Dry January 2024

[SteveC]

I've been on a very restricted alcohol limit for the past three weeks, no more than two units per day.
I'm not sure it has helped with things like sleeping, but I have not missed the booze as much as I thought I might.
The restrictions can be eased from tomorrow, but MrsC and I both want to cut down. The intention is to try to keep work nights dry. This has been easy this week as none of our usual activities have restarted after the break. Next week will be different.

[mike]

After a fairly dry 2023 I had a very wet December and felt awful as a result - poor sleep, poor 'training', tinges of gout reappearing in feet and ankles.  I'm not deliberately doing a completely dry Jan but don't expect to drink anything unless I get an excellent offer to go to the pub with friends, and if it goes OK then I'll continue for the rest of the year.

[John Stonebridge]

Good luck to those who are participating.   

I'm not doing Dry January this year - last Sep-Oct-Nov I got into the habit of staying dry 6 days a week and I'm going to just keep that going as long as I can now that Christmas & New Year is out the way.   

I've found that sans booze my sleep is vastly improved and I can also achieve stuff on a Friday evening (and a visit to the gym isn't out the question on a weekday morning either). 

The biggest risk is that I overdo it on "day 7" (normally Saturday) though an unexpected and positive development is that I have found myself gravitating to quality rather than quantity.  Abstaining hasn't resulted in any noticeable weight loss (not my objective but I kind of thought that it might!). 

When abstaining I've got two favourite drinks (apart from tea that is)

- Schneider Weiss Alcohol free wheat beer
- Tonic water with a dash of bitters   

[citoyen]

- Tonic water with a dash of bitters   

Technically not alcohol-free but if it's only a dash it's near-homeopathic levels of alcohol so we'll let you off. 

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

Planning a dry quarter.  Not sure I notice a dramatic mood improvement, but a slow reversal of a mood decline if I drink.  I always give up for Lent and Easter is early this year, so I don't see much point in resuming for a few days and then going back on the wagon.

[ian]

I’ll be lubing up for lent as usual. It’s best not to clench.

[The Family Cyclist]

Been hard today mainly I think due to a low day mood wise. Did buy some fake lagers yesterday from lidl which aren't great and last night was the first night I'd not slept well this year and do think the lack of alcohol has helped

I'll try and keep it up though, also expecting a "random" drink/drug test at work soon and we have a very low alcohol limit so not a bad thing

[citoyen]

I'll try and keep it up though

Good for you. One day at a time is the only way.

You’ve made it through the first 20% of January.

I’m actually suffering the caffeine withdrawal effects more than missing the alcohol at the moment.

Haven’t had any major work stresses yet to really test my resolve but I’ve got a fairly major deadline this week…

[Basil]

Went to the pub tonight.  Basically, if one isn't on FaceAche, this is the only way to keep up with village current affairs.
Had a tonic with ice and a slice, and then a bottle of 0% larger.
Sitting with a bunch of people with a table full of beers and wines wasn't a problem as I had thought it might be.  In fact, I didn't even notice or think about it until after I got home.
So. That's the first week done.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Regarding January being a bad month to go dry because of the bleak weather and post-Christmas down-ness, isn't that part of the point? To get out of the habit of using alcohol as physical and psychological comfort and stress reliever? Keep at it, everyone!

[citoyen]

That’s two weeks ticked off.

Not really had any difficulties resisting temptation thus far - my boss has been off sick and he’s the one who usually tries to lure me out for a post work pint.

On Saturday, my son and his girlfriend made us smørrebrød for lunch and opened a few of the different flavours of snapps he brought back from Sweden to go with it. I had a small sip of each for tasting purposes but I’m not counting that and have logged it as a dry day in the app.

[Basil]

Well, checking last year's thread, I was surprised to see that I failed on the 12th! 
So being two weeks in now is very pleasing.
Unfortunately, my head still seems to be in "We'll see how it goes" mode, so, erm, we'll see how it goes. 

[rafletcher]

I started late, on the 15th, as I decided to use up the surplus Christmas booze. Lack of willpower generally means if it’s available I’ll drink it. I’m hoping to get to my birthday on March 14th.

I have noticed one marked improvement as a result, along with the previously mentioned better sleep, less stressed, more alert etc. I also started going to the gym (I’ve not been for 4 plus years, and haven’t ridden since June 2022) on the 7th. On the cross-trainer as warm up my heart rate was 140+. Yesterday after 5 sessions, so not long, but after 4 days of not drinking, it was around 130.

[Basil]

Ah. Perhaps I should mention that I'm currently having a beer with #2 son.
So that's me done. 
Oh well, better than last year.

