Dry January: Observations on a Strong Month
One of my goals for 2026 was to complete “Dry January,” a month with no alcohol. I drink a bit of bourbon and an occasional beer, and this seemed like a good time to reset my relationship with this very powerful and addictive drug. I was 100% successful with Dry January. I didn’t drink a drop of alcohol between January 1st and January 31st.
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This was despite having two out-of-town friends visit, and spending a weekend at a ski lodge with friends (sadly this was cancelled due to - ironically - snow). I’m very pleased with how the month turned out. Here are some observations on Dry January.
No man is free who is not master of himself.
~Epictetus
I found it pretty easy.
On December 31st I was dreading cutting off the spigot on the morning of the first. Though I usually carefully regulate my alcohol intake, my erratic FTO schedule leading into the holidays got me off track. I was having a drink or two almost every night. But January 3rd, however, I found that I didn’t miss alcohol at all. By January 8th I was thinking, “hell, maybe I’ll do Dry February, too.” Which is good, because I found all sorts of other benefits to taking a month of alcohol.
One thing that doubtlessly helped was re-reading Drink? The New Science of Alcohol and Health by Dr. David Nutt. This book details the harm alcohol does to your body, and these harms are considerable. Though we often think of the liver when considering the harm alcohol does, it goes much further than that. The list of organs and tissued damaged by alcohol is very, very long and includes your heart, brain, muscle, bone, and gut. Alcohol suppresses testosterone, inhibits sleep, increases your risk of various cancers, stroke, heart disease, and plenty more.
If you drink, you owe it to yourself to fully and completely understand the risks, rather than burying your your head in the sand. I’m glad I found quitting for a month so easy, because the benefits are enormous and hard to overlook. Again, I can’t recommend reading Drink? The New Science of Alcohol and Health strongly enough.
Here are some of the other, direct benefits I got from Dry January.
I got extremely focused.
When I look back at January, it seems like I had an intense focus almost all month long that I’ve been missing. Though my writing here isn’t quite what it has been, I got back into writing after being pretty much absent since the release of the book. I read 17 books, including paper books, ebooks, audio books. I dry practiced almost every day (and decided to do another year of daily dry practice). In addition to the training courses I initially planned for this year I found a couple others (a venomous snake handling course and a bushcraft course) to add to my training year. And, I got really serious about improving my diet and losing my “dad bod.”
I lost weight.
This wasn’t an initial goal for this year, but I lost weight. More than I thought I would. I lost a total of 8 pounds. For some reason, after weighing myself on January 3rd, I decided to get serious about my diet, too. People ask me, “what are you doing?” and expect to hear “GLP-1” or “paleo” or “carnivore.” I just did exactly what I recommend in Chapter 1 of Competent & Dangerous: I ate the ELAFA Diet. The Eat Like a Fucking Adult (ELAFA) diet is a pretty simple, 3-rule diet:
Eat real food.
Eat a balanced diet.
Eat in moderation.
Which basically translates, in layman’s terms to, “I cut out junk, ate plenty of vegetables, and above all and (most importantly for losing weight), I ate less. That’s all.
I picked something healthy for breakfast and lunch and ate it almost every single day. Then I ate pretty much whatever I wanted for dinner, within reason (no whole pizzas, all-you-can-eat buffets, or prepared “foods”). I avoided between-meal snacks almost 100%. When I did have a snack it was an apple, orange, or handful of nuts. I avoided fast food almost 100% (one Five Guys burger, one Chic Fil A sandwich - both on days really long days), and ate very, very little processed food. Aside from a single milkshake to celebrate a special occasion, I avoided sweets almost totally, too.
Without alcohol, it wasn’t as easy to talk myself into dessert on those weekend evenings when I did go out to dinner. Going out to eat became really special again. Combined with no empty calories from alcohol, I lost quite a bit of weight. Which reminds me…
I drank a LOT more water.
I am not a big water drinker. I have never really been, even though I know I should be. But when I met a friend for dinner - or was just making lunch for myself at home - beer wasn’t an option. Also, without the diuretic effect of alcohol, I had less of a disincentive to drinking water. I jumped from drinking maybe a quart of water (not including my two cups of coffee in the morning) to drinking almost a gallon a day. That’s a LOT more for me.
I started sleeping better.
I didn’t notice this until about the 9th or 10th, but my sleep improved substantially. I started sleeping longer and more restfully. Though I’m not a late sleeper, I found myself able to sleep in past 5 AM. I also found myself dreaming more, which is a good thing. Your brain needs to dream to function at peak level. The list benefits of improved sleep are almost as numerous as the harms of alcohol itself. Some of the reasons to improve your sleep include:
Better cognitive function
Stronger immunity
Blood pressure regulation
Weight management
Better impulse control
Reduced stress
Improved attention and reaction time
Removes waste products from the brain
And many, many more.
If you are looking for ways to improve your sleep in addition to curbing alcohol intake, check out this article I wrote a couple years ago…or check out the Sleep Better section of my book, Competent & Dangerous.
I will drink less this year.
I used to be extremely strict about drinking three nights a week ONLY. I let this slip. Completing Dry January, however, is a great time to recalibrate my relationship with this powerful substance. My commitment to drinking in moderation is renewed: no more than two drinks, three nights per week, max. Even if I exceed that a little bit, I will still drink quite a bit less than I was in the second half of 2025. My current plan is to only drink three nights per week (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday).
Dry January took - and gave - discipline.
Though it wasn’t terribly difficult, this took some discipline to do. One part of your brain - the part that is craving comfort in the moment - is always trying to talk you into doing to the easy thing, right now, that will bring you comfort. If you can tune out that part of your brain and listen to the longer-term part - the part that wants you to succeed - you’ll be more satisfied in the end. Bourbon will still be there at the end of 30 days, and along with it you’ll have a sense of pride at having accomplished a goal. Taking the path of relative ease and comfort is easy…in the moment, but you’ll be glad when you finish this challenge with no excuses, no rationalizations, and no regrets.
I gained a lot of discipline from exercising a little discipline. I got serious about my diet, my weight, and working out. and lost 8 pounds. I also decided to dry practice throughout the month of January, a habit that I’m going to continue throughout the year. And I read 17 books this month; if I kept that pace I would read 208 books this year, or 86 books (my annual average) more than my strongest reading year to date.
Thoughts on Dry January
If you drink and you’ve never taken a month off, you really should. First, you should do it to see if you can do it. If you can’t make it through a month without drinking, you should probably ask some hard questions about continuing to drink at all.
Second, Dry January was a huge opportunity to improve my overall health. I marveled at how well I began to sleep. My diet was peak. Though I didn’t work out as much as I have at some points, my workout routine was solid. I was also generally less stressed (though I didn’t write a section about that because it’s hard to measure.
Once you see the huge list of benefits stack up, it’s hard to justify NOT doing something like this. It can be Sober October, or Dry July or…well, really whatever timeframe you want to make it.