The driest of Januarys …

Edit: I only just realised by re-reading some of my old blogs that I did dry January 3 years ago! I have no recollection of that, so apologies, this wasn’t in fact the driest of Januarys, but certainly one of them.

As I’ve blogged previously, the new year is always an important time for me, a time to start afresh and right the wrongs from the year just gone. And in recent years I have been following other people’s Dry January with interest – a challenge where folk try go the first month of the year without any alcohol.

Unfortunately for me, my birthday is on 2nd January which makes Dry January extremely challenging. Of course my wife who has a healthy outlook on such things, just suggests I start Dry January on the 3rd day of the month and continue through to 2nd February. As always she is being hyper logical, but to my OCD mind that’s a horrific nonsense and a complete non-starter. That would make Dry January not at all Dry January but Dry-for-most-of-January-and-a-little-bit-of-February which is just plain silliness.

For some reason this year I really wanted to do Dry January and through December it was all I could think about. I was bored and tired of boozing, having reached the point where I was drinking out of habit. I was drinking good stuff too, quality wines, not cheap plonk, yet I was still feeling indifferent, somewhat ‘meh’ about the whole thing, like what was the point?

And so, at midnight on New Years Eve, I toasted in 2016 and put down my Prosecco glass. It was actually 12:07am which made me feel slightly sick, but I managed to convince myself that’s OK, it was a drink that I began in 2015 and it was New Year’s Eve, so I cut myself some slack and started the clock, managing to navigate a dry birthday on day 2.

By way of background, let me add that my previous alcohol-free, all-time-since-I-have-been-an-adult record was 17 days achieved in January 2011. I know that because I record these things and have done since I was 22 when I started to jot ‘AFD’ on the corner of my pocket diary on each day I had no booze (alcohol free day). What happened in January 2011, after 17 consecutive AFDs, was that my wife and I were invited next door for dinner and I couldn’t say no to some wine. My journal entry for the following day was littered with self loathing to levels even extreme for me.

January 2016 felt different, and it was. I remained dedicated to the cause, I remained full of resolve and breezed through to Feb 1st with only the slightest wobble on a business trip to Athens on 25th Jan when I was offered a glass of Ouzo to toast a new business relationship. I surprised myself by politely declining it and toasted instead with my glass of Athenian sparkling water.

Apart from the challenge in and of itself, I found the 31 day journey quite enlightening. My sleep was definitely of a higher quality, and I noticed early on how my mental state of mind had improved. I felt less paranoid if that makes sense? Maybe it only makes sense to paranoid folk, but I definitely felt it, and I felt much calmer, more relaxed, less on edge. I was also eating better, resisting the urge to snack on crisps and other snacks which always went hand in hand with a pint or a crisp glass of wine.

I also lost weight, around 11lbs (~5Kg). I wanted to lose weight, I needed to lose weight and so that was a great bonus and incentive for me. I know the caloric reduction from no booze wasn’t the only factor, but not drinking made me eat better, exercise more and sleep better, all factors which contributed to the weight loss.

So what now? I panicked on February 1st, imagining my first drink undoing all the good from January. I actually dreamt waking up on Feb 2nd at 4am in a prison cell with no pants on, I was clearly 5kg fatter with popcorn stuck to my gob and curry sauce on my chin. As you may recall, dear bloggers, I don’t do moderation very well and so I knew it wouldn’t just be one drink, it would be a bottle and possibly more.

Drinking would of course also mean breaking my AFD run, I would be back at square 1, I would have ruined everything so what would be the point in doing anything after that other than drinking more? Awful scenario. My mind works in mysterious ways.

So here I am, Tuesday 2nd February 2016, still 2016 clean and very much enjoying it. I have decided however not to set any more targets, no more goals (for now), instead I will just take it one day at a time.

If I want a drink, I shall have one. The thought of never drinking again makes me feel sad, perversely the thought of having a drink also makes me feel sad, and so I am taking it one day at a time, each day on it’s own merit, and perhaps one day in the near future I will decide the time is right to have that drink.

And I sincerely hope that when I do, I don’t wake up naked in a prison cell.