"We're a 'half sober' couple - I drink but my husband doesn't"
Reaching into the fridge for another bottle of Prosecco to open for our guests, I grab a can of zero-alcohol beer for my husband, Chris. It’s six years since Chris announced he was stopping drinking for good, and the numbers of people considering doing the same are growing: according to Alcohol Change UK, one in six of us are planning to go alcohol-free in January, a rise from one in 10 in 2019.
Chris and I have found a balance – I enjoy a glass of wine or fizz and he happily stays sober. But our different drinking habits weren’t always so harmonious, and Christmas and New Year still tend to pull our opposing attitudes into sharp focus.
Usually, December and alcohol go hand in hand – the British are a nation of drinkers, and the festive season gives us an excuse to pop many more corks than usual. A study by Drinkaware found that 60% of us overindulge during the festive season and, last year, Waitrose reported sales of sparkling wine and Champagne were up by 98% compared with previous months.
Chris announced his decision to stop drinking just before a friend’s wedding. I was about to book a taxi to take us there when he casually said he’d drive because he’d decided not to drink. I was hugely taken aback, immediately asking how he could drive after toasting the happy couple. He replied that, no, he wouldn’t be drinking a glass of Champagne as a toast – or anything alcoholic, at all.
Chris had never been a big drinker, but he explained that he didn’t enjoy the lack of control drinking can cause: he’d been on too many nights out where, instead of a couple of sociable pints, huge rounds meant chugging back drinks fast, then dealing with the after-effects the following day.
Over the next few days, I found myself feeling annoyed that he’d made a snap decision that impacted both of our social lives and would change how we jointly relaxed. At the time, our children, Will, now 11, and James, eight, were much younger and our weekend usually started with a glass of wine in front of the TV on a Friday evening after the kids were in bed. And as the days grew into weeks, I found myself feeling self-conscious knocking back alcohol while Chris remained sober, opting for a zero-alcohol IPA.
Though there’s very little research around half-sober couples, one study of 2,700 partnerships by the University of Michigan seemed to suggest that those who drink together, stay together; and experts say that the dynamics are more complicated in relationships where one person drinks and the other doesn’t.
"We create our own bubble of culture as a couple, so when somebody decides not to drink, it can feel very discombobulating," says Ammanda Major, director of clinical services at Relate. But it’s important to remember, says Lee Fernandes, lead therapist at UK Addiction, that whatever the reason a partner stops drinking – whether it’s becoming sober by choice or as a necessity – support is crucial. "A partner who wants to cut down their alcohol intake should be encouraged to do so and not questioned or challenged or, worse still, judged," Lee says. "It might be that they’ve identified that their drinking habits were becoming too regular and so, before it gets out of hand, they’re curbing it."
Although I’ve made my peace with solo drinking, at Christmas, it’s different. It’s not simply the act of drinking together that I miss: there’s no celebratory clinking of Champagne flutes as we prepare the Christmas dinner together, and no shared fun in selecting wines to enjoy with festive food.
New Year’s Eve is another date synonymous with popping corks and glasses of ice-cold Champagne. I’d love for us to toast the New Year together, but instead, Chris will open a can of zero-alcohol beer and I’ll sip on a glass of bubbles alone.
As we go into 2025, our fridge will be stocked with white wine and perhaps a bit of bubbly, but with plenty of space for tonic water and alcohol-free lager, too. It’s not the image of party season that, as a nation, we’re accustomed to, but it is perhaps a picture of how more and more of us are celebrating now.
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