Dry January

Sunday 1/4/26

Dry January, like many things that people do, or purport to do, and for which they seek attention, as people lacking in substance do with nearly everything that is of no real consequence, makes little sense to me. It makes sense to me why it's popular, if that's the term one wishes to use. People are faddish because they lack in substance.

But let's say you successfully pull off this Dry January challenge/goal and you go the whole month without having a drink of alcohol. The calendar turns to February and...you drink again? You undue your gains and halt your progress?

I've mentioned recently the uptick in posts one sees on social media about people saying they're old, complaining they're old. I see people of all ages do this. A woman does some exercise, she says her knees ache, then says this now means what being old is, while revealing she's thirty. That age, forty, fifty, sixty...people will tell you they're old. Like they can't wait to be old.

Drink is part of what's happening here. I don't mean drinking copious amounts necessarily every day until you are a bloated mess who sweats booze. Little will do more for your health than giving up alcohol completely. Any amount of alcohol. I have lived this. Alcohol bleeds into every aspect of your physical health. I'm just talking the physical now. And I mean every part of it.

Give up any amount of alcohol completely, and you will soon feel a difference, and then a lasting difference. You'll always be aware of being in better health. You'll be made to feel that by your body. I think there's a lot we don't know about alcohol still, which will be understood in time.

Do you think I'd be running stairs in the Monument like I do if I drank at all? I wouldn't be. What age am I? It's almost impossible to know unless you see a birth certificate or know me personally.

My body feels as it did when I was eight-years-old. The eight-year-old wakes up without any pains, aches, twinges. He plays robustly outside and goes to bed without any pains, aches, twinges. He doesn't move around thinking he needs to baby a limb or a shoulder. Stand up slowly. He rises as fast as he wishes and does what he wants to do with his body.

That is how I feel. Not drinking is a big part of that. Other things, too. The walking. The stairs, of course. All the foods I've given up and the foods I exclusively eat. The other things I don't drink that aren't alcohol but aren't good.

Alcohol isn't worth it. And if you can go a month without any, you might as well make that two. And if you can go two without any, you might as well make that three, and so on. There comes a point where it's like you never had any at all. You don't think about it, you don't miss it. That point can vary, but I'd bet that on the whole it comes faster for a person than they're likely to believe until they have that experience.