Thoughts on 'Dry January' 12 days in...

31 days without having a drink containing alcohol...surely can't be a bad thing...

Alcohol Concern and Cancer Research UK have publicised this idea - http://www.dryjanuary.org.uk/ - on the following premises: no hangovers, an opportunity to think about your drinking, lose weight, save money and improve your skin condition, as well as raising money for the two charities in the process.

So far so good; no obvious problems with this as such....and yet over recent weeks criticism has emerged.

Most of the criticism focusses on the following problems; will people 'reward' themselves over the following months by drinking excessive amounts of alcohol, is having a month off alcohol a 'major achievement' at all and if so, what does this say about our society / a particular individual and lastly concern that the main point that alcohol related initiatives should focus on (all of us who drink alcohol should have at least  2 or 3 days off every week) is being over-looked.

I decided to 'sign up' for Dry January simply because it seemed an appropriate initiative to support given my line of work but also from a personal perspective; although I drink well within lower risk guidelines a period of time without any alcohol is not a bad thing per se.  My personal reasons were not to avoid hangovers, lose weight or raise money for charity.

So is Dry January a good or a bad thing?  To be honest, I don't think this is the right question since the answer is both in equal measure.

Good because it offers an opportunity for individuals to consider their own level of alcohol use, their reasons for drinking at this level and a chance to consider what it feels like to not have a drink for a reasonable length of time.  In my opinion this is likely to have the most positive benefits for people who typically drink on the cusp of lower risk and increasing risk rather than those who consistently drink at problematic levels.

Bad because a month 'off alcohol' alone is unlikely to hold any long-term health benefits and because it may lead to people into a train of thought whereby they then 'reward' themselves for 'being good for a whole month' and drinking excessively from 1st February onwards on at least an intermittent basis.

Good if the reasons for pursuing this were in order to consider behaviour change over the longer term and not necessarily because someone had particular concerns about their alcohol use up to 31st December and then decided to dramatically alter their lifestyle on a whim.

Bad if the main reason was to prove a point that someone can go a whole 31 days without a drink.

Given where UK society is currently at in terms of alcohol use, messages and initiatives encouraging people to consider how much they drink and the context in which they do it can only be a positive thing.  However I am not convinced that the concept of a month of abstinence is necessarily the right way of going about this.

The British Liver Trust and others are entirely correct to point out that liver damage from alcohol is unlikely to be repaired by a month of abstinence (though in fairness to 'Dry January' they never claimed that it would).

My biggest concern is the one I briefly mentioned earlier in this blog - all of us who drink alcohol on any sort of regular basis should be constantly considering how, when and why we use it.  We should be thinking about the context of our use of this potentially dangerous drug, especially since problems relating to it are typically insidious in their nature.  And for the majority of us who drink alcohol, a month without it alone is not as powerful or useful as ensuring that we have at least 2 or 3 days every week without having a drink.

In essence then I don't think that Dry January is a bad idea, I just think that the bigger messages about considering our alcohol use over the longer term potentially get lost in an initiative which focusses on potentially short-term thinking.

I think whether the initiative ends up having positive effect for a particular individual will be more about their reasons for pursuing a month of abstinence in the first place.

So to everyone who is 12 days into abstinence, well done.....and good luck for the remainder of the month; I hope you achieve your goal.  But while you are pursuing this goal, take a moment to think about your alcohol use over the coming months and year - ultimately this will be more important than having 31 days without alcohol during January 2013.