WITH beer gardens opening in less than three weeks, there is certainly anticipation among acolytes of the hop for the first taste of a pint in several months.
And with such refreshment tantalisingly within reach once again, the idea of beginning a sobriety challenge at this moment in time is, for many, out of the question.
But according to Ruari Fairbairns, the Scottish entrepreneur who founded One Year No Beer – a paid-for service that offers alcohol reduction challenges, advice and inspiration – now is actually the perfect time to positively transform your relationship with alcohol.
“Anyone can go and do Dry January,” Mr Fairbairns stresses. “You are doing it when everyone else is, it is totally socially acceptable to do Dry January, and you can avoid your social circle because there isn’t much going on that month anyway. You then just compound how depressing life is in January.
“But what does that do? All that does is reiterate to your brain that alcohol is pertinent to having fun, having a good time. So, the only way you really change your relationship with alcohol is going sober at other times of the year, when you have to go through social events, go places, and show yourself you didn’t need alcohol to have fun. We want people to go to the pub, to their work night out – giving them the tools they need to get through these events- then realise how good they feel by not drinking.
“It’s not just the health benefits of not drinking, it is the psychological benefits, especially knowing you have challenged yourself by doing it during a difficult time. After the challenge you can go back to drinking exactly the way that you were before, but we know that people won’t, because 87% of our members choose to carry on alcohol-free after the 90-day challenge. That is huge.”
Mr Fairbairns, a former oil broker from the Isle of Mull, founded OYNB alongside his business partner, Andy Ramage, after they both cut down on alcohol and realised that they felt “fitter, happier and more productive.”
They initially gave the OYNB services away for free, driven by a passion to educate people across the world of the advantages of living sober.
“It wasn’t a charity, just myself and Andy funding it on our own. We thought that we could go reach millions of people, which we did, but people were saying to me: ‘Ruari, you don’t have a business here, but a very expensive hobby’.
“I had invested over £100,000 in the first year and had ran up some big bills in trying to get the idea to go viral. We then tested charging for our products and people paid. They had better outcomes, they engaged in the content more, in the community: because they had skin in the game.
“So we sat down and realised we could make it into a business, but we wanted to make sure it was still costing people considerably less than what they would be spending on alcohol. Now you cannot be regularly drinking and be unable to afford One Year No Beer.”
The OYNB business model is currently being adapted to a subscription-based service, where people sign up for whichever alcohol-reduction challenge appeals to them, before receiving alcohol education, inspirational videos and access to an online community of other people across the world going through the same process.
“The community aspect of OYNB is really powerful, because the reason that most of us drink in the first place is because of community. Certainly in Scotland, you are almost expected to. It is a social conditioning, there’s peer pressure there, so we are trying to build a community which will transform that.
“Our society expects us to drink alcohol, and if you don’t drink people think that you must have a problem. But what if you enjoy feeling good, and you don’t want to go back to being unfit, sleeping badly, being frustrated, snappy, anxious? After three months your skin will be brighter, you will feel better about yourself, sleep better, all of those things. For most people, their epiphany comes somewhere between 40 and 60 days in.
“It is true that lockdown has had a hugely detrimental effect on many people’s relationship with alcohol. But, more than ever, people are choosing not to drink, the range of alcohol-free drinks out there is really increasing, it is becoming a lot more socially acceptable not to drink alcohol. In a couple of decades we could be in a position where people’s relationship with alcohol is entirely different.”
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