More and more people these days are actively choosing to live a more balanced, healthy lifestyle, which might mean they are cutting down on alcohol, trying non-alcoholic alternatives or even removing it from their lives completely. Sober curiosity is a term we have often used but what exactly does it refer to? What does it mean to be sober curious and how can you try a sober curious lifestyle yourself?
What does Sober Curiosity mean?
To answer this, it’s important to know the difference between sobriety and sober curiosity. Unlike sobriety, which is often a result of alcoholism or alcohol use disorder, sober curiosity is about having the option to choose, question or change your drinking habits for health-focused reasons. Whether these reasons are based on your physical or mental health doesn’t matter but sober curiosity is about wanting to understand the reasons fuelling a desire to drink or get drunk and the way alcohol has a negative impact on one’s life.
Over recent years, more people are deciding to remove alcohol from their lives opting instead to live a healthier, more productive lifestyle. Many therefore choose to be sober curious in order to have a more balanced way of living and improve their health, energy and general performance.
What are the benefits of sober curiosity?
According to a 2018 study, 1 month of abstaining from alcohol may help lower blood pressure and risk for alcohol-related diseases. Do we need to say more? Besides that, cutting down on alcohol or completely going alcohol free can result in weight loss. If you’re a regular drinker, you are consuming a lot more calories and sugars than non-drinkers, a common issue resulting in obesity.
Overall, these are the most important benefits of switching to non-alcoholic beverages:
- No hangovers
- Less sugar
- Less Calories
- Overall better health
- Lower blood pressure
- No/lower risk for alcohol related diseases
Living a sober curious lifestyle – How to get started
If you’re interested in taking your first steps to a balanced, healthy lifestyle, then cutting down on alcohol might be one of the first steps to consider.
But sometimes it might be a little more difficult to get started than it sounds. On many social occasions, drinking a glass of wine or having a beer is considered to be a “must”. An outdated thought, if you ask us. Who says you can’t enjoy dinner without an alcoholic glass of wine? Instead, there are increasingly more alcohol free wines, or non-alcoholic alternatives to wine and sparkling wines on the market.
What are the best non-alcoholic wine and alcohol free drinks alternatives?
So what do you drink then? On a daily basis, it’s probably not that difficult to stick to non-alcoholic drinks, but it might be more difficult to avoid if you’re out to dinner, looking to pair with food, or at a wedding, requiring a celebration drink in hand. Water or soft drinks aren’t the best options as they’re pretty unsophisticated, uninteresting or not very healthy. Luckily these days however, more and more non-alcoholic alternatives are streaming onto the market.
If you’re looking for a versatile, low calorie drink that you can enjoy on a sunny day in the park, a barbecue or simply to have a moment for yourself, we recommend trying REAL Dry Dragon Sparkling Tea. This premium non-alcoholic sparkling wine is light and citrusy with notes of sweet lemons and grapefruit, which makes it dry and fresh, perfect for a late summer afternoon! Dry Dragon is delicious drunk on its own at any time of the day but also works really well with foods you’d often pair a crisp white wine with such as shellfish, seasonal greens, salad goats cheese.
Would you prefer to drink something a bit more sophisticated? There are many occasions, whether it’s a wedding, at Christmas or a graduation, where non-drinkers are looking for a cultured tipple to mark the moment. REAL Royal Flush Sparkling Tea is a non-alcoholic alternative to champagne and prosecco. Served chilled in a Champagne flute, Royal Flush is delicate, fresh and floral, with notes of white peach and rhubarb. This sophisticated Sparkling Tea is one of the best non-alcoholic drinks to serve to guests choosing not to drink that delivers all the mouthfeel and character notes of an off-dry sparkling wine but without the hangover.