Dry January Flaws, Do You Want Real Understanding on How to Quit Alcohol and Live Differently

Dry January can be a powerful reset or a frustrating loop of white-knuckling, and the difference comes down to planning, identity, and support. We dig into why time-limited abstinence often collapses on day 31, how urges surge in the first month, and what it takes to swap shaky willpower for steady routines. From brain chemistry to belief systems, we map the gap between “I should stop” and “I don’t drink,” and lay out simple, realistic steps that make the next craving less likely to win.

We start by grounding in core recovery values: work hard, love unconditionally, and remember that you can’t outthink an emotional issue. Then we get practical. You’ll hear how to feed your brain healthy dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, and oxytocin with exercise, breathwork, hydration, sleep, sunlight, connection, and purposeful distractions. We walk through quick tactics for the messy moments—changing your environment, screening social invites, and using a short list of pattern breakers when a craving hits. You’ll also learn why daily mantras, a visible calendar, and morning commitments reduce decision fatigue and keep your goals front and center.

We challenge the “just one beer” myth and name the hidden costs of alcohol on brain health, skin, organs, and cancer risk. Instead of debating labels or allergies, we focus on framing that protects your goal: clear boundaries tied to your values. For support, we spotlight low-cost 12-step rooms, accountability partners, and coaching or courses that sharpen self-awareness and character traits like honesty, discipline, courage, and perseverance. The aim isn’t perfection—it’s momentum, recovery after stumbles, and building an identity that makes alcohol irrelevant.

If you’re ready to turn Dry January into durable change, this conversation gives you the plan, the language, and the tools to start today. Subscribe for more recovery strategies, share this episode with someone who needs a nudge, and leave a review with the one habit you’ll commit to this week.

Chapters

• 0:01 Welcome And Core Recovery Values
• 0:40 Free Tools And Natural Dopamine
• 1:18 The Dry January Problem
• 2:06 Urges, Identity, And Accountability
• 3:08 Practical Coping Moves
• 4:12 Commitment, Calendars, And Daily Mantras
• 5:12 Alcohol’s Costs And The “Just One” Myth
• 6:26 Allergies, Poison Framing, And Gambling Parallels
• 7:18 Find A Real Why And Ask For Help
• 8:11 Lived Experience, 12-Step, And Healthy Outlets
• 8:43 Character, Self-Awareness, And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Let's talk dry January, abstinence, sobriety, recovery. Welcome again to another episode of the 1% in recovery podcast, where we encourage you to laugh every day. Work hard, work hard in recovery, work hard in relationships, work hard in your job, business, school, just work. And to love unconditionally, put much more love out there and watch much more love return. Now, we always remember recovery is beautiful. Your EQ is your IQ, and you cannot outthink an emotional issue. What do we do? We encourage people now to go to the website lifeiswonderful.love L-O-V-E and download the free recovery growth scorecard so you can start healing. You can start your recovery today. You know most of these things are free. You don't have an excