As we settled into the new year, many people jumped on the “New Year, New Me” bandwagon. One major aspect of this wagon was Dry January, a public health campaign which urges abstaining from alcohol for the first month of the year. Is mid- pandemic really the time to do Dry January, though?
Dry January, and all the other names you could call it, has been around for years. The term “Drynuary” was first coined by John Ore in 2006. The first official campaign began in January 2013 by UK charity Alcohol Concern. In the first year 4,000 people signed up; in 2020 4 million people took part. Interestingly, following a third national lockdown, a record-number of 6.5 million people signed up to the cause this year.
However, many of these sign ups quickly dropped out as a result of lockdown pressures, and hashtags began trending on social media such as “#NoDryJanuary” and “#DryishJanuary”, the latter being a downgrade of the phenomenon. Social media users who used the “#DryishJanuary” seemed to be still partaking in the challenge to some degree, while allowing for a cheeky beverage on the weekend. Only fair.
“If this pandemic has taught me anything, it is to take every day as it comes.”
Personally, I wouldn’t be one to attempt #DryJanuary or #SoberOctober on a normal year- least of all a period of time where a pandemic is rampant.
I understand the benefits of Dry January, don’t get me wrong. I also get the benefits of not pressuring myself into abstaining from drink and setting myself up for failure. If this pandemic has taught me anything, it is to take every day as it comes. I’ve applied this to my daily life. There are things I want to achieve in 2021, but I’ve found myself setting plans rather than goals, such as getting fitter as a whole in 2021, and not telling myself that I’m going to run every single day. Similarly, instead of telling myself I was going to abstain from alcohol for the month, I’ve set myself a plan to get all my college work and general life work over the week and allow myself to indulge in a few drinks with my housemates come Friday or Saturday.
Honestly, it’s the least we deserve.
In my opinion, January is a typically pretty miserable month anyway. It seems to go on for an age. It’s dark and dreary and, more often than not, wet on top of that. Add in Covid-19 and it’s worse still. In Ireland, deaths as a result to Covid-19 were sky-high last month; there were more deaths recorded in January 2021 in Ireland than all of last year combined. Putting added pressures on myself to do things (or not do things) was just not happening this year, and I’m not sorry to say that.
“If you did attempt Dry January and didn’t complete it, don’t beat yourself up.”
Coping with this pandemic is a huge job in itself, and perhaps the added pressure of setting yourself a month long goal might have been too much for some. People are different, so I’m sure there are plenty of people who participated in Dry January and enjoyed doing so. That doesn’t mean you or I should have participated.
If you did attempt Dry January and didn’t complete it, don’t beat yourself up. Take it as a positive. You did the newest campaign: Dryish January.
Chloe O’Keeffe
Featured image Helena Lopes via Unsplash. Image licence found here. No changes have been made to this image.