Colin Dempsey often gets paid in drinks when he gigs. But for the month of October, the 42-year-old singer-guitarist from Astoria is taking a big step to reduce those post-show IPAs.
He’s taking part in “Sober October,” a catchy-sounding sobriety challenge which has tens of thousands posting pics of their mocktails on social media, similar to the hugely popular Dry January. It’s a way of announcing to the world they’re cleaning up their acts for health reasons — if only for a month.
“My ideal goal would be to be able to drastically reduce my alcohol intake to a rare occasion,” Dempsey tells The Post. “If I say to myself ‘Get through October and break the habit’ … then maybe [I] can have one drink once a week or once every two weeks.”
And while there are plenty of boozy “#SoberOctoberFail” pics documented on Instagram, the movement is gaining traction here after starting in Australia about 10 years ago.
It’s become an annual fixture on Joe Rogan’s “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, and celebs such as Nikki Glaser and Rosanne Barr have joined the host to discuss the challenge. Barr told the host on his October 2 show that she hasn’t taken Ambien since blaming it for her racist Tweetstorm last year.
Most participants say it’s a health thing. Dempsey, for example, began running and eating healthy after turning 40.
“I felt like drinking was completely nullifying all the hard work I was doing with my diet and exercising,” he says.
For 35-year-old Nick, an audio engineer from the Chicago suburbs who declined to provide his full name for privacy reasons, Sober October is one more step in his year-long path to healthy living. Over the past year, he’s lost around 100 pounds. He has a 4-year-old son he needs to have energy for — but working upwards of 80-hour weeks propelled him to drink beer or whiskey after-hours to ease the job stress, he says.
“I had noticed a pattern in my drinking — it was getting worse,” says Nick, adding he first heard of Sober October on Rogan’s podcast.
Though still early in the month, Nick reports good results — and he’s excited to see how cutting his alcohol intake will add to his overall endurance. For instance, a month ago, before Sober October began, he went hiking while on vacation in northern Illinois and didn’t feel as winded.
For those struggling with alcoholism, Sober October and Dry January aren’t necessarily safe solutions. But for those who just want to keep their drinking at a healthy level, the month-long booze vacations can be beneficial, says Cindy Feinberg, a New York City-based substance-abuse specialist who runs The Recovery Coach NY.
“I always think it’s a good thing to explore your drinking,” she says. “I think people will step away from [Sober October thinking], ‘This is how I feel, this is what I’ve discovered about drinking and how it relates to me.’ ”
Jay Huffman, a 30-year-old product manager outside of Atlanta, usually keeps himself to just several drinks per week — like a nightly glass of wine, and a few more drinks on Friday and Saturday nights. But in 2016, his father was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma, a kidney cancer that’s not caused by drinking, but one that drinking definitely didn’t help. His father survived, and it made Huffman stop drinking for some time.
Now, Huffman has a 4-month-old daughter, Cecilia, and he’d like to have a clear head for her. Though he’s inclined to grab beers with friends on weekends, he thinks Sober October can help him stay clean all the days of the week.
“I just think it’s healthy for anybody to have a look at the relationship with those types of things.”