What does changing drinking culture in hospitality look like when alcohol has long been part of both work and social life?

Timothy R Andrews and Sarah Kettel are joined by Lynne Maltman, who shares her decision to take a 90-day break from alcohol after recognising that her relationship with drinking no longer felt right. That challenge eventually became a full year and a completely alcohol-free lifestyle.

The conversation explores social pressure, alcohol-free alternatives and the benefits Lynne experienced after stopping drinking. They also discuss what hospitality employers can do to create a more inclusive drinking culture where choosing not to drink feels completely normal.

What we cover

• Lynne Maltman’s decision to reconsider her relationship with alcohol
• Why a 90-day alcohol-free challenge became a much longer change
• The social pressure to drink in hospitality and wider society
• Taking a break from alcohol without attaching labels to yourself
• Alcohol-free alternatives and changing customer expectations
• What hospitality employers can do to encourage healthier attitudes towards alcohol
• Lynne’s experience of improved clarity, sleep, energy and confidence
• Why choosing not to drink should feel as socially acceptable as choosing to drink

Useful links

• Lynne Maltman on LinkedIn
• OYNB – One Year No Beer
• Alcohol Change UK – Support and advice
• Alcohol Change UK – Alcohol resources
• This Naked Mind

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Editing & Visuals by: Timothy R Andrews

Music: Brain Power by Mela, freemusicarchive.org & Pawel Sikorski

And guest appearance by Bert the Cat

Welcome to Talking Hospitality

I'm Sarah Kettel and this is your

co-host, Timothy R. Andrews.

Talking Hospitality is a podcast looking at issues within hospitality solutions and inspirational stories.

How are you?

I'm very well.

How are you doing?

I'm okay.

Lynne Maltman is with us.

Lynne is a brand partnerships and marketing consultant and she's actually here to talk to us.

Not about that, but about being alcohol free.

Lynne, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks.

Hi, Sarah.

Hi, Tim.

Lynne, we're going to talk to you about this because we as an industry in hospitality do have a bit of a reputation for being drinkers.

That reputation doesn't come from nowhere.

Lynne, your story is really inspiring because you stopped drinking.

All right.

And thinking you are completely alcohol free in your life now.

That is correct, yes.

Okay, brilliant.

So tell us, how did that come about?

I grew up in the 90s and I think I'm very typical of my generation.

I was your teenager that started drinking and by the time you get to uni, it's expected that you're going to drink.

So, you know, it sort of becomes a nearly every night of the week scenario.

Moving into professional life, I have background in the hospitality industry.

I've worked in my fair share of pubs from London to Toronto to Ireland.

Most of my career over the past 20 years has been in the, in and around the music industry and marketing and the drinks industry as well.

I spent seven years working for a creative agency specializing in, ironically in alcohol marketing.

I worked with many global brands, everybody from Jagermeister to Tia Maria Magner's, Everything in Between.

And that was all about, you know, marketing alcohol to millennials.

So I spent many a summer in a, in a festival field building a brand activation or pop up events all around the uk.

They would have been largely working with, you know, with the alcohol industry.

I would think that I was a very, very typical drinker.

I didn't necessarily drink every day.

I mean, I could sometimes go for several days without drinking at all.

As time crept on and as you get a little bit older, you can't really drink in the same way that you did whenever you were younger.

You can't really get away with it as much.

And I just kind of felt like all these things were adding up and it just felt like I wasn't turning up to life as the best vers of myself.

And there was one weekend in Particular, I was due to go to Latitude Festival just for fun and I didn't go.

And a lot of the reason why I didn't go was because I'm like, I don't want to go to a festival and just spend all weekend drinking.

I knew that I would come back and feel horrific for probably a week afterwards, so I chose not to go.

But instead I went to the Barnes Fair, London.

So it's not, you know, not quite Latitude, but went there with a few friends and it was a big family festival where it just, you know, very typical London, you know, lots of parents and kids and the parents drinking gin while the kids are running around, you know, causing complete havoc.

