Dry January is a great idea, unless you’re an addict in denial

I woke up Feb. 2, 2015, with one of the worst hangovers of my life. Hugging the toilet, head pounding, sweat beading across my forehead, I felt nothing but pride.

I’d just completed “Dry January” — the practice of abstaining from drugs and alcohol for the first 31 days of the year — and rewarded myself with a bottle of Bulleit, a bag of molly, and an all-night dance party in a warehouse.

Guess who clearly didn’t have a substance abuse problem? This girl!

Dry January has grown into a global movement, and this month, millions of adults will abstain from drugs and alcohol. “Alcohol is becoming less cool, and people are becoming empowered to make better choices,” says Josh Harris, owner of the popular bar Trick Dog, who has been drug- and alcohol-free for decades and is a local pioneer of the nonalcoholic beverage movement.

Last year, approximately 25% of U.S. adults opted to stay sober in January, up from 13% in 2021, according to an annual survey from Civic Science. As general interest in drinking culture wanes and warnings about the health risks of alcohol consumption rise, Dry January has become a staple of wellness culture.

That’s great for the drinkers who approach the month in the same way others might sign up for a gym membership. For normies who want to start the year off right after a season of indulgence, it can be like a juice cleanse.

But for me, it was different. For those who struggle with addiction, Dry January can be a fast track to denial, convincing us that, despite 11 months of evidence to the contrary, we don’t really have a problem.

I first partook in Dry January during a period when I justified my frequent blackouts by reminding myself that I could go more than a couple days without drinking if I had to. Dry January was just starting to gain traction, so my then-boyfriend and I figured, what the hell, let’s give it a shot together.

The results were excruciating. At a sushi restaurant, we ran out of things to talk about and prayed for a bottle of sake to appear between us on the table. I stood bored at work events, sipping Shirley Temples and wanting to go home. Life just wasn’t as much fun without party favors. I gritted my teeth and counted down the days until Feb. 1, when I’d get to go on a well-deserved bender.

I repeated this process of intermittent sobriety for the next four years, my addiction issues conveniently unbeknownst to me. Each time, I took Dry January as proof that I didn’t have a problem. If anything, my time-boxed abstinence breaks just reinforced for me that life without substances was tedious.

“On the surface, a month without alcohol may sound like a healthy reset,” says Jennifer Fernandez, a clinical psychologist and founder of San Francisco’s California Center for Change. “However, for someone with a substance use disorder, it can also inadvertently reinforce denial. For some, it’s easy to think, ‘See? I stopped for a month; I’m fine!’ That sense of control can be misleading.”

The truth, of course, was that I was using drugs and alcohol to deal with much bigger struggles. Dry January wasn’t going to fix my crippling anxiety, persistent self-loathing, an all-consuming job, and an unhealthy romantic relationship.

Other now-sober folks had similar experiences. A woman from my recovery circles, who asked to remain anonymous, said her annual Dry January abstinence helped feed the illusion that she didn’t have a problem, and she often turned to other extreme behaviors, like juice cleanses and incessant exercise, to get her through the month.

“If I felt like drinking and drugs were affecting me negatively, I’d just take a break,” she says. “But I never had any intention to stay stopped. February would come around, and I’d be right back to where I was before, but with a reset.”

Michelle Deely, a San Francisco-based addiction specialist and therapist, warns of the dangers of taking matters to extremes. “All of us are trying to get through the day — we want more pleasure and joy, and in the beginning, substances can provide that,” she says. “People who try abstinence-based programs like Dry January without other forms of support are merely restricting themselves. And when we move ourselves to one extreme, our bodies want to rebel.”

This was true for Ally Weiss, a Big Tech marketer turned entrepreneur(and my sister-in-law). She prided herself on being “the fun one” both at work and in her social life, which usually meant having a drink in hand.

“The idea of Dry January makes me laugh, because I don’t think I ever successfully completed one, and if I did, it was just to convince myself that I didn’t have a problem,” Weiss says. “But for the month, all I’d do was hide out in my apartment, in a bubble.”

Still, many people who identify as addicts support Dry January’s mainstreamization as a way to advance once-taboo conversations around drug and alcohol use. “Dry January on its own might not make a difference,” says Trick Dog’s Harris. “But I think it’s helpful to de-stigmatize the idea of exploring sobriety.”

When Harris was first getting sober 21 years ago, there was no gray area — you were either sober, or you weren’t. He began bartending as a way to reclaim his relationship with his most familiar social environment, and when he opened Trick Dog in 2013, he committed to creating a space that caters to alcohol-free individuals and boozers alike. (This sober columnist is particularly excited about the new NA menu debuting this week.)

When I finally kicked my addiction for good, it was after many years of binary thinking. I had to let go of the thought that being able to stop drinking for a while proved anything. I had to accept that participating in events like Dry January had actually kept me in denial about my problem longer.

When I finally allowed myself to end these little flings with abstinence, I could make room for my sober life to begin.