Speaker 1 1:12

Hello and welcome to Low no Drinker FAQ , a weekly look at the world of low no and light drinks , drinkers and drinking , where , each week , I'll help you to find , understand and enjoy the amazing drinks that allow us all to live a life less intoxicated . I'm Denise Hamilton-Mace and I am the founder , editor and host of all things Low no Drinker this week's FAQ . What do I do after dry January ? Okay , so I know that this podcast is mostly focused on the drinks themselves , but let's be real here it is the drinkers of those drinks who I am trying to help . So let's have a look at how dry January has gone and what we can do afterwards .

Speaker 1 1:56

First of all , I want to say a huge , huge well done to you for giving dry January a go . Whether you did a few days alcohol free , whether you did a couple of weeks alcohol free , whether you did the whole 31 days alcohol free , the fact that you made the choice to do something about the way that you're drinking and make a positive choice for your health is a great thing . It's a great achievement and you should pat yourself firmly on the back for recognizing that you wanted to make a change and doing something about it .

The worst thing you can do

Speaker 1 2:30

The first bit of advice that I would like to give you , if you would so allow me , is that , as we're coming to the end of dry January and heading into February , the worst thing that you could do now is just decide that on February 1st , you are going to go out and get completely leathered . Okay , I know that you may be in a position where you've been thinking , oh God , I really could do with a drink . I can't wait till I can have a drink again , and that's perfectly understandable . I've done a lot of dry Januaries and I felt like that for most of the time . But if you go out and get absolutely smashed on February the 1st , you are going to undo all the amazing work that you did for the last month , and so , whilst it's perfectly okay to go out and have a drink , if that's what you decide to do my advice would be to not go hell for leather , but to actually take some time first and have a think about how your dry January went for you and why .

Speaker 1 3:23

So

Thinking back to your why

Speaker 1 3:24

let's start at the beginning . The first thing that you want to have a look at is why you decided to do dry January in the first place . What were you hoping to achieve Because , yes , you wanted to take a break from alcohol , but that's just really the symptom . Ultimately , you were doing it because you wanted something else out of life . Now , whether that was to do with relationships , whether that was to do with work , whether that was to do with your health and your fitness , whether it was just to do with opening up some more opportunities and giving yourself a bit more time to think , what was it that made you decide that this was something that you needed to do for yourself ? What were you hoping to get out of

How did it feel?

Speaker 1 4:03

it ?

Speaker 1 4:03

The next question that I really want you to consider is how did it feel ? You know , taking a break from alcohol can be a really big deal . Sometimes . You spend most of our adult life in this country and a lot of Western countries around the world using alcohol as a beacon of adulthood . So once we hit 18 , it's that rite of passage going down the pub to have your first legal pint , because the likelihood is that you've been drinking since you were about 16 in the pub , or obviously 21 in the States , where I know I've got a lot of people listening in from the US . So we use alcohol as a beacon of adulthood and it's something that's part of our adult life from the moment we can include it , and so it can be quite a new feeling to take this much time away from alcohol if you've never done it before and a lot of people doing dry January are often doing it for the very first time For women other than being pregnant , it might be the only time that you've gone a stint without drinking on a regular basis , and then you had another driving force to make you decide not to do it .

Speaker 1 5:16

But there's nothing else during dryai Journey apart from your own motivations . So you know , how did it make you feel ? Were you excited for it ? Did you feel relieved to be taking a break and have a genuine excuse not to drink ? Like well , my social life is all around alcohol and I'm just sitting around at home . If that's what you were doing , that was your big mistake . Don't just sit around at home . There is life outside without booze in it . If you want to have it , you just have to go and get it .

Speaker 1 5:44

Were you looking forward to your chance to drink again , or were you looking forward to extending it ? You know , when I did a dry January the last dry January stint that I did a few years before I embarked on this low , no drinker journey . I did the 31 days of the month , and then I felt really good and I decided to keep it going . So I did another month and I still felt really good , and so I ended up doing a third month . So I did three whole months without any booze because I felt really good while I was doing it .

