Dry January "Driary"
For the first time ever, my husband and I attempted and successfully completed Dry January. I had never been into the idea of doing Dry January, mostly because I already give up non-essential spending in January and the idea of not spending money AND not drinking was unappealing. However, in the 2nd pandemic-era January I felt like giving up drinking was an easier sell than not spending, and it totally was.
The key was that we prepared well. We knew that we personally were more likely to struggle with not being able to drink beer, so we fortified with non-alcoholic beer (which actually wasn’t bad! More on that below) as well as other drinks, some of which approximated the beer-drinking experience and some of which didn’t. And it was mostly fine. Obviously, there were no brewery trips or happy hours or other situations that would have been difficult to not indulge.
Here are my real-time observations on the experience, takeaways at the end.
Jan 2
I hate when January has 5 weekends… 5 weekends instead of 4 to do whatever your January “good habit” is (usually related to spending, this year it’s not drinking).
We went to Soft Spirits and got some shit. The “bourbon” was so bad and then we read the back and apparently they say to mix *that* with bourbon. Lol. We can try on Feb 1. Then we split this Amaro club soda thing, it wasn’t amazing but was kinda like a light cocktail so that was cool.
I mostly don’t drink enough to feel effects- maybe on the occasional Sunday. What I feel like might be a problem is the lack of craft beer at home and the inability to go to breweries. Also not being able to order a cocktail at restaurants. What is the appeal of a beach day without some beers, or dinner without a fancy drink, or a get together without alcohol? What is it like to have a DAY and you can’t unwind with wine or beer? I want to stay perfect here, because you don’t NEED alcohol the way you need to spend money. I’d always slip up during no spend January, but it was fine. I might be harder on myself if I slip up this time. 29 days to go!
Part of the Soft Spirits haul.
Jan 3
Athletic Brewing N/A hazy was pretty damn good. Split the can- 6oz of non alcoholic beer, watch out!
Jan 5
Pamplemousse La Croix- actually good?!?
Jan 6
My Bravus Oatmeal Stout - so bad. Edward’s De La Calle Tepache was really good. Pineapple and cinnamon.
Jan 8
Club Soda and bitters kinda tastes like a cocktail. I had two. My brain is so programmed to be like “no you can’t have more than one drink!!!” But of course if there is no alcohol- you can. I could kinda fw this drink for normal times.
Jan 11
Alcohol free Sauvignon blanc is something you’d never drink in normal times but tastes good enough when you can’t drink.
This is now the longest I’ve gone without booze (few years back I was on antibiotics for 10 days and didn’t drink). One of the reasons I’m doing this is to examine my relationship with alcohol. I’ve moved past doing a lot of social drinking, often to excess. But for my whole adult life, alcohol has been involved, even to a small degree. The pandemic didn’t help- we never used to have craft beer in the house and then that became the only way we could support our local beer shop, plus there was that whole “existential angst that there’s a deadly pandemic and our old way of life is gone forever” thing. I never drank more than one. Two on Saturdays. But when you add it up every day…
Jan 16
Am I learning anything? No. Kinda. I’m not craving booze in a bodily sense but mentally I’m missing it. It doesn’t help that the Omicron surge is making the idea of going out to dinner unappealing, so it feels kinda like early pando days where all we’re doing is walking and getting takeout/delivery, only now with the added bonus of not drinking (and admittedly, less existential panic being boosted). Am I more present or clear? No. I just have one less little joy to make life better. You hear about some people cutting out drinking and never missing it. I can’t imagine that being me. Who knows though.
In my 20s, my baseline was way higher than it is now. If I was drinking, it was three drinks on a weeknight, five on a weekend, more for a celebration, and I only faced consequences if I was going hard, and even the consequences weren’t that bad. Remember when you’d just puke once, take an Advil, have some fast food and be straight? But your body’s ability to do that diminishes as you get older, so I got good at self-regulating. People talk about 2-day hangovers once you turn 30- I have never experienced that, but my last hangover was at 32 after going too hard at a wedding. I was laid out all day. I respect that the rules have changed. I haven’t consumed near enough to become “drunk” in years - though of course, a buzz from some high-ABV beers happens. So it’s not necessarily about the physical effects anymore.
