Have we fallen out of love with booze culture?
Have we fallen out of love with booze culture?
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Lots of Londoners used to be mostly drunk by this point in February. But not so much in 2025, it seems. Amid a record Dry January — with 15.5 million people set to complete a month of being alcohol-free — many of us are trying something that’s historically not been very British: drinking in moderation.
And it’s Gen Z who are leading the charge. While so many of us had misspent youths sneaking booze on park benches, Gen Z are far more sensible, avoiding drinking from the off. The chief executive of Rekom, the UK’s largest nightclub operator, has blamed the drop in Gen Z’s alcohol consumption, and their unwillingness to go out during the week, for the closure of 17 of their venues. Numerous UK universities now have “sober societies”, eschewing bar crawls for games nights and coffee shop crawls instead.
![[Kylie Minogue Showcases Wine At ProWein Trade Fair In Duesseldorf]](https://static.standard.co.uk/2023/03/20/10/newFile-5.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&width=960)
Laura Willoughby, who runs Club Soda, a non and low-alcohol bar in Covent Garden, says “more people are moderating” their drinking now. Willoughby thinks a big reason is the cost-of-living crisis: her own bar also saw lower footfall last month. She says young people have less money than other generations — but the shift is also cultural, as they are making the choice not to get wasted, with their role models leading the way.
While actors used to drink hard for years, and then sober up when their careers were going downhill, now they shape up in their prime. Spider-Man actor Tom Holland, 27, told Jay Shetty’s podcast that quitting booze was “the best thing I’ve ever done”. For a while, having a drink had been all Holland could think about, making him realise he had an “alcohol thing”. Interestingly, he found it easier to quit in America, because of British drinking culture with his rugby friends. Holland’s pursuit of sobriety has gone so well that he’s even founded his own alcohol-free beer brand, Bero.
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