Against #DryJanuary: My Two Cents

Why forsake all this for a whole month? (Photo by me)

I’ll admit it, I feel a little dirty trying to persuade folks to forsake Dry January, as I do — sort of — in my latest for Forbes (which you can read by clicking the link right -> HERE <-). I mean, if people want to be healthy and treat their bodies with a little more respect for 31 days, what business is it of mine? But silent I could not stay. It seems to me like not drinking — Dry January, Sober October, and the whole sober-curious movement — is becoming fetishized. And I think it’s because extreme behavior is, for lack of a better word, sexy. Going on benders every night and/or not touching a drop of alcohol for extended periods of time is sexier than having a cocktail or a glass of wine with dinner three times a week for years. Moderation simply isn’t considered sexy nowadays, in politics, drinking, or life in general.

Well, I’m here to tell you that moderation is actually sexy as hell. If you can drink for decades without ever puking or getting sloppy-drunk, without periods of extended abstinence, and without damaging your liver, that is HOT. I’m looking forward to a lifetime of moderation, culminating in a dram of something delicious on my deathbed. And if it happens to take place in January, so be it.

I am not mandating falling off the wagon, let’s get that straight. And as you’ll read in the article, I do have suggestions for getting through Dry January as enjoyably as possible without booze. But I think we see things in black and white way too much lately. There’s a middle ground between overindulgence and um, teetotalitarianism? And it’s sexy AF.