The news story in the Daily Mail recently about the return of the ‘iconic’ Babycham was telling, they were questioning whether it would have the same appeal all those years later, but at least they are honest about the fact that they pitched their marketing directly to women!
I wrote about the impact of Babycham on the baby boomers , especially the women, the demographic who are drinking too much in this piece for Alcohol Change UK…Here is an extract:
We now live in a topsy-turvy world where the fifty-something parent is more likely to binge-drink than their kids. Headlines announce that ‘Baby Boomers are the booziest generation’ and ‘There’s a binge-drinking boom among older people’.
So yes, young people are officially drinking less their elders. Health data from 2015 suggests that 29 per cent of 16-24 year olds are now teetotal. Meanwhile, Baby Boomers in particular (those born between 1946 and 1964) are caning the booze, at alarming levels. I used to, myself.
Why? One reason is conditioning. As a Baby Boomer, I can tell you that the pro-alcohol conditioning we have received is not easily shaken off. I was born in the Sixties, when alcohol was the glue which people used to bond in every social experience.
I was witness to a paradigm shift, sometime in the late Sixties when the alcohol marketing machine shunted into gear and decided drinking wasn’t just for the blokes. I particularly recall Babycham being pushed as wonderfully glamorous for women. Women, including my mum, had been traditionally coy about booze until then. But in pranced the Babycham deer, and we were sold. The semi-cautious gals suddenly had their ticket to the booze rollercoaster.
‘The alcohol marketing machine shunted into gear and decided drinking wasn’t just for the blokes’.
My university days were in the Seventies and Eighties, which I remember (just about) as an alcohol-fuelled romp punctuated only by dodgy takeaways. Quite frankly, if you didn’t drink, the assumption was that you were boring. Sober = Bores. Come 3am, only the studious nerdy types were in bed – the rest of us were hanging out of the windows of our halls of residence, smoking and worse for wear.
The early Nineties saw the phenomenon of ‘binge-drinking’, club culture and the ‘ladettes’: women who could hold their beer. I was working in the music industry as a backing singer during that time, and sometimes wonder how I came out alive. It was a haze of raves, the Manchester scene, and every fashionista and pop icon seemed to be indulging in the nation’s favourite drug: alcohol.
Given all of those decades upon decades of social conditioning, it’s no wonder the Baby Boomers aren’t faring very well in the ‘sober revolution’. From celebrations to commiserations, we did it all with a drink in our hands. Many of us simply cannot imagine socialising without it.
I was never to be found in a skip, pouring vodka on my cereal or driving under the influence, but I still drank every day. I even had a few during my pregnancies – we didn’t know any different back then – and I was delighted when encouraged by doctors to ‘Try Guinness’ to improve the quality of my breast milk….. Read the full article here
Don’t be fooled gals! The Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes! The reality is life is much better without the booze, however much we try to glamorize it. Funnily enough, the drinks companies never show us their customers after they’ve had a few drinks – that look certainly isn’t glamorous!.
If you are ‘sober curious’ or want some inspiration around ditching the booze, check out the Alcohol Free Life podcast, and The Sober Club, a totally non judgemental community where we focus on the joy of sobriety, living our best life without the booze.