According to dating industry ‘expert’ Katy Horwood’s recent article, 13 Reasons Not To Do Dry January, Dry Jan will make you a boring, friendless, dateless, cliché.
As someone who is almost 90 days into giving alcohol a miss, and a staunch supporter of alcohol-free movement One Year No Beer I’d have to say that — much like the contents of most big-city nightclub toilets across the country come 2am Sunday — this particular opinion is… well, yeah…
22 ways (and counting) to cut down drinking in 2017
So instead of just sitting there with the same kind of hunkered-down, defeatist attitude Katy Horwood would prefer you join her in – misery does love company, after all – here are 26 reasons you should give Dry January a try.
1. You’ll sleep better
If you’re fed up of feeling exhausted all the time, there’s a way to improve it drastically – let your body have a few nights off from processing all your bevs. You’ll soon start waking up and jumping out of bed, instead of wishing away the alarm clock.
2. Get a better sex life
Brewer’s Droop? Yeah, no. Your stamina will increase and when you aren’t numbed by alcohol, your own heightened senses will pay you back tenfold. Goes for the ladies too.
3. Get the Hollywood glow without the price tag
Alcohol dehydrates and reduces skin’s elasticity. Swap wine for water and sit back, basking in compliments about your new glow, instead of rocking that blotchy bloated face.
4. Build better relationships with family – especially your children
You’ll find your time frees up immensely. Get back in touch with those you care about most. Set a great example for those that are looking to you for support and use your time to tend to wilting family ties.
5. Become a productivity ninja
Grow your own business in double time, or nail that promotion because your boozed-out competition just couldn’t keep up. Don’t panic about missing another deadline because you’re too hungover to get out of bed/focus/think. Bounce out of bed and get emails sent while others around you are still asleep.
6. Enjoy your weekends free from the fog
Once you’re out of the auto-pilot Friday night boozing, you soon rediscover the mysteries of 9am on a Saturday. Your new time and energy will mean you actually do things at the weekend instead of using them to recover from the perpetual hangover of mid-week drinking. Which leads us to…
New year’s resolutions: 11 ways to get fit, lose weight or get healthy in 2017
7. The work/life balance you’ve been craving
See, when your weekend isn’t lost in a boozy haze or hungover duvet hibernation, the cycle of feeling like you come straight out of work on a Friday only to go right back in again when Monday rolls around just ends. You get back that time at the weekend, and your razor-sharp mind means your work gets smashed and your free time is your own to take on new challenges and actually feel like you have a full, involving life outside of the workplace.
8. Discover new activities
Re-wiring how you spend your free time when it doesn’t all revolve around the pub/drinking can be tough, but also exciting. You’re forced to find new activities to pass the time and with that comes new experiences, new mates, new opportunities.
Anyone who wants to hold you back from that? Leave them behind. If your friends don’t want anything to do with you because you refuse to have a drink, then there’s some sad news you’ll need to accept: they aren’t your friends, they just like having someone to drink with.
9. Get rid of brain fog and indecisiveness
Think clearly without the anxiety and exhaustion that frequent drinking puts upon your shoulders. Set goals and achieve them and live with the knowledge every decision is one you WANT to make, not influenced by booze or its after-effects.
10. Become a financial wizard
Spending £20 a week on wine will save you £1,040 by the end of the year. You’re drinking a HOLIDAY every year for you and your family. Don’t forget the associated cost of drinking: the cabs, kebabs, lost phones and wallets. Also, not drinking doesn’t mean you have to live like a monk. Feel free to spaff the money on treats for yourself – you deserve it!
11. Give something back
Save the money from drinking and give it to charities of your choice. Be a better person and see that your actions are directly doing good for causes you care about. Quitting booze lets you see beyond your own immediate cocoon and frees up mindspace to help others. Doing good makes you feel good!
12. Say goodbye to acid reflux
Alcohol irritates the stomach lining and removing it from your diet can see huge reductions in vom-burps. On this note, get rid of deathly morning after breath caused by epic dry mouth and beer belly for good.
