Dry January benefits
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What Happens After Dry January?

Experts weigh in on whether 30 days is enough to see the benefits of kicking alcohol

Dry January generally attracts three types: Health fanatics who never drank much to begin with (they’ve already cut back on sugar and meat, and alcohol is next); people who feel they’re drinking too much and are starting to question their relationship with alcohol, or know in their heart they should stop; and binge drinkers who take the month off, somewhat begrudgingly, because December was a mess and a significant other or friend group is fed up.

In any case, “failure rate” is normal, especially if you’ve been a heavy drinker for a long time. If you’ve had a slip or two, don’t beat yourself up. If you’re counting down the days until you can drink again, looking forward to book club, a dinner reservation, February 1, that’s common. Perhaps you find yourself consumed with the thought of that first drink, obsessing over it. For me, it would have been red wine. Any kind. I wasn’t picky.

I drank voraciously and recklessly for 17 years. During that period there were many patches of short-term sobriety, sometimes for a week, sometimes three. But something would get in the way—a birthday, a work event, Friday night—and I’d start drinking again. In 2010, I finally stopped, and learned that sobriety gets better with time, and the further you take it, the bigger the rewards.

“A lot of people start Dry January, and then they binge and freak out and realize, ‘Oh, shit, this is a problem.’”

Lindsay Sutherland Boal describes herself as “an habitual Dry January dropout.” The recovery advocate celebrates four years of sobriety this month; her sober date is January 24. “In the rooms” it’s common to see people with sobriety dates at the end of this month, versus the beginning. “A lot of people start Dry January, and then they binge and freak out and realize, ‘Oh, shit, this is a problem,’” says Sutherland Boal. “It’s either an exercise in white-knuckling willpower or a lead-up to a binge-fest.”

For many, Dry January is followed by a period of excess, which Sutherland Boal calls “Blowout February.” This has a scientific term: “abstinence violation syndrome,” says Dr. Anna Lembke,  chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic at Stanford University and author of Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. “You see it in mice and rats too. If mice and rats are given a steady diet of alcohol and then the alcohol is taken away, and then they’re again given access to alcohol, it’s like they’re trying to make up for that deficit and they use more alcohol.”

This can be an illuminating process. “Sometimes the problem only reveals itself when we try to stop and are unable to, or if we’re able to but then see the difference between using and not using, or drinking and not drinking,” says Lembke.

It took six months for Sutherland Boal to really feel a difference. “Thirty days is not enough. Sixty days is not enough. Ninety days is not enough. When we get to 100 days, maybe,” she says. “But for the majority of us, the first snowflake of awesome falls at six months.” I’d say that my first full year was a slog.

Cravings, as well as symptoms of withdrawal such as insomnia, irritability and anxiety, can persist for weeks or months after someone removes an addictive substance.

Cravings, as well as symptoms of withdrawal such as insomnia, irritability and anxiety, can persist for weeks or months after someone removes an addictive substance, be it alcohol, smoking, sugar, social media, gaming or porn. “I think it’s important for people to know that if they do meet the criteria for an alcohol-use disorder, the data shows that abstaining for three months has better outcomes than for one month,” says Lembke.

Still, she often recommends 30 days at first, because it’s an amount of time people can wrap their heads around, and the point when acute withdrawal symptoms typically begin to dissipate. But the more time someone gives themselves, the more their health and wellbeing will improve. Take sleep, for instance. “We know that alcohol helps initiate sleep but it wildly disrupts the sleep cycle, leading to less deep sleep and less restful sleep,” she says. “It can take up to 18 months for sleep to normalize after stopping alcohol consumption.”

There are more serious consequences too. In Canada, one in 20 deaths are caused by drinking alcohol. “It’s a startling statistic,” says Dr. Adam Sherk at the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. “Alcohol is probably a more substantial factor in most people’s health than they realize. The harms of even fairly modest alcohol use are really not understood by us here in Canada. For example, still only about half of drinkers know that alcohol causes cancer.”

Last January, many Canadians were shocked when the revised Low-Risk Alcohol Drinking Guidelines recommended no more than two drinks per week, stating that any more “increases one’s risk of developing several types of cancer, including breast and colon cancer.” It was a wake-up call that’s still being processed and absorbed.

“In extreme moderation, like one to two standard drinks per week, there’s nothing wrong with alcohol,” says Lembke. “But many of us consume well above those amounts, and the end organ damage caused by the cumulative effects of alcohol use is enormous.” Its ubiquity doesn’t help. “It’s hard to quit, because it’s everywhere.”

Dry January wasn’t enough for Sutherland Boal. But it was a good jumping-off point that helped her evaluate her relationship with alcohol. The transition from on and off drinking to rock-solid sobriety took time, and happened when she found community with strangers on a similar journey. That, and walking. The physical and mental benefits of her daily ritual inspired Sutherland Boal to start She Walks Canada, which brings together sober and sober-curious women in 28 locations across the country to walk, share and connect.

It’s also useful to pay close attention to the moments when you find yourself wanting to drink. Mark them down and ask yourself: What time of day was it? What was happening? What did the rest of my day look like? Had I eaten? Was I rested? Who was I with? Some keep a diary, others use a spreadsheet. Having an accountability partner helps.

“A month of abstinence is really just the first step,” says Lembke. “Recovery from addiction is often a long and winding and very difficult road. But it does come with so many rewards: interpersonal, physical, spiritual.”

What happens after Dry January is up to you. I hope you keep going, because the most precious gifts of sobriety have yet to be revealed.

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