Dry isn’t just for January The joys of being sober
With more people than ever experimenting with sobriety this Dry January, Catherine Gray explains why she ditched booze for good
Idid Dry January once, five years ago. I lasted four days before finding myself deep-diving into a bottle-and-a-half of wine. So, if you’ve slumped off the wagon already, I get it. If you had no desire to hop on the godforsaken wagon in the first place, I understand that too. Having worked on magazines such as Glamour and Cosmopolitan in my 20s, during which I drank the opening-of-an-envelope dry if the booze was free, my intake had ticked up and up. I could have drunk anyone under the table; you wouldn’t have stood a chance. I was a seven-or-eight-bottles-of-wine-aweek kinda gal.
I once fell asleep talking to my boss at the Christmas party. My boyfriend once found me unconscious on our doorstep at 1am, after I lost my keys. There was the time I woke up in a Brixton police cell (drunk and disorderly). I started getting the shakes in the morning at the bitter end, so severely that I couldn’t type, and had resorted to medicating them away with nips of booze; during my final rock bottom day, I even drank peppermint tea topped up with mouthwash.
Nine months after that Dry January ended with me drunk by the 5th, I realised I was an all-or-nothing drinker and quit entirely. Forever.
I realised I was definitely not going to get the life I wanted unless the wine went. Aged 33, I could suddenly see very clearly that even if it took decades, drinking was going to cause my untimely death.
It’s unlikely you drink like I did, but if you’re doing Dry January, you know that there are hidden clauses in the booze contract. Maybe it has robbed you of your weekends with crippling hangovers, humiliated you in front of friends or colleagues, or tested your fidelity, like it did me. And if you’re finding Dry January hard, it has nothing to do with your character – Britain’s heaviest drinkers are the over-35s with high IQS, degrees, and earning £40,000-plus a year – and everything to do with the fact that alcohol is highly addictive.
Yet Britons are also, collectively, becoming increasingly sober-curious. Five million did Dry January last year, and 43per cent of British women and 84per cent of British men want to drink less, year round. There’s been a 40per cent rise in millennials choosing to be teetotal between 2005 and 2013, but it’s not just millennials. A fifth of Brits and one in three Londoners are already alcohol-free. I was surprised when I found that out, too, but in five years’ time, I think it will be as common to be teetotal as it is to be vegetarian. Just as we’ve seen a boom in boutique gyms, flexitarianism and mindfulness, so droves of people are joining the sober-curious movement and cutting back short-term to save for a house
‘I was not going to get the life I wanted unless wine went’
deposit, clear up their skin, lose weight, or to find out if booze is the cause of their anxiety or tiredness. Many of them are finding that they like being alcohol-free so much, that they never go back.
I did not skip into a teetotal life whooping. Far from it. I slid into it with all of the enthusiasm of the condemned shuffling down death row. I knew quitting booze would mean I could be solvent, faithful, meet deadlines and be able to work house keys at 3am. I would be less likely to take my clothes off in public,
smash glasses, or be obstreperous to my friends and family.
But I thought I’d sacrifice fun in the process. That my life would be drab, dreary and dull, like a photograph drained of colour. That dating, dancing, weddings and parties would all become excruciating as I would be unable to use my inhibition-eraser.
I could not have been more wrong. To my absolute astonishment, I discovered I was a million times happier, healthier and wealthier sober. I located dozens more hours in the week (previously gobbled up by hangovers), my bank account fattened by £23,000 over four years (now spent on travelling. Whoops). I found it effortless to make exercise classes and swerve fast food, I looked better, my skin cleared, my career took off, and I no longer needed to constantly replace lost wallets/ phones/credit cards.
Why didn’t I know about this before, this life-swap win? Because society is a chronic drink-pusher. We’re told over and over again that being sober is boring, and being drunk is fun. That’s why I wrote a book about it. I wanted to tell the sober-curious what it’s really like on the other side, and to give them a road-map showing how I got there.
For starters, two thirds of Britons drink more than they intend to, so if you can’t stop at one or two, you’re not unusual. You’re the norm. We suffer from Wishful Drinking. “I’ll just have one” are the famous last words that land us in a dodgy cab home at 2am. Once you pop a cork, it’s difficult to stop. So I don’t think locating the El Dorado of moderation is the answer. The very nature of alcohol means that trying to have just one is like trying to knock down just one domino in a long, snaking line.
“Alcohol is a disinhibitor,” says Dr Hilda Burke, a psychotherapist. It causes us to behave more impulsively. “Someone can go out intending to just have a couple, but by the end of the first drink that resolve has lessened, and by the second, it’s been drowned out.”
None is way easier than one, whether you abstain 50 to 80 per cent of the time or 100per cent, like me. One awakens the urge and starts it howling at the moon for more. None? You just don’t start the drink-cravedrink cycle. Your first and second don’t clobber your ability to say no to the third and fourth. But the answer isn’t spending all of Dry January on the sofa, swerving parties and the pub. The answer is learning how to socialise sober.
It’s tough at first. Of course it is, if you’ve been habitually drinking at parties for two, three, four decades. You’ll also meet a lot of “buzzkill!” or “party pooper” resistance. (Confession: I used to dole this out myself.) It makes some people uncomfortable when you’re not
drinking, since they think you will now judge their drinking.
We assume that alcohol is a fungiver, a party-starter, because we tend to drink when we do fun things. We pair the trip to the Michelin-starred eatery with a flight of wines and we order a cocktail from our sunlounger. But, those things are fun because they are... fun. They’ll still be fun. More fun, without the piston-pounding headache the next day.
I’m not saying everyone should be alcohol-free forever like me, but I am encouraging everyone to try teetotal nights out, or extended sober spells. You may find that you enjoy being alcohol-free more than you expect. Dry January is a tremendous start, but given experts say it takes 66 days for a new habit to bed in, I’d go further, and suggest a booze sabbatical of at least 90 days. Moreover, given the first 30 booze-free days are by far the hardest, you’re doing the tough bit without the rewards. It’s like going for a run and quitting a mile in, before you find your rhythm and the endorphins rush in.
Stick with it and you’ll find you read a heck-of-a-lot more, rather than watching mindless TV. Your middle will whittle down naturally, given a bottle of wine is the calorific equivalent of two chocolate bars. You’ll find eight hours of blissfully uninterrupted sleep (alcohol disrupts sleep, hugely), your energy levels will soar, you’ll nail that early-morning meeting, “what did I say, what did I do?” beer-fear will be banished, you’ll have fewer arguments with loved ones, and you’ll find that food tastes better because alcohol numbed your taste buds.
Tonight I am going to an exquisite Art Deco restaurant with a beautiful, back-lit bar. I won’t be sitting there looking at the rows of spirits, thinking “if only”. I’ll be having a laugh with my friends, eating three courses and enjoying them all the more knowing my bill will be under £30. The best bit? No soul-sucking hangover tomorrow.
I thought my teetotal life would be drab and dreary, a photo drained of colours