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BREAKING THE BOOZE HABIT, EVEN BRIEFLY, HAS ITS BENEFITS

By April Fulton,
Allison Aubrey
Published June 23, 2019 at 5:00 AM MDT
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Listen • 6:08
/ Julia Robinson for NPR
/
Julia Robinson for NPR
Some who have given up booze altogether join "sober sometimes" friends to enjoy
nonalcoholic drinks at Sans Bar in Austin, Texas.

At 8 p.m. on a Saturday night, people are starting to pack into a popular bar
called Harvard & Stone in a hip Los Angeles neighborhood. The chatter gets
louder as the booze begins to flow.

In the far corner, about a dozen women in a group are clearly enjoying
themselves too, but they are not drinking alcohol. They're sipping handcrafted
mocktails, with names like Baby's First Bourbon and Honey Dew Collins, featuring
nonalcoholic distilled spirits.

They're part of a sober social club, made up mostly of women in their 30s who
want to have fun and make friends without alcohol.

The members of this club work out, have demanding jobs and simply don't want to
feel foggy or hungover anymore. Without alcohol, they say, they just feel
better.

"Oh my gosh. Well, one thing that was noticeable to pretty much everybody was my
overall health and, like, my skin, my eyes. ... I lost weight," says Stephanie
Forte, who works in sales in the beauty industry.

Another social club member, Kathy Kuzniar, says she used to obsess over whether
there was enough wine in the house. She says she feels calmer since she became
sober, and she has lost 30 pounds.

"I'm creative again," Kuzniar says. "And I know I wouldn't be doing those things
if I was still drinking."

Not too long ago, a group of women in a bar who were not drinking alcohol would
have seemed kind of strange. According to the National Institute on Alcohol
Abuse and Alcoholism, 86 percent of adults over 18 report having had an
alcoholic drink or drinks at some point in their lifetime, and 56 percent say
they've had alcohol in the past month. Still, abstaining from alcohol — on a
short-term basis or longer term — is becoming more common.

"Not everybody wants to get wasted when they go to the bar," says Forte.
Sometimes, being there is just about wanting to be social and fit in.



/ Julia Robinson for NPR
/
Julia Robinson for NPR
The proliferation of craft mocktails made with nonalcoholic distilled spirits is
making it easier and more fun for people who abstain from alcohol to feel like
they are still part of the party.

The "sober curious" or "sober sometimes" movement started as a challenge for
those who felt they'd partied a little too hard over New Year's weekend. First
there was "Dry January," when people could brag on social media about how they
were taking a break from booze. Now there's "Dry July" and even "Sober
September." And the movement has spread across the U.S., with people challenging
each other to see what life is like without alcohol and share in that
experience.

Instagram accounts like Sober Girl Society and Sober Nation have tens of
thousands of followers, as does Ruby Warrington, author of the book Sober
Curious: The Blissful Sleep, Greater Focus, Limitless Presence, and Deep
Connection Awaiting Us All on the Other Side of Alcohol,which was released last
December.

And while there is virtually no downside to taking a break from drinking alcohol
— or quitting altogether — science is just beginning to study the ways
abstinence might be good for you.

Short breaks improve health

So far, there are a handful of studies that point to some benefits of abstinence
for even moderate drinkers — in addition to the widely recognized benefits for
people who have alcohol use disorder.

A 2016 British study of about 850 men and women who volunteered to abstain from
alcohol during Dry January found that participants reported a range of benefits.
For instance, 82 percent said they felt a sense of achievement. "Better sleep"
was cited by 62 percent, and 49 percent said they lost some weight.

Another study published last yearby researchers in Britain compared the health
outcomes among a group of men and women who agreed to stop drinking for one
month, with the health of a group that continued to consume alcohol.

"They found that at the end of that month — just after one month — people, by
and large, lost some weight," says Aaron White, the senior scientific adviser to
the director at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. "They
had improvements in insulin sensitivity, their blood pressure numbers improved
and their livers looked a little healthier." The improvements were modest, White
says, but the broad range of benefits the researchers documented was noticeable.

To help understand how taking a break from alcohol can influence healthy
functioning of the liver, researchers in the Netherlands carried out a separate
study to document the biochemical effects of one month of alcohol abstinence.

The study was small. It included just 16 people who had been in the habit of
drinking about two drinks per day on average. Still, the findings were
provocative, scientists say, and merit following up.

