Fitness Didn’t Replace Drinking

People didn’t stop going for after-work drinks. They just stopped defaulting to them. That distinction matters.

What’s happening in fitness right now isn’t a wellness trend or a sobriety movement. It’s a structural shift in how adults socialise. For decades, alcohol filled three roles in modern life: Connection. Release. Permission.

Permission to switch off. Permission to talk to strangers. Permission to belong somewhere without trying too hard.

Fitness used to offer none of that. It was solitary, functional, and often antisocial. But that’s changed.

Modern fitness is designed for interaction. 

Hyrox events now sell out faster than nightclubs or concerts. Run clubs feel more like social hubs than noisy pubs do. Group training is the new pub quiz. Hyrox, park workouts, reformer studios, CrossFit boxes are all engineered for shared progress and shared identity.

Fitness stepped in where drinking began to fall short. People still want ritual, decompression and a reason to leave the house. Just not in the same way as before, because once they experience social energy without alcohol, this brings a whole new kind of value. 

And this is exactly where fitness brands could misread the moment.

It’s not just about competing with other gyms. Other studios. Other apps. We are competing with social habits.

A 6pm class doesn’t just compete with another gym. It competes with the pub. With dinner plans. With comfort routines. With “just one drink.”

Yet there still is a big mismatch in how the two are marketed. Fitness is often promoted as hard work, discipline, and sacrifice while drinking is still marketed as fun, ease, and reward.

But fitness in the last 10 years has earned something it didn't have before: social gravity. People show up not just to train but to see familiar faces, to be recognised and to belong to something that repeats weekly.

This is where the smartest brands lean in. Instead of selling workouts, they sell structured social time. 

Because fitness isn’t necessarily replacing alcohol. It’s replacing what alcohol and pubs provide.

Bottom line: Drinking didn’t disappear. But fitness earned a seat at the same table.

The brands that understand this will be selling lifestyles while their competitors are selling workouts.

And lifestyles always win.

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