A pep talkGood for you! You're making a healthy choice to remove alcohol from your life...for at least a month. Before I went totally dry in 2019, I did Dry January. Once and I hated it. I hated it because it was really hard - even though my husband did it with me, it was still really difficult. Drinking was just such a part of our evening ritual — it was the 4th food group at dinner and it's what joined us while we chilled on the couch after he kids went to bed.
That year, even our friends were suffering through Dy January with us. This was before the LaCroix revolution, so we'd gather to watch football games and sip Good Earth Sweet & Spicy sip tea or soda. I drank a ton of sparkling water, and my husband and I switched to drinking O'Doul's during football games, which somehow felt more acceptable to us than tea. (And it does taste pretty close to Bud when you're craving a beer.) We stocked up on ginger ale, and I made some shrubs. By the second week of January, we and our friends made a reservation at a local restaurant for February 1st. It would be where we would celebrate the end of the dry month with a round or two of old fashioneds. (Oh yeah, and dinner, too.) That was 2016, and I never did Dry January again. It sucked, but it sucked because I thought about it all wrong. I didn't look at it as an opportunity, I thought of it as punishment, It was like the self-flogging of Lent, only instead of threat of eternal damnation hanging over me, something even worse - the threat of failure - was biting at my heels. THIS IS A PEP TALK? Yes, really, stay with me... Lucky you that it's 2020 and Dry January doesn't have to be hard anymore! It can be fun! For starters, today, there are so many alcohol-alternative beverages that go beyond sparkling water and LaCroix. (Though LaCroix can make a great mocktail with just a few additions.) There are really good craft non-alcoholic beers available, distilled non-alcoholic spirits like Seedlip (which I use in my Dirty Martino recipe), bottled shrubs, kombuchas and more that I even have yet to try. Also, Dry January has become a very popular trend, so you can just hop onto Instagram and follow #dryjanuary where you can feel supported, encouraged and get ideas for fun beverages. Other hashtags to follow are: #themocktailmaven, #themocktailproject, #zeroproof #sober #alcoholfree and tons of others. There are even Dry January apps to help you. (Google it, there really is an app for everything!) There are so many reasons to look at Dry January with a positive mindset. I've listed 10 below. Without alcohol, you can: 1. sleep better 2. wake up without hangovers 3. have time to go to the gym/for a run/to yoga/for a bike ride, etc. BEFORE work 4. save money 5. remember conversations 6. have better-looking skin 7. read before bed (and not have to re-read the same chapter from the night before) 8. lose weight 9. have better sex 10. have time to do or discover something else you love The list does go on and on. But mainly... don't be like grumpy old 2016 Heidi. Be better than her. It's not that hard. Not anymore. YOU CAN DO IT! Have fun with it. Start with an easy but tasty and refreshing Virgin Mule. Cheers!
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