% of participants reported taking self-control measures: either drinking less frequently or abstaining altogether. “For some people, the pandemic removed factors that had previously prevented them from taking care of themselves,” says Jim Timmons, a former alcoholic and now a specialist narcologist from northern England. “They were trying before, but for a certain type of person, the conditions of the lockdown were just perfect.” At the forefront of the “anti-alcohol revolution” are young people. The term “interested in sobriety” was coined in 2018 by American writer Ruby Warrington, author of a book about how our relationship with alcohol changes. Millennials, usually referred to as people born between 1981 and 1996, are considered less “ambitious” than previous generations. And this is even more true for the next generation, known as “Generation Z” or “Zoomers.
Scientists at the University of California studied the behavior of eight million American teens through surveys from 1976 to 2016, and found that “zoomers” (Generation Z) were much less likely to try alcohol before legal age than their predecessors. “Twenty years ago, someone who lived a healthy lifestyle looked weird. Now it’s cool. Society has become more aware and it is harder to justify drinking,” says alcohol industry expert Johnny Forsyth of research firm Mintel. “Generation Z may be the healthiest in history. They are going to change the alcohol industry,” he added. After the release of Ruby Warrington’s book, popular sobriety preachers like Kelly FitzGerald, who goes by the username “Sober Senorita” on Instagram, began popping up all over the Internet. “The current pandemic, which has forced people to stay home, has disrupted traditional models of social interaction associated with drinking. I suppose many felt at a crossroads and questioned whether their level of drinking was normal,” she says.
“Sober Señorita” Kelly Fitzgerald Li Mengo, who chose the nickname “Sober Guy,” realizes that he has always been annoyed by the common opinion: “Sober people are boring people.” “I respond by saying that a sober person can drive home in their own car after going out in the evening instead of waiting in line for a cab with drunk people who almost start a fight when another car arrives”. Millie Gooch, a 27-year-old journalist who runs the Society of Sober Girls group on Instagram, also sees a positive effect of the lockdown. “The pandemic has created certain challenges in the fight for sobriety, such as a lack of peer support and a state of anxiety that pushes people to drink more,” she says. “But many in our group claim that it has become easier not to drink during the pandemic – fewer temptations, fewer holidays, less pressure from others.” We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what happens next. The number of offers should remain: episodes. End of story. Podcast Advertising.
The new term “nolo” refers to non-alcoholic and low-alcohol beverages, sales of which have increased during the pandemic. Paul Matthews, a British biologist and bar owner, invented a non-alcoholic aperitif that he sold to bars and restaurants. When the pandemic broke out and facilities closed, he began offering his exclusive product directly to customers. Soon he was inundated with orders, and sales increased more than 40-fold. “We used to sell a few hundred bottles a month, and now we sell thousands. We didn’t expect that,” he says. The report, published in August by analyst firm Aeresearch/Market Study, predicts that the non-alcoholic beer market in Europe alone will grow to $6 billion by 2024. “People’s growing concern about their health is changing their beverage preferences,” the report says. Of course, six billion is a drop in the bucket compared to the global alcohol market, which is estimated at one trillion dollars a year. But even industry giants are showing a growing interest in non-alcoholic products. The Heineken 0.0 alcohol-free beer brand will sponsor the UEFA Europa League football competition for the first time in its history. Beer companies have traditionally sponsored major global sporting competitions. The study, conducted on behalf of rum maker Bacardi, found a 42% increase in Google searches for the word “mocktail” – which refers to non-alcoholic cocktails – in 2019. The “One Year Without Beer” website, which promotes a healthy lifestyle and offers advice on how to overcome alcohol addiction, has reported a 30% increase in the number of regular users since March. The community currently consists of 70,000 people from 90 countries.
Tina Rodriguez is afraid of the temptations that will arise if she is invited to a party again, even though most of her friends either quit drinking or cut back during the lockdown. “I hope we have all already adapted to a healthy lifestyle,” she says. Is that so? Will useful habits remain with us when normal life returns? Experts say it takes more than just willpower. Mandy Manners, co-author of the recently published book “Love Yourself Sober: A Guide to Alcohol-Free Living for Busy Moms,” blames the entertainment industry. “It’s very important that non-drinkers are served in bars and restaurants,” she says. “There has to be a way for everyone to sit at the same table.” There is some evidence that other generations are leaning, if not toward total sobriety, then toward moderate drinking. The majority of regular visitors to the One Year Without Beer website are between the ages of 35 and 55, and the majority of new community members are over 40. One of them is Claire But, a 56-year-old charity worker from New Zealand. She cut back significantly on her alcohol intake in January of this year, after the first reports of the coronavirus outbreak. “I set a goal to prepare and improve my body,” she says. New Zealand was one of the first in the world to go into lockdown. But in the last six months, Claire has only drunk three times. “Perhaps because we are the generation of social networking, we are heard more,” notes Milli Guch. “But even among the older generations, there are wonderful people who bring the light of sobriety to their peers.” According to the latest data from the WHO, humanity is roughly evenly divided between drinkers and non-drinkers. 43% of the world’s population over the age of 15 consume alcohol, while 44% lead a sober lifestyle. Over the past two decades, the number of drinkers has decreased by 5%. From 2000 to 2016, per capita consumption of alcoholic beverages in the world increased from 5.7 to 6.4 liters of pure alcohol per year. Alcoholism is believed to cause about three million premature deaths each year, about three times the number of coronavirus victims.
When the State Duma returns from vacation, it will consider a bill on compulsory treatment for alcoholism. Meanwhile, regional authorities continue to provide the population with free vodka along with cheap sausage.