A month without.
A month within.
Big Brother’s pickup was parked in the front yard. A half truck length from the street. Just short of the azaleas. He had no memory of leaving it there. Granted, he usually parked on the grass. The patch beside the driveway on the other side of the property. The angle was right.
Dad supervised the midmorning backup. Dad, who usually watched the game drinking vodka from a 20-ounce wide-mouth beer glass.
I don’t remember how old I was that day. Big Bro had some years on me, so I was still a kid. I do recall it all feeling normal.
We all grew up with alcohol, in some way, at center. You saw everyone drinking, had everyone explaining why you shouldn’t be drinking, and worked on figuring out how to be drinking. My understanding came from a scope wider than two prominent male figures. People were always drunk. At restaurants. Get togethers. At the holidays. Drunk.
I'll never forget that holiday the hammered relatives slept over. They took my room. Auntie couldn’t make it to the head and threw up in my dresser drawer.
It all seemed normal.
I learned how not to drink. At permit age I was already into cars and motor racing and took driving very seriously. By high school I had become a proud designated driver. Friends depended on me. It felt good. And nobody ever tossed cookies in the car. They waited. I knew the good places to pull over.
Not that I haven’t taken the wheel of the porcelain bus, as I most certainly have done on numerous occasions in my youth, always considering my driving skills as superior.
I hadn't given alcohol serious consideration in a while, so when M told me she was going to do Dry January to support a friend doing the same, I was all in.
The modern day Dry January was coined by a UK Non Profit in 2013. Alcohol Change UK had 4000 people sign up that year. Their numbers exceeded 100,000 in 2024.
The stat sheets agree about 25% of drinking age grown-ups in the US gave it a go last season. Something like 65 million of us. Depending of who you want to believe, about 40% succeed for the full 31 days.
And be sure to scroll through the Dry January NYT articles, as they’re full of quite handsome wine ads.
I do not consider myself a drinker. Though normal behavior does include loitering in the Trader Joe’s wine section (is there a better wine and cheese browse?), constant plotting of wineries along vacation routes, and/or completely rearranging our schedule when weather permits a rooftop happy hour at a favorite local craft brewhouse.
I’ll footnote our household consumption usually hovers around one to two bottles of wine, and sometimes a beer. For the week.
Neither of us found the dry challenge particularly challenging, but we did discover some amazing new mocktails, agreed zero Guinness is pretty tasty, and confirmed there are no alcohol free wines worth purchasing.
Besides the mentioned exceptions, another lesson uncorked was we don’t need to pretend to be drinking. Just have a glass of something you enjoy. It’s the same as cooking vegetarian meals. Instead of concocting things to taste like meat, preparing vegetables in more delicious ways is the proper path to pleasing palates.
As for the main benefits the Dry January data promised, my glass stayed empty. Lower blood pressure: nope. Weight loss: gained a pound. Better sleep: stayed the same.
But wait. Prevention Magazine lists the No. 1 benefit is a better understanding of my relationship with alcohol.
I got this one. And I didn’t realize I needed this one.
Dry January began with thinking about the why. By week two I realized it was more about the when. About replacing the when. Which required a bit more self discipline than replacing cocktails with mocktails.
When we had happy hour turned into when we took a sunset walk. A Yoga class. A gym visit. With the January cold keeping us mostly indoors, we decided to join our area Rec Centers to expand our yoga options. And I returned to a more steady meditation practice. Got a book project near the finish line. And M had paintings accepted into two different art shows.
It was definitely about the when.
There’s a Sober October growing with equal popularity, but you don’t need to wait on a prompt if you missed this party. Just remember it’s better with friends.
And, yes, our friend made it through Dry January, too.
And now…
It’s February.
Cheers.
1. Cover photo design by Author, from a photo by Thomas Picauly, Unsplash.
© Copyright William Hazel, 2025
Comments