How Much Does Dry January Really Help You?
It’s been a full week since those New Year’s Eve parties, and if you’re participating in Dry January, now is the time to think about how well it’s working for you—if it’s working at all. Dry January definitely has health benefits, but it can also backfire on some people. Let’s look at the pros and cons.
Cold turkey withdrawal isn’t always safe
For moderate drinkers, giving up alcohol can be quite beneficial (with caveats, which we’ll get to shortly). But if you drink enough alcohol and often enough, stopping suddenly can be dangerous.
Quitting alcohol can cause a variety of health problems, ranging from unpleasant (headaches, mild diarrhea) to severe (seizures, hallucinations, electrolyte imbalances that can affect the heart) and life-threatening.
Kelsey Rower, assistant director of nursing at Diamond Recovery Group , told me that recovering patients sometimes experience more severe withdrawal symptoms than they expect because “they are not truthful about the amount they drink or may not be self-aware.” ” She recommends seeing a professional if you’re not sure whether drying is safe for you. A doctor or recovery specialist can help you, or call the SAMHSA hotline .
Be sure to pay attention to your mental health
As long as your body is ready for it, reducing your alcohol intake has clear health benefits. Your liver begins to repair damage, you sleep better, and you may even notice benefits to your gut health, immune system, and other body functions.
But the mental health benefits don’t always come. If you simply stop drinking without changing anything in your life, you may find that you interact with people less or that you lack the coping strategies you usually use to deal with stress. Rower says she’s seen TikToks where people decide a few days in Dry January is too much trouble to be worth doing.
“It’s important to understand why you can’t go a month without drinking,” she says.
Journaling can be a way to ask yourself these questions and find answers. There are also “mindful drinking” apps that ask you to track your mood and your progress over the course of a month (or whatever time period you choose).
Try Dry from Alcohol Change UK is an app that many people find useful; it will work after January if you want to continue cutting back, and you can still use it even if you drink occasionally.
What will happen in February?
We’ve previously discussed how Dry January is essentially an experiment that allows you to answer questions about your relationship with alcohol. Am I sleeping better? Are you eating better? To save money? Answering these questions will help you plan for the future.
If you treat Dry January as a separate challenge, you may end up going back to drinking the same amount as before. Many people drink more on December 31st in anticipation of a month of sobriety, and then drink even more on February 1st to celebrate achieving the goal, which doesn’t exactly help achieve the goal of drinking less.
Luckily, there are tools and strategies you can use to keep the momentum of your dry January going throughout the rest of the year. For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a detailed test and planner you can use to assess your current drinking levels and create a plan for how to drink less in the future.
Rower recommends that after Dry January, reflect on what you enjoyed about the month and make room in your life for something other than booze throughout the year. For example, taking up a new hobby (or returning to an old one) can fill some of the space in your life that drinking used to occupy.
She also suggests seeking social support to help you stay sober (or drink less, whatever that looks like for you). The world may be moving away from the monthly trend, but you may have a friend or family member who is happy to continue with you.