What is Alcohol Awareness Week 2025?
According to Alcohol Change UK, the charity behind Alcohol Awareness Week and Dry January®, 10 million people in the UK are drinking in ways that harm their health and performance. And workplace stress is often a contributing factor.
This year’s Alcohol Awareness Week theme of alcohol and work recognises how stress, professional pressure, and workplace culture can influence drinking habits. When employees use alcohol as a coping mechanism (or habit), it can form a cycle that impacts motivation, performance, and wellbeing outside the workplace. Alcohol Awareness Week aims to create healthier workplace cultures that support all employees, including those choosing to drink less or not at all.
How alcohol impacts employee wellness
The impact of alcohol extends beyond obvious things like absenteeism or performance issues. Even moderate drinking affects sleep, and can lead to reduced concentration and poor decision-making the following day.
Sleep disruption is a particularly problematic by-product of alcohol intake. It disrupts sleep quality, leading to fatigue, reduced cognitive function, and increased stress. This creates a cycle where poor sleep could actually increase workplace stress, potentially leading to more drinking.
Regular alcohol use can worsen anxiety and depression over time, affecting workplace relationships and job satisfaction. The long-term health consequences of drinking can mean significant costs to the employer.
The links between alcohol, sleep, and recovery
Alcohol disrupts sleep architecture – the technical term for the structure of a good night’s sleep. Even a small amount to drink can reduce REM sleep and cause people to wake in the night. This leads to non-restorative sleep, meaning employees wake feeling tired and groggy. It also disrupts stress hormone patterns, leaving people feeling ‘wired but tired’ at work the next day. And for employees who want to get fitter, it’s worth knowing that alcohol impairs muscle recovery and can lead to poorer nutritional choices.
What wearables reveal about sleep and stress
Many employees now use fitness trackers that provide data around stress, sleep, and recovery. Maybe you even provide these as part of your employee wellness benefits?
Sleep quality metrics from these wearables often show scores dropping after even small amounts of alcohol. Heart rate variability (HRV) data can show how alcohol affects overnight recovery, and stress indicators like elevated resting heart rate are often disrupted when people drink.
Many wearables give ‘recovery readiness’ scores, which combine various metrics to indicate how ready the person is for physical or emotional stress. Recovery readiness numbers consistently drop after alcohol consumption, and this can give your employees objective feedback about how drinking affects their performance and wellbeing.
Your role remains helping employees understand correlations between behaviours and metrics, and giving plenty of opportunities to make different choices.
Improving Workplace Culture Around Alcohol
Creating a healthier workplace culture includes thinking about how alcohol plays a role in professional settings. This doesn’t mean eliminating alcohol entirely, but ensuring it doesn’t dominate (and providing alternative options).
- Inclusive social events – offer meaningful alternatives like morning team activities, lunch meetings, coffee catchups, or evening events with good non-alcoholic options.
- Leadership modelling – when senior leaders choose alcohol-free options, it signals that being part of a drinking culture isn’t necessary for career success.
- Recognition and rewards – move beyond drinks after work or bottles of booze, and consider fitness vouchers, experience days, flexible working, or team lunches as alternatives that celebrate without pressure to drink.
Managing drinking when workplace stress is high
High-pressure environments often contribute to increased alcohol consumption as employees seek stress relief. Make sure you provide alternative stress management tools, like access to flexible fitness benefits, flexible working, quiet spaces to unwind, walking breaks, or workshops that address the cause not just the symptoms.
Keep an eye on workplace stresses that could lead to drinking as a coping tool. Are deadlines realistic (and if not, have you provided adequate support to help people through the short-term stress)? Do you provide regular workload reviews to assess staffing and other resources?
Help your employees set boundaries between work time (including work socialising) and personal time. Encourage end-of-day rituals that don’t involve drinking, like exercise, walking, or more family time.
Supporting Healthier Employee Choices
- Create an inclusive environment where non-drinkers aren’t questioned, social events offer alternatives that are as good as or better than alcohol, and career advancement isn’t tied to drinking culture.
- Support sober employees by ensuring equal access to networking and team building. Consider appointing “sober allies” in leadership.
- Provide education about the impact of alcohol on sleep and performance. Many employees don’t realise how even moderate drinking affects sleep quality and chronic wellbeing issues.
- Ensure employee assistance programmes include confidential alcohol support resources that are easy to access and offered without stigma.
- Offer comprehensive wellness benefits that give enticing alternatives to alcohol as stress relief – flexible gym passes, team-based fitness challenges, mental health support, and access to recovery facilities like saunas.
- Promote flexible working arrangements that can reduce stress contributing to drinking – such as hybrid working, flexible hours, or compressed weeks.
The business case for change
Alcohol is slowly but surely loosening its grip on the UK social scene, and workplace cultures need to reflect this shift. This Alcohol Awareness Week, consider how your organisation can help individuals make different choices around alcohol.
Curious about how flexible fitness benefits can support a healthier workplace culture? Contact the Hussle team to see how our nationwide network of gyms, pools, and fitness facilities can support your employees.
Request a quote today and and learn more about flexible gym membership as a benefit.
