Putting a C.O.R.K in Dry July
At Hello Sunday Morning, we’re often asked how to achieve a better relationship with alcohol, and one solid first step is to try a totally dry month. But to make it a fully beneficial experience there are a few things to consider before embarking, so If you’re thinking about doing Dry July this year, we’ve got a few tips to get the most out of the experience.
Dry July is an excellent way to find out about the fully sober you. It’s now an accepted ‘thing’, with 160,000 Australians signing up last year, and it gives the perfect social cover for experimenting with a booze-free life without attracting unwanted attention from friends and colleagues.
With a bit of preparation, you can change your dry month from being a slightly tedious test of endurance to a rich learning experience, following the CORK model: Commit, Observe, Reflect and Keep.
Commit
Sounds odd but committing to go completely dry for a month is often easier than merely committing to cutting down. ‘Cutting down’ is an ambiguous concept and can lead to daily negotiations with yourself on whether you’ll have a drink that day or not, and, if so, how much you’ll drink. You can spend a lot of time thinking about drinking and thinking about not drinking, and that can bring its own stresses. But if you commit to going totally dry, there’s no point of negotiation – the decision has been made. This is especially useful for those suffering FOMA (fear of missing alcohol), where the self-negotiations can go into overdrive as a significant occasion looms closer – can you get an exemption for a lunch with old drinking buddies, for instance, or a family wedding, or a significant birthday?
You can add a layer of assurance to your commitment if you make it public. Tell your circle of friends and work colleagues that you’re doing Dry July before you start (and have your reasons ready to trot out, because you’ll almost certainly be asked for them). Once you’ve committed publicly, it makes a climb-down embarrassing, so less likely, and that can be an extra safeguard when you’re facing the dreaded Day Seventeen Temptations.
Keep that commitment through the whole month, and if you need a little support, download the Daybreak app and use the customised goal-setting feature to help you stay the course. It’s true that the Dry July website gives you a Gold Ticket option – a sort of 24-hour papal dispensation if you kick in a little extra to the charity. Our tip? Don’t do it. Steam all the way through without a drink, because that way you will be able to fully appreciate the many pressures on you to drink ... which brings us to the second element of the CORK model:
Observe
The big payback from your dry month, the thing that will make it a truly worthwhile exercise, will come if you consciously take the effort to observe things, very carefully and honestly.
- What physical changes do you notice in yourself? (appearance of eyes and skin, energy levels, digestion, libido, weight, etc.)
- What changes do you notice in your own emotional state (anxiety levels, emotional stability, ability to handle stresses and the challenges of daily life)
- Any changes in sleep patterns? (depth and duration of sleep, waking in the night, night-time anxiety, quality of dreams)
- Any changes in mental acuity (feeling more or less on the ball, ability to concentrate and ignore distraction, inventiveness of ideas, etc.)?
- Any change in how well you perform your job, or your role within the family? (productivity – differences in the amount or the quality of your work, motivation levels, proactive engagement with family, etc.)
- Do you engage as easily with other people? (Are you more, or less, socially confident? What’s different?)
- Do people make you feel uncomfortable because you aren’t drinking with them? If so, why do you think that is? (Are you making them uncomfortable?)
- Do you notice alcohol advertising, product placements, and social expectations around drinking, more?
You’ll see some of the changes after the very first few days, while others may be transient or take a couple of weeks to become evident, so revisit these questions regularly over your dry month.
Reflect
Dry months involve changing our habits, and that’s never entirely easy to do, but you can get a great deal of benefit from the temporary discomfort if you use it as a learning experience. If you keep alert to these observations during the month, you’ll come into the last week of July with a trove of insights into your own relationship with alcohol, and alcohol’s place in our society, so the job now is to reflect honestly on these precious nuggets.
Some of these insights may be uncomfortable. If you noticed significant improvements in a number of the parameters, then that’s a signal that your present relationship with alcohol isn’t working best for you. If you observed no real change, then maybe you’ve got it about right already – well done, you! If you noticed that your friends treated you negatively during your month off, then that might tell you something about the nature of those friendships.
Reflect on those times during the month when you found it to be most rewarding, and when it was difficult to be alcohol free. Divide the day into bands of hours. Were there bands where you felt better than you normally do? Was there a ‘danger zone’ band of time during the day when you felt the urge to have a drink? Did it seem to fall into a predictable pattern, and when did the urge usually pass?
Was there a social situation, or a particular person, that was strongly associated with the urge to have a drink, or with a feeling that you were expected to have a drink? Was it awkward when you declined on those occasions, and if so, why?
If you’ve reflected deeply and honestly on the insights you’ve gained during your dry month, you’ll inevitably arrive at a few conclusions on how you might change your relationship with alcohol for the better. It may involve a radical overhaul, or it may just be a few tweaks here and there. It could even be the decision to continue on with a second dry month and see where that takes you.
Keep
Whatever your conclusions, it’s important that the valuable insights you gained and the conclusions you arrived at aren’t discarded at the end of the dry month. It’s easy to see Dry July as a bit of a slog and just grin and bear it until blessed August arrives, but it would be a waste of good effort if we slipped straight back into the same old patterns we had in June. So think about what you want to keep from the experience, and what you will take forward and revisit over the following months. Pick a few of the changes that you now know will benefit you, and keep at them.
P.S. It’s worth remembering that Dry July is fundamentally a fund-raising event for deserving cancer charities, so if you sign up for it, don’t forget to tip something into the kitty when you’ve completed the month. (And if you don’t, watch out for the Karma Police!)
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Fantastic idea and concept. It is so socially acceptable to be a drinker that you get treated like a weirdo if you don’t. I’ll be doing this to support my sister who is already on day five no booze. I did drycovid and haven’t gone back to drinking as I enjoy and prefer a dry lifestyle.
I’m in. I can do this just need to fully committ.
Thanks for the blog and some great suggestions about what to tune into during the ‘dry’. I have started my warm up for Dry July and am on day 20 now. I’ll be signing up to the challenge as I think raising awareness around the social acceptance of overboozing, regular boozing and the impact it has on physical and mental health is an important issue not well enough addressed in our society.
I’m definitely “IN”. I know I need to do this for my MBS [mind, body and spirit]. Gayle
I joined Daybreak 4days ago & one of my short term goals was to remain AF for the rest of June and then attempt Dry July. Well this blog has convinced me to put my “nuts on the chopping block” so to speak. I need to be held to account so – I am going to do Dry July!!!
Hopefully on 1st August I will be patting myself on the back for remaining AF for a total of 39 days 🙂
Good on you Laney. I havent yet started but am cutting down as I approach July with a view to going AF free for te month. Hopefully once I get there I will see the benefits in continuing.
Regards
Greg
Just reread this and am pleased to say that I am still AF with only 4 days left to complete Dry July. My friends asked if I was hanging out for a drink when I finished, and I can honestly say that I am not obsessing about being able to drink alcohol again. I find that I am enjoying zero alcohol wines so I may just stick with these for the foreseeable future.
I am week 5 of being dry – and find myself saying I am preparing for DryJuly – as to just not drink there is so much pressure. I will then do DryJuly – which will make me nearly 11 weeks without a drink. I don’t miss it – but I hate the pressure society imposes.
Yes I am in already into my 9th week of drysolation and enjoying sobriety. It’s definitely a life changing decision for the best. Alcohol is so ingrained into our society and everyday living. I was questioning myself on what it was doing for me and decided I wanted a better healthier me. Good luck everyone
Hi everyone,
I have registered for Dry July.
I am a DB with 55 days AF and I thought Dry July month AF would be a great reason to commit and a donation to charity would be the go. Boom.
Robyn Kunko
I’m in!
its such a great cause and not only a way to help yourself – but others as well…. I did it 2 years ago and raised $3000 for cancer council. So look at it as a two for one effort! Do sign up and ask your friends to donate – you’ll make them feel good too!
Good advice! Observation and reflection has been incredibly important for me. But I would add an ‘S’ on the end for ‘social’ or ‘sober friends’. Finding a sober community online during COVID-19 is the major thing I did differently this time. It’s easy to find one that resonates with you with the myriad of resources on websites, Facebook and Instagram.
I’ll be hitting day 100 in a few days. Looking forward to doing Dry July with you guys to keep up the momentum, and continue on into the future 🙂
My husband inspired me to do the 30 day challenge during COVID after he was already into his 30+ days AF. I’d been wanting to “cut down” for a long time and it was so much easier to just stop. So true about the negotiations that take place in your head when you’re just trying to reduce alcohol. I enjoyed my 30 days AF and have started another 30 days just for the hell of it. It’s completely broken my habit of “a few glasses” every night to now drinking on chosen occasions and really enjoying and appreciating a special wine when I do. I’m sure my liver is smiling 🙂 and I feel great for being back in control.
I’m in, starting today!
I have been drinking 2 bottles of wine every day for the past 3/4 years. During the first two months of Covid-19 lockdown all bottlestores were closed. I did not find it difficult to stop drinking. BUT the moment the bottlestores opened I was trapped again. I urgently need to stop drinking completely as all aspects of my life are affected negatively.
BUT I AM SCARED that I shall fail and disappoint myself and my family once again.
Thank you for sharing! It sounds like it’s a tough time for you right now and we want you to know that there is support available.
Check out the Daybreak app to connect with others who may be going through a similar experience or reach out to your local health professional, such as GP. If you’re based in Australia, Lifeline is also available for support 24/7 on 13 11 14.
Take care, The HSM Team.
Yep I’m in need a month off a chance to ” CORK”…
Best of luck everyone.
I’ve just finished a dry June and I really resonated with the points above. One of them being the need to commit – no excuses, no exceptions. It really does take away the internal struggle of whether to have a drink or not. By the last week I wasn’t even thinking of it as an option. And my month included a weekend away, the movies and dinner at a friend’s house, all occasions where having a drink was usually a given. I thought positively about the event itself (nice to be with friends, change of scene etc) rather than feeling sorry for myself that I wasn’t having a drink, and I really did enjoy myself! I also noticed the social expectations of drinking, and how it was assumed I would be desperate to have a drink once June ended (not true). I’m now evaluating my relationship with alcohol, and whilst I haven’t chosen to go sober full time, I’ve gained valuable insights which I would never have got if I hadn’t taken a whole month off. Will I go fully sober in the future? It’s not off the cards yet.
I have been sober now for 120 days. I never thought it would be possible. I just take one day at a time. I pledge every morning on the I am sober app and here I am at 120 days. 😊 yes some days I had FOMO but I found my friends surprisingly supportive. My sobriety has rubbed off and we have lovely get together with very little alcohol … that maybe because I always ensured we wouldn’t run out 😂 lm proud of myself