So I went with a friend and her husband and the twins and we were having a great day as everybody was, the sun was shining, they were having beers, you know, having a great old time.

And we'd had a couple of drinks and it got to the point for our next drink and I said, I'll go and get us a drink.

And.

And so there was a pop up bar that was serving draft beer and I went up and I ordered a beer.

And then he said, oh, sorry, we just have to change the barrel.

So just give me a moment and I'll.

I'll be back in a minute.

So he disappeared off and I'm just standing there waiting for the beer.

And, you know, this was maybe like all of five minutes.

And I just had this feeling that I just really wanted that beer.

And then, you know, and I got more and more agitated until he came back and gave me the beer.

And that just hit me like a ton of bricks.

I was like, this is not right.

I shouldn't be feeling like this.

I'm letting this lovely pint of beer control me.

I was like, right, that's it.

I'm gonna have to do something about it.

The next day was the day of the World Cup Final.

So France and Croatia, arguably maybe one of the worst days ever to decide that you're going to stop drinking.

Around about the same time, I came across a movement called One Year no Beer, who are all about helping people to manage their relationship with alcohol, but in a really positive way.

And their whole ethos is that we're kind of told that there are two sort of drinkers in life.

You have your alcoholics who are, you know, people that wake up in the morning and think about having a drink straight away and are hiding vodka around the house and, you know, drinking out of a paper bag.

And loads of really awful things happen to Them and they should be pitied.

And then there's everybody else, all the rest of us, and all the rest of us are totally fine.

So, you know, we just crack on.

There's not.

There's nothing wrong.

And they didn't identify with that, and I didn't identify with that.

So, you know, there's this gray area of drinking that talk about where a lot of us normal, everyday people exist.

And it might be that we're maybe drinking a little bit more than we're kind of feeling comfortable with, or our tolerance is getting really high, which is something that happened to me.

You might drink a lot and not even really feel drunk anymore, but still suffer for it.

The next day.

I, at that point I decided I was going to sign up to a one year no beer challenge.

They do 30 days, 90 days or a year.

I'd done dry January before.

I'm sure many of us have.

But that was always just to prove a point to myself and say, I can do 31 days without a drink.

I don't need this.

But I would find that once I got to the middle of the month, I would then be counting down the days until the end of the month.

And then, of course, the 1st of February was all about going out and having a nice glass of Malbec or a lovely pint of beer just to congratulate myself.

30 Days was doable.

So I'm like, I'm going to try and do the 90 days.

And it terrified me because since the age of 15 had never gone any longer than a month without a drink, that was what I was going to do.

And I went into it feeling really scared, but also the really clear mind and a positive mindset that I'm like, no, I'm going to do this.

I'm going to take control back.

This is just the challenge that I'm going to set myself and I'm going to do it.

One thing I did, I wrote down in black and white five reasons why I wanted to take a break from alcohol, get it on my head, to have it right in front of me so that I could refer back to it over the 90 days.

One other thing that I did actually, which is worth mentioning, I decided that I was.

I wanted to really keep a log of how I was feeling.

And I decided to keep a diary.

And rather than write it everything down, I kind of forced myself to film a video diary, which sort of terrified me at the time, because part of the reason why I was doing this is because my confidence had been stripped away.

A lot over the years.

And I didn't really like to be in front of a camera or being, you know, I'd always be the one at the back of the photograph.

So I'm like, no, I'm going to confront this face on.

So I filmed a video diary, which I started in day two and actually ended up doing for the full year.

And that was like the cheapest therapy ever.

You know, it's like you turn on your camera or your laptop to say something, you feel like, I don't really have anything to say, and then it just completely flow out.

So you started with the 90 days, but you didn't stop there, did you?

No, about that, yeah.

Once I got to 90 days, I'm just like, I feel different and I'm not ready to stop this yet.

