DRY JANUARY 2023! Been overindulging? Drinking crept up? Want to begin a healthy new you? This way please. All welcome!

[HPLikecraft]

It’s that time of year again... the late Christmas present to our livers!
You may be thinking of doing Dry January to:

*detox a little after seasonal overindulgence, or
*help you cut down a bit generally, or
*help you start to get out of a harmful alcohol habit, or
*just be a bit healthier for a month...

It’s good for all of those things!

I find the MN DJ threads excellent for support, encouragement, sharing info, ‘we’re in this together’ camaraderie, suggestions for grown up drinks, aversion techniques and just fun.

This is my sixth year of DJ and I swear it may have saved my life; it was so hard first time, but having succeeded I did dry June and October after that, and do so most years. It has broken my habit, banished much of the craving and reset my relationship with booze. I imagine it's added years to my life.

I won’t be finding DJ too difficult this year, but some will. Hopefully this thread will help.

Throw your hat in the ring, pull up a chair and let's do this together. Everyone welcome 🙂☕️🧃

The DJ2022 Wagon creaks to a start in just 4 days, but always stops for latecomers 🙂

Off out tonight to see my 2 friends. None of us drinking so no problem, constant headache since I started. Not sleeping that well either. I get this every time, but forget. The first week when I ought to feel virtuous and better, I always feel a bit pants. 🩲

Mezmer: "also one major upside is that you’ll start to manage stress much better too. So life becomes much, much easier. That’s an absolute promise."

Nope. I've never had that affect before.

I had a really shit day at work today, topped off by the fact my road home was closed and "diversion" was a narrow, windy and muddy path with lots of traffic coming the other way - hugely stressful in the dark.

Definitely struggling a bit in not having a drink right now. I opened a bubbly Shloer and am drinking that while waiting for food (fuck it, today is a pizza day - not sure that's much better). It's not quite the same.

@Haruka stress is always a massive trigger for me - it's so, so hard but you can do this. Just keep thinking about tomorrow morning and how good you'll feel if you don't drink!

I'll still feel shit in the morning because neither of my causes of stress today has gone away 😂 But yeah, like Dori says, just keep swimming...

@HPLikecraft the % are brilliant, so motivating, thank you. And thank you for the thread too of course.

Not feeling too bad today, but as with so many of you, Friday and Saturday are going to be so hard. I find evenings are a snore-bore without a drink...but last night my husband and I played Mario Kart on our DS's Nintendo which was actually a bit of fun and passed the time quite quickly. Maybe I'll turn into a Dry Gamer?

I’m in but blimey it’s boring! DH and I have definitely been drinking too frequently over the last year though we never get drunk. The Friday night sharing a bottle of wine has crept into too many other evenings during the week after a very hard year for us. I really associate a glass of wine with “…and relax …” We have done dry January several times so I know we can stick to it but finding it hard not to call it miserable January. Any tips?

Went to the coast for a walk , and lunch out ( no wine )
@paulmccartneysbagel yes , I am !
Even had an espresso after lunch , still no no movement

I’m not finding it hard but agree it’s boring. We are definitely a couple that enjoys that evening sit down with a glass of wine before supper.

We also eat out a LOT and will share a bottle of wine. This is so entrenched, I don’t even want to go out for a meal until February 😬

Actually, yes to the constipation. I’m tying this in with a diet and in spite of not drinking or snacking of the evening my weight hasn’t shifted and I feel bloated! (In spite of still piddling like a puppy)

Day 4 for me. Last night was okay. I had two cups of lemon and ginger tea but I feel rather irritable, and never has a month seemed so long….! I’m expecting the weekend to be a bit more difficult, and have visitors mid month who’ll be expecting to have a drink with me, but guess I’ll cross those bridges when I come to them.

Well done @freshstart2023 at not drinking when you were out. That’s fantastic:)

Thanks to everyone for sharing what they’re going through. It really helps

Hi, mind if I join? Day 2 for me. I abstained for 3 months Jan- March last year following an alcohol fuelled incident. Surprised myself then as I had never abstained for more than a couple of nights before that. I wanted to give up completely but fell off the wagon, not horrendously but just went back to the normal bad habits. I currently drink a glass or 2 a night and more at weekends. After Xmas I’m already finding giving up hard despite my mindset and efforts last year. Just love that usual glass of wine at 6pm but now trying the AF alternatives again instead! Just don’t know if I can do DJ but maybe by checking in here it will help?!!

@Stickywhitelovepiss I'm passing bits of time with unhealthy spa envy - would you give me an indication whereabouts your spa break was? Northern, southern, coastal, hills? Was it good? I've done the odd day spa but I'd really love an actual spa break and maybe if I stop drinking for long enough I could afford it!

It would help if dh was more sociable ofvan evening. He's currently asleep in front of the pc " watching" football. Its what he does every night when hes not working. I am well aware that my marriage is one of the reasons I drink! Am.in bed with herb tea: tonight have made a mix of skullcap, passion flower and mint.

It was South Essex - I'll send you the link. It's caffeine-free, alcohol-free, vegan food, etc., so people there are all there for a similar reason (rather than the people at the next table cracking open the prosecco!). There's loads of mindfulness sessions, yoga, pilates, sound bath type sessions, a pool, a spa, lovely grounds etc. In a word, bliss!

The downside is that it's feckin' expensive!

To those mentioning boredom, would it help to kind of make a virtue of necessity and think of it as a cosy, "me time" type evening...?

I've staggered the evening kind of as below:

• 6pm - Get onesie and floofy socks on (so dressed for the occasions)
• 6ish - Heat up and drink AF mulled wine to latest box set
• 6.45pm - Eat comfort food, non-wine associated type dinner on sofa in front of TV (smoked salmon and scrambled eggs tonight).
• 7.30pm - Have a couple of chocolates from Hotel Chocolat box
• 8.30pm - Cup of tea or Horlicks or Options hot chocolate
• 10pm - Go to bed with a quit lit memoir and hopefully fall asleep reading (have done last two nights).

I don't really do facials / nails, etc. - but that's the sort of spirit of it. That way, I can focus on ooh nearly mulled wine time, ooh nearly dinner time, ooh nearly chocolate time etc. and before you know it the evening is more or less gone - presuming bed time takes effect and abstinence-induced insomnia doesn't kick in. I am using lavender oil and valerian tablets to help with that - any effect is probably psychosomatic, but I'll take that.

I do have the advantage of it just being me and the cat though!

I had two cups of lemon and ginger tea but I feel rather irritable, and never has a month seemed so long

I agree, it's absolutely dragging!

Reading back, I realise that all sounds terribly twee - as if I'm blithely and breezily just suggesting simply 'pamper partying' the feelings / cravings away.

I'm in exactly the same boat and just sharing in the spirit of what's helping me through here as well.

Well done all for getting to day 4. I have been eating far too much chocolate (christmas rations)😀. Had a couple of non alcoholic g and ts tonight which hit the spot. . Never had non alcoholic gin before. It was very pleasant.

I'm still going ok, drinking tea and eating Christmas cake. I'm eating way too much sugar, but have decided I can only deal with one thing at a time.
I agree it's a bit dull, I think Friday is going to be decidedly difficult. I've got some brewdog AF beers in, so hoping that helps

Had a couple of awful nights' sleep and was so grumpy yesterday. I can't say it's going dry but I did drink for more than a week straight before.

I haven't had any cravings but ordered the 0% version of my favourite gin to tide me over the weekend eves when I'm most likely to crack.

Had a nice evening bingeing trashy TV with my teenage daughter. It was fun and cosy and I probably would have been less in the mood for it if I had been drinking.

I am doing well on the booze front but surprsingly less well on the vegetarian front. I don't really eat that much meat anyway but found myself longingly hanging around the snack meat section in Tesco last night thinking about whether I could sneakily eat some Fridge Raiders while DC was at sport practice. I don't even like effing Fridge Raiders 😂. Plus have just done online shopping and had to scroll through a whole section of every cut of meat I have eaten for the last 2 years to get to the boring old beans section.

Anyway - at least meat cravings are taking my mind off other types of cravings.

Has anyone got any recommendations for alcohol free gin?

@cashmerecardigans - I've tried all the AF gins in the past, plus seedlip etc. Given the price (same as normal gin) and lack of buzz / not the same, my personal opinion is that they're not worth it. Instead I have a bit of belvoir cordial, ginger & lemongrass, with my normal diet tonic. Or a bitter lemon cordial. Gives a kick at fraction of the cost. Others may have better suggestions though.

Stick with it everyone, and kudos to you @freshstart2023 . I must have missed your weekly unit count before.

OMG - just seen that given average bottle wine contains 9 / 10 units, I was topping 50+ a week. OMG. That is a very sobering fact.

I'm with you @buzzofthebumblebee . IMO Seedlip is costs loads and tastes horrible. All of the other gin substitutes I have tried taste of nothing much - you might as well drink a nice glass of tonic water.

My most successful DJ I drank quite a lot of AF red but now the only AF drinks that I really bother with are beers. I don't normally drink beer so don't find myself comparing them to the alcohol version plus its nice in the summer to have a long drink that isn't too sweet.