There are more challenges involved in stopping drinking than simply no longer consuming the substance itself, says bar operator Jason Rothwell. For men in particular, it can often mean losing a sense of identity and belonging.
For the best part of nine years, I’ve stood behind the bar of my own venue watching people come together. I’ve seen friendships built, relationships formed, problems shared, and – at times – quiet struggles hidden in plain sight. On the surface, it looks like people are just having a drink. But if you stand there long enough, you begin to realise something deeper is happening. The pub isn’t just a place – it’s a structure, a rhythm. For many, particularly men, it’s part of who they are.
And that’s where my research begins. My PhD, The stigma of sobriety: auto-ethnographic reflections on alcohol, masculinity, and the hospitality-health divide in modern British culture, is rooted in a simple but underexplored question – what happens when alcohol is removed from environments where identity, belonging, and connection have long been built around it?
Cultural DNA
For many northern men, alcohol isn’t just something you do – it’s something you’re surrounded by from the very beginning. Birthdays, weddings, funerals, catching up with friends – it all revolves around the pub. Over time, this becomes normal, part of the cultural DNA. So when alcohol is removed – whether by choice, necessity, or medical advice – it’s not just the drink that disappears. It can feel like everything connected to it disappears too.
I see this not just as a researcher, but as someone embedded in the environment I’m studying. I run a venue. I’ve lived in these spaces. And increasingly, I’ve observed them from the outside as well – spending sustained periods sober, standing in the same room but experiencing it very differently. As a researcher, I believe it’s important to understand a subject from all angles, and those periods of sobriety have provided a valuable grounding – allowing me to experience first-hand the social dynamics, tensions, and subtle disconnections that can emerge when you step outside the norm.
There’s a moment in most evenings where the atmosphere shifts. Early on, everything feels balanced. Conversation flows, people are aligned. But as the drinks build, something changes – the pace, the humour, the energy. If you’re sober, you feel it at once. You’re not excluded, just out of step with the rhythm of the room.
That feeling – of being present, but not quite aligned – is one of the biggest challenges facing people who are trying to reduce or stop drinking. Alongside this, there’s often a dual pressure at play. On the one hand, there can be subtle – or at times more direct – social pressure to join in. What might be dismissed as light-hearted encouragement can become a form of ‘sober shaming’, where not drinking is treated as something that needs to be explained or corrected.
But beyond that external pressure, there’s a deeper internal challenge. The feeling of missing out is not just about others – it’s tied to something more ingrained. For many men, drinking is embedded within the cultural DNA of social life, built up over years of shared experiences and expectations.
Expectation
So in many cases, it’s not just about saying no to a drink. It’s about navigating both external expectations and the internal sense of stepping outside something that’s long felt like a shared norm. What this highlights is a gap in how we approach alcohol reduction. Policy often focuses on consumption, availability and price, but far less attention is given to the lived social experience of change – particularly in environments where alcohol has shaped identity and belonging.
If that dimension isn’t better understood, there’s a risk that well-intended interventions overlook one of the most significant barriers to change – not stopping drinking itself, but what it means to remain in the space without it. This is where the concept of the pub as a ‘third place’ becomes critical. These are spaces beyond home and work where people connect, form identity, and build relationships. For many men, particularly in the North, the pub has been the primary third place.
It’s where advice is given without formality. Where problems are aired without pressure. Where you don’t have to explain yourself – you just belong. So when we talk about reducing alcohol consumption, we also need to ask: what replaces that? Because what I’m increasingly seeing is that when the pub declines, or when individuals step away from alcohol, the social structure doesn’t always evolve alongside it. Instead, drinking often shifts into the home – out of sight, behind closed doors, without the same level of interaction or informal regulation.
And this is where the conversation becomes more serious. Behind those closed doors, drinking can become more isolated, less visible, and less moderated. The informal support systems that exist in pubs – conversation, familiarity, simple human presence – are removed. What can follow is a quiet escalation of mental health challenges – isolation, low mood, anxiety, and a lack of connection that is not always recognised. So if we’re not careful, in trying to reduce harm in one setting, we risk displacing it into another – one that’s far less visible and far less understood.
I also recognise that my position in this conversation isn’t neutral. I make a living from selling alcohol. That alone can attract suspicion from some health groups. But this research isn’t about promoting the pub, and it isn’t about defending alcohol. Alcohol is not going away. The question is not whether people will drink – it’s where, how, and in what context that drinking takes place.
Connection
Currently, around 75 per cent of alcohol consumption happens behind closed doors. That’s the reality we’re working within. So the question becomes: is that where we want drinking to be concentrated – in private, unregulated environments, often in isolation? Or should we be exploring ways to bring people back into shared, social settings – where connection exists, behaviour is visible, and informal support structures still play a role?
This is why I believe we need to think differently about the role of the pub. Rather than viewing it purely as part of the problem, there’s a strong case for seeing it as part of the solution – a partner in health. A managed, social environment where behaviour is visible, connection is present, and people are not alone.
Because the alternative, in many cases, isn’t no drinking at all. It is drinking in isolation, without the social frameworks that have historically helped regulate it. This is particularly important when viewed through the lens of masculinity.
For many men, alcohol isn’t just a behaviour, but a cultural norm embedded within key life events and everyday interaction. Over time, this becomes less a choice and more an assumed structure. Removing alcohol from this context creates a form of social displacement. The question shifts from ‘how do I stop drinking?’ to ‘who am I in this space without it?’ From what I’ve observed, this internal struggle – the loss of alignment with environment, peers, and identity – is one of the biggest barriers to change. In many cases, it’s more significant than the physical act of stopping drinking. And yet, it remains largely overlooked.
So if we’re serious about addressing alcohol-related harm, we need to look beyond the substance itself and towards the environments, identities, and social structures that surround it. Because when you take alcohol out of the pub – or take the pub out of the community – you’re not just removing a product. You are, in many ways, removing part of the cultural DNA.
If we fail to understand what the pub represents – not just as a place to drink, but as a place to belong – we risk driving behaviour into more isolated and less visible spaces. Increasingly, that means drinking behind closed doors, where alcohol is cheaper, less regulated, and consumed without the social frameworks that once surrounded it.
That shift is not neutral. It carries consequences – not only for individual health, but for wider public health outcomes and long-term fiscal sustainability.