After a monthlong break, researchers measured levels of a liver enzyme called
gamma-glutamyltransferase, or GGT. "There's an antioxidant made by the liver
called glutathione. You can get an indirect measure of how much oxidative stress
the liver is under by measuring an enzyme called GGT that helps replenish
glutathione stores," White explains.

After one month, the researchers documented a reduction in the participants'
GGT.

"The findings of these studies are actually very surprising," White says. Health
risks linked to heavy, long-term drinking are well known, but this is some of
the first evidence to help scientists understand how the body responds to even a
short break from moderate alcohol use.

The sobriety spectrum

For drinkers who have become alcohol dependent, taking a short break is likely
not an option. Many people who drink heavily have not had an easy road in
managing their relationship with alcohol.



/ Julia Robinson for NPR
/
Julia Robinson for NPR
Chris Marshall is a certified substance abuse counselor and the founder of Sans
Bar, a venue for "the nightlife experience" without the alcohol, in Austin,
Texas.

Chris Marshall of Austin, Texas, has been sober for the past 12 years. He
started drinking in high school, he says, and got his first DUI at 16. Then he
joined a fraternity in college and kept drinking.

"All my drinking was really centered around community and wanting that
connection so badly with other people," he says.

He finally got sober with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous. He became a
substance abuse counselor to help others but found that being in recovery was
often really lonely.

"Those early days of abstinence from alcohol were so tough, because I had no
friends," he says.



/ Julia Robinson for NPR
/
Julia Robinson for NPR
At Sans Bar, one popular mocktail is the Alright, Alright, Alright — a blend of
muddled blueberries, Meyer lemon, smoked honey, apple cider vinegar and mint.

So he created Sans Bar, a sober bar in Austin. It's open on Friday nights and
some Saturdays — a comfortable place where people can talk, make sober friends,
listen to music and, of course, drink some good nonalcoholic drinks. (Marshall
likes ginger beer, which he says offers a nice burn in the throat that people
sometimes miss when they're no longer drinking alcohol.)

Sans Bar has become so popular that Marshall took the concept on the road this
year. He organized pop-up bars in Washington, D.C., New York and Anchorage,
Alaska. And he has opened new sober bars in Kansas City, Mo., and western
Massachusetts.

"What I want to create across the country are these little incubators for social
connection," he says.

Over the past 12 years, Marshall has seen a lot of changes in the way people
view sobriety. Back when he was getting sober, you either drank — or you didn't,
he says. Now there's a whole spectrum of sobriety.

"Not everyone identifies as sober all the time," Marshall says. And that's fine
with him.

He welcomes to Sans Bar people who are in recovery and those just curious about
the sober life, as long as they are substance free when they arrive and while
they're there.

"You know, alcohol is the only drug in which you have to give a reason for why
you don't do it," he says.

On a recent Friday night, Rob Zaleski and Kim Daniel walk into Marshall's bar in
Austin. They're going without alcohol for 30 days, they explain, and are
documenting their experience in a podcast and on Instagram at #boozelessATX.

"We came to a realization that we were drinking way too often and way too much,"
says Zaleski.

They wanted to see what new skills and activities they could try out while not
consuming alcohol. So far, they've discovered archery lessons, played flag
football, checked out motorcycles at a biker rally and joined a free improv
class.

"We're finding that we can fill our days," Daniel says, "but sometimes the
nights are hard." Then they discovered Sans Bar.

Now, if you're worried that you are one of the 17 million U.S. adults who are
alcohol dependent, and alcohol is causing you stress or harm, seek medical
advice. As we've reported, there are a variety of treatments beyond Alcoholics
Anonymous, including counseling, medications and support groups to help people
who want to end that dependency. This NIAAA guide can help you find a program or
approach that's right for you.

But if you can and want to experiment with cutting out alcohol while others
around you are drinking, Marshall offers these tips for sticking to it: Be vocal
about your plans not to drink, bring a friend who supports you and demand a good
substitute beverage.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.



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April Fulton
April Fulton is a former editor with NPR's Science Desk and a contributor to The
Salt, NPR's Food Blog.
See stories by April Fulton
Allison Aubrey
Allison Aubrey is a correspondent for NPR News, where her stories can be heard
on Morning Edition and All Things Considered. She's also a contributor to the
PBS NewsHour and is one of the hosts of NPR's Life Kit.
See stories by Allison Aubrey
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