The Current - Dry January? What's that gonna do for you?

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

Many of us participate in Dry January — and go right back to drinking during the other eleven months of the year. Sure, Dry January can be a great jumping off point, but long-term health benefits aren't going to come with quitting the booze for one month. We speak to Catharine Fairbairn, a psychologist who runs an alcohol research lab, about what people should be doing if they really want to change their drinking habits. And we ask Dan Malleck, a medical historian specializing in alcohol and prohibition: Why do people drink, anyways? And is it really that bad for you?

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This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. January is finally over. Finally. Like, did it feel like the longest month in history? Maybe that was just me, but it went on and on and on. It felt like now the January is done, though. So two is dry January.

Every year, there are people who give up drinking for the month. Maybe it's a health reset. Maybe there's a personal challenge that they're trying to live up to over the next year. Whatever the case may be, going dry. has over the years become a real trend. What exactly does one month away from booze actually do for you? Does it have a long-term impact on your relationship with alcohol? We're going to get into the science of that in a moment.

But first we're joined by Harrison Hahn, who works in real estate development in Vancouver. This is his fifth year of doing dry January. He's in our Vancouver studio. Harrison, good morning. Good morning. How did January go for you? Pretty well, actually. Yeah.

Yeah, it went about as well as. the previous few years, to be honest. Tell me what you're doing. You've been doing this, as I said, for five years, not drinking alcohol for the month of January. What exactly are you doing? It's basically a complete break from drinking alcohol of any kind for the month. And just for the month?

Or does it, sometimes people extend this into February and even beyond? A lot of us can overdo it a little bit in December during the holiday season. So I found it easier to take not just January off, but a lot of times February till the 25th, which is my brother's birthday. So it's a convenient time to take the break from the drinking. And was this about what happens in December? Tell me more about why you started doing this. A couple of reasons.

Really, first was I had a fairly major health issue back in the spring of 21. I didn't do it because of that, but it fully recovered. but it reinforced that maybe it's not a bad idea to take a break from. What science is basically starting to really confirm is kind of a poison of sorts. So also, you know, I work in an industry where the holiday parties, both professional and personal, can get a little bit carried away a lot of times. So come the new year, I don't like using the word cleanse, but it's a good break from the alcohol, yes. January, I mean, I said it felt like three months and one.

It can be a long month, right? Dull and gray and, I mean, rainy out where you are. Has it ever been difficult to make it all the way through January without a drink? Not really. Like I say, I feel like sometimes physiologically my body is subconsciously telling me it's time for a break as well. The only thing that I might admit to is I find that after about a week of not drinking, my sugar cravings tend to go up a little. So I walk down the supermarket aisle where the candy bars are or whatever,

and they look a little more appealing than usual to me because I'm not a big sweets guy generally. What about the social benefits of this? I mean, do you find at all that people go out and they meet people over drinks? And usually that's an alcoholic drink. Do you ever feel like you're missing out on anything in those months or two months that you've taken off? Outside of the holiday season, I'm what I would consider. a moderate drinker. What does that, I mean, if you don't mind me asking, what is that?

Yeah, I mean, drinking on weekends and occasionally during the week, oh, but, you know, in those cases, generally speaking, if it happens to be a business lunch or dinner or something of that nature. But outside of that, I don't tend to go on benders or anything like that. That was, you know, 20, 30 years ago for me at this point. But you said occasionally your body will, will crave for a bit of a reset, too. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And so I think that, you know, come the end of December, it's, it's, it's, I've, it's, it's, it's, it's,

psychologically and physiologically, it feels like a good time. Come in the end of February when you get to your brother's birthday, maybe you have a drink. How do you think you're different? I think that a small part of me is also just double checking that for whatever reason should I need to stop drinking altogether permanently, that I can still do this, to be honest with you. So you're showing yourself that you can. Exactly, yeah.

A bit of a psychological question. Should there knock on wood, nothing happens? but should there be any health issues in the future as I get older, I'm on 55, that I might need to actually consider stopping altogether. I don't, it makes me feel like it wouldn't be as big a deal. I just wonder, after a month and a bit off of the booze, whether your relationship with alcohol, you feel changes. I don't crave it.

And, you know, I have to say, when I drink, I'm 90% a wine drinker. And a big part of it is not necessarily because of the alcohol, but because I've come to appreciate, I'm not a wine snob by any means, but I do appreciate how it tastes, I guess. Yeah. And so what happens come the end of February after your brother's birthday?

Will you go back to the, not pattern, but in some ways, the relationship with alcohol that you had before where you would drink maybe on the weekends and maybe a glass, you know, here and there through the week? Or do you think there'll be less drinking? How do you think that'll be, what will happen then? I'd say, you know, if the last five years is any indication, I don't, it's probably just going to go back to sort of a regular, my drinking habits haven't really in the last five years fluctuated that much.

Obviously, during COVID, I think myself and along with a lot of people found my drinking did go up during lockdown for a lot of reasons. But outside of that, my drinking generally during the year hasn't really fluctuated that much. And so for you, the dry January plus is worth it. It's a nice break. That's the way I look at it. Harrison, I'm really glad to talk to you about this. Thank you very much. Yes, thank you.

Harrison Hahn was in our Vancouver studio. And as you heard for the last five years, he has participated in dry January. Catherine Fairbairn is the principal investigator at the alcohol research lab and an associate professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne. Catherine, good morning to you. Hi, thank you for having me.

Thanks for being here. Do you participate in dry January? I personally do not know, but I have a lot of respect and admiration for people who do. Okay, tell me more about the respect and admiration from a distance. What do you make of dry January? I think that especially if you are a, if you're a person without alcohol use disorder, so if you are a moderate or even a heavier social drinker, taking a break from alcohol can be an excellent idea. And I think similar to what your first guest, Harrison mentioned, it can be.

a little bit of an experiment or a little bit of a test drive of sobriety or cutting back. And I think that can be incredibly valuable. What do we know about what that can do for 31 days? And he, one of the things he talks about it, and I'm not going to come back to that test model. But he also talked about his body is looking for a reset in some ways after maybe a bit of a boozy holiday season. What does 31 days do for us? I think that the main benefits are benefits you can get in 30 days, but are also

benefits that you kind of, it's about what you bring forward after that point. Over the course of 30 days, there has been some research showing that people have increased concentration, better sleep, and even that symptoms of fatty liver can go down. But if you just rebound back and start drinking at the same levels you were before, then those benefits are going to be very temporary. So I think what Dry January can really do for us is it can offer a little bit of a kind of homeostatic reset. So this idea of reestablishing what baseline is. So if you're someone who's been slowly escalating, you're drinking over time with COVID, for whatever reason, then it kind of reset you back to a different baseline and give you a sense of possibility surrounding a different

way of relating to alcohol. What happens if you just start back up in February? On the first of February, you celebrate the end of dry January by pulling the cork out of a bottle of wine. Well, I think some people do that. And I think it is very important to avoid a kind of binge, abstain, ping pong cycle with alcohol, just like it is with food. So you do want to adopt a whole, even if you're engaging in dry January, you want to adopt a whole year mentality over the course of my relationship with alcohol over the course of this year, how could I reduce my drinking and have a more healthy level of drinking? On the other hand, if you are dry for the month of January

and you literally just go back to exactly the same level of drinking you had before on February 1st, well, it's one less month of drinking. So that's certainly no harm, and it is an experiment. It's interesting. It's dry January. It's not dry July, right? And so after the holidays, maybe it's a bit, easier to take a break rather than in the heat of the summer season?

