Can Dry January ever work in the UK?
Short answer: No. Plus it's ruining my birthday month.
Influenced by the exposure to my roots during the holidays, in which the contrast between Spanish and British culture is at a peak high and therefore I always find myself caught up in an endless game of “who does it better?”, especially when it comes to socialising habits, I’ve realised that I’m particularly annoyed by the Dry January trend everyone seems to embrace in the UK post-holiday season. I’m not really annoyed by it, let me rephrase that. I find it a total waste of bloody time.
To think that a British person can give up drinking for and in 31 days is ridiculous, similar to putting a plaster on an open bleeding wound hoping it would heal if you leave it there for a month. The same people doing Dry January right now are the ones who have already booked flights to Magaluf to make up for the lost time. In a country where the form to register for a doctor includes a question on how many units of alcohol people drink on a daily basis (and plus 10 is offered as a possible answer) you can tell the bar is high. And the plasters very tiny.
And yet every January more and more people incite others to join them in the promised land that is sobriety, which is like inviting someone to join an exclusive club without realising most of us have been members since it opened and can’t really understand what all the fuss is about to get in a place that is already quite crowded.
Because here is a truth not so universally acknowledged: the UK, despite its reputation for being a craddle of good manners, RP English, the first two seasons of The Crown, world-class education (a bit on the decline now, to be honest), and the Oxford comma -all things that point to decorum, restraint and moral righteousness - is also a country where people have an astonishing tolerance for and dependence on alcohol.
So much so that they have had to come up with reasons to call for moderation not once, but twice a year. Hence Dry January but also Sober October, and resort to books with titles such as The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober, The Sober Diaries and Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol.
Dry January is so foreign to me as a concept (no pun intended) that the first time someone told me they were doing it I was genuinely confused. What was that all about? A fetish? Was this really the right time to talk about that? In the middle of my birthday party at the pub? When I’m dying for a double G&T? But on the other hand, the evening seemed to have taken quite an interesting turn and who am I to say no to a bit of fun, I remember thinking, only to have any hopes crushed on the spot when they clarified they weren’t drinking alcohol in January. I would have preferred it were a kink.
Dry January has become a regular event that more and more people are quite proud to be joining and celebrating, even in retrospect. A victory over the weakness of the flesh.
Last week one of my LinkedIn contacts shared a post on how he’s been sober for 1000 days. A new me has been born, this young man not older than 30 was communicating with this post in which he shared a glimpse of his life behind his job title, elated to have reached the peace of the senses at long last. Let’s raise a symbolic toast (I no longer drink, he he) to celebrate I have prevailed over my love for intoxication.
This person is not even 30 and he’s already quit drinking? Wait I second, I told myself. How much was he drinking before to have had enough by now? Well done for him, I guess, for reaching so quickly a milestone that without a shadow of a doubt is going to deprive him of some wild experiences that could have made for great anecdotes to share at the retirement home, when the only alcohol available to survive the boredom will be that in the camphor balls stuffed in his wardrobe.
Before anyone feels outraged at my lack of empathy for people with a serious addiction and/or drinking problem, or simply those wanting to cut down on their alcohol intake and use Dry January to start, I should clarify that I personally have no issue with people deciding not to drink alcohol, or avoid environments where it can be available, for whatever reason. Their body, their choice.
My mum has never tasted alcohol in her life, with the exception being that one time she took a sip of champagne at my sister’s PhD dissertation reception because she had promised she would try it. She hated it, of course, and makes sure to remind us whenever the opportunity presents itself. I, on the other hand, never drank until I was 25. I didn’t feel any curiosity for alcohol when my friends started trying it ten years earlier. That didn’t prevent me from having a lot of fun without the need to be half-counscious. But one day I discovered gin and it all made sense. Finally something that didn’t taste like piss or stale milk. This was more like drinking expensive perfume out of the bottle. Right up my street.
So let me be clear: I’m not writing these lines to be compassionate or understanding. Only to judge British people for insisting on a practice that goes against their true nature.
