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Alcohol

Dry January that turned into a dry year, accidentally

Started 14 May 2026 · 14 replies · 80 hearts · read 1.7k times

BrynAberystwyth, UK · 14 May 2026
2 months ago

Dry January that turned into a dry year, accidentally — putting it in its own thread so it does not get lost in the check-in.

The logistics of this are defeating me more than the medicine is.

Every piece of advice I read appears to have been written for somebody with a completely different week from mine, so I am asking people whose weeks look like this.

I have tried three arrangements and none of them has survived a difficult week, which suggests I am designing for good weeks.

I would like to know what other people say when asked, because my current answer is too long and invites more questions.

Thanks in advance. Practical detail welcome, however dull — the duller the better, honestly.

27

SephNorwich, UK
#1

The social pressure was harder than the physical change. Explaining why I was not drinking was the whole difficulty.

8

BethanPontypridd, UK
#2

Picking up Seph’s point rather than starting a new one.

Something I got wrong was assuming an ordinary evening would go the way ordinary evenings used to. It did not and I had not planned for it.

6

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK
#3

I want to acknowledge how much unglamorous organising sits behind most of the accounts here. It is real work and it rarely gets named as work.

12

BoWhitby, UK
#4

What helped was telling one friend, so that in a group there was somebody who knew and quietly covered for me.

5

TamGlasgow, UK
#5

Ada, thank you for that. It gives me somewhere to start from.

The hangovers are the thing. Disproportionate, longer, and completely out of scale with what I drank.

4

LinneaTurku, FI
#6

My relationship with drinking changed in a way I have found mostly positive and slightly disorienting, and this circle is where I worked that out.

3

MorayElgin, UK
#7

Grateful you posted rather than kept it to yourself.

5

RafeBordeaux, FR
#8

I found that having a good non-alcoholic option to hand meant nobody asked, and the asking had been the problem.

5me too 4

NedChesterfield, UK
#9

My experience is that this is one of the most commonly reported changes here and one of the least discussed anywhere else.

4

LucasSão Paulo, BR
#10

What I found is that the first drink now does what three used to, so I have stopped at one and been perfectly content.

6

AmbroseYork, UK
#11

You have described the bit that nobody warns you about.

5me too 7

PerdyShrewsbury, UK
#12

I found that eating less alongside drinking was the actual mechanism in my case, rather than anything more mysterious.

6

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK
#13

Gently: nobody needs to justify the shape of their week here, including the members whose weeks have no shape at all.

7

TeganNewport, UK
#14

Building on what Perdy wrote rather than answering the original question.

My honest report is that I still drink, less, and I enjoy it more, which was not the outcome I predicted.

4