DRY JANUARY 2025! Join us for a healthier start to the year! All welcome 🥤☕️🧋

[HPLikecraft]

It’s that time of year again!
If you need a detox, to lose weight, to be healthier, to undo some seasonal overindulgence, to sleep better, to look better, to have healthier skin, to save money, boost liver function, improve your memory, or to decrease your likelihood of dying earlier of various nasty illnesses (sorry for the sudden hard ball!) then you’ve come to the right place!

The MN DJ2025 Chat thread is for anyone who wants to reset their relationship with alcohol; whether you’re a weekend tippler or a problem heavier drinker.
This is a friendly, non-judgmental thread where we support and encourage each other, exchange ideas and information, share alcohol-free drinks recommendations etc.

Hopefully we’ll have some fun along the way. Please hop aboard the good ship DJ 2025, everyone welcome!

Good morning! I had the best sleep last night! I woke up an hour later than usual, feeling refreshed rather than knackered. I can't help thinking that an evening without a drink (or two or three) must have been the reason!

I'm doing ok. Managed last night, although I did have the craving window and I pushed through.

I'm finding that I'm sleeping a lot more than usual and finding it more difficult to get out of bed in the morning. I don't know if that's cutting out the drink or something else, but it's something that I have noticed.

Keep on keeping on everyone!

After a wonderful sleep on Thursday night, I slept really badly yesterday (not helped by the DC waking in the night). It was one of those sleeps where your mind seems to be racing 100mph. Feeling tired and need to tackle a load of chores today. Need to get motivated!

@Thursa So sorry about your kitten 😔

Morning all. A dreadful night’s sleep for me unfortunately. Bat that’s because in my infinite wisdom I allowed sleepovers for two of my DC so we had four extra kids in the house last night….DS2 and friends were up till goodness knows what hour (still making noise at 2am) and then I was woken by one of the younger ones being sick at 5.30!

So I feel pretty knackered today and may need a nap later. But on the positive side, at least I wasn’t trying to deal with all that with a wine hangover.

Onwards to day 4! Well done everyone.

Wow. Woke up at 9.20 and according to my Fitbit I've slept for 8 hours 39 minutes. That's a good 2 hours longer than normal, even on a weekend! (Am absolutely not trying to rub it in for those who had a crap night's sleep, as this is usually me!)

Fitbit also tells me that my resting heart rate has dropped by 5 beats per minute and my heart rate variability has doubled from 13 to 26 milliseconds. I have no idea what that means, but apparently it's a good thing.

So some actual data to support the fact that alcohol does the body no good, which is exactly what I will need this weekend when I want to open one of the many unopened bottles of Christmas gin that are buried in the under-stair cupboard!

It's dh's birthday tomorrow and we're going out to eat so that will take a lot of willpower on my part not to have a glass of wine before eating as we haven't been out to eat for ages and I will have in mind it's a big treat so want to make the most of it. I think if I can just have some water in front of me and a load of poppadoms then I might be okay. Need to stop connecting the idea of 'enjoying myself' with wine! Also once my curry arrives I know the wine wouldn't taste of anything anyway, I need to remember that...

I KNOW this is the right thing to do for my health and everything else. But I’m still feeling a bit despondent at the thought of a whole weekend with no wine.

Well, I had an appalling night's sleep! 3rd in a row. I'm not a great sleeper, anyway, but I think I saw every hour in. 6.30am get up was horrible (working).

I need to not compare the better sleep I get with a bottle of wine on board with these early days of AF!

I wonder what the stats are for 'failing' DJ? Someone said 10% drop out by 3/1. I wonder what the rest of the month looks like?

Yes, me, too, especially after working all day!

Morning everyone, I’m so happy I found this thread as you are inspiring me to beat the cravings and actually do this! Been shopping for some nice fizzy drinks as it is my birthday on the 6th so that will be a challenge. It has always stopped from me from having a dry January before but no excuses this time (I hope!).

Same, I'm about to be snowed in as well so usually there would be no better excuse for wine!

BUT my health, physical and mental is far more important than the buzz of a couple of hours of alcohol.

I'm going to nip to the shop quickly before the snow and get some nice drinks and comfort food and have a nice relaxed evening of self care.

@Bookaholic73 – we actually had to take our bottles to the bottlebank, as we had too many for the caddy. Admittedly we forgot to put it out last week, but even so, the number was staggering! .

@AlertCat I am going to try some of that Kylie rosé!

