It’s 1am. R&B is getting progressively louder and stumbling people shout and sing to eachother as they move out of time with the beat. I’m in a club after only a couple of glasses of lemonade but with the atmosphere I almost feel drunk. Pushing my way through tight crowds of rowdy people to get to the bar, my friend calls that he’s buying the next round of drinks and 6 Tequila shots are poured out in front of us. I stand back as one gets offered to me and refuse. “Don’t worry, it’s water” he replies, so I drink it one go and hold hands with my friends to find some room to dance again.
Welcome to Dry January, the month when around 4.2 million around the UK abstain from alcohol. Avoiding drinking in one of the most ‘depressing’ months of the year sounds horrible, right? As a student in the UK, where drinking and clubbing culture is a massive part of the ‘university experience’, dry January might seem impossible, but it’s not.
This year after a Christmas holidays and New Years full of eating and drinking I’ve decided to step up to the challenge for the first time, not only to feel healthier but also to prove to myself that cliche as it sounds, you don’t have to drink to have fun.
Since making the decision to stay sober this month, I’ve already had comments attempting to convince me to change my mind and people not believing that I’ll last the whole month. 2 weeks in and: “Don’t be boring” and “Why would you do that?” are the most common responses to my choice. I’ve come to realise that one of the hardest things about trying to abstain from alcohol is the massive pressure from other people to give up.
According to Alcohol Change UK, 70% of participants who stopped drinking for a month recorded that they had better sleep and 55% had generally improved health. Although this isn’t everyone’s goal, successfully not drinking in January is a sense of achievement and can help your mental well-being, which is exactly why I think more students to stand up to the challenge.
Student Union officers at the University of Gloucestershire think it’s important for the well-being of students to go to sober events. Imaani Mitchell, SU President, said: “It’s good to have a break from drinking, university culture used to be a lot about drinking so I think dry January is a good thing to do.”
So what happens once January is done? Health experts from Alcohol Concern UK say try to not think of dry January as a short-term thing but a new approach to drinking in the new year as many people feel inclined to overindulge in February.