Speaker 1 6:22

For the life of me to this day , I cannot remember why I decided to start drinking again , as probably a

What are you taking forward?

Speaker 1 6:24

party or an event and I wanted to go , and then I went back into old habits straight away , and so it's really important to think about how you felt during it and what you want to take from it moving forward . Do you want to explore a life without any alcohol at all ? Is that too big a step for you ? Did you like the feeling of drinking less and therefore want to look at becoming a moderating drinker or a mindful drinker ? Or were you glad to have had the break ? But actually you don't think that your drinking habits beforehand needed to be changed and so you're just going to go back to doing what you were doing before . All of these are perfectly valid . This is your journey , if you've listened for any length of time , you'll know that this is not a recovery or a sobriety platform . I'm never going to tell you that you should give up alcohol . All I want to do is arm you with the knowledge and the confidence to know that , if you choose to go down a path of a life less intoxicated , that you are empowered to make that choice and that it is a perfectly valid choice for you to make so that you can get the most out of the life that you want to get .

Becoming a moderating drinker

Speaker 1 7:27

So if you decide to move forward as a moderating drinker , have a think about how you want that to look .

Speaker 1 7:34

For me , moderation was the path that set me off . That's led me down to creating Lono Drinker magazine and the podcast and the blog , but it wasn't active moderation . So active moderation to me is what you've just come out of , that is , the 31 days of setting a solid rule and saying I'm not allowed to drink for these 31 days . Or perhaps you might have a rule that I'm not allowed to drink for these 31 days , or perhaps you might have a rule that I'm not allowed to drink during the week no alcohol Monday to Friday but on Saturday and Sunday I can do what I want . That's an active moderation where you're setting rules , you're setting standards and you have to stick to them .

Speaker 1 8:10

Passive moderation , which is the path that I took , was more about recognizing my new relationship with alcohol , how I felt about it and the role that I wanted it to play in my life . So I've never said I'm not drinking again , I'm never having alcohol again . In fact , on my mom's birthday is on Christmas Eve , and on Christmas Eve I had a glass of Prosecco with her , didn't finish it because I didn't enjoy it , but I felt absolutely fine making that choice because it was my choice and I had decided that on that occasion it was a choice I wanted to make For me . When I started removing alcohol from my life or cutting back on the amount of alcohol in my life , I actually made the promise to myself that I never , ever , ever wanted to have a hangover ever again . I get rotten hangovers and I can be sick for 24 hours and then feel like crap for another three days . It just wasn't worth it anymore .

Speaker 1 9:01

And so passive moderation played a role in my life in that I said to myself do you know what , if I'm going out and my favorite wine is on the wine menu and I want to have a glass of it , then I will . But if I'm going out and there's nothing that I enjoy , I'm no longer going to drink just for the sake of it and instead I'll have an alcohol-free drink or I'll have an elderflower and soda . This was back when I didn't know about choices and wasn't quite yet sick of elderflower and soda . But that , for me , was the passive moderation route that has led me to now being able to take or leave alcohol on my own terms whenever I want . It just so happens that I choose to leave it far more often than I choose to take it .

Speaker 1 9:43

So have a think about how you want alcohol to play a part in your life going forward . There are studies that Alcohol Change UK have done , who are obviously the body behind Dry January January that show that by taking part in Dry January I think it's something like 50% of people are still drinking a lot less six months down the line . So you know this could be a really good opportunity for you to continue to reassess that relationship with alcohol , reduce your intake and increase the amount of time and energy and effort that you put into the things that you wanted to achieve when you started Dry January in the first place . You see we've gone full circle there , okay .

Speaker 1 10:24

So no matter what it is that you choose to do going forward , know that these are your choices and you have every right to make whatever choice serves you best , no matter what your reasons are or who else might have an opinion on it . Nobody else's opinion matters on your drinking choices , except for your own . That is it for this week . I hope it's been helpful and has inspired you to take back the power of choice from alcohol , which is a phrase that means a lot to me , and I hope that it can continue to mean a lot to you too . That's it for this week . I'll catch you next time .