I think so. I think there's elements to it that can make a lot of sense. The period of the holidays can be one of indulgence, so there can be this feeling of readiness that some people have to give their body that break. And also, there aren't so many celebrations or temptations in the month of January that can draw you into breaking some of that streak or drinking. more. On the other hand, I do think you pointed out some challenges. There can be to dry January, which is, and so it can be a true test, a real pilot trial of can you do this? Because the weather's

terrible, the news is terrible. You got it. People might feel like they need a drink after all of this. Exactly. Yeah, they really, there's a feeling of alcohol can feel like a real crutch in those moments. And so it does take a fair bit of creativity and effort to build a January that's joyous without that. drinking. What about you raised this, and Harrison did too, the idea that it's a bit of a test case in some ways. You know, the bottle's not the master of me. See, I can stop drinking for a month. And that can show that if I wanted to really stop drinking, well, I'm good. What do you make of that? I think that can be a real benefit that people can get from January is this notion of this feeling of exploration and possibility. What could my life look like

if I drank less or if I drank not at all. So maybe during that month you start developing new activities, new, even new hobbies, new relationships that bring interest and excitement to your life. I think another element to that self-efficacy that's actually in our research as well is this idea of drink refusal self-efficacy or this idea that you can turn down a drink. at a social occasion, for example, if you want, it builds a common vocabulary or a common language for that drink refusal, that's stigma-free. There's a backlash to this that has been developing,

and it's not just online. There was a piece that I had read that was fascinating in Time magazine by Ezekiel Emanuel, who is an American oncologist and health policy expert. He said that tri-January is a mistake. He said you should skip it. That, in his words, most people don't need another rule.

They need a framework that makes healthy behavior automatic. What do you take from that? I think I agree that with the notion that is if you consider dry January only a month, then it is that it's not useful. On the other hand, I don't think it has to be strict. I think sometimes when we think of dry January, sometimes there can be ways of enacting that that might be. be exclusionary, that might be even performative or kind of in line with this idea of, you know,

puritanical health culture. So if somebody is able to do it a damp January, that's useful. But I do think what that article might miss is the notion of experimentation of pilot testing that maybe a whole year or a whole new habitual framework feels impossible for some people. So in a way, dry January could be a gateway drug to sobriety for people. It's just like that mantra one day at a time that they use in Alcoholics Anonymous. That's necessary not just for people who are dependent on alcohol, but sometimes for moderate drinkers as well, we need it one month at a time. So I agree that in the long term, dry January is absolutely not enough. But in the short term, it can be a gateway to that longer term.

I was just to say in the context of that, what do you think the questions we should ask ourselves are about our relationship with alcohol. And it's not, what do you call it, health puritanicalism. But there are a lot of people who are sober curious right now, people who are drinking less. And it's not that they're being told to. They might be being told to, but also they feel like this is something that they can do. And that they don't have to justify it to anybody else. They're just saying, I'm not having a drink of alcohol. What are the questions coming out of January that you think we might want to ask ourselves about how our relationship with alcohol could be more intentional.

Well, I think that's a fantastic way of putting it. I think that Dry January can allow us a means of feeling that we can exert that intentionality with alcohol, that we can take control. Maybe what a major question people might be asking themselves with Dry January is, what does alcohol do for me? Can I experiment with other ways that I might fill up my life, build those social elements, those emotional elements with things that might be healthier for me. And what does moderate drinking look like for me?

This is really interesting. Catherine, thank you very much for this. Thank you. Catherine Fairbairn is the principal investigator at the Alcohol Research Lab, associate professor as well of psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne. She was in Illinois. This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often.

You've got to be an underdog that always overdelivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing. Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo.ca. This message comes from Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. journey through the heart of Europe on a Viking longship

with thoughtful service, destination-focused dining, and cultural enrichment, on board, and on shore. With a variety of voyages and sailing dates to choose from, now is the time to explore Europe's waterways. Learn more at viking.com. Dan Malick is a medical historian, specializes in alcohol and drug policy, is also a professor in the Department of Health Sciences at Brock University in St. Catherine's, Ontario.

