Dry Bars: Fun in Sobriety

July 2nd, 2012 | Add a Comment

“What you’ll have” or “What can I get you” the bar tender asks you as you approach the bar and sit down. You ask for a shot of Patron Silver with a bit of ice and a Corona to wash it down. After a few more drinks you receive your tab, look at it, and empty your wallet full of Andrew Jackson’s. Resentful that you even stepped foot in the bar, you leave drunk and moneyless, wondering the next morning where all of your paycheck went. Whether you’re this unfortunate soul who drinks alone at the bar or even a social one, drinking with friends, bars exist for only one reason, to make you think you’re having a good time in the moment, but in reality, you are being sold drinks until you find yourself too drunk to comprehend anything, subsequently wasting more money than you intended on. There is a solution to having a genuine, enjoyable, and most importantly, memorable experiences that won’t empty out your bank account because you’ll be sober enough to realize what you’re spending: Dry Bars.

The Brink, built in 2008, located on Parr Street in Liverpool, England is one of these, making it the first of its kind ever to be conceived. Not only can “normies” enjoy a night off of their bar crazed routine but dry bars are more importantly a safe haven for people in sobriety, not looking to drink, and to have fun without being tempted by the demons of alcohol.

Liverpool was recently ranked in the Local Profiles in England by the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University as one of England’s worst cities for alcohol abuse. In Liverpool and cities like it that have a very similar night life, there have been over 6,000 cases of alcohol-related hospital visits, in addition to multiple deaths due to liver disease and other alcohol-specific causes. Sadly, these numbers are way over local and national averages.

Jacquie Johnston-Lynch, the head of Sharp Liverpool which is part of the charity Action on Addiction, states that people with the disease of addiction, after getting out of substance abuse programs, get thrown back into the lives they lived before; their toxic daily routine that they shouldn’t be reintroduced again to. She goes on to say that these unfortunate addicts don’t have any place to get help afterwards. Before Sharp, there was no place for them to go. No support system or community for them to feel a part of. With the creation of dry bars like The Brink, people just out treatment, new to sobriety, can find the joys of meeting fellow sober people, creating meaningful sober friendships, while enjoying the feel of a bar-like nightlife.

For more information on The Brink, go to their website: http://thebrinkliverpool.com/ and their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/brink.liverpool.

People from London are requesting for dry bars like The Brink to expand their business all over, including cities such as, Bristol, Blackpool, Barnsley, Manchester, and Birmingham. Its popularity is becoming a craze in the U.K. and hopefully, one day, spreading across the water to the U.S sometime in the near future. I know that I and my other sober counterparts would enjoy an experience such as this, to have fun while discouraging the need for alcohol.

Work Cited

Dean, Will. “Is Britain’s First Dry Bar Any Fun?” The Independent. 9 Dec. 2011. Web. 28 June 2012.

By Matt B.