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Hidden amongst a number of damning statistics highlighting the excessive alcohol consumption in the island, a recent report showed that an increasing number of young people in Jersey are choosing to break away from that stereotype and live a sober lifestyle.
The recently-released Alcohol Profile 2022 showed that the number of 16 to 34-year-olds who are tee-total in the island has almost doubled between 2014 and 2022, from 8% to 15% of young people.
Cleo Leather is a 22-year-old islander who currently splits her time between living in Jersey with her family, studying Film and Television at the University of Bristol, and working on various creative projects across the UK.
She quit alcohol entirely at the beginning of 2022, after noticing the detrimental impact that drinking was having on her physical and mental health, relationships with friends and family, and her job and finances.
Pictured: Cleo Leather (23) is striving to “create a community and open people’s minds” to sobriety.
Using everything she has learnt from the last 16 months of sobriety, Cleo now runs an Instagram account called 'Agent Agenda' which she uses to provide tips and inspiration for other young people who may be curious about being sober.
Express spoke to Cleo about her journey to sobriety, the challenges she has faced, and why she thinks there a growing number of sober or sober-curious young people…
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Cleo explained that she first recognised that drinking alcohol was really affecting her in the summer of 2020, but admitted that she was still “in denial” about addressing the problem.
By the summer of 2021, she was struggling with “really severe anxiety” which was exacerbated whenever she drank alcohol.
This often left her “paralysed” and unable to leave the house, causing her to have to rearrange work shifts and miss social occasions.
When her friends all began having their 21st birthday parties at the end of 2021, Cleo was attending more and more of the events sober.
Pictured: Cleo's work as a filmmaker and photographer made her feel more comfortable being in a party environment sober.
She explained that her experience of photographing events for work meant that she was used to being in a party environment sober, although admitted that it was harder “without a camera to hide behind”.
At the end of 2022, Cleo decided to have “one final blowout” on New Year’s Eve before trying sobriety properly for the first time.
She said: “I wasn’t even planning to drink that night, but my friends encouraged me to have one final blowout before quitting alcohol.
“I managed to control my drinking at first, but once I got to 03:00 I realised I was scrambling around to find more alcohol and realised that wasn’t right.”
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Cleo explained that signing up for her university’s charity fight night event give her the “final push” to commit to being sober – initially only for a period of three months.
“I didn’t have the self respect to go sober for myself back then,” she said. “So signing up for the fight night gave me the final push I need to commit to being sober.”
After completing both the fight night and three months of sobriety, Cleo realised that she “didn’t want to go back to that part of [her] life”.
Pictured: Cleo's sobriety has made her feel “more productive, more energised, and happier."
Although she recognised that refraining from drinking alcohol was making her “more productive, more energised, and happier”, Cleo admitted that the first few months were a “rollercoaster”.
“It was so extremely isolating at first,” she said.
Cleo explained: “I actually noticed that my anxiety was heightened within the first few months. Alcohol numbs what you feel, so everything was heightened which meant the good feelings were really good, but the bad feelings were really bad.”
“It’s such a turbulent thing to navigate,” she added.
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Looking back, Cleo said that if she could do the first few months of sobriety again she would go to therapy during that time to bolster her “support network”.
“I did a lot of journalling which I would really recommend to keep track of how you feel,” she said.
Cleo explained that she had a mixture of people around her who were supportive or her sobriety, and those who didn’t really understand it.
She explained that deciding to be sober whilst at university also added to the pressure, as it is a time period where people assumed that everyone wants to go out and get drunk all of the time.
Pictured: Cleo is keen to promote the fact that you can still go out, socialise, and have fun without alcohol.
“It was really hard at first,” Cleo admitted.
“I used to be so scared to be around alcohol and would have nightmares about getting spiked, or about the bartender messing up my drink order. I’d have to get my friends to taste my drinks first to make sure there was no alcohol in them.”
However, Cleo soon realised that she could enjoy nights out sober if she made sure that she had a “good group of people” around her.
She explained: “You need to go out with people who are conscious of making the night enjoyable for you, and who will dance with you, rather than being out with people who just want to get really drunk and messy.”
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However, Cleo was not ashamed to admit that she had to remove herself from situations or places when she felt like she “wasn’t strong enough to be in that environment”.
She added that none of her friendships have been impacted by her decision to go sober.
"I think my friends respect it because I take it so seriously," Cleo said. “It’s made my life infinitely better.
"The people that love me have seen how much of a difference this lifestyle change has made, so I'm lucky to have a lot of people who support me."
Speaking about her decision to be so public about her sobriety, Cleo said that it initially came from a “place of accountability”.
She said: “If thought that if I told people that I’m going to be sober, then I’m more likely to stick to it.”
However, since talking openly about her journey in person and online, Cleo has been surprised by the huge amount of people who have approached her privately to voice similar struggles with alcohol and a desire to go sober.
Now, she is striving to “create a community and open people’s minds” to sobriety.
Pictured: "It's made my life infinitely better."
Cleo believes that the increase in young people choosing to go sober is down to “wellness coming into the limelight”.
She explained: “As the months progressed, I started noticing more chatter online about being sober, celebrities opening up about their sobriety, and the movement gaining positive attention in the media.”
Cleo added that the social media platforms most commonly populated by the younger demographic, such as Tiktok, were the ones most heavily championing wellness.
She explained that trends such as the “clean girl” – an aspirational aesthetic which promotes productivity, self-care, and wellness through a simplistic style and a healthy lifestyle – encourages young people to “invest more in themselves”.
“Why would you go to pilates and then have a cocktail?!” joked Cleo.
She added that young people nowadays have a “healthier role model” to look up to with the increasing curiosity around a sober lifestyle.
Cleo said: “It's really alleviated the social pressure to always have to keep up with the party.”
“Young people are lucky to be in the progressive space that we are growing up in now,” she added.
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