It's Friday, there are five of you, and someone says ‘right, what's everyone having?’ before you've got your coat off. That's the round started, and from then on it sets the pace of the evening.
For plenty of groups that's fine. Everyone drinks similar things at a similar speed, so it all evens out and nobody gives it a second thought. That's how it was when I was a student. The only decision at the bar was lager or bitter, they cost much the same, and the round looked after itself.
I went on to spend more than 30 years in the wine trade, and I still enjoy a drink. These days I also coach people who want to drink less, and the round comes up with almost every one of them. They go out with a sensible plan and come home having had a good deal more than they meant to, because sitting one out would have felt rude.
Who the round leaves out
A pub table today rarely looks like it did in my student days. Someone's on wine, someone's on cocktails, someone's driving, someone's having an alcohol-free beer, and someone has budgeted for a couple of drinks and no more.
The round treats them all the same. The friend on alcohol-free beer ends up paying towards cocktails. The friend on a budget has to buy at the pace of the heaviest drinker or risk looking tight. Anyone who wants to head home early is stuck, because leaving before your turn feels like taking without giving, and once you've bought your round everyone owes you one, so you stay.
Very few people say any of this out loud. They nurse a drink to slow things down, or they make an excuse and skip the next invitation altogether. The friend who stays at home because they can't afford the round is the person I most want to reach with this. A night out with your mates shouldn't depend on what's left in your bank account.
Someone tried this in 1902
Grumbling about rounds is nothing new. In 1902 a group of Irish priests started the St Patrick's Anti-Treating League, whose members promised never to buy or accept a round. They could still have a drink, as long as they paid for their own, and they wore a little pin to show they'd signed up. James Joyce had a dig at them in Ulysses (‘Antitreating is about the size of it’), and within a couple of decades the League had more or less disappeared.
What finished it off, according to Frank McNally of The Irish Times, was that members got a reputation for being mean.1 Stand on your own at the bar refusing to join in, and people draw their own conclusions. More than a century later, that's still what my clients are afraid of.
A fairer round
So I think the change has to come from the whole table, so that no one person has to stand out. That's the idea behind the Fair Round Protocol™.
Before you go out, everyone decides roughly what they'd like to drink, what they want to spend and when they plan to head home. On the night you still go to the bar together and you still sit round the same table. The difference is that everyone pays for what they have, and anyone can call it a night whenever they like.
You can do it with a kitty, where each person puts in what their own evening will cost and takes back whatever they don't spend. Or one person can buy for the table and everyone pays them back for their own drinks. Plenty of pubs make it even easier, with individual tabs, ordering from your phone and bills split by item.
Giving it a name helps more than you might think. ‘Shall we do a Fair Round tonight?’ is a far easier thing to say than ‘I'd rather not be in the round’, because you're suggesting something to the whole group and nobody has to explain their reasons.
Keep the round if it works
If your group drinks at the same pace on similar budgets and everyone's happy, keep buying rounds. What I'd like to call time on is the traditional round as the only option, where anyone who wants to do things differently has to explain themselves or stay at home.
You'll find everything you need on the Fair Round Protocol™ page, including a QR code you can show your table.
The Fair Round Protocol™
The five principles, two ways to put them into practice and a QR code to show your table.
The science, for those who want it
If you'd like to know what sits behind all this, here's what the research says. The numbers refer to the sources listed at the end.
Rounds and how much we drink
In 1985 a researcher watched 200 groups of young adults drinking in bars. Most were buying rounds, and the men who bought rounds tended to drink more than those who didn't. The biggest single influence on how much anyone drank was how much their companions were drinking.2 A 2016 study in Melbourne found that rounds became hard to manage in groups of more than four or five. Of the 20 young people who talked about how rounds affected their drinking, 19 said rounds made them drink more, and the researchers noted that rounds encourage drinkers ‘to conform to the pace of the fastest drinker in the group’.3
In a 2019 Drinkaware survey of 1,860 UK drinkers, being in a round was the most common reason people gave for drinking more than they'd expected (37 per cent). The same proportion had nursed a drink to avoid being pressed into another.4 In 2026, 56 per cent of drinkers said they drink more than usual on a night out with friends.5
of UK drinkers have drunk more than they expected to because they were in a round, the most common reason given.
Drinkaware Monitor 2019have nursed a drink to avoid pressure to have another.
Drinkaware Monitor 2019of drinkers drink more than usual on an evening or night out with friends.