13. Lose weight much faster
Calories in alcohol can be shockingly high, as you pound drink after drink on a night out without even thinking about it. Get back some confidence and hit 2017 looking so good you’ll want to smear yourself in oil and pose for passing strangers. Faster weight loss also means…
14. Develop superhero fitness levels
When you aren’t lugging around extra weight, working out becomes easier much more quickly – and when you aren’t sabotaging your efforts every weekend, it’s a simple downhill ride if you stick to it.
15. Reduce your blood pressure
Reduce hypertension by cutting out the habitual drinking in the evening and reduce your risk of stroke and heart attack. Extending your life to spend with your friends and loved ones sounds pretty un-boring to me.
16. Increase your energy levels
Alcohol affects the ability of your blood cells to transport oxygen around the body. This eventually repairs itself when alcohol is cut out, leading to HUGE BOOSTS in energy. HUGE boosts, if you get my drift…
17. Sky-rocket your confidence and self-belief
What starts as a social lubricant becomes a crutch, which is gone by the morning and replaced with even more problems and anxiety than you had before. When you survive a boozy BNO, a birthday or a hen do, you’ll be euphoric knowing that you can do it yourself, and do it better.
18. Stay positive with improved moods
Alcohol is a depressant that hangs around for a long time afterward as your body drains YOU to work its way through getting rid of the poison. When you aren’t forcing your body to do that constantly, the result is a clearer mind and better moods.
19. Become The One: Unlock the secrets of your personal universe
As clarity improves, you become aware of your triggers and start to see from an outside perspective how you and society have ‘trained’ yourself to respond in certain situations. This unlocks all kinds of freedoms because you’re aware, conscious in the moment and can choose how to act — instead of reacting to simple programming.
20. Become The One Pt. II: Know Thyself
You start to see where you’re making bad decisions and you can’t blame it on the drink anymore, so you now work to address them, instead of continually avoiding them through booze. Wake up, sunshine… time to change for the better. You, your partner, your family and your friends will thank you for it.
21. Reward, responsibility and duty
These all make us feel GREAT. If you need to, give a friend £100 and tell them that if you drink, they can keep it. Incentivise your choice and you’ll feel like a goddamn superhero when it pays off and you get what you’ve been working for. Feel proud for sticking to something instead of continually shrugging off responsibility with the ‘sorry I was wasted’ card.
22. 10x your holidays!
Get out there and explore, instead of lying in your hotel room feeling rough or staggering around castles wishing you could just go back to bed. The world is huge and full of opportunities beyond the pub near your work on a Friday night, so why stay stuck on repeat there every week?
23. Create better connections with people who support your challenge
Get stuck in with the dry January community and see just how much more support and consideration there is among the human race. It’s a cure for negativity and burgeoning misanthropy – not just a cover-up for it. The positivity is infectious.
24. Sort out your diet
Not eating while out on the lash means learning to cook wholesome, nutritious meals; a genuine skill that will benefit both you and your family for lifetimes to come. (And you can avoid repainting the toilet bowl every weekend, too.)
25. Stop date night becoming hate night
Forget about drunken one-night stands, walks of shame, Coyote Ugly situations and making a scene by saying something you thought was funny to someone you didn’t know well enough at the time. Get to know who someone really is, while putting across a true representation of yourself as well.
26. Actually get moving and enjoy January
Take January on full steam while others are wishing they could crawl into a cave and let it pass. A beautiful month full of hope and new starts, watch Blue Monday come and go as you build on your new booze-free foundation. Now’s the chance to use your freed up non-drinking time to reset the way you think about drinking, break the habits behind cracking open a bottle every night and hitting the pubs every Saturday for no reason.
See what you can achieve in just one month with a booze-free mind and feel boosted and confident for the whole year. Be the person that TRIED this January and be proud of yourself, whatever the outcome.
So there you go… double the positive reasons to give a Dry January (and beyond) a try.
Don’t believe the myths that our booze-soaked society would have you believe and try giving the real you, without alcohol, a go this January.
We think you’ll be amazed with what you can achieve. If you want to take the challenge, visit oneyearnobeer.com and go get excited about the incredible 2017 you’re going to have.
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