In an era of wellbeing obsessions, I've become deeply sober un-curious
A decade ago, the gold standard of a Sunday morning used to be a luxurious sleep in after too many drinks the night before, followed by a hearty breakfast with friends. Then maybe a movie, reading a book, pottering in the garden, or a boozy long lunch. And, sure, maybe some exercise.
These days, we're told to rise before the sun, journal, take an ice bath, fast until after lunch, and avoid having a glass of wine with dinner. Some people are even abstaining from sex – all with the goal of improving their health and living longer. Honestly, you couldn't pay me to live 80-plus years of that.
Many of these new 'healthy hacks' are self-flagellation in disguise; a weird and mysterious test of discipline in the hope of getting an extra couple of years out of life. But it's worth questioning if perhaps something less admirable than healthy choices could be lurking below the surface, something US psychologist Jonathan Haidt raised in an interview with actor Dax Shepard on Shepard's podcast, Armchair Expert.
When Shepard said that the so-called 'anxious generation' is struggling with poor mental health but 'thriving in other departments', Haidt took issue.
'On a lot of the self-destructive metrics, their behaviour is better – that's all true,' he said.
'Does that mean they're thriving? Why are they not drinking? Why are they not driving cars? Why are they not dating? Why are they not getting pregnant? Why do you think it is? Because they're so wise? No. Because they're not with other people. They're not doing anything. If you're just on your bed all day long, scrolling through social media, then you're not going to be doing any of those things.'
A 2023 report by Ending Loneliness Together found that 41.1 per cent of Australians aged 18 to 24 suffer from persistent loneliness. And according to the ABC's 2019 Australia Talks survey, 40 per cent of people aged 18 to 24 are still virgins. They're also drinking less, with 16 per cent of Australians in the same age bracket having never tried alcohol, up from 7 per cent in 2001.
As Haidt points out, they're not just abstaining from these things because they're sensible, they're also petrified of humiliation. Having grown up with their entire lives being documented, they don't want to embarrass themselves.
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Vikki Mai Murphy always knew she wanted to be a mum but after months of negative pregnancy tests she and her partner Sean realised they would need some extra help. Following a round of intrauterine insemination (IUI), where prepared sperm is placed directly into a woman's uterus, Ms Murphy was thrilled to finally see a positive result for the first time. But almost eight weeks later, she discovered the pregnancy was ectopic and would have to be removed. In the resulting surgery she lost one of her fallopian tubes and doctors told her she would need to undergo IVF in order to successfully fall pregnant in future. "I just bawled and kept asking if I could still have my babies ... it just crushed me," Ms Murphy told AAP. The couple began to explore their IVF options and quickly realised the cost per round would be between $10,000 and $15,000. "We both just decided we wanted to throw everything at it and worry about the costs later," Ms Murphy said. For many people hoping to become parents, cost-of-living pressures are deterring them from fertility treatment. With Australia posting a record-low fertility rate in 2024, experts say low-cost IVF options will be crucial to addressing the decline in births. The average number of children born per woman was 1.51 in 2024, well below the 1.8 in 2014. In 2022, almost 109,000 IVF cycles were performed resulting in the birth of 20,058 babies. Almost half of Australians surveyed by Connect IVF said fertility services were not affordable. Connect IVF was one of the few affordable clinics in an industry that had been driven by a wave of corporatisation, director Brendan Ayres said. "(Our clinics) see a broad section of Australians and we get a disproportionate number of people from lower socioeconomic groups who need fertility treatment," he said. "We also have a number of patients who have been to other clinics and paid tens of thousands of dollars without success and are at their financial wits' end." Ms Murphy discovered Connect IVF by a chance internet search and the clinic was able to accommodate her for her next menstrual cycle. "The cost was substantially lower than other clinics because they bulk-billed the IVF cycle," she said. "It also allowed us to pay for a private obstetrician during my pregnancy, which we wouldn't have been able to afford if we'd had to pay up to $15,000 for the IVF." Ms Murphy ended up with four embryos from the round, which led to her three-year-old son Beau and one-year-old daughter Maia. "I love being a mum. It was such a journey and if I could have just looked into the future and seen my babies it would have made such a difference," she said. "People might think if they pay more money there might be more chance of having a baby, but I have friends who have paid thousands more than us with no success." While the Australian government supports parts of IVF through Medicare, it was not linked to the consumer price index, meaning the gap increased over time, Mr Ayres said. "Australia is a world leader in the technology of IVF but the funding hasn't followed," he said. "There also needs to be additions to Medicare item numbers to expand to all areas such as donor IVF which currently isn't covered."
