By Tamar Adler - August 18, 2022
Has everyone stopped drinking? It certainly feels that way. Over the last year, dozens of my former cocktailers-in-arms have leaped onto the wagon for insufferably sensible aims like preserving their marriages or their health—or at least for an extended annual reset in Dry January or Sober October. Chefs like David McMillan and Sean Brock, formerly of Joe Beef and Husk, respectively, and once known for their debauchery, have repudiated booze. Models and actors like Bella Hadid and Kate Moss and Katy Perry and Naomi Campbell and Brad Pitt have all thrown in the bar towel. And the nondrinkers aren’t sitting at home moping. There are suddenly chic little alcohol-free bars to go to, like Getaway in Greenpoint, Brooklyn; Gem Bar in Pitman, New Jersey; Sans Bar in Austin, Texas; the Virgin Mary, in Dublin (of all places). And there are apparently enough nonalcoholic wines and beers and spirits to make quitting seem like a reasonable proposition. Data company Nielsen claims that the low- and no-alcohol beverage sector has grown by 506 percent since 2015.
I’ve decided to take my own spot on the sober bandwagon, for a few weeks, anyway. It’s not (just) peer pressure: I’m motivated by irrefutable facts. Drinking has been linked to liver disease, heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, stroke, dementia, anxiety, depression, and premature aging. Some 61 million Americans report binge drinking at least once in a month. Alcohol abuse is seven times more common than the abuse of painkillers. I ask addiction specialist Adam Leventhal, director of the Institute for Addiction Science at USC, where he places alcohol on a list of substances of concern, and he suppresses a laugh. “Number one!” Mon Dieu.
Read the full article: https://www.vogue.com/article/non-alcoholic-drinks-tasting