Dry August/January - a month of not drinking!

As far as your body is concerned it does. If you have a drink at 22 days in, you stopped for 22 days. If you stop again for another week, then you have 7, if you stop again for 2 weeks, then you have 14.

Being a bit pregnant was just used as an idiom.

Alcohol produces toxins that is processed by your liver. If you drink one drink, you have alcohol in your body. Your body was not cleansed for 30 days, it starts over. Your tolerance will also not change because you are giving your body a top up of booze instead of allowing it to deplete.

I am not judging whether or not, you have an addiction either, I have never said you did. I am just telling you as the daughter of an alcoholic and one that loves her own wine and worked in medical industry with many alcohol related illnesses. You are starting at day one in your abstaining. It would be different for your body if you stop for a full straight month than taking a few cheat days. I stopped for 9 months for my pregnancy, it would have been very different if I had 2 cheat days a month. I completely removed alcohol from my body and I did stop thinking about it.

Food diets are a different beast from abstaining from alcohol. Food diets are long term with a specific finite goal, lose X amount of weight, then you have to train yourself to eat a bit more to stop losing but not gain. Cutting back on alcohol can be just a general cut back, or a limited time of abstaining or a permanent stop. Unlike food, you can stop if you wish, however alcohol builds a tolerance in your system that food does not. It has too many differences to compare fairly.

Also, many more people say screw it, I did enough after cheat days and give up on diets from cheat days. It can be much harder to stop yourself from drinking again the next time. I watched my Dad stop for weeks then give in for "just one day" many many times. Mostly he would be back at it for months to come. He was an alcoholic. He did have an addiction. He also had always had reasons to drink. He quit for good when he was much older a few years before he died, he stopped with no exceptions for 5 years till the end. I also bartended for years and watched the same cycle for many of my regulars. Cheat days for drinkers are BAD. Cheat days for Food dieters are good.

I think it's your choice and you know what you want and that is all that matters. More power to what you are doing. This is a great way to experience some health benefits and cut back overall if that is what your goal is.

I'd recommend looking into yourself to know what battles you can win, and not to be tempted into fighting a battle someone else feels you should be fighting. Being confident of being able to make the goal you've set is a prime ingredient for completing that goal. If it's someone else's goal that you adopt because they think you should, your heart won't be in it. Succeeding at a small goal is much better for self-improvement than trying and failing at completing a bigger goal. Especially when self-feedback is a factor.

Liking the discussion here. Alcohol and drinking culture affects most people to some extent; some more profoundly than others.

People also change their attitudes to drinking throughout their lives. When I was a teenager I was teetotal (in some cultures this would go without saying, but in the UK it's common for teenagers to drink). In my first year at university, I drank three glasses of wine at a Formal and got stupidly sick. From this point I got silly about booze, drank to get drunk and semi-regularly would drink to the point of throwing up.

I can't remember why, but after graduating I changed my attitude to drinking and went back to being almost teetotal. I barely drank at all while I lived in Japan. I think I was partly influenced by being disgusted and appalled by some of the drunken stories I heard from friends during my final year at uni.

After settling back into a stable life in the UK, drinking became a part of my lifestyle again, mainly at weekends. Drinking regularly in the week is something that only began in the last year or two.

Wednesday 13th January

At work, my colleagues reported their own experiences of Dry January. One girl was planning on doing Dry January with me but gave up on Saturday to the tune of 4 glasses of wine. She has decided to give up on no-alcohol this month (but has continued to abstain from crisps and chocolate, which was also part of her personal commitment). Another girl isn't really on board with Dry January, but her husband is trying to impose healthy living for the New Year which involves reduced alcohol. She complains about this regularly and is not really making any concessions to it.

We went to the boxing gym in the evening. I don't know for sure that Dry January is contributing to additional gym visits. We always aim to go twice a week but normally end up going once. Having been twice this week, I feel really good about myself and definitely feel a lot more switched-on today at work. I weighed myself at the gym at it put me at 52kg. I don't weigh myself often to know if I've lost anything since I started Dry January, but at least I haven't sustained any long-term gains from Slovenly December.

Weight loss is not one of my goals (though I wouldn't mind being more toned!). Given my poor diet choices, including alcohol and lots of sugar, I wasn't sure whether to expect rapid changes in my body this month with the lack of alcohol and increased exercise.

Actually, with regard to weight that's not true, studies have shown intake is very important. If you meant toning etc as Crumpy mentioned, that obviously requires excercise and activity. I noted that body builders manipulate their diet to achieve their peak physique prior to a performance.

Nah, I'm pretty sure you are wrong there. You need to do exercise to be healthy, but if you want to be thin then it's like 80%-90% diet and 10%-20% exercise. I'm not advocating skipping the exercise part, just that for many people exercise alone won't get them there. I'm too lazy to find articles backing up my claims and I'm near my mobile data cap.

Friday 15th January

We went out to dinner, and then to the cinema to see Room. Going out to dinner used to be a drinking occasion nearly every time, but we're getting a lot better at ordering soft drinks. This is partly because, with it being winter and often unpleasant cycling conditions, one of us is often a designated driver. I tried to order an alcohol-free beer but they didn't have any, which surprised me. It's a popular UK restaurant chain (Bella Italia) and I had assumed they would stock that kind of thing.

Saturday 16th January ('cheat' day)

This was cheat day. We had been looking forward to it all week, but looking back, I have mixed feelings. The occasion was great and if I'd enforced Dry January, I think I might be sitting here typing "I wish I could have had a drink with my friend on her birthday". In the end though, it reminded me of reasons not to drink. I think I could have done it alcohol free if I had tried.

I had three pints of ale, which is a lot for me. I had a Becks Blue between pints 2 and 3, and resisted either another half or a Baileys coffee when they called last orders. Even after one pint, I start feeling the effects of alcohol: most noticeably, I start talking about something then lose my thread and forget what point I'm trying to make. I was around a lot of people I'd never met before. I always think alcohol helps me socialise, but I'm beginning to suspect a lot of the things I say to strangers when I'm drunk come across as weird and inappropriate.

I slept badly, woke up with a bit of a headache and have been in an irritable mood all morning. I'm thinking of cancelling my next cheat day (Friday 22nd).

If you go through with cancelling your next cheat day, that innitiative will have come from yourself, and I'm confident you can succeed.

Ganbatte!