Headspace and hot yoga: crafting the ‘good’ (non)drinking self in sobriety

Emily Nicholls

Chapter 42 in Research Handbook on the Sociology of Consumption, 2026, pp 488-498 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Abstinence from alcohol has been conceptualised as a stigmatised practice, a way of resisting dominant consumer cultures and/or a form of ‘non-consumption’. Assumptions that those who stop drinking must be ‘in recovery’ from alcoholism also contribute to the stigmatisation of non-drinking (which is reinforced through the existence of dominant ‘cultures of intoxication’ in many global contexts). However, set against a backdrop of recent changes to dominant drinking cultures in high-income countries (including declining drinking rates and the emergence of new no- and low-alcohol drinks and a ‘positive sobriety movement’), this chapter draws on a case study of qualitative research with recently sober women in the United Kingdom, inviting us to reconceptualise sobriety. The chapter considers how positive sobriety movements differ from – but also echo – traditional ‘recovery’ models, and the extent to which they present opportunities for resistance whilst facilitating new forms of consumption and the construction of the ‘good’ neoliberal consumer-citizen.

Keywords: Sobriety; Non-consumption; Alcohol; Neoliberalism; Qualitative research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035310500
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