A Toast to, Ahem, Dry January

Didn’t you hear? The news, man, the news! Ring the bells! Spread the word! Summon the town crier!

It’s Dry Januaryyyyy!

What is Dry January, you ask? Just the most spectaculariffic month of collective abstention around! Say goodbye to alcohol for thirty-one days. Or at least hello from a distance. Because if you’re with it, as the kids still definitely say, you’re going to be a Sally Sober till February dawns. 

I guess it makes sense on one end. We’re all coming out of the holidays and probably have at least a few months of overindulgence to show for it. Sally Sober? More like Lucy Lush and Johnny Jamesonshot from Halloween to New Year’s.

Yet, there’s something a little off about the whole Dry January thing. Off, like, motivational speakers or purity camps. I don’t know. Like it means well, but there’s an underlying delusion there. Like it’s harmless but at the same time soulless?  

The concept of Dry January isn’t new. In fact, Finland promoted “Sober January” all the way back in 1942 (lordy, imagining not warming the bones with some vodka in those Nordic winters?) But the recent incarnation that we know apparently started in the UK around 2013, 2014 at the behest of a charity called Alcohol Concern. Up till now I thought “alcohol concern” meant agonizing over whether it was going to be late-night Halal or late-night taco truck.

This movement eventually made its way over the Atlantic. Now, according to surveys, roughly thirteen percent of American drinkers participate in a temperate first month of the year. While the other eighty-seven percent were too busy belting out a sloppy “You Shook Me All Night Long” to answer the survey.

It’s easy for me to be cynical about it, especially since being cynical about anything is pretty damn easy (and fun too!). But, if you want to cut alcohol from your life, then cheers, you’re a better person than me. And I’m sure you’ll take full advantage of all the benefits that teetotaling offers. I mean, who doesn’t want to unimpede their mind from this amazing, awesome, trouble-less world we live in?

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The Cult of Boozeless Boozing

I guess what kind of gets to me now is a slightly different phenomenon that’s cropped up in recent years: boozeless boozing.

This is not simply abstaining from alcohol, mind you. This is having a facsimile of a drinking experience. There was a recent article in The Guardian headlined “How to find an alcohol-free drink that still hits the spot.” I’ll save you a few minutes of light reading: you can’t. That spot inside you that needs to be hit by alcohol can only be hit by alcohol. There is no substitute and no placebo. 

An entire industry of non-alcoholic alcohol has already risen out of this misguided approach. Used to be just the token St. Pauli Girl stashed away in the far reaches of the bar or the untouched corners of a bodega fridge. Now, it’s a glittering array of mocktails, lie-bations, and pseudo-booze on the market. Next up, non-alcoholic hard seltzer. What do you think? Ground floor investors anyone?  

Not to mention the global wave of alcohol-less bars that have emerged, and are still emerging – including right here in New York with establishments such as Getaway in Greenpoint (“a hip place for alcohol-free drinks” according to Google Maps). There’s also the popular Listen Bar which – despite having fans like Snoop Dogg and Patty Smyth’s guitarist, according to their website – have gone from pop-up darling in South Williamsburg to “100% virtual.” Their tagline – “All bar. No booze.” – I guess can now be amended to “No bar. No booze.” Which then brings into question if, philosophically, they even exist at all.

And science (say it ain’t so, science!) is bending over backwards trying to molecularize the essence of being drunk so you can get shitfaced without having to take the crucial steps of getting shitfaced. Or taking stalwarts like “drunk” and “hangover” out of drinking altogether. It’s official: the lightweights have won, everybody! 

Listen, you don’t want to drink? By all means don’t drink. You want to stay away from alcohol for a myriad of health and wellness reasons? Be my guest. Or, maybe, don’t, actually.  I’m sure your robust, gleaming liver will be laughing at my feeble, Eraserhead-baby liver sometime down the road. 

But don’t then turn around and figure out a way to still feel alcohol. That’s like getting rid of your cat but then pinning a tail and ears on your duster. It’s just an example of a growing symptom of our modern age – that we want the thing without having to have the thing. The Era of Simulation.  

My concern, being a New Yorker, is our taverns. Our good ol’ taverns. That need us now more than ever. What they don’t need is a Dry January. For what is New York without its public houses? Sure, there’s still theater, art, food, music, business, and general cultural enrichment…

Okay, so maybe bars are not the biggest priorities in the world. And watering holes have a tardigrade-like way of surviving whatever impediments are thrown at them anyway – from Prohibition to drunk white finance bros. And, yes, what is Dry January but a noble attempt to bring a measure of good health to the populace.

However, alcohol has been a partner to human civilization since hunters-gatherers decided to take a break and settle down for tens of millennia. Only dogs are older friends to homo sapiens than intoxicants.

So, embrace Dry January if you must, but let’s not forget our old friends. They’ll be awaiting your return with open arms on February 1st. Or, who we kidding, January 12th.

Courtesy: Unsplash