Dry January is marketed as a ritual of renewal—a sober start to the year, a clean break from December’s excess. But beneath its virtuous packaging lies a familiar cycle. Instead of encouraging balance, it often replicates the very problem it claims to fix: the swing between indulgence and abstinence.
This binary—binge, then ban—doesn’t disrupt harmful habits. It reinforces them. By framing total sobriety as a seasonal corrective, Dry January legitimizes the very extremes it should disavow. True discipline is not abstention by calendar. It is the quiet, daily refusal to be ruled by impulse or fashion.
The same pattern surfaces beyond alcohol. Crash diets after holiday feasts. All-night cramming before exams. Financial detoxes to offset overspending. Each offers the illusion of control in the wake of excess—a performance of restraint with no staying power.
Discipline rooted in deprivation is flimsy. It fades with novelty. Lasting change comes from steady practice, not dramatic purges. If one must abstain, let it be for clarity, not conformity.
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Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmastime.
British comedian and The Vicar of Dibley star 