Don’t fancy a hangover? This is how you survive New Year’s Eve without drinking

Six years ago, the Overveen author and coach Jacqueline van Lieshout stopped drinking alcohol as an experiment. Because she suddenly slept wonderfully and felt much more like exercising, eating well, and getting things done, she felt much better and stopped drinking for the time being.

‘Boring’

But the first New Year’s Eve was “very strange” for her. “I thought: my God, how am I going to get through that night. With alcohol I could go on with the neighbors until six o’clock. Now it was a crime to stay up, and just boring.” At least, that’s what drinkers say, adds Van Lieshout. “Actually, a lot of things are just really stupid on their own,” she says. “But when you drink you don’t really notice it.”

Ten minutes past midnight, she dragged herself from the couch to the neighbours, who had already had quite a few drinks. “What a situation, everyone told the same story four times, kissed me a thousand times. All I thought was: I want to go to bed.”

Alcohol-free morning

But then the morning came. Van Lieshout: “What a party, not normal. Go outside at seven o’clock in the morning, where of course nobody was there. You don’t have a hangover. That pleasure of an alcohol-free morning was the great gift. Then I thought: can we start the new year don’t just celebrate January 1 in the morning?”

Since then, Van Lieshout has put much more effort into serving a nice, extensive breakfast on New Year’s Day. On New Year’s Eve she plays games with her daughter, has a long dinner or watches TV. “I had never done that before, because after a bottle of Sauvignon you won’t sit and watch anything.”

She knows that many people would not want to be broke on January 1, but the social pressure to drink is often too great, according to Van Lieshout. ‘I get tons of emails about that. ‘I can’t make it to my environment, how should I deal with that?'”

Wim Boekema, owner of the non-alcoholic liquor store NIX&NIX, has also noticed that there is more interest in a healthier lifestyle, and that includes less alcohol. “Many people just want to have a nice drink without feeling the effects,” says Boekema. “They have a busy life, three children, a job and a social life. They wonder how they can drink less so that they can get more out of their week.”

Boekema opened the first store with his business partner in the spring of 2021 and there are now four branches in the Netherlands, including in Haarlem and Amsterdam.

View here our report last year in the non-alcoholic pop-up liquor store in Heerhugowaard, which closed last month after a year.

With the non-alcoholic sparkling wines from his store, people can still ‘hold up a glass in a festive mood and east’. Non-alcoholic liqueurs, whiskey and rum are also popular during this period of Christmas dinners, says Boekema. “At my own Christmas dinner of eight adults, four went alcohol-free. That will not be the case at every table, but it is true that more people are becoming more aware of how they live.”

For example, Boekema sees people appearing in his store who – often with a view to ‘dry January’ – come to see how they can drink less. “People come in quite critically, they think: ‘non-alcoholic wine is not drinkable,'” says Boekema. “But then they see that it’s actually quite tasty.”