Blog and News

By Erin Trauth

Goodbye, 2024! The presents have been opened, the New Year’s ball has dropped, and the year-end festivities are now behind us. For so many, the new year coincides with a time of life renewal and refreshment: taking a moment to reflect on lessons learned from last year and thinking of how we can have an even better 2025. Cue those New Year’s resolutions! For a significant portion of the U.S. population, this means taking part in a Dry January challenge: a full month without alcohol of any kind. Recent estimates show that some 15 percent of the U.S. population attempts a Dry January: this equates to millions of adults of legal drinking age cutting alcohol from their lives for up to 31 days. For some who have been cutting back on alcohol already – or for those who might already mostly abstain, Dry January can be a cap on the end of a journey to abstain from alcohol in a more permanent way. However, for those who might be used to drinking alcohol at most social occasions, or those who use alcohol to unwind at the end of a stressful day, this pledge can be quite the challenge. 

In these cases, alternatives, support, and community can make all the difference. If you’re already involved in the NA community, or if you’ve just learned about it: welcome–you’re in the right place! At Dray, we celebrate the non-alcohol lifestyle daily with almost every type of zero-proof alcohol substitute you can think of: craving a beer, wine, or liquor drink? We’ve got you covered! And with an expanding footprint in Boston (a brand new store in Cambridge, MA!), weekly in-store events, and a bustling community interested in abstaining from drinking (or just drinking less), you’ve found the right spot to support any New Year’s resolution that involves going “dry” for the month of January (and beyond!)

To help support your Dry January journey, read on for some of our best tips:

1. Replace the “bad” with the “good” – and optimize your environment. Implement ideas about habit replacement from best-selling author James Clear. Clear, who wrote Atomic Habits, writes that it’s always ideal if you can replace a habit you deem “bad” with something that is “good.” If alcohol has been problematic (or even just if you’ve determined that it doesn’t add much of anything positive to your life), experiment this month with deeming this as a bad habit and make a plan for what to do when your triggers come up (What, precisely, will you reach for at night after work when you want to “wind down”? Might we suggest having a bottle of non-alcoholic wine from Dray on hand?). He also suggests making sure you have your “good alternative” ready for when your triggers arise: setting up your environment for success can be key here. Does this mean putting your alcoholic drinks in storage outside of your home for the month of January? Or, for some others, this is a perfect time to combine your New Year's urge to declutter and clear your alcohol cabinet altogether, loading up instead with great zero-proof alternatives to fill your refrigerator and cabinets. That way, you have a plan for your triggers and you’ve set up your immediate environment for success when the “bad habit” comes to mind. Read more on James Clear’s website here. 
2. Make it fun, make it visual, and track your progress! Making habit change a little more fun and visible can make all the difference for many. The “gamification” of habit change is well-documented: as visual, often competitive beings, it can help us a ton to see ourselves keeping a streak on paper (or on an app), and it can help even more if we see it as a fun game we are trying to beat. To help support your Dry January goals, consider adding a habit-tracking app to your phone and giving yourself a visual credit every single day you abstain (a piece of paper or a desk calendar with simple check marks or Xs can also do the trick). Over time, seeing your positive streak can do wonders to help keep you on track when you feel weakness knocking at your door. You could also look at Dry January challenges to supplement your habit tracking, or, if habit tracking isn’t your thing, consider checking off smaller, fun, non-alcoholic “challenges,” almost “BINGO” style. To help add variety and some increased fun to your challenge, for example, try our Dray January Challenge, with 16 ways to help encourage and support you in your Dry January goal! 
3. Surround yourself with community! As humans, we are naturally drawn to community, whether that community means a large group or even just a partner. When it comes to habit challenges and New Year’s resolutions, especially those that involve taking a typically social habit like drinking alcohol and trying to replace it with abstaining or cutting back, it becomes even more important to find a safe place in the community and companionship of other people (or another person). Trying to do so alone could potentially feel isolating and land us right back in the supposed safety or “norm” of alcohol. In addition, working on a habit in community or in partnership with another can help increase accountability. When you have someone else other than yourself to answer to about your journey, this also can help increase your willpower while also helping to support your partner or community. Can you enlist a friend to join you on this journey? How about a family member? If you live in or around Boston or Cambridge, MA, we have some very good news for you: Dray is your place for non-alcoholic community, with weekly events, in-store support, and ongoing community support for the NA lifestyle in Dry January and beyond. Follow us on Instagram for regular updates on events and the chance to meet others on a NA challenge or longer-term path. And, if you’re not in the Boston area, or if in-person community isn’t an option for you right now, consider online communities. At the time of this writing, the Dry January Community Group on Facebook had 16,800 members and counting! Facebook not your thing? The Reddit “Dry January” group has more than 6,000 members chatting and connecting. Or, if Instagram is your thing, do a search for Dry January influencers – plenty of pages are available to help connect you to groups and encourage meet-ups: Hypegirl Healing is just one example. No matter where you find your support, linking up with someone and providing encouragement and accountability can be key in making it through Dry January!

For many, trying a Dry January challenge can be the start of a journey to fully abstain: if that is your desired outcome, then starting here is absolutely a great place to begin. And, even if you go back to drinking alcohol after January, the benefits of trying Dry January are plentiful: one study found that those who completed Dry January ended up cutting back on “harmful” drinking by 72 percent! Another found that, six months after Dry January, those who completed the challenge ended up drinking at least one day and/or one drink less per week.

From everyone here at Dray: we are always here to support you this month and beyond, and we welcome you to come talk with us in-store in the South End or Central Square, or in our online spaces as you complete Dry January. Please keep these ideas in mind as you work through this month, and we wish you so much luck in your desire to cut back or fully abstain from alcohol!