Dry January? I think I go dry every month

This morning on my way to the office, on the radio, I heard listeners relieved for giving up their dry January, and it made me thinking of my drinking habits and I realised, that I actually go dry every month.

Jokes aside, I do drink and did have a sip or two of wine in the first two weeks of January but if the purpose of the “dry January” initiative is to create awareness of health problems associated with heavy drinking, then a month is not enough.

Being completely off alcohol for a month and then go back to the routine, if the routine is heavy drinking for the other 11 months is not going to do any good to our body neither our wallet, and if the NHS statistics are reliable and alcohol related hospital admission are something to go by, “Dry January” is not the way forward.

If we really want to change people drinking habits and improve the nation health, we need an initiative lasting 12 months, we don’t need any dry month, we need a more conscious alcohol consumption. It maybe a cultural thing, difficult to change, but if we really want to improve our health and wallet, we need a lot more than a Dry month once a year.

Dry January, a whole month completely off alcohol, is difficult to achieve, it is like any other new year’s resolution, for the majority of people starting one, it only last a couple of weeks at the most, dry January is like joining the gym or giving up chocolate.

I am a long time gym member and go all year round and my gym is not that busy, this is one of the reason I go there, but every January, the first two weeks is almost impossible to find space, this year was no exception. We are now on the third week and the gym attendance is almost back to “normal” times, plenty of new year’s resolutions have given up, exactly like the ones on the radio this morning giving up on Dry January.

Lets forget Dry January and have a year round campaign that aims in changing the drinking culture, this is the only way we can save money and do good for our health.

At Italyabroad.com we've always campaigned and supported a healthy attitude towards alcohol, we never advertised or promoted cheap wine or alcohol in general, we always said less is better, same for food, we have a clear manifesto, even when goes against our financial interests.