It’s more that… I enjoy drinking! Trying new breweries, wine tasting, $18 cocktails, having a respectable home bar, having Mexican food with huge-ass margaritas, shot and beer combos at concerts, getting a beer at the airport. What is life without these things? What is my perception of myself that I need these things, and what am I missing when I can’t partake? What does it mean that my idea of a good life includes certain class signifiers like wine tasting, $$ beers, $70 worth of drinks? I’m not trying to find answers here, and of course alcohol is so baked into our culture that it’s hard to examine personal behavior outside of that context. But I am examining it.
Jan 18
I accidentally came across something that described an Old Fashioned so seductively that I had to stop reading.
I do think my skin looks better! But I also started slugging recently so maybe it’s that.
I’m obviously not at the end yet but I will say no matter what - this is permanently changing my relationship to alcohol the same way my first no-spend January in 2014 permanently changed my relationship to money. Even if it doesn’t end up perfect, my eyes are now opened to the possibilities for making permanent changes (NOT to this degree) and actually having some strategies in place to do so.
Jan 21
Well, now I’m at the point where I’m not going to break the streak barring extreme circumstances.
Even if all this accomplishes is breaking the habit for a time, it’s still a reset. It’s still going to recalibrate my drinking habits. We initially said that “when the pandemic is over” we would go back to only drinking on weekends, but it’s clear we need to go ahead and adopt that philosophy now. The idea of going 4 days won’t seem crazy now that I know I can do a whole month.
It is very much like a no-spend January. Is it fun to not do shit? Go a month without restaurants, shopping, bars? No, it’s boring. But when I did it, it was hella satisfying to see my bank account, or to get paid and feel like the money was really mine. It’s that whole short-term sacrifices for long-term payoff thing, which I’ve never been great at tbh. Only the drinking is being sacrificed for physical health and a more mindful approach in the future.
Jan 23
I have gone 4 weekends without drinking!
Is this egocentric? I’m not the first person to do Dry January. Journaling is a good way to sort our feelings.
Jan 25
Good (approximating alcohol)
Athletic Brewing’s IPA and hazy IPA tasted surprisingly like the real thing
Curious No. 6 - like a painkiller/piña colada and very tasty
Fake cocktails like Alta club soda and amaro, and Ginish and Tonic. Also club soda and bitters. Not things that would normally be my first choice, but desperate times.
Good (not approximating alcohol)
Pamplemousse LaCroix
De La Calle Tepache - a fermented pineapple drink originating from Jalisco, Mexico, that I can hazily recall drinking our first time in Puerto Vallarta. It comes in a lot of different flavors - pineapple, tamarind, mango chile. Yum!
Health-Ade Passionfruit Kombucha - I’d never had booch before? I like it a lot.
Various Trader Joe’s sparkling juices (as always)
Not good
Bravus Brewing Company - everything we tried completely sucked. Athletic Brewing’s offerings were way better
Fake whiskey - tastes kinda like smoky apple cider vinegar. Some company will eventually figure out how to replicate alcohol-free spirits that actually taste like the real thing, but the technology isn’t there now. At least not with this!
Curious No. 2 - they say it’s a margarita mixed with Dark and Stormy. It’s not good.
FEB 1!!!!!
We did it! We went all of January without a drop of the sauce! And yes I do feel a real sense of accomplishment here.
Takeaways:
I am really proud of myself for sticking to it for the whole month with absolutely no bending and really no desire to. It was effort, but not a struggle. I’m pleasantly surprised at how I never once felt like my day would be made better by a drink or that I deserved one.
Our main goal was to put a break in the consumption and stop the pattern of drinking daily we’d gotten into during the pandemic (and probably before). We have succeeded. I’d even go so far as to say that we’re reprogrammed, at least for right now. We wanted to stop drinking on weekdays, and Feb 1 was a Tuesday, so we were literally like “What if we… waited until Friday to break the streak?” Ultimately, we decided not to, since it’s not “Dry Jan-plus-3-days-uary” and we weren’t gonna get extra credit for waiting. So we did have an Old Fashioned, and it was amazing. But there are already little changes we’re making, like making plans to go to a brewery but NOT buy a growler for consumption during the week. Progress.
Seriously, Athletic Brewing’s N/A beer is really good. It’s going to become a staple.
I highly recommend buying a wall-mounted can crusher. Somehow during all of this we actually went through way more cans than normal, probably because we were crushing 2 LaCroix or whatever. Can crushers not only take up way less space in the recycling, but they are also fun as hell. So regardless of whether you do Dry January, permanently or temporarily change your drinking habits, or don’t - you should definitely buy one.