The end of the bender?

By Rob Sharp

Oi! Amy! Put that glass down! Haven't you heard that the days of rock'n'roll excess are over?

Never has being dry been more fashionable. Sobriety is in vogue - and in Celebrityland, everyone's at it. Perhaps it's a sign of the times: a psychosocial response to the credit crunch, a reaction against the millennial excesses of the early Noughties. But suddenly, it seems, clean-living role models are all around us.

For every pie-eyed party animal pictured leaving Chinawhite at 3am, there's a Chris Martin, a Natasha Kaplinsky, a Catherine Tate. Amy Winehouse may still be keeping the gossip columnists busy, but more and more of her partners in pop are sticking to the San Pellegrino and taking an early cab home.

Little Britain's David Walliams, a noted man about town, is never seen with anything other than mineral water in hand. Former Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq may frequently be seen bouncing out of The Ivy, but in full control of her faculties. Note, too, the clear skin and bright eyes of the "alcohol intolerant" newsreader Kaplinsky, or Simon Amstell, presenter of television quiz show Never Mind the Buzzcocks, who also eschew all poisons.

The list goes on. Tate hates the "loss of control" she experiences when drinking. Martin of Coldplay, his missus, Gwyneth Paltrow, and The X-Factor's massively successful songstress Leona Lewis are noted abstainers.

And sobriety isn't just a celebrity-specific trend. Members of high society and politics alike are (and have) clean livers. Prince Andrew, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the leader of the free world himself, George Bush, have joined the club.

And then there are the sports stars. Needless to say, all-nighters aren't conducive to being on top of your game, which probably explains why tennis ace Andy Murray is teetotal. Boxer Ricky Hatton abstains for most of the year before a fight, letting down his guard only for a brief, post-fight celebration (and who can blame him after spending 12 rounds getting his head punched in?).

In Hollywood, the actor Jared Leto recently described how he's more interested in putting on a good show with his band 30 Seconds to Mars than exploring the more hedonistic side of rock. Sober nights out wouldn't be dull in LA, of course, Leto could socialise with fellow abstainers Jim Carrey, Tobey Maguire, Natalie Portman, Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson.

So are all these stars at the vanguard of a new post-alcohol era? Despite the widespread perception of a binge drinking culture in Britain, official statistics seem to suggest this is wide of the mark. In a recent study, the Institute of Alcohol Studies found that a growing number of Britons are abstaining from drink.

So what's behind the new vogue for clean living? Jessica Callan, author and former Daily Mirror gossip columnist, insists that there are no hard and fast rules as to why celebs are choosing to live clean.

"There are various reasons why celebrities choose not to drink," she says. "Some choose it for weight reasons - to pursue various diets, such as a macrobiotic diet - others, Chris Martin for example, choose to abstain because they simply can't handle alcohol. I interviewed him once and he said the reason he didn't drink was that he was a total lightweight.

"But generally, celebrities are control freaks. They don't drink because they don't want to slip up. David Walliams has been tagged in various newspapers as something of a ladies' man, which makes him a target for a kiss-and-tell sting. And as he does serious acting as well as comedy, he doesn't just want to be known for his love life."

Alexandra Shulman, editor of Vogue, believes that a reduction in people's consumption of drink and drugs is reflected in the popularity of the detox, essentially the recent trend for taking spa breaks. "The trend for going off to a spa and then coming back and steering clear of alcohol and rich food is a relatively fashionable and new phenomenon," she explains.

"So many more people are detoxing now. Everyone I know seems to go off to a health retreat once a year, certainly over the past five years.

"What one forgets is that people don't really stop drinking in their twenties. When they reach their late thirties, however, people begin to think about the effect drinking and partying hard is having on them. Additionally, there's more pressure on people nowadays to look great while still being able to party - and one way of doing this is by detoxing regularly."

The former Blur bassist and one-time legendary Soho party animal Alex James reckons the reason he curbed his notoriously excessive lifestyle was growing up and having children. The Noughties, he says, are less of a "party" decade than the Nineties.

However, while more people are abstaining from drinking, the reasons are complex, according to Dr Rachel Seabrook, research manager for the Institute of Alcohol Studies. "Drinking behaviour is complex and affected by many things, including cultural and economic factors. While the evidence that increasing numbers of people aren't drinking alcohol is very welcome, more research is needed into why," she says.

One reason for the spread of sobriety is almost certainly the growth of alternative lifestyle philosophies. "New puritanism" resurrects Cromwellian ideals of abstinence. Adherents shun the consumer society, binge drinking, junk food, smoking and cheap flights in favour of a more wholesome way of life.

The straight edge movement, a recent import to Britain, is inspired by the Eighties' American punk band, Minor Threat. Those involved (and there's a substantial following in the UK) avoid drink, drugs and promiscu-ous sex. Straight edgers often draw a black cross on their hand, replicating the stamps given to under-21s attending gigs in the US (the cross is an indication to bartenders they should not be served alcohol).

Of course, for every back-handed cross, there is a drug or alcohol-addicted rocker. Dr Seabrook believes that recent research indicates that while fewer people are drinking, those who are, are hitting the bottle to excess, thereby polarising society. - London Independent