My contempt for Dry January is well founded and perfectly reasonable.
Here are my arguments:
The moral superiority that my cultural background has bestowed upon me as in Spain we don’t need alcohol to socialise and have a good time so there’s no need for a Dry January.
We have a fame for partying hard but we can remember what happened the night before because we don’t drink ourselves to unconsciousness at 5 pm.
This is my revenge for all the excesses the British commit on Spanish soil and against my culture. Yes, I’m looking at you Margareth as you spend your pension sipping bottomless sangrias and eating frozen chicken and chorizo paella in Benidorm, feeling pretty pleased with yourself for finally embracing what you insist on calling the Mediterranean diet.
Who can drink so much warm beer without eating? Why? I bet there is a section in the Universal Human Rights Declaration that typifies this as a crime against humanity. And if not, someone should be typing it right now. We need to put an end to this madness.
Brexit. It had to be said.
The true clash of civilisations for many of us living in the UK and originally from Mediterranean countries comes during the first outing with British colleagues to the pub.
People in Southern Europe love spending time outdoors. For us having a drink is more an excuse to meet with people than to actually drink alcohol. Otherwise we’d have a serious problem. That is why we are so impressed by the innate talent of the British for gulping down in seconds gigantic glasses of warm beer, which are consumed without any accompanying food I remind you.
Drinking without eating is sacrilege if you come from Southern Europe. If we were still burning people alive these heretic sons of the perfidious Albion would roast after the first round. Although given how much alcohol they have inside they’ll probably combust in seconds, depriving everyone of the fireworks show.
And to illustrate that I am not at all exaggerating with the importance we place on food as part of our social gatherings, suffice an example. One time my ex partner, who was from Italy, came back home after having joined his colleagues for a five-a-side match on a Saturday morning. When he walked into the flat he was livid and couldn’t stop repeating “Barbari” and “Che schifo” in alternance as a lethany.
When I asked him what had happened -he was clearly very upset and had told me he wouldn’t be in for lunch but now there he was assaulting the kitchen like a madman- he sat down and with a disbelief I hadn’t seen in him before he said: “Can you believe that after we finished playing they didn’t shower and went to the pub covered in sweat? And they drank and drank and didn’t want me to order any food. Ma ti pare a te ch’ io aggia sta’ sudato come una bestia senza manco mangia’? I left after one drink because they were already on their third. These people are savages, no wonder we had to civilise them.”
If we are obsessed about food in Spain, people in Southern Italy outdo us. So here was this man from Campania, defeated and doubly outraged by the lack of basic personal hygiene standards and the utter disregard for food -the two things he held closer to his heart- that his colleagues had just showed in a couple of hours together. Such was his shock at what he had just witnessed that he felt impelled to evoke the Roman Empire before it became a trend on social media. Needless to say he never joined them again socially and interactions at the office were slightly less friendly on his side after that fatal outing.
The truth is that in Spain, Italy or France (and I bet Portugal and Greece are the same) we don’t conceive drinking without eating. And we usually never drink past a point where it is impossible to eat anymore. Or speak in a coherent way, whatever happens first.
I concede that at 15 no one is thinking of having a culinary feast with their cheap drinks, but quite early on the idea of eating while consuming alcohol is very much engrained in us as a population. We have our share of drunkards, I’m not pretending otherwise, but as a society getting drunk is the exception, not the rule.
For outsiders it may seem we drink more than we actually do because we create more occasions to meet up with people throughout the day. For instance the “ir de cañas” concept that British people always frown upon as they don’t approve of drinking before lunch. Funny as they seem to have no objection to having champagne for breakfast on a 6 am flight to Alicante in order to be ready for some old good balconing upon landing.
For all their geographical proximity to Spain, and how often they holiday there, it is unbelievable how much British people prefer the version of culture they create about a country instead of learning anything about its reality, not to speak of the language. That’s probably why they were so successful at building an empire: it was easier to let people be British citizens and embrace English. Lot less conjugations to deal with.
