How To Do Dry January Without Feeling Deprived

My first Dry January attempt was 2016. I’m not sure I even knew the term “Dry January” yet, but I knew I needed to try life without drinking, and January 1st seemed like the best time to start. New Year’s resolutions and all.

My attitude was something along the lines of, “I want to do this. I need to do this. And I already hate it.”

It wasn’t the first time I’d tried to go without drinking for a while. And none of the previous attempts had been a good time. Going without alcohol – for me – meant not being able to fall asleep, not having an easy way to dull the always-present anxiety, having to actually feel my feelings, and a never-ending sense of boredom that infiltrated literally every evening starting at about 5 pm. 

There was also that sting of shame that cropped up every time I failed. A sort of whisper of shame – because not drinking turned out to be way harder than I thought it ought to be. And I didn’t like the way that felt. 

So attempting an entire month without drinking pretty much just sounded like a month I fully expected to hate.

There’s a reason Dry January Is so hard…

And it has nothing to do with you. 

Your nervous system is wired to seek out what feels familiar. Familiarity feels safe and comfortable – and your brain is always looking for whatever feels safe and comfortable. 

The problem, of course, is that drinking alcohol really isn’t safe at all. But your nervous system doesn’t listen to facts and logic. It can’t tell the difference between what feels safe and what actually is safe.

Over the course of time, your nervous system, coupled with your brain’s reward system, creates an automatic response to stress, boredom, and discomfort. Reaching for a drink becomes automatic – you don’t even have to think about it. 

There’s no decision being made. 

Going against instinctual responses like this (what we call cognitive dissonance) is hard! It makes sense that it’s more difficult not to drink than you thought. 

You aren’t doing anything wrong. You’re not hopeless. 

You just haven’t found the right tools to catch the automatic response while it’s happening and slow it down. That takes time, tools, support, and intention. 

Between my own experience and the years I’ve spent helping others through this, I can tell you this part catches almost everyone off guard.

So let’s start rewriting the story of your drinking

When you decide to stop drinking and you feel that sense of doom, it’s because you’re choosing to remove what might be a pretty big part of your life… and you’re not replacing it with something that is just as valuable. 

If you’re anything like me and most of the people that I work with, that evening glass (or bottle?) of wine was your nightly ritual. It was the reward for making it through the day, it was the regulation you didn’t know how to give yourself otherwise. 

So when you take that out of your evening, it leaves a big ol’ hole that needs to be filled, or you’re going to feel like you’re staring into an empty void every night. 

Of course it feels like doom. 

There’s an important question to ask yourself here: 

What needs was alcohol meeting, that it’s not meeting anymore? 

If you want, grab a sheet of paper and a pen, and write down what comes to mind. I’ll wait. 

And this leads to the next question: How can you meet those needs with something other than alcohol?

How can you support yourself for the next 30 days in a way that feels truly helpful? 

• Talk to someone that really gets it
• Learn some nervous system regulating techniques
• Find some hobbies that pass the time and bring a sense of satisfaction
• Lean into quality time with your friends and family
• Listen to podcasts of people talking about their experiences, so you don’t feel so alone
• Create new calming routines that support your emotional and physical wellbeing

The goal is to create a sense of comfort – not a sense of numb. 

What other ideas can you come up with?

What no one ever told you about boredom

When you stop drinking – especially if it’s something you do most nights – it’s going to feel like there are 142 hours between 5 pm and 10 pm. 

You’ll be astonished at just how slowly the hands on the clock creep around. Time and again, in the work that I do, I find that boredom is one of the most difficult feelings to move through when someone decides to take a break from alcohol. 

But boredom is more than just not knowing what to do with your time. 

That uncomfortable feeling you get is usually a mix of a push to be productive, loneliness, identity loss, and a lack of purpose. High achievers struggle here especially. 

These feelings need more than just distraction. 

The advice you always read is “stay busy”. And while that’s not bad advice, per se, it’s usually not enough. Distraction might make it a little easier to get through the night, but it’s not solving any long term problems. 

Use that feeling of boredom as a chance to collect information. 

What are you really feeling? Where do you think those feelings are coming from? Are there some thoughts or needs here that you can explore – maybe journal about – to learn more about yourself and why drinking became such a habit in the first place? 

How Dry January is supposed to feel

When Dry January is coupled with support, it feels completely different than that empty, everlasting sense of doom. 

When you’ve got some direction and guidance, when you’re able to look behind the curtain and see what’s really running the show, everything changes. 

• There will be less internal noise, that constant chatter that becomes exhausting to listen to.
• You’ll feel the start of the steadiness you’ve been looking for, both in your thoughts and your emotions. Having a place to talk about those thoughts and emotions helps regulate them. 
• You’ll start trusting yourself, creating confidence and self esteem that might have long been eluding you.
• You’ll free up so much mental space when you no longer have that nonstop back-and-forth in your head about whether you’re drinking tonight.

30 days without alcohol isn’t going to be a magic pill for making everything in your life better. But you’ll notice some subtle changes that make it a little easier to breathe. 

You’ll start feeling a sense of hope. And sometimes, that hope is all you need.

This isn’t about being perfect.

High achievers like to try to make everything perfect. 

I know this, because I’m a high achiever too. 

But this process doesn’t lend itself well to perfectionism. These 30 days are a great opportunity to practice giving yourself grace. For learning what “good enough” means, and letting yourself lean into that in a way that maybe you never have before. 

The goal right now isn’t to quit forever. It’s just to feel better in your own life. 

And that is 100% a possibility for you. I promise. 

This is the work I do. I create the structure and support to explore what that version of your life looks like. I help people find the hope they need to believe things can feel better than they do right now. And I help them create a compass for how to get there. 

Dry January isn’t about proving anything.

It’s just about learning what you need to feel whole, without needing alcohol to fill any of the empty spaces. 

I write about what this looks like every week in my newsletter. I’d love to have you join me. You can sign up below. And if you decide it’s not what you’re needing, just unsubscribe.

This sounds like what I need!

If you could use some more Dry January tools and inspiration, check out these posts:

If Today Was Day One Sober, Here’s What I’d Do

Top Tips for Dry January – From The Experts