The first time a friend told me about their Drynuary a few years ago, my mind reeled.
Drynuary, as I soon learned, means spending the entire bleak stretch of January totally sober as a sort of counterweight to holiday overindulgences.
My friend might as well have told me she was abstaining from surfing in July, or banishing pumpkins from her home in October.
“You mean to tell me,” I said, “that the most depressing time of the year, when the sun barely wakes up before sloughing off to an early bed, when spring and optimism seem impossibly far away, that NOW is when you’re giving up the great commiserator, alcohol?”
Some researchers even claim that Jan. 6 is the most depressing day of the year — a boon for divorce attorneys, and pretty much no one else.
Wouldn’t the spring be a more appropriate time for a monthlong detox, when your recreational options aren’t limited to huddling inside for warmth?
It’s hard to tell when Drynuary started or how many people actually participate, but it’s grown in popularity in the past few years: Celebrities such as Kathie Lee and Hoda have taken it on (and failed), while blogs and Facebook walls fill up with smug diaries about juice cleanses.
Not everyone agrees with me.
“It’s a little hard, but not horrible,” says Park Slope’s Vanessa Londono, 29, an editorial manager at classifieds site Krrb. “Usually January is light on the social side, so it’s not like you’re missing out on too much.”
But is binge sobriety actually any good for you? Ramani Durvasula, a clinical psychologist based in LA, calls it “one more thing for people to fail at.”
“Alcohol is associated with a lot of fun stuff,” she says. “The person who has been away from anything they really enjoy, once they’re put back with it, they find themselves having more trouble regulating it.”
It also leads to bingeing as soon as the calendar hits Feb. 1, say experts.
“You’re trying to be constructive in your lifestyle, but it’s actually being destructive. You’re setting yourself up for failure,” says Rania Batayneh, a nutritionist and wellness coach. “When you make a lifestyle change, you want to make it something you can carry on in your life.”
It’s kind of like starving yourself for a month to lose weight, instead of cutting down on your five-ramen-burgers-a-week habit.
It also carries the risk of subbing one bad habit for another: Last January, The Hairpin blog editor Edith Zimmerman wrote that Drynuary “helped me make my brilliant decision to become a smoker.”
It’s better to make a year-long goal, like only drinking wine with your dinner, Batayneh says.
But our bars are at their finest in the dead of winter. City patriotism soars when we gather together in pubs, around fireplaces and mugs of hot toddies, sharing our resolve to make it through another gray season.
So, jeers to Drynuary. And cheers to another New York winter.