Regarding Spain, one of the cultural myths the British have created is their glorification of the tapas restaurants as the ultimate Spanish dining experience when no one in Spain goes to a tapas restaurant for the simple reason that they just don’t exist. But you’re right, David, that tapas place in Borough Market sounds like a something I should try. How could I not want to pay four times more for invisible portions of food that is offered to me for free back home? I’ll definitely check it out, thanks for Spainsplaining my country to me. Really appreciate it. Enjoy your paella sandwich, looks just like my mum’s.
What the British often gush about when they talk about “tapas restaurants” is what we call “ir de cañas”. In other words, to meet for a drink (usually a smaller glass than the British half pint) before lunch, and because we have lunch quite late this means from 12:30 pm it is normal to see people of every age enjoying a pre-lunch drink. Not every day, not everyone, not necessarily alcoholic. Believe it or not we work too.
As a result of the drink you order (including non-alcoholic options), you are offered a complimentary bite to eat, the famous tapa, which is a small portion of food. And here is what British people fail to understand: you never, ever pay for tapas. These are offered to you for free with your drink. As enticing as a tapas restaurant sound to a British person it will consistently fail to appeal to someone from Spain.
When you offer someone to meet for a caña you know the main purpose is not drinking, but rather to create an opportunity to socialise with people and spend time with them. And for it to make sense, you need to be lucid enough to hold a conversation, which is a tacit understanding in Spain. Not so much so in the UK.
Meeting for cañas performs another important function: organising your day, especially during the weekend or the holidays, when you have lots of free time that needs to be filled up because lunch is not until 2:30 pm, or 3:00 pm on Sundays and festive periods.
When I was back home for the holidays, the weather was glacially cold but sunny, a rare occurrence in London. One day my sister and I were doing a bit of shopping and even though I couldn’t feel my fingertips inside my gloves, which where inside my coat pockets already, I didn’t want to go home either. But what to do when it’s not yet time for lunch and you still want to be outside enjoying the sun?
My sister, ever the master socialite, had a quick look at her watch and came up with the solution: “Es la una y media. ¿Te apetece un caña?” (It’s 1:30 pm. Fancy a drink?) and off we went to enjoy the winter sun as we took hold of a terrace table near the main square of our hometown.
The rule is that after you have a couple of drinks, you may say goodbye or suggest going for lunch, which is usually the natural segue. And indeed when my sister and I finished a second glass of wine, and after our mother had joined us with a non-alcoholic drink and the three of us agreed how lovely it was to be outside in the sun, we realised that it was already 3:30 pm and therefore the only viable course of action was to proceed to a more substantial lunch somewhere else.
As I have mentioned, we don’t necessarily always drink alcohol when we meet with people for a drink in Spain - that’s perhaps another big difference in the way we socialise. And neither do other cultures. One of the best house parties I attended in London a few years ago involved a large group of people from Brazil, Italy, Portugal, a few Germans, a Canadian, and myself. We all arrived around 8 pm and I remember leaving slightly past 4 am. Not a single person was slightly drunk during all those hours and there was plenty of alcohol on offer, which I assure you we enjoyed, but it paled in comparison to the amount of food we devoured.
In fact, when I think about it, a social invitation is only worth my consideration if I will be able to eat properly and can sit down. If it only includes the prospect of a drink and peanuts while standing, good luck getting me to join.
That’s why the whole Dry January phenomenon is appalling to me. It makes it impossible to plan anything because no one wants to be tempted to drink and in turn offering to meet for a drink during this time has a particular negative connotation because the way most British people drink is to oblivion and beyond. Not so much for the pleasure of enjoying the company of others. So they have to go all in or all out, there is not a “thanks, I’m fine now after this one drink and I want to be present so I can contribute to our conversation and make it mutually pleasant.”