And they say it takes 66 days for a new habit to become.

To become natural to you.

So I'd gone past that point already as well.

And I got to 90 and I'm like, I think I'm going to try and do another 90 days.

Am I going to double this and make it six months?

And at the time that felt achievable.

It was all about small goals.

If I had said on day one I was going to do a year, I would never have done it.

And some days I felt great and other days I felt awful.

But each day I didn't drink and I woke up the next day and had a clear head.

The strength that I got was incredible and that's what kept me going.

And so I then got to day 180.

I'm like, I'm just going to do the year.

I'm just going to do it.

So once I committed to that again, making a commitment to myself and the strength that I built, I just then plowed on through to the year and it was absolutely incredible.

Are there any tools or resources people can look at if they wanted to take a break from alcohol?

There are a lot of really interesting people out there.

I mean, one year, no beer is one example.

But there are a lot of people in the alcohol free world who are raising awareness.

They've got stories to tell.

There are plenty of great books out there.

The ones that I'd probably recommend are Alcohol Explained by William Porter.

Fantastic book.

Kick the Drink Easily by Jason Vale.

The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober, which is quite a good one for women from Catherine Gray.

And then there's the Holy Grail of the alcohol free world, who's Annie Grace, who wrote an incredible book called this Naked Mind.

Loads Online, lots of people in the alcohol free world that have podcasts.

One year, no beer again.

Annie Grace does an incredible podcast on this Naked Mind.

And there are lots of different people who are kind of targeted at different age groups as well.

I mean, there's Instagram, is the Supergirl Society and I think she's like in her 20s.

So she's somebody in her 20s.

He doesn't drink.

There are some great apps that you could download an app.

One example is a drink coach where you can count your units of alcohol that you have per week.

I discovered the alcohol free alternatives out there and I, you know, I'm sure you're both aware of them, but there are an awful lot.

I mean, it used to be Beck's Blue.

There's a lot more than Beck's Blue out there.

So become a real fan of alcohol free alternatives.

The beers, the spirit spirits, the wines.

You know, just because you're not drinking doesn't mean to say that you can't have a nice drink.

Be curious, go out and find them and they're cheaper.

One I really love is Strike.

They do an alcohol free vodka, gin and rum and it's called not vodka, not gin and not rum.

There's a lot out there and once you start to look.

Yeah.

You'll be surprised by how much there is.

There's, there's something out there for everybody.

What do you feel that employers can do actually to, to encourage sensible attitudes towards alcohol?

Employers in bars, restaurants can adopt the Dr. Responsibly message that the alcohol brands you know, will, will use in their marketing.

Raise awareness to your teams of the mental and physical impacts alcohol can have on you.

Again, encourage alcohol free alternatives.

I would imagine a lot of bars and restaurants are offering these already, but you know, if you're having, if you're getting together with your teams, you know, try some of these new alcohol free alternatives.

Do some kind of pairing with foods on your menu so that you can be recommending to, you know, to customers.

What?

This alcohol free beer goes really well with this and this alcohol free wine goes really well with that.

Set challenges to your teams.

You know, there's a lot of great alcohol free cocktails out there these days.

So why not set your teams a challenge to come up with some really amazing alcohol free alternatives that you can offer to customers.

So that could be really good fun and a way for people to collaborate as well.

Really, really good advice.

Thanks.

Benefits.

You've talked about how, you know, taking a break has been hugely beneficial for you.

Would you like to Talk about some of the benefits that taking a break from alcohol can give.

Yeah, absolutely.

A big one is having a clear head is a complete game changer.

Even if you're not drinking heavily all the time.

Well, for me anyway, I just have a constant fuzzy head.

And then whenever I did drink enough that it was giving me a hangover, my hangovers could last for days and it was horrible.

And that feeling of being paranoid and depressed and ill and not being able to sleep was just horrible.

So getting that mental clarity back, having more energy, sleeping better.

Oh my goodness, unbelievable.

You feel like sometimes alcohol helps you to sleep, but the quality of sleep that you're having is really bad.

So getting a better quality sleep is incredible.

Losing weight, which, you know, a lot of us like to do, if you don't drink, you're probably going to lose a bit of weight and the money you save, oh my goodness, you think about the money that you spend on alcohol alone, never mind whenever you've had several drinks and you have to get a taxi home because you maybe don't trust yourself to get home.

And then you maybe stop off and get a burger on the way home and then think about the next day when you're hungover and you will just throw any amount of money at the problem to make yourself feel better.

So I saved so much money, it was unbelievable.

I was able to go on great holidays and spend my money in other ways.

I mean there's lots of really obvious health benefits as well.

You reduce your risk of heart problems and stroke, you reduce your risk of developing an alcohol associated cancer, of which there are seven, and dementia, reducing your liver fat, your cholesterol is going to drop and reduce your blood pressure and your glucose stabilizes.

So there are so many, so many great health benefits.

But again, for me, that huge sense of achievement, of clarity.

I've also taken the one year no beer, 30 days non drinking.

And one of the biggest fear factors was for me was like particularly working in hospitality was what about the social element?

Be how my friends going to react to me when I'm not drinking.

Are they going to think I'm an alcoholic or have I got some drink issue?

Well, actually what I found was the opposite.

There are always one or two people that use drinking, they want to drink and they use that as an excuse.

Why are you not drinking?

Because they feel better about themselves if you drink.

They can have their habit kind of thing.

But one of the things I found is that there seem to be a lot of people almost screaming out that they want to do the same.

Yes.

And you could see it like, okay, well, you're not drinking, then I won't drink.

And there was almost like a relief.

Yes.

That they didn't have to do it.

All right.

It's because it's a societal norm that we're seeing everybody all of the time drinking.

What do you do?

We go to the pub.

We do that.

And actually, it doesn't need to be.

And you can still go to the pub.

Yes, absolutely.

And.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think, as we've just talked about, because it's everywhere and because it's all we know, especially if, you know, like me, the generation I'm from, you've been drinking from the age of 15, and you just associate alcohol with everything in your life.

It's there for you as your trusted companion when you're having fun.

You know, if you're at a festival or a party or a wedding.

And also if you're stressed, you know, somebody's died and you're at a funeral and you're having drinks or you've had a really stressful time at work, and it's there for your.

As your comfort blanket.

Alcohol is a drug, and it's a highly addictive drug, and it's the one drug that we have to apologize for taking, which is ridiculous.

And it's everywhere.

I know we've talked about it in, you know, in the hospitality industry and marketing.

If you think about the media, it's absolutely everywhere.

It's just everywhere.

It's, you know, unavoidable.

We're going through the global pandemic.

We know that.

I mean, there was a study earlier in the year that showed that harmful levels of drinking in the UK has, you know, doubled between February and June.

Everybody is at home, they're stressed, the alcohol is there.

You know, you can start drinking at whatever time of the day you want to.

And we all deserve this because we're going through such an awful time.

But what people aren't thinking about is, you know, the depressing effects of alcohol.

And it's not helping you.

It's.

If anything, it's making things worse.

So, you know, whilst it may seem easy for me to say this, like, there is honestly no better time to give yourself a little bit of time out and have a little bit of a break than the more we're going through at the moment, it's the best gift you can give to yourself, taking that break, giving yourself that opportunity to take a step back.

So few people do that, and it's amazing.

And it's like, what's the worst that could happen?

You know?

You've got nothing to lose and absolutely everything to gain.

It doesn't have to be forever.

Brilliant.

Thank you.

So powerful.

Thank you.

Lynne, that was incredible.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Thanks for having me.

Really interesting.

Thanks.

I really enjoyed that as well.

It was really good.

Good.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Nice to see you.

Take care.

Bye.

Bye.

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