Dan, good morning to you. Good morning, Matt. What do you make of dry January and why people, I mean, it has become something larger, but why people commit to a month off the bottle? I think that, what Catherine said, there's a lot of credibility in that, in the sense that people are needing a reset. I mean, you know, January, we spend less, we eat less, we try to get to the gym, drinking less. And dry January

provides a framework, I guess, for some people to say, hey, I'm not going to drink, I'm doing dry January. So that's a, that's fine, right? I think that some of the benefits have been maybe, I can't say overblown, but there might be some more moderation, moderate

discussion about, about the benefits of dry January, but I think in general, there's absolutely nothing wrong. I wouldn't tell people not to do something like that. Have you ever done it? Yeah, yeah. You sound wistful or regretful. No, it wasn't, I did try January. I was angry for a month because of it, mostly because, you know, having a drink at night, reading a book, having a drink, not binging, just, you know, having whiskey before bed or whatever, was part of a ritual.

And it was hard to find a replacement, right? Like, you know, herbal tea didn't do it, things like that. Although I did develop an obsession with non-examined. alcoholic beer and the quality of that. Which helps a lot of people during dry dry, drainage because it's getting, non-accoholic beer is getting really good. Yeah, no, it is. I mean, there are some chemical reasons why it won't ever taste as good as alcoholic

beer, but definitely the industry is remarkable in the technology. Why do you think this has become such a cultural phenomenon? You know, I think there's a lot of pressure from certain research and activist groups for people not to drink. And we've heard in both Harrison and Catherine saying how, you know, no drinking is, is the least risky. I mean, that comes from the World Health Organization. There are positives to it.

But then, as Catherine said, you know, it's balancing risks. But it's worth people knowing that there are still some evidence. There is still some evidence of benefits, not just physiologically, directly physiologically, but in things like socialization, positive socialization, the endorphin response in alcohol, in alcohol that makes people happier and relax and opens people up to conversations and to social situations and things like that.

But it's harder to replicate without alcohol. Not impossible, but it's harder. I mean, just to be clear, though, I mean, it's not just the World Health Organization. There's growing scientific consensus that alcohol is a carcinogen that, I mean, the Canadian Center on Substance Use and Addiction Guidelines say, that zero drinks per week is much better for you than even two standard drinks or fewer per week.

Yeah, and some of that evidence has recently been challenged because of the sort of activism behind that. And that's one of the reasons I think Health Canada hasn't adopted those guidelines, even though they paid for this project to be undertaken. It's part of a much bigger discussion. But, yeah, there are organizations that have done this. There are organizations that amplify this kind of harm-focused research. But it's also important to note that it's much easier to do that kind of research. It's not easy, but it's easier than, say, to track people over decades and really follow benefits as well as harms.

Farm research is easier to do because we have things like vital statistics and accident reports and those sort of things. The other type of research is difficult to do. And public health sort of focused funders are not really interested in looking at benefits. They're looking at how to reduce harm. Right. So that's why we have an overabundance of that kind of research. If you look at anthropological research, we see a lot of the social benefits of moderate drinking. I'm not saying going on benders. The backlash to dry January, if you put that dispute aside for a second, the backlash is often that people who aren't supportive of this will see it just as virtue signaling. There's a meme that goes around and, you know, a young woman goes up to a bar and she says, I'd like water because I'm, you know, celebrating dry January, and this is nobody cares. Like, no one cares what you're doing.

What message do you think dry January sends? Yeah, I think that in some cases it can be virtue signaling, but I think and Catherine was absolutely bang on that it gives people a way of saying, you know, I'm not drinking. If someone says, you know, look, I'm doing dry January, I don't want to drink. It's easier than, I've been in a lot of situations where someone's not having a drink for whatever reason. Excuse me. And people look at them weird.