Perhaps if British people didn’t drink so much so regularly -that anyone can consume 40 units of alcohol on a weekly basis and still be alive will always be a mystery to me and I bet to science- they didn’t need to dedicate not one, but two months of the year to go cold turkey at the time you need a drink the most.
In October because the days get shorter and colder and you’re heading towards a dark night of the soul for the next six months; in January because you’re still living in the dark, days are even shorter and colder, we all have post-holiday depression and on top of that there’s lots of Christmas presents to return and exchange for something you actually want. Which is a situation that calls for a drink.
It’d make more sense to do Sober September. It’s still rhymes and the weather is decent so you don’t need to drown yourself in alcohol to get through the day. You can do that in October when the days get shorter and with a clear conscience of having stayed cleaned the month before. And Dry January could be in March. The arrival of spring is always a good time to start a new routine as we feel energised and hopeful with the longer days. Besides, having allergies that require medication is a great plus for people to stay on tack and away from booze. I bet you the number of sober people would double with Dry March. But January? Total scam as the only way to make it to February is with a drink.
In fact Dry January has terrible timing as it happens to fall on my birthday month, which is not really ideal. I hardly drink myself - in January or at any other time- but this is one of the few occasions during the year where I have an excuse to indulge in a good old G&T, or a few, in company.
For you see, unlike the colleagues who depleted the stocks of wine of their local supermarkets during lockdown, I find no pleasure whatsoever in drinking on my own. I’ve been conditioned to see having a drink as a social activity, the gateway to enjoyable conversations in the company of friends. And while I love my own company, I don’t find it reason enough to splurge on a bottle of wine that I’ll drink alone. I make sure to remind myself that I’m not that kind of person yet when I wake up to another grey, rainy, miserable winter day in this city.
So when the invitation for birthday drinks in January goes out the responses are a bit dry: happy to join, but no alcohol for me. Which in most cases mean people don’t really want to be in a place where alcohol is an option when they’re trying to stay away from it. I get it and I respect it. It’s still a bummer, though. Who doesn’t love a birthday party in January? What kind of people I’m surrounding myself with?
And yes, you don’t need to drink alcohol to have fun. I believe I’ve made that point clear already.
Like coffee I drink alcohol because I enjoy how it tastes, not with the purpose of expecting either substance to enhance or suppress any parts of my personality. It’d be pointless on the other hand as both caffeine and alcohol make me terribly sleepy so at most I can hope for an early night (or day) if I abuse either.
And in the same way I wouldn’t have four pots of coffee in a day every day (probably far riskier than having four G&Ts), my sporadic outings where alcohol is a tangible possibility aren’t shaped by how much of it I can consume while out and about. Particularly not in the wilderness of a pub setting, an environment where you want to be wide awake as things can escalate quickly and men can go down fast.
For here’s another thing you realise living in this country: British people can drink themselves to drunkenness at any time of the day. I’ve seen reputable places in London where people could barely stand on their feet at 4 pm in the afternoon on a week day -but it’s us who have a problem drinking before lunch.
I have also experienced the joy of being in a tube carriage full of people completely passed out by 9 pm on numerous occasions, including on New Year’s Eve. Where (or why) they were headed to for further celebrations when they could barely open their eyes was a mystery to me. Wished if had been their mouths that had remained shut as the vapors that emanated from them were enough to get drunk by breathing in. I bet I would have tested positive when I arrived at my destination. To think that at that 9 pm people in Spain are in the process of getting dressed for New Year’s Eve dinner is sobering.
My sister still reminds me of one of the first times I visited her in Paris and we went out at night after dinner. As we walked past the Pantheon on our way to a bar nearby I kept marvelling at how lucid everyone was at 11 pm and how safe it felt to be on the street on a Saturday night. It took a moment before she understood what I meant. The exposure to British culture, where a walk in central London on a Friday evening means bumping into at least four different people, ages ranging anywhere from 15 to 60, as they fall over you when you walk past them because they are barely able to stand and are profusely perfumed with Eau de Guinness, had made me forget that what I was experiencing in Paris was how people in most civilised countries with normal drinking habits and schedules behave when they go out. Not like bloody drunk zombies.
Note to self: distrust people who pay for tapas and have dinner at 6 pm. They’ll be completely pissed by 8 pm on an empty stomach.
Anyone reading this not living in the UK who may be thinking that perhaps the British drink so much (without eating!) to fuel their inexistent social skills is in for a surprise. They drink to get drunk. The faster the better. Simple as that. Especially younger people (both men and women) and in particular white men of all ages.
And here comes the last, and most well-kept secret about this country and its men that is only evident once it’s too late. I grew up at the time when Hugh Grant was at the peak of his romantic comedy era and for many years he represented in the collective female imagination the average British man. A polite, shy but good-hearted, extremely charming specimen, gifted with excellent manners and a rather attractive physiognomy. In other words, I thought he was the standard indigenous variety to the British Islands.
When I became single for the first time in my adult life, and after having been in relationships with Spanish and Italian men, given that I live in London -a place where anything can happen- I was sure this would be the time to meet my own British gentleman at last. I was expecting to cross paths with the average Hugh Grant at any given moment in one of those stimulating and unexpected encounters at the museum, at a concert, at the opera, on the bus, in the tube, at a bookshop - all the typical meet-cute places that appear in movies and that I visit on a regular basis.
Hugh made me believe that it was almost inevitable to enter a bookshop or a pub in London (maybe not during Dry January) and not find a ridiculously handsome man who would cross his piercing blue eyes with mine, floppy hair falling over them, before making a beeline towards me, walking confidently but unhurriedly in my direction. Once he would be in front of me, he would utter something endearing and sweet, stuttering slightly due to shyness and blushing imperceptibly as he would ask if I care to join him for a drink (he’s British after all), before metaphorically falling at my feet, intoxicated by the sight of my natural beauty and the ensuing feelings of undying devotion that by then would have suddenly come over him. A surreal, but nice encounter.
However, Grant’s romantic leads consistently failed to portray what I have now understood to be the quintessential characteristic of British men: a supernatural power for intoxication and a cluelessness for any kind of remotely flirtatious interaction, the combination of the two making romantic scenarios in real life slightly more implausible than in his films.
Clearly a big oversight on the part of Grant that has misled many an innocent young woman like me into thinking British men were the ultimate gentlemen when in reality they’re the relative we all hide from at weddings because he’ll embarrass himself after a couple of drinks, when he will inevitably take to the dance floor with the tie around his head, scanning the room for an innocent victim to drag along.
I speak with authority when I tell you that the only men that have ever approached me when alone, and regardless of the setting, were either drunk or drugged. Not a single one of them had a full set of teeth. One does wonder.
Had I lived in Spain, Italy or France I would have by now met my fair share of local sober Hugh Grants, highly attuned to social interactions without the encouragement of alcohol, who would have found a way to strike a conversation with me in which they would have suggested we had a coffee or maybe something to eat (he’s a keeper).
Had I agree, the conversation would have progressed for about an hour, after which they would have mentioned that it had been very nice chatting with me, picked up the bill, and tested whether a new encounter was welcomed, in which case numbers would have been exchanged. Post meeting, not too soon but also not a day later, a quick message bringing back something that we had discussed and hinting at a potential place to meet next time. Classic and always effective as you don’t want to come across as too strong but you also want to show interest.
SinceI live in London the reality is quite different as the average British man seems to be lacking the most basic configuration for interpersonal skills with women, particularly when sober which is not very encouraging. When they’re drunk they simple don’t know who or where they are, let alone who they are talking to. It’s a zero-sum game however you look at it.
As you can imagine London single market is quite cut-throat and there’s no in between: you are convinced that you have become invisible overnight because no man would ever dare hint even subtly that they might fancy you in the slightest when they are sober (God forbid they commit such faux pas) or they only speak to you when they’re so drunk that they don’t even know what you are. So effectively you question your own existence in both scenarios.
In the rare instance where you do venture into a bar or pub in London, a city where in theory you can meet fascinating people I repeat, hoping to find a Hugh Grant look alike, you should bear in mind that chances are another famous Brit, more representative of the local fauna, shows up to the appointment: Mr. Bean.
And here London has really gone above and beyond in ensuring you do meet a wide range of fascinating people. While they may present varying tolerance for daily alcohol units intake -no doubt the real-life inspiration behind the GP questionnaire I mentioned at the beginning- they are all united by their clumsiness and the most glaring cluelessness about interactions with the opposite sex. Sober or drunk, it hardly makes a difference to be fair.
The situation usually unfolds like this: You enter a place, within five minutes a guy starts staring at you in a rather intense and uncomfortable way, half-pint in his hand, several empty glasses nearby. All your alarms go off as you look away trying to locate the closest exit, but it’s too late. He’s already making his way towards you, knocking into every single thing that is slightly on his way despite it’s 5 pm on a Wednesday. As he advances beer keeps spilling from his glass, the possible scenarios for tragedy increasing exponentially with every step he takes and every drop that falls onto the floor.
When he gets to you, preceded by the stench of his breath and miraculously without having done a face plant, you notice his shirt is half undone and stained by whatever he’s been drinking. When he eventually opens his mouth what comes out is “You right?” before he stumbles to your feet, suddenly overcome by intoxication. The prospects of having any kind of conversation are quite slim in these circumstances. For him, worry not, this would go down as a great night where he spoke to a fine lady. Or at least he thinks it was a lady. For you it’s just another day in a city where any looking to meet a sober man (scarcer than single) after 5 pm is fighting a lost battle.
This could be us, but you’d probably spill your pint on me and ask me to pay for it.
Perhaps Dry January falling on my birthday month is not such a bad thing after all. It may be the only chance I get in the next 12 months to walk into a pub for a birthday drink and find a British man with whom to strike a normal conversation not fuelled by intoxication. It’d be a first in 14 years, but not completely improbable.
On second thoughts, stepping into a pub in January is a strange experience. Deprived from their pints, most men seem to be out of place at an otherwise natural habitat for them. They look at you like a rabbit in the headlights - not knowing where you’ve come from or in which direction to run. Without any alcohol to blur their inhibitions, as well as vision, I don’t stand a chance of anyone approaching me so I may as well stay at home.
Why do I care, after all, if people drink or not during this time of the year? And who am I to condemn one of the few things that make life tolerable for many in this country? No, not alcohol: a catchy slogan. Brexit means Brexit. Strong and stable. Mind the gap. See it, say it, sorted. Dry January never tasted better. It’s all the same when you think about it.
And let’s be honest: to believe that Dry January can override the British flair for intoxication as well as the complete absence of the most basic social skills required to engage in amenable conversation with a woman without the aid of a drink is perhaps a bit of a stretch.
Maybe I’ll pass and drink to my singlehood.
No need to let this Dry January madness ruin my birthday like that.
Cheers everyone!
Abroad is an independent publication about identity and belonging, living in between cultures and languages, the love of books, music, films, creativity, life in London, and being human in the age of artificial intelligence.
I think what they missed from Hugh Grant’s character is that those kind of British men are far too shy to do much about anything. They are happy to wait in a queue and are in bed before 10pm. You won’t see them in bars, let alone go up to anyone unless they’ve known them for at least a year. 😂
Interesting post! Thanks for sharing. From my experience, “going for a pint” is embedded in U.K. culture everywhere you look. Especially on tv. A pint then chips on the way home was the working class image I grew up seeing. A post-war ‘hangover’ that got out of hand.
I don’t understand dry January either! And I tend to recieve the question, “are you ok?” If I say I’m not drinking at a social event. So there’s a shame attached to it as well.
Happy birthday for this month!
Thanks for making me laugh, multiple times!