Drinkaware Monitor 2026Who feels the pressure
A review of 13 UK studies found that people drinking little or no alcohol were the most likely to face open pressure to drink, which could leave them feeling isolated or drinking against their wishes.6
How the table has changed
In 2026, 91 per cent of UK drinkers said they use at least one technique to moderate their drinking.5 By 2025, 44 per cent were using alcohol-free or low-alcohol drinks to moderate, up from 31 per cent in 2018.7 Among 18 to 34-year-olds, 44 per cent say they moderate to save money.8
Pace and enjoyment
Alcohol works in two phases. While blood alcohol is rising, many people feel brighter and more sociable, and as it falls the sedative effects take over.9 The lift is generally thought to be the more rewarding part,10 but people vary a great deal: in one study, half the volunteers given a higher dose felt no lift at all.11 A round set by the fastest drinker suits very few of the people at the table. I've written more about this in Why the drink you pour to keep the buzz may be ending it.
Drinking together does bring people closer. In a study of 720 social drinkers, a moderate amount of alcohol improved mood and helped strangers bond in small groups.12
The morning after
A review of 27 sleep studies found that around two drinks (by the researchers’ measure) were enough to delay and shorten REM sleep, and the more people drank, the worse it got.13
Why planning ahead helps
Deciding in advance what you'll do when someone offers you another drink has been shown to reduce how much people drink over a week. The same research found it made little difference to heavy sessions on its own,14 which is why the Fair Round Protocol™ also changes how the group pays.
About the author
Alastair Cassie spent more than 30 years in the wine trade before becoming an alcohol moderation coach, and is one of the very few in the UK who doesn't coach from a position of personal sobriety. He created the Fair Round Protocol™ after hearing the same problem from client after client.
Find out more about his wider work at DrinkLessCoach.com.
Sources
- McNally, F. (2020, 21 April). Rounding up the rounds: on the rise and fall of Ireland's short-lived Anti-Treating League. The Irish Times. irishtimes.com
- Aitken, P. P. (1985). An observational study of young adults' drinking groups, II: drink purchasing procedures, group pressures and alcohol consumption by companions as predictors of alcohol consumption. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 20(4), 445–457. doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.alcalc.a044569
- Riazi, S. and MacLean, S. (2016). Young adults' accounts of buying rounds of alcoholic drinks for friends: implications for harm reduction. International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research, 5(3), 125–129. doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v5i3.229
- Drinkaware (2019). Drinkaware Monitor 2019: Drinking behaviours and peer pressure. Base: 1,860 UK adults who drink. drinkaware.co.uk
- Drinkaware (2026). Drinkaware Monitor 2026: Drinking trends. YouGov survey of 7,210 UK adults aged 18 to 85. drinkaware.co.uk
- Morris, H., Larsen, J., Catterall, E., Moss, A. C. and Dombrowski, S. U. (2020). Peer pressure and alcohol consumption in adults living in the UK: a systematic qualitative review. BMC Public Health, 20, 1014. doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09060-2
- Drinkaware (2025). Alcohol-free and low-alcohol drinks in the UK: trends, barriers and opportunities. drinkaware.co.uk
- Drinkaware (2025). Drinkaware Monitor 2025. drinkaware.co.uk
- Martin, C. S., Earleywine, M., Musty, R. E., Perrine, M. W. and Swift, R. M. (1993). Development and validation of the Biphasic Alcohol Effects Scale. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 17(1), 140–146. doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-0277.1993.tb00739.x
- Hendler, R. A., Ramchandani, V. A., Gilman, J. and Hommer, D. W. (2013). Stimulant and sedative effects of alcohol. Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences, 13, 489–509. doi.org/10.1007/7854_2011_135
- Holdstock, L. and de Wit, H. (1998). Individual differences in the biphasic effects of ethanol. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 22(9), 1903–1911. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9884132
- Sayette, M. A., Creswell, K. G., Dimoff, J. D., Fairbairn, C. E., Cohn, J. F., Heckman, B. W., Kirchner, T. R., Levine, J. M. and Moreland, R. L. (2012). Alcohol and group formation: a multimodal investigation of the effects of alcohol on emotion and social bonding. Psychological Science, 23(8), 869–878. doi.org/10.1177/0956797611435134
- Gardiner, C., Weakley, J., Burke, L. M., Roach, G. D., Sargent, C., Maniar, N., Huynh, M., Miller, D. J., Townshend, A. and Halson, S. L. (2025). The effect of alcohol on subsequent sleep in healthy adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 80, 102030. doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2024.102030
- Cooke, R., McEwan, H. and Norman, P. (2023). The effect of forming implementation intentions on alcohol consumption: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Drug and Alcohol Review, 42(1), 68–80. doi.org/10.1111/dar.13553