And I say, hey, look, that's their choice. They can drink or not. right? We're in a bar. They don't have to drink. The dry January reason does give people a reason to say, you know, I'm not drinking people. Oh, you're doing dry January. Okay. But what happened, what we have is this weird stigma around drinking or not drinking, depending on who you're talking to, right? So some people say, you know, what's wrong with you? Why aren't you drinking? That's not of their business. That's a personal choice. But that we also have this growing stigma around drinking because health is becoming sort of a certain health behaviors are becoming sort of a moral judgment, right? It's like, you know alcohol is toxic. What's

wrong with you for drinking? Right. It does become a judgment of, of individuals' behavior. And that's a problem. Like stigma in any sort of case does not help people change behaviors or does not help people like in social situations and things like that. Do you see a benefit in somebody taking 31 days to reset their relationship with alcohol? It's not, they're not making a moral. statement, they're just kind of doing a baseline and saying, you know what, I'm going to take this month to figure out what I like and what I don't like. And maybe I like sleeping more than having a drink. At the end of it, they have a better sense as to who they are without it. Do you see the benefit of that? Absolutely. I don't see any problem. I mean, I'm not someone who sits around judging people for their behaviors one way or another. But I think that if someone wants to do that, I mean, what judging or he does is allow people not just say, I'm going to cut back a bit, they'll say, I'm doing dry January. Now, some people are going to judge them for that, but that's their problem, right? Like, stop judging.

But yeah, no, that kind of reset, it's no problem. I have no problem with it. When I did dry January, just to speak personally, on January 31st, I was meeting with a friend I hadn't seen in a long time. And we were going to a pub and I'm like, oh, my God, I've got it. Like, I've got to make it to the end, right? So I did not drink until, like, we stayed after midnight and I had a drink. But it was, there are, it's sometimes good just to,

like your other guests said, you know, it's sometimes good just to sort of reflect on your drinking, reflect on all sorts of behaviors. But the interesting thing about dry January is, I mean, if we had a, like a gym January or something,

people probably wouldn't fall off after two weeks, right? Because it gives you this set period to look. And by the way, there are things called like sober October. You mentioned dry July, but there's sober October. And then there's people talking about

a whole season of dryness. So there are other movements around that. Silver October doesn't have the uptake because I don't think people are motivated in October the way they are in change. There's also sometimes baseball playoffs so people get caught up and maybe going to the ball yard and having a drink or something like that. That's right. You know what? They should just like time it to sports. So fortunately the Olympics are in February. So dry January was okay this year. What would you just finally, what would you say to somebody who at the end of January, we're now beginning in February, they're thinking about their relationship with alcohol for the rest of the year, whether they've gone dry for 30, in days or not. What would you say to them? You know, what I, what I say to people about dry January is ask what is missing. Right? So I say, absolutely, if you want to do that,

that's your choice, whatever you want, like I, it's whatever, but what, what is missing, right? And so some of the research that shows benefits in self-reported surveys, so it's like, hey, you did dry January, how do you feel? One of the things that shows up is that people aren't socializing as much. And the problem with that is there's incredible research on the health benefits of having positive social connectedness. So what I say to people about dry january, I don't care if they do it or not, is ask yourself not just how you feel,

but what are you missing? And what does that mean to you? And then that's where you get into this harm, the risks and benefits kind of question, are really solid risks and benefits. Maybe they drink less, but they just do it on the weekend, or maybe they go back to what they did.

The interesting research is Catherine also noted is that people tend to, like people who are really heavy drinkers don't do dry jangeringering. usually, and those who do tend to not succeed. So there are other ways that people have to deal with that, but lighter drinkers might just say, yeah, you know, this is less for me is good. And probably, and I think over time, they go back to it, but they were never, it was never

really problematic to start with. Dan, thank you very much for this. My pleasure, Matt. Good to talk to you. Take care. You as well. You too. Dan Malick is a medical historian and professor in the Department of Health Sciences

at Brock University. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon.