Dry January anyone.

[mjr]

I'm not seeing that being asked at all. You might not be reading people's posts carefully enough. Only two people have used the word 'healthy' - sandra and you.

Or I might be summarising "can lead to long term [beneficial] changes in people's drinking habits and attitudes to alcohol" as "healthy". You might not be thinking about people's posts carefully enough.

 

[Jason]

I failed to stay off the booze completely in January, but certainly broke my daily habit of a wee tipple before dinner. Drank on a total of 4 days, with 2 of those being after work "business/social" events.
Pretty pleased with myself. The bottom tray in the fridge door has 4 beer cans, and me of old would have polished them off within a week, but the desire has vanished.
The plan for February is to continue on this path, as I can feel the health benefits.

 

[Stephenite]

I was thinking about cutting out the booze in January but it just didn't happen. I could really do with a break though. I'm considering a dry February but I have a birthday this month. Then there's .'parched' March. But there are 31 days in March! A 'bleak' week might be more manageable for me.

A big well done to everyone who succeeded in cutting out, or cutting down, in January.

 

[Drago]

I know a chap who abstained for dry January. He used the time brewing a batch of beer and another of mead, so he's probably now made a good start on ****** up February.

 

[Heltor Chasca]

Still on Dry January 2017. No Strava awards* for my efforts and it’s not even showing, so maybe it never happened. Strava is rubbish.

I have had some mouthwash which had alcohol in it but I didn’t swallow. Am I in the clear?

* KOM = King of the Mixers.

 

[kevin_cambs_uk]

Managed it
Mostly thru having been on call most weekends and the free week end never got around to it

I don’t drink much and never drink at home as to me the going out but is part of it

So overall did it but was no real effort but the money and waiste line saved is noticeable

 

[nickyboy]

No disrespect to Mr R but that's the fallacy of appeal to authority, but those links are far more interesting.

The IAS link is strange. It names Richard de Visser as the lead researcher, but the research doesn't appear to be in his linked publication list, so it's difficult to comment on the reliability of the summary. I don't trust the so-called Institute of Alcohol Studies as an unbiased reporter because it's a subsidiary of the Alliance House Foundation "Promoting Temperance and an Alcohol Free lifestyle. Celebrating the proud history of the Temperance and Total Abstinence Movement".

The febfast one has obvious weaknesses resulting from being a self-selected response group and to be fair, the authors mention it in a few places (such as how the demographics of the respondents doesn't match the demographics of participants) and summarise the flaws arising from self-reporting in the final paragraph: "The study design was cross-sectional, and as such we are unable to state with absolute confidence that participants’ alcohol consumption reduced as a result of febfast. This is because estimates of alcohol consumption patterns were self-reported and relied on recall and therefore may be prone to bias." It wouldn't be a surprise if people who remember it favourably enough to dwell on the experience doing a voluntary survey were more likely the ones who felt it helped them.

The development into "have a little less" is heartening and very much in line with my point of view.

I certainly need a drink after reading that

It's very difficult to prove the null hypothesis - that there is no significant effect from the intervention - which is why it's normal that experiments to try to disprove the null. That febfast one seems better than most I've read, but still basically doesn't show much because of the limitations they mention.

I don't have the resources now to conduct a more robust independent assessment - would you fund it?


Is that why you've switched to personal attacks instead of even trying to find credible evidence? I now wonder whether including a summary from part of the temperance movement was deliberate rather than an innocent mistake!

If my belief is so far wrong, how do they justify the move to "have a little less"? Don't they suspect it will achieve better results than flip-flopping?

Also, I'm a statistician, so I accept that my prior belief may be incorrect.

Hey, nobody's perfect!

Blimey, I need a drink after reading that

 

[MarkF]

I knew it would end badly. It was my sister in laws' 50th party last night, it was a busy day and I'd only had 2 boiled eggs to eat by the time I pitched up at her house. MrsF is not talking to me, my daughter said I told SIL that her blouse was just like her stair carpet, spilt beer on my mother in law's partner and stood on the cat. I've looked everywhere but can't find the trousers that I was wearing.

 

[BoldonLad]

I knew it would end badly. It was my sister in laws' 50th party last night, it was a busy day and I'd only had 2 boiled eggs to eat by the time I pitched up at her house. MrsF is not talking to me, my daughter said I told SIL that her blouse was just like her stair carpet, spilt beer on my mother in law's partner and stood on the cat. I've looked everywhere but can't find the trousers that I was wearing.

Sounds like a good party!

 

[vickster]

I knew it would end badly. It was my sister in laws' 50th party last night, it was a busy day and I'd only had 2 boiled eggs to eat by the time I pitched up at her house. MrsF is not talking to me, my daughter said I told SIL that her blouse was just like her stair carpet, spilt beer on my mother in law's partner and stood on the cat. I've looked everywhere but can't find the trousers that I was wearing.

The day started seriously badly....

 

[graham56]

Well you did ask.

 

[nickyboy]

8 days in, going fine. Done it for the past 25 years. Don't experience any particular health effects. Helps me lose a couple of kg, that's about it

A bit trickier this year as son#2 is at home until mid Jan and, being a student, he has maintained his student drinking habits at home. Watching the football on TV together when he's on his fourth pint is a little jarring

 

[Milzy]

I never realised we had such heavy drinkers on the forum.

 

[GetFatty]

I gave up on 28th Dec after caning it for a few days. Hangover was horrendous but now everything is settling down: sleep patterns etc
I’ve found Tesco do some reasonably price non and low alcohol wines. For beer I have Erdinger 0

 

[Beebo]

I’m not doing it this year.
Home schooling two kids and having both me and the wife working from home is not a good recipe for dry January.