Reducing how much alcohol you drink does all of that and saves you money.” “After all, if you could buy a pill that helped you sleep better, lose weight, increase energy and improve productivity, then you would pay a lot for it. “There’s a greater sense of awareness about how alcohol impacts your health so people are being a bit more picky about where, when and how they drink, with many choosing to go alcohol-free,” says Laura Willoughby, founder of Club Soda, a network that helps champion the mindful drinking movement. The current wellness boom seems to have played a pivotal role for its rise across the age groups. From cutting back periodically to complete alcohol abstinence, there are varying degrees, but the common threads are an interest to embrace sobriety in one form or another and a thirst to question not just how much we drink, but why. With the proportion of teetotallers aged 16 to 24 having risen from 18.7 to 20.9 per cent since 2006 according to The Office of National Statistics, the trend’s found particular popularity among millennials. However, a new mindful drinking movement that’s picking up pace looks set to turn age-old drinking habits on their head. Switching onto autopilot when it comes to alcohol is common and can throw mind, body and budget out of balance. Alcohol is very much part and parcel of a night out and, while there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, the slippery slope where a glass or two transitions into a bottle or more can easily become a routine occurrence. Whether it’s to see in the weekend or to unwind after work, a couple of drinks at the end of a hard day is the norm for many of us.