Nulled Wine

Nulled Wine

by Helen Greig, WISH Midlands Board Member

At this festive time of the year, if you are someone who enjoys a drink, or perhaps you are arranging a function of some description, I would ask you to think about the non-drinkers; people who really still want a social life and enjoy networking, but don’t drink and don’t want to be put in a situation that is unnecessarily difficult. 

Here are three top tips:

1 – Don’t assume people are drinking
Or place a value judgment on whether they are or not – if you’re offering drinks include non-alcoholic options and if someone says they’re not drinking, don’t make a joke out of it. It’s normal.

2 – Ensure there are drinks options
Offer yummy, interesting choices for non-drinkers.  Whilst mocktails are lovely they’re also usually expensive. Some alcohol-free beer and wine are less expensive and will be well received. 

3 – Be sympathetic to timings
Start early enough that it’s worth turning up before it’s time to go to bed. Bear in mind that the tolerance of drunk people by non-drinkers is typically about two hours.  So try not to arrange lengthy events, when you know you’ve got a mixture of drinkers and non-drinkers, unless it’s free flowing and people can leave when they like.

My story

I’ve not had an alcoholic drink since May this year. I’ve made a choice, for personal reasons, to not drink for the foreseeable future, so have been more than 6 months ‘off the pop’. 

Most people will respond to this with, ‘well done’, ‘good for you’, or possibly ‘why?’.  All of these are perfectly acceptable to me, though of course the ‘why?’ for some people would be considered intrusive.  What I also get, though, is ‘oh you can surely just have a couple?’, ‘???????’ and my ‘favourite’ – ‘I don’t trust people who don’t drink lol’.  When I say favourite, I mean the most offensive, insensitive and frankly rude. 

It may be a joke to people that some of us are choosing not to voluntarily imbibe a poison on a regular basis; however, would you say, ‘I don’t trust people who don’t smoke?’ ‘Who don’t take illegal drugs’? I don’t drink caffeine either; I suppose that means you wouldn’t leave your child in my care?

It's been acknowledged for some years now that increasing numbers of younger people are teetotal or far less inclined towards binge-drinking; there was an increase in the number of 16-24yo’s who describe themselves as ‘non-drinkers’ from 18% in 2005 to 29% in 2015 and recent research by DrinkAware has found this year that 26% of current 16-24yo’s - generation Z (born between about 1997 -2012) – are non-drinkers [https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/24/gen-z-for-zero-tolerance-why-british-youth-are-turning-off-booze].   In England, there are more than 600,000 dependent drinkers, and 27% of drinkers binge-drink [https://alcoholchange.org.uk/alcohol-facts/fact-sheets/alcohol-statistics?gclid=Cj0KCQjwnvOaBhDTARIsAJf8eVNFTTvsaNQisGEJ6nHk68nQvUMfldekNQLIkHh_FQJfqUpJ6ekYx68aAvJMEALw_wcB]. 

I’m sure you know how easy it is to ‘binge-drink’ – for women, that’s more than 6 units in one day – which is 3 pints of lower-strength lager, 6 single G&T’s or three 175ml glasses of wine.  Alcohol is linked to 60 different health issues, including depression, and that’s not even counting the accidents linked to drinking.  I’m not on a mission to convince you to stop or reduce drinking – you’re grown-ups, you do you.  I’m just giving you the context for why I’ve stopped drinking and why perhaps others are also doing so.

The reason I write this blog at this time is because it is the festive season.  In this country, Christmas is THE biggest shared festivity of the year, and as a result there are Christmas parties, events and meals, quickly followed by New Year when drinking becomes practically mandatory. 

For some people, not drinking is easy – they’ve never done it at all, don’t really enjoy it, got bad experiences which mean they have negative associations with alcohol. 

For others, though, eliminating alcohol is a choice akin to giving up smoking or chocolate – it’s for health reasons but my goodness it’s hard.  It’s not hard saying no to a drink; it's hard saying no to a drink hundreds and hundreds of times at the many social events that take place that have involve alcohol. Because there is an assumption that we drink in this country.

On 1^st July 2007 I gave up smoking.  Does that date sound familiar to anyone over the age of 30?  It’s the date the indoor smoking ban commenced in England.  I was a smoker and I welcomed it; I haven’t smoked a single cigarette since that date. 

I’m not suggesting that I am so weak-willed that I need government to create a ‘safe’ environment for me to operate in – I gave up smoking many times before that date, sometimes more successfully than others.  But without fail, the thing that got me smoking again, was a night in the pub when everyone else was doing it.  And I know for certain I am only one person in thousands, if not millions, who identify with that. 

To remove that huge danger zone for us was critical.  In the year following the ban, there were 1200 fewer hospital admissions for heart attacks, hospital admissions for children with asthma reduced by 18% p/a as opposed to previously increasing by 5% p/a [https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/smoking-ban], and studies across countries who have introduced an indoor smoking ban find that lung function improves in the general population [https://thorax.bmj.com/content/early/2022/03/10/thoraxjnl-2021-218436].

These facts may not surprise anyone; they do give some context, though, for why as a country we’ve never looked back.

There is no such support for those of us looking to give up drinking.  In fact, it sometimes feels impossible to get away from the temptation – half of my socialising took place in the pub beforehand.  Now I don’t go to the pub, I have a vastly reduced social life.  Go out for a meal, I hear you say – sure!  And not have a glass of wine.  That is better, definitely, because at least I can eat, but still – if we’re looking for ‘temptation-free’ environments, that’s a 5/10 still because it’s a big part of a meal for a lot of people.  So go to a café, go for coffee – yes, absolutely.  I’ve suggested that to many of my friends, and weirdly there’s a much smaller take-up than when I used to suggest going to the pub on a Friday night (not least because most café’s close by the evening when we’ve finished work). 

You can control your own environment but you can’t control what appeals to your friends…. 

And then there’s work – networking events, conferences, celebrations, awards ceremonies.  When did it become mandatory to drink at these things?  When it’s an evening event, I have found my biggest issue frankly is staying awake – I go to bed at 9pm every night because I am tired. 

Previously, if I was at an event or going out the alcohol served as a stimulant and gave me additional energy (as many, many of my ex-colleagues will attest to).  Now, I want to go to bed at 9pm. 

If I’m out with friends, we go out at 8pm – so far too late for me, unless they want to take me out, read me a bedtime story and let me fall asleep on a bundle of coats in the corner as if I was their child.

Work do’s are worse – if I’m trying to entertain people until 11pm, I’ve lost all control over my yawning by 9.30pm, which I’m told is hurtful to the person telling me a fascinating story about how they met the Queen, and am more likely to fall asleep on the toilet than pass out in it. 

At all of these events, there is always a common denominator – the non-alcoholic options are dull.  Having a drink is automatically – or should be – a treat.  Alcoholic drinks tend to be calorific, improve your mood (if they don’t, that’s a whole different conversation), and often taste yummy.  So, the only reason I can think that events organisers like to offer me sparkling water as an alternative to that, is because they hate me and want my quest to better my health to fail.  I like sparkling water, sure, but it’s not a treat, and it’s not going to improve my mood.

So I refer you to my checklist at the top as a plea to help people who cannot, or choose not to, drink feel included and welcome at events this Christmas.  I’m aware the list is based on what I’ve discovered for myself so won’t apply to everyone who doesn’t drink but I hope will give a broad starting point.  And there will always be a place for sparkling water, of course.

Merry Christmas and a sober New Year!

If you, or someone you know, is struggling with addiction or mental health issues, please consider visiting this website where you will find advice, support and information about a helpline. https://www.rehab4addiction.co.uk/