February has arrived, which means that,' Dry January', the annual period in which many people elect to stop drinking for a month, is over.
There are two prevailing mindsets for people who have just completed their month of sobriety. Let's call the categories 'sober curious' and 'sober serious'. A natural reaction of the sober curious might be"I'm glad that's over; now I can start drinking again". If you find yourself more in the sober serious camp, your thinking may be more in line with, "What a fantastic experience; I've never felt better, and I wish it weren't over." For those in the latter category who found they preferred a daily life without alcohol, there may still be a natural tendency to go back to life with regular drinking because, broadly speaking, we are habit-powered creatures with a reluctance to change. Also, we are worried about what other people will say about us abstaining once the 'Dry January' excuse is gone.
I'll briefly speak about this 'peer pressure' point as it is continuously a significant factor cited in why people are unable to quit drinking. Alcohol has been brilliantly mass-marketed longer than anyone reading this has been alive. As a result of this endless ad campaign, in the US, drinking is now deeply embedded in our culture. This deadly recreational drug has been so profoundly normalized across generations that the choice not to drink can lead to our first thought being the misconception that the non-drinker must have a drinking problem. As humans, our brain has factory settings to prioritize what others think of us. It goes back to our ancient ancestors and the fact that if the tribe didn't like them, they wouldn't get food from the day’s hunt, a seat by the fire, or a place to sleep in the cave. In the modern day, this hard-wired FOPO (fear of people's opinion) works against us when we continue doing detrimental actions to match other people’s expectations of us.
FOPO is not the only thing standing in our way of quitting drinking; it's often equal parts finding the motivation. If you are looking to upgrade your life from 'sober curious' to 'sober serious,' I'm going to list some key points to keep in mind on why, if you participated in Dry January, you feel so great after clearing the toxin of alcohol from your mind and body for a month. Of course, even if you're only considering stopping drinking, these points are still highly relevant as to what you can look forward to. If your hope and intent are to stop the cycle of drinking and regret while joining the growing ranks of people who have no room in their lives for an addictive carcinogen and neurotoxin, learning more about how disruptive alcohol is to our overall well-being can be a powerful motivator to leave it behind permanently.
Keep in mind, there is never a wrong time to stop drinking, so if you missed 'Dry January', don't let that slow you down for a minute. Nothing is stopping you from doing a 'Dry February', or even better, the BAR40 'best year ever' challenge. This is a commitment to yourself to live the next 12 months at the highest level of health and wellness and includes a one-year complete hiatus from drinking. It's worth noting that since 2016, this BAR40 ‘sober challenge' has helped people throughout the US and internationally quickly answer the above-mentioned dreaded question of 'Why aren't you drinking.' (As a side note, if that line of questioning concerns you, I assure you it will quickly fade over a short time, and it starts with the simple answer, “I stopped enjoying it”).
Alcohol and cancer- The relationship between cancer and drinking has been getting some recent attention in 2025 since the Surgeon General called for updating the warning label on alcohol. To be clear, the fact that drinking causes cancer isn't breaking news; it's always done that. The problem is that even in 2024 only about 45% of Americans are aware of the connection. The thought process is that by adding a cancer warning label, like the one added to cigarettes in 1984 (when Congress enacted the Comprehensive Smoking Education Act), it will help people realize the danger. Another part of the awareness campaign is undoing the persistent myth that a small amount of alcohol has health benefits. The adage that a glass of wine is good for your heart is the equivalent of saying that smoking a daily cigarette outdoors is good for you as it increases vitamin D from sun exposure. A handful of grapes would give you the same heart-health benefits as a glass of wine without drinking poison. Alcohol is considered a group 1 carcinogen, the same cancer risk classification as asbestos, radiation, arsenic, and mustard gas. Through ceaseless marketing and the subsequent societal pressures, we have been led to believe drinking is a relatively harmless way to relax and socialize. When we think of annual drug fatalities in the US, our mind tends to go to overdoses of opioids and fentanyl, which, tragically, claims about 100,000 lives per year. That's bad, but not even close to the undefeated champion killer: booze. Alcohol-related deaths are responsible for about 180,000 deaths each year, translating to about 500 people dying each day because of drinking. You'll notice we don't hear much in the news about that fact, as drinking is the American way (and big business with profits to match).
Drinking and dopamine- We want to feel our best every day, and we mainly drink because we like how it makes us feel in the moment. The problem is when we drink, alcohol creates a surge in dopamine (feel-good chemical) release, and our brain responds by decreasing the amount of dopamine it naturally produces. Our brain is very good at maintaining homeostasis (the correct chemical balance). The brain reduces its natural daily production level when we regularly introduce this external element as a dopamine source. Over time, we need to drink to feel an average level of happiness. Factoring in the tolerance element (how much we need of something through repetitive usage to achieve the same effect as the initial dose), over time we need to consume increased amounts of alcohol to feel normal, and if we don't drink, we feel stress and anxiety based on our lowered natural dopamine production. This is a rapid summary of how alcohol dependency and most addictions evolve. It's a simple neuroscience explanation based on brain chemistry, not a personality flaw or failure. If you were to experiment with a random group of people and had them all consume the same daily amount of alcohol over the same period, the brain chemistry effects would all look highly similar using medical imaging technology, along with the accompanying physical and mental dependency. The great news is, once we stop drinking for a few weeks, our brain goes back to the 'factory settings,' and we feel the same level of joy and pleasure in everyday activities, just like when we were kids and had not yet introduced a drug into the equation to try and heighten our social pleasures.