[RichForrest]

I've been doing it this month, mainly due to work change and now have more time off.
As many off you know, I drive lorries for a living. Doing night shift also meant I don't drink Mon to Fri, but always had one on coming home on Sat morning (My Fri evening). And always on a Sat and Sun afternoon evening.
Not to a great extent, weekly total was usually a box of six bottles of Weston's strong cider, 4 cans of Tesco's own cheap cider and a glass or 2 of whisky.
New job is now 4 on 4 off, as the time off every week has doubled I could easily find myself drinking double that every 4 days if I'm not careful.
It's not going to be the full month though as I started on the 2nd and we will be going out next weekend to a show at Dawns work.

Not noticed a great difference apart from peeing more due to the amount of water I'm drinking instead 

Ongoing I think I will limit the drinking to only when I'm off at the weekend and not on weeks where I'm off 4 days mid week.

[The Family Cyclist]

Still going, went to the pub for first time last night and mostly had the 0.5% ghost ship which I'm counting as dry and an erdinger which I realised they call isotonic which may partially explain why slept so badly last night although that may be due to a lack or exercise.

[rafletcher]

Still going, went to the pub for first time last night and mostly had the 0.5% ghost ship which I'm counting as dry and an erdinger which I realised they call isotonic which may partially explain why slept so badly last night although that may be due to a lack or exercise.

Why would the “isotonic” make you sleep badly? It appears (in this case) to relate to providing good hydration - did you have to pee more? 

0.5% is the alcohol free limit in the EU. Unusually the UK is stricter with a limit of 0.05%.

[TimC]

I’ve fallen off the wagon twice this week. To be fair, I’ve been pretty much dry since August. But this week I succumbed to temptation and enjoyed two moderately beer-y social occasions. However, I now feel pretty crap both physically and morally. I didn’t see the moral bit coming; I wasn’t embracing temperance for any psychological reasons! I seem to feel I’ve let myself down when in fact I wasn’t trying to hold myself up. Weird! Anyway, the physical symptoms are enough to convince me that I shan’t repeat the exercise imminently.

[rafletcher]

Alcohol can and does affect mood, so maybe that’s part of the “moral” issue.

[The Family Cyclist]

I just wondered as been sleeping really well and last night slept really badly with some weird dreams. May have been need for pee partially as would have drunk 1.5l of liquid while out and also did bugger all exercise yesterday whereas cycle around 28km a day on top of work  normally

[hellymedic]

Still going, went to the pub for first time last night and mostly had the 0.5% ghost ship which I'm counting as dry and an erdinger which I realised they call isotonic which may partially explain why slept so badly last night although that may be due to a lack or exercise.

Why would the “isotonic” make you sleep badly? It appears (in this case) to relate to providing good hydration - did you have to pee more? 
0.5% is the alcohol free limit in the EU. Unusually the UK is stricter with a limit of 0.05%.

Beware the caffeine content of some isotonic sports drinks.
Beware the caffeine content of other drinks too.

That caffeine keeps folk awake is not news to anyone.
The drinks that contain it may be!

Isotonic drinks, of themselves WON’T keep you awake. Why should a 5% glucose solution keep you more awake than either plain water or a 10% solution?

50mg of caffeine is another matter!

[Canardly]

Had some wine the other night and felt bloody awful the next morning. Object lesson.

[The Family Cyclist]

Still going, went to the pub for first time last night and mostly had the 0.5% ghost ship which I'm counting as dry and an erdinger which I realised they call isotonic which may partially explain why slept so badly last night although that may be due to a lack or exercise.

Why would the “isotonic” make you sleep badly? It appears (in this case) to relate to providing good hydration - did you have to pee more? 
0.5% is the alcohol free limit in the EU. Unusually the UK is stricter with a limit of 0.05%.

Beware the caffeine content of some isotonic sports drinks.
Beware the caffeine content of other drinks too.

That caffeine keeps folk awake is not news to anyone.
The drinks that contain it may be!

Isotonic drinks, of themselves WON’T keep you awake. Why should a 5% glucose solution keep you more awake than either plain water or a 10% solution?

50mg of caffeine is another matter!

The erdinger doesn't appear to have any caffeine so the crap sleep may just be down to quantity of liquid and bugger all exercise, tonight will probably help as a comparison as due to wind got a lift into work instead of cyxling and was self study mostly so no exercise again. Will probably stock up on some of the erdinger as it's really not a bad option

Glad it's less then 10 days till Feb as will return to grogging but definitely in much less frequency.

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

I find Erdinger very gassy - so it may not be caffeine or alcohol but general bloatiness that impacts slee

Still dry though.

[Regulator]

I think I'm going to do a dry Lent, as I need to drop some more weight before walking season starts...