2024 will be the 5th edition of “Dry January” in France. Translated as “sober January,” alcohol-free month has been growing in popularity for ten years.
A drunken evening on December 31, a complicated wake-up call to start the new year. The first day of 2024 promises to be long and difficult. This is the perfect opportunity to make a good resolution: take a break from alcohol consumption. Dry January, or “sober January” in French, is a challenge whose concept is simple: not drink a single drop of alcohol during the entire month of January.
It is the Englishwoman Emilie Robinson who is at the origin of this challenge. In 2012, she joined the organization Alcohol Change UK, and launched the idea of a communication campaign across the country around stopping alcohol. A year later, the first edition of Dry January took place in the United Kingdom.
The number of participants explodes
And since then, the challenge has grown and become more sophisticated, as evidenced by the development of applications such as “Try Dry”, which makes it possible to keep track of glasses not taken, money saved and calories not ingested. Advice is available to make the most of your sober month of January. Today, thousands of people are taking on the challenge of Dry January all over the world, including Australia, Austria, Germany and Greece. From 4,000 “official” participants in 2013, to 16,000 registered on the Dry January platform in 2023, this year there would be 17 million people planning to participate around the world. And that’s without counting those who will try to comply unofficially…
Undeniable benefits
But this month without alcohol is above all a gift that we give to ourselves, because the benefits of this Dry January are numerous. Thus, according to a study carried out by the University of Sussex in 2019, 71% of participants slept better by stopping consuming alcohol, while 57% of them noticed an improvement in their ability to concentrate. 88% of participants say they have saved money.
Even if this alcoholic diet is clearly beneficial for health, and in just one month, associations and addictologists are surprised that the State is not getting more involved in this campaign, and is not communicating more to make this known. initiative. In any case, you won’t be able to say that you didn’t know what Dry January was…
This article is originally published on lepoint.fr