Feeling Good- Sleep does many important things for us every night, but one of the most mission-critical aspects is related to our daytime cognitive functioning and mood regulation. When we drink even a small amount, our sleep cycles are altered, and REM sleep is significantly impacted or eliminated depending on how much we consume. Our sleep is also often interrupted when the sedative effects of alcohol wear off (about 5 hours into sleep), and the stimulants the brain has introduced to offset the depressant effects are still in effect. As mentioned, the brain is always trying to maintain balance, and that is why you wake up around 2 or 3 am after drinking and will have a tough time falling back asleep. It's the equivalent of waking up, having a couple of quick cups of coffee, and then jumping back into bed and hoping for a couple more hours of restful sleep. Suppose we are in this pattern a few nights a week. In that case, that means half of our days, we are suffering from poor sleep and the effects of diminished energy and an inability to regulate our moods along with the accompanying increased stress, anxiety, and irritability. For the many people who drink every night, this becomes the baseline normal on how each day starts, and the drinking is what we go back to later each day to alleviate the symptoms of what the previous day's drinking created. That's the cycle, and that can quickly become an endless, miserable loop.
Looking Good- Let's take the cancer problem out of the equation for a minute. I have had conversations with people who are unfazed by the risk with a justification along the lines of "the sun causes cancer too, but I'm still going outside!". Even for those unburdened by the worries of cancer, looking our best can still be a priority, so let's talk briefly about exercise and maintaining our target weight.
When it comes to wanting to exercise, the best intentions for including some workout or rigorous activity in our day can be quickly terminated when we wake up, even mildly hungover or with low energy. If this were one day of your life, that wouldn't be the end of the world, but realistically, if drinking is part of your routine, there are many days a month when you skip working out or do it at 50% level to check off the box. If looking and feeling your best every day is essential to you, having alcohol in your life is counterproductive to your efforts. If you are looking for a perfect reason to stop drinking and have struggled with coming up with the 'what's my why?' reason that will motivate you daily, consider getting in the best shape of your life to be a driver that keeps you focused every day. When we prioritize what we want most instead of what we want now, we can develop a clear vision on how we want to spend our time. Put simply, where our passion goes, our energy flows.
If you are in the roughly 50% of Americans who want to lose weight, drinking is not doing you any favors. There are lots of reasons why alcohol is the great ruination of diet plans, but I'll stick with a few main ones. First, when we are eating while we are drinking, our impulse control is diminished, and we make poor choices. We are not likely to leave the bar and order a salad with dressing on the side at 2 am, but there is no shortage of empty pizza boxes to be found in the morning alongside the empty bottles and cans. Also, our 'fuel gauge' is broken when we drink, meaning that any feeling of being full is suppressed (anesthetized), and we end up eating more than we usually would and certainly more than we need. Related to that, our body recognizes a toxin in our system, so it prioritizes metabolizing the alcohol out of our system before it gets to work on the unnecessary food we just consumed, which can easily lead to unwanted weight gain. Another aspect involves the day after drinking when, as mentioned above, we are tired from a poor night's sleep and have diminished energy. Our brain can misinterpret this 'low energy' signal from the body as a calorie deficit and send the 'get more fuel on this fire' signal, conveyed by increased appetite. This can make us prone to overeating after a big night out, consuming significantly more calories on top of all the useless alcohol calories we onboarded the night before. If you identify with partaking in a few (or more) evening drinks, you have likely experienced this increased hunger the next day, assuming it wasn't so many drinks that nausea became the main headline of the day and eliminated all appetite. When we combine the realities of the food aspect with the negative impact on our desire for physical activity after drinking, the cumulative effect is highly detrimental to looking our best. (The effects of what drinking does to our skin are separate topics, but the fast answer is: Nothing good!)
If you have arrived at the point where you feel drinking is taking more from your life than it's giving, now is the perfect time to cancel it out of your routine. There are a million reasons not to drink, and only one that compels us to do it: we enjoy it. If you no longer enjoy it, you have lost the only reason to endure the downsides, and the only remaining factor is habit, which is something you can change. History is not destiny; just because we did something yesterday doesn't mean we are forced to do it again tomorrow. The non-drinking life you aspire to is right over the hill, waiting for you. Trust me when I tell you; you're going to love it here.
For some additional info on the effects of drinking, check out these high-value videos:
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