@SandrenaIsMyBloodType I hardly ever get ill, but this year I got a flu bug thing in mid October and I didn't get rid of it until Christmas, in fact I am still coughing a bit. Nine sodding weeks! I've ended up putting on half a stone through comfort eating, so I'm hoping that cutting out the booze and also eating more healthily will get it off. Hope you feel better soon.

Yesterday evening was fine – I enjoyed my glass of Oddbird and some Sentia. I'm also having soda and bitters (I know that bitters is technically alcoholic, but two or three drops in a glass of soda is nothing, it works out as less alcohol than you get in a typical 0.5% AF beer or wine).

I didn't sleep very well last night, and I don't feel particularly great today. Bit fuzzy headed. This is totally normal for me when I cut out drinking – I usually have 7-10 days of what I guess is detoxing and brain re-wiring, when I feel a bit groggy and disconnected. The upside is that once this phase passes, I usually feel great. Anyway, now on Day 4 and no cravings at all so far (other than for chocolate ).

So far so good here. Let’s see how the first weekend following a working week goes though!

hoping to see some more creativity in the evenings and weekends. I feel almost poised for something- but I’m not sure what!

@newme2025
This is exactly ( the old!) me. I equate drinking wine on my own at home as " having a good time" or " having something to do"
The reality for me sadly is that two hours I dorms getting pissed on my own then equates to a whole day hangover the next day when I sit and feel depressed and eat all day. Not so fun.
For me the trick is to try and think of the wind as poison and that although I have a fun few hours when I switch off I pay for it all the next day which is not fun.
This is just personal as others are gone the next day.
Saying all that I could do have a wine now and settle in for the afternoon but I need to resist.

Wine as poison not wind! Although that's a whole other conversation.,,

DH and I managed to stay AF up the pub last night. We would usually be up there for 2-3 hours, but decided we'd only have a short session so as not to be tempted when everyone started buying rounds and so forth. Found it easy, to be honest. Up the gym again this morning - 3 days on the trot - so feeling very virtuous about that, but I think we'll both struggle with not drinking tonight if I'm honest. I'm going to look up some nice mocktail recipes today. Any suggestions welcome! x

Thanks, that’s very helpful. I also equate drinking to relaxing and having a good time, whether it’s alone or with others. Life just feels a bit… flat and depressing without alcohol. I also use wine as a crutch when feeling anxious about life in general, which I know isn’t healthy - it blocks the anxious feeling for a few hours but the next day I always feel 10x worse.

Wine most definitely is a poison (in the quantities I’ve been drinking certainly). I will keep repeating that to myself. After my god awful hangover on New Year’s Day, I don’t want to spend another day like that ever again.

@newme2025
Exactly as you say it's the speed and quantity for me. I can't just have one or two - I really really wish I could. I'm trying to think that instant gratification will mean shame, disappointment and rage tomorrow when I wake up. Not to mention pounding head, paranoia, self loathing and irritability.
Will be a long day though!

Today is day three for me, I always start on the 2nd as I normally need a livener on NYD or theres going to be a get together with friends in the pub and I never want to fail on day one :)

Sailed through the past two nights, only got a wee urge when I started cooking, as thats when I usually sink a couple but that passed. Once fed, didnt look for any - because I hadn't had any

Im ok, can do without as long as I dont mindlessly pour that first one

Getting a tad anxious about tonight, usually go to the pub for a couple of hours on Saturdays and it can be a good crowd and it can get messy

I only drink Friday and Saturdays (when it's not the holidays). This effectively limits my drinking but also makes it a routine and a bigger deal and a "treat". It's been ages since I haven't had alcohol at the weekend through choice (other than being ill). I was at the theatre last night which made it easier, but I would usually have had a wine or G and T, and I didn't.

Tonight I am at home. Have some clean spirits in. DH will be drinking. I think I will be fine.

@newme2025 and @SwiftyFifty for a discussion about alcohol being a poison, I recommend Holly Whitaker's "Quit Like a Woman". It's hilarious and absolutely brutal: she talks about ethanol being a solvent and an antiseptic, and that we are basically drinking rocket fuel, a "neurological sledgehammer" that cancels out all other efforts at health and wellbeing. Makes you feel like never drinking again.

@TeaRose29
Thanks! I'm going to read that!!

A neurological sledgehammer - just wow 😮 I will be keeping that phrase in mind throughout Dry January for sure

I have decided to give zero fucks about calories until Monday and have just consumed a Jan donut with a decaf cup of tea as an alternative to going to the pub x