So here she is, the end of January. I told you she'd come around soon! Are we not all pleased to see her? I'm being silly. Although honestly, I feel so much relief knowing that January is pretty much over and I can now get on with my life and start being happy again. It's been a stress this month – academically, financially, emotionally; pretty much in every aspect. But anyway, enough about that, it's time to show you all what I have been working on.
The Trendy Teetotal Project (@trendyteetotal)
This project is something that I have been working on for 3, nearly 4 months. I've been to parts of England I've never been to before, met some lovely people along the way and learned an awful lot about an alternative lifestyle that I never knew before. The aim of the project was to come up with a feature idea to fit into a magazine of your choice (I specialised in magazines, some made documentaries, some did an online project etc.) The publication that I chose for my article was Marie Claire, because the idea that I had and the people I wanted to interview fit their style and readership.
But this wouldn't be a multimedia project without video, audio and online content now, would it? This extended the idea to cover all bases and I had to put together an online portfolio showing my multimedia skills and different aspects to the subject that I was covering. So I'd written a 1500 word feature for the magazine and put it into a layout, and then I had to (PAINFULLY) cut 500 words from the piece to put online. This was excruciating and probably the hardest bit!
The idea is that I wanted to explore the teetotal lifestyle. With more dry bars (non-alcoholic bars) opening around the UK; around 15,000 people signing up to THE sober support group, the soberistas, alone last year; nearly 200 women across London networking to meet up without booze and 53,000 people signing up to Cancer Research's Dryathlon this year – the topic seemed pretty relevant to me.
Now, I am not teetotal. I have been brought up with alcohol in the home from quite a young age and not in a poor parenting kind of way. We were encouraged to have diluted wine with our dinner when we were younger and I think this has lead to me developing a healthy approach to drinking at this stage in my life. And that's not to say I haven't been drunk, or binged, because I have. Within a week of being 18 I got so pissed I fell out of a backdoor and injured myself. I ended up in A&E and having a black foot for 6 weeks, so that was that for me!
Right now, at the age of 20 I would consider myself a low to moderate drinker. I hardly get drunk because I just CANNOT deal with the hangover the next day. It has got worse as I've got older and it's REALLY not pleasant. And the only times I do ever get really drunk is because I've been to somewhere that I've not felt comfortable. This whole idea that you have to be drunk to enjoy a venue is quite damaging, I think, and something that needs to be reevaluated.
So looking at a teetotal lifestyle, I wanted to see the alternatives to meeting up in a pub or club and look at how a night out can be enjoyed without booze. To do this I met up with a lady called Heba Chaudhry. She set up a group on MeetUp called the London Ladies Teetotallers, where she organises events across London for other women who are teetotal and want to have a good night out. We originally set up an event and 15 people wished to join us. We wanted to go to the pop-up dry bar in London, Redemption, and I could see how a meetup would unfold. Unfortunately the venue double-booked and we had to cancel the event. I tell you it's not easy relocating 17 teetotal people in London at such short notice! So I just met up with Heba. We thought we'd try our luck at the bar and managed to sneak in for a few minutes and get a look at the place, but were turned away for it had reached maximum capacity. I'm thinking the popularity of this venue - and the lack of similar alternatives - speaks volumes.
We ended up in a dutch pancake and milkshake parlour in Holborn, which was extremely busy on a Saturday night. It was there the interview finally took place.
I also interviewed Lucy Rocca. She is the founder of increasingly popular sober support website, The Soberistas. This is THE place for women (and men!) to sign up when they want to cut down the drink. The thing is, although some women do drink heavily and it does become a problem, it is hard to consider themselves an alcoholic. They still manage to hold down a job and feed their kids, but their quality of life is slowly diminishing. This is the type of person that joins The Soberistas. Busy and professional with a life to lead, the hindrance of meetings and counselling is just not that appealing. Signing up to a site where you can document your journey and support each other with good quality tools and resources in your OWN time is something that has become a lifeline to thousands.
My final interviewee for the article was an expert in the alcohol addiction field that specialises in alcohol and gender. My word, she was so amazing I felt like I was talking to a rockstar. Professor Moira Plant is from the University of West England (but she's based in Edinburgh). She started as a ward sister in an alcohol unit and then realised that drinking and pregnancy was a massive issue. She then did a PHD in alcohol and pregnancy and looked into the state of affairs in the UK. She then went on to become a researcher and started to develop, what was initially a European study, into gender and alcohol but then became worldwide with over 40 countries participating. This project is called GENACIS (Gender, Alcohol and Culture: International Study). She could tell me a lot about the issues that women face when drinking problematically; the attitudes towards a teetotal lifestyle; alcohol and pregnancy and how women's drinking patterns have been and are changing.
For the video I went aaaallll the way to Liverpool and back to Bournemouth IN A DAY. Who knew that was even possible?! Lugging around a camera and a huge tripod from train to train was not something that I wish to do again without an assistant! However, Liverpool was LOVELY and I definitely want to go again. I went to the UK's first dry bar - The Brink. It was set up as a social enterprise in conjunction with the charity Action on Addiction. The general manager, Carl Bell, was so passionate about the place and it was an absolute pleasure to interview him. The Brink wishes to encourage people, not just those in recovery, to go there and utilise it as an alternative place to meet up and socialise. It wants to get rid of that gap between those in recovery and those who are not; bring people together rather than alienate each other. It was so good in there and the food and drinks looked amazing so if you're ever in Liverpool please go and visit. It's on Parr Street, so now you know!
The final interview that took place was with Dr Annemarie McAllister from the University of Central Lancashire. She is an expert in the temperance movement and has written books and curated events to spread the word about one of the most overlooked, yet most important, social amelioration movements in our history. The temperance movement was all about abstaining from "The Demon Drink" in a time where drunkenness was rife, splitting apart families and communities, where children's lives were at risk and domestic abuse was at an all time high. It was about the working class liberating themselves from the ties of alcohol and by 1900, 6 million people were abstaining because of the movement. Dr McAllister talks about the women of the movement, which shares close links with women's suffrage and fighting for social care.
Anyway, I realise this is all a bit waffly. But I wanted to provide a bit of context to what I had done. I'm not trying to alienate people who do drink, quite the opposite actually. I think there is a massive change on the teetotal scene and those who drink might find that by looking at a teetotal lifestyle in a new light could make drinking less of a pressure, much more enjoyable and less risky!
So I hope you enjoy reading it, I thoroughly enjoyed doing it!
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