Have You Heard of ‘Dry January’? I Have Not, Here’s What Its All About

If you have to blame Dry January on someone then blame it on the millennials, but it has been going on in Europe for over a decade and it is getting the most participation in the U.S. to date.

Dry January is a month-long sobriety challenge for people to try to start off the year by reducing their alcohol consumption.

Last year only 35% of Americans participated, but that number has jumped to 54% this year.

Millennials have been the largest percentage of people participating in Dry January meaning the younger generation is concerned with their mental, but mostly their physical health.

“The objective of Dry January is not long-term sobriety — it’s long-term control,” said Richard Piper, CEO of Alcohol Change UK, the British nonprofit credited with starting the Dry January challenge a decade ago. “It gives you the power of choice for the rest of the year.”

The two years we were going through the COVID pandemic have been compared to the two years after prohibition came crashing down in 1933 as more Americans were drinking during those years than in any years before or since.

But now that we seem to be on the other side of the Pandemic it looks like Dry January is becoming a way to focus on health and sobriety, especially for the younger generation.

“Consumption trends come in long waves that rise and fall — drinking was bound to come down at some point, and it was likely that younger generations would make that change,” said John Holmes, a British professor of alcohol policy, in a recent interview with the BBC.

So what are you going to do during Dry January? Continue on your usual path, or blaze a new path?