Chad Kelly, 57, of Atlanta recently had an amazing Sunday fly fishing on the Toccoa River. He caught a few trout, enjoyed a friend’s company, and witnessed a majestic fog rising off the chilly water as the sun rose that morning.
The night before, he attended an Atlanta Hawks basketball game, where normally he would’ve had a few whiskies, but he was committed to a Dry January – a time when many hit pause on their alcohol consumption – so he refrained. Had he imbibed at the game, he said, he would’ve skipped the fishing trip.
“I wouldn’t have planned it. I would’ve said I’m probably not going to feel like getting up at 5 o’clock,” says Kelly, an executive at an Atlanta paving company. “I would’ve stayed in bed and got up at 9 or something. … Instead, I got up and got to experience that gorgeous morning.”
Millions of others are coming to the end of their own Dry January, and as the month closes, many are wondering, “What now?”
Bring Dry January Into February
After reading an article about Dry January in 2012, Kelly reflected on his unhealthy eating and drinking during the holidays and gave it a try. After two years, Kelly decided to extend his Dry January into February and beyond. He’s twice made it all the way to April.
“I felt better. My head was clearer, and I exercised a little bit more than I normally would have because instead of being hungover on Saturday morning, I’d bounce up and go to the Y,” he says.
There were other benefits: Better sleep, lower blood pressure, lower body weight, and more energy. The benefits even extended to Kelly’s golden retriever, Fisher, who gets more walks when Kelly isn’t drinking.
It’s a great example of how to integrate the lessons of Dry January into the rest of the year, says Mandy Fauble, PhD, director of clinical care services at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Western Behavioral Health at Safe Harbor.
Dry January is a chance to pause, listen to what is happening in our bodies and lives, and think about what’s next, Fauble says. That could mean a look at your physical health, but also at your mental health, the quality of your relationships, and even your financial health (those bar tabs add up fast!). And if you find yourself too eager to get back to drinking Feb. 1, that may indicate you need to talk to your doctor or a specialist, she says.
Once you establish how life was different – or better – consider how you abstained and what worked, says Fauble. What did life look like without alcohol?
Maybe you didn’t keep booze in the house or were content to stay inside instead of bundling up for a beer run. Perhaps you opted for a hike, cooking class, or Oscar-nominated movie over a night at the club. Or it could be you felt more present in relationships and enjoyed the meaningful conversations that arose. Think about how to incorporate these choices into your life more regularly.
“The way we make the most of (Dry January) is to think about what happens next,” Fauble says. “Setting up structures that facilitate change is often a way to move from something we have to work really hard at to hardwiring our change.”
For Kelly, learning to appreciate a good mocktail or nonalcoholic beer served as a structure to help him through the dry spell. Today, he says, he even folds them in between rounds of regular alcohol to reduce his consumption.
A Warning From Dry January
Noticing significant changes in your health and well-being during a dry period could be a warning, says Howard Becker, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Medical University of South Carolina and director of the school’s Charleston Alcohol Research Center.
“Maybe your alcohol consumption is having some negative impact on your health, and it could be in your best interest to extend it beyond January,” he says.
Health experts agree heavy drinking – five or more drinks a day for men or four for women – is a serious risk factor for a number of health issues including high blood pressure, heart disease, liver disease, stroke, depression, and dementia. It can also take a serious toll on decision making and your relationships with family, friends and co-workers.
It’s generally accepted that men should stop at two drinks a day and women, one, though the WHO and others now question even those limits. If you have concerns about your consumption, confer with your doctor to compare health indicators from Dry January with the rest of the year.
“Moderation is always the best solution,” Becker says.
However, Becker says he believes the matter is actually highly individualized. People have different reasons for drinking and different tolerances. Alcohol is also metabolized differently from one person to the next, he says. That’s why it’s important to notice what changes during Dry January, as well as what changes when you return to drinking.
“If you return to drinking and you find some of these things start reversing and you’re re-experiencing some of the problems you have that you never associated with alcohol consumption, this may serve as motivation or impetus to extend the period of time abstaining or modifying how much you drink,” he says. “Everyone has to evaluate for themselves what will best suit them.”
Kelly had to do some evaluating himself in 2018 when he required open-heart surgery. His doctor instructed him to give up cigars and cut back on booze. Fortunately, Kelly – then in his sixth year of Dry January – had a blueprint for how to do it.
“The discipline to start off dry the first part of the year – that discipline has helped me to cut back overall. I do not drink as much now as I did before 2018,” Kelly said. “The quality of life for me personally is higher because I’m doing more of those things that bring me deep satisfaction.”
