What is Dry January?

Dry January is a challenge that encourages people to give up alcohol for the month of January. Launched in the UK in 2013 by charity Alcohol Change UK, the initiative has gained global traction, with millions taking part each year.

17 million Brits signed up for the challenge this year.

Its aim is to encourage people to reflect on their drinking habits after the festive season, when alcohol consumption is typically higher.

Benefits of taking part in the challenge include: better sleep; improved mood; money-saving; reduced liver fat and lower blood pressure.

While Dry January is not intended to promote long-term sobriety, organisers hope the reset helps people make more informed choices about drinking beyond January.

From Dry January to "why would I ever drink again?"

When 56-year-old Nathalie Reinhardt first signed up to Dry January, it wasn’t a grand lifestyle statement.

“I realised I was starting to drink during the week,” she says. “Not a lot, just a glass of wine in the evening, but I noticed it was often when I felt stressed or anxious.

"I could see that alcohol was becoming a kind of anti-anxiety medicine, and that didn’t feel healthy.”

For Nathalie, that first Dry January six years ago was an experiment rather than a long-term commitment. She wanted to see whether she could pause her drinking for a month and find other ways to manage stress.

Living in France, where wine is deeply woven into daily life, the decision felt especially noticeable.

“At the time, people looked at me as if I was crazy. In France, not drinking wine was really strange. People didn’t understand it at all.”

Still, she returned to Dry January year after year. Then, in January 2024, something changed. “I was really lacking energy,” she recalls. “By the end of the month, I felt so much better than at the beginning. I had more energy, I slept better and I was less tired.”

Instead of celebrating the end of the challenge with a drink, Nathalie questioned why she would start again at all. “I never told myself, ‘That’s it, never again.’ I just thought, ‘I feel better — so why drink?’”

Two years later, she still hasn’t had any alcohol.

The psychological effects of Alcohol

For many people, the effects of alcohol are judged by how it feels in the moment — in the nighttime. But according to psychologist Jessica Schlupp-Taylor, the real impact often arrives much later — in the morning, and it can be far more serious than a hangover.

“When they're out and drinking, my clients often have a fantastic time,” she says. “They’re out dancing, socialising with friends. Everything feels good. But it’s usually 24 to 36 hours later that the crash comes.”

Jess works with clients who are otherwise functioning well — holding down jobs, managing relationships, and, in many cases, actively recovering from depression or anxiety. Yet after a night of moderate or heavy drinking, she has seen dramatic psychological shifts.

“I’ve had people call me saying they want to end their life. They’re sitting in really frightening situations, feeling completely empty. When we talk it through, it becomes clear that nothing external has suddenly changed — it’s the alcohol. It’s depleted and disrupted the chemical balance in their brain.”

Alcohol, she explains, can temporarily boost certain feel-good chemicals, but once those effects wear off, the brain can be left in a vulnerable state — particularly for people already prone to mood disorders. Recovery then becomes about restoring balance through basics like sleep, nutrition, physical intimacy and connection.

“For a lot of my clients, the conclusion is simple — they stop drinking altogether, often for quite long periods. Some try again later and realise it still doesn’t feel good, so they stop again.”

In her experience, neurodivergent people are particularly sensitive to alcohol’s effects on mood and emotional regulation, and are also at a higher risk of alcohol dependency.

This is where campaigns like Dry January can play a meaningful role — not as a detox, but as a psychological experiment.

“Any break from alcohol is useful if someone drinks regularly or relies on it socially or emotionally,” Jess says. “Habits take about three weeks to form, so a month is enough time to create space and awareness.”

That space, she argues, allows people to notice something important: alcohol often isn’t the source of enjoyment — it’s the ritual around it.

“The pleasure people get is frequently about the practice: taking the cold can out of the fridge, opening it, sitting down and exhaling. The alcohol hasn’t even hit their system yet.”

In other words, the glass of wine or pint of beer acts as an anchor — a signal to the brain that it’s time to relax. The challenge is learning to create that same anchor without alcohol.

“If people can learn to link relaxation and presence to something else, they will get the benefit without the emotional drop.”

One of Jess’s only concerns around Dry January is that people treat it as a month of social withdrawal.

“I encourage people to keep going out,” she says. “Go to the pub, go to parties, do karaoke, play games — just without alcohol. The learning is that not drinking doesn’t mean losing your social life.”

Culturally, she believes the UK still places enormous pressure on drinking as a marker of fun and identity.

“We drink when we’re celebrating, grieving, stressed, bored — everything. People worry they’ll seem boring, uptight, or ‘have a problem’ if they don’t drink."

But she sees signs of change: the rise of alcohol-free beers, better non-alcoholic options, and younger generations increasingly unwilling to accept anxiety, poor sleep and public embarrassment as the price of a good night out.

“People are more aware now — especially with cameras everywhere,” she says. “They don’t want to wake up with regret or anxiety. They still want to go out and have fun, just without losing control.”

Ultimately, Jess believes the most radical shift is not about sobriety, but about questioning a deeply ingrained assumption.

“We’ve been taught that alcohol makes us happier,” she says. “But if you really sit with that idea, it’s quite worrying. Why would we need a substance to enjoy ourselves, to connect with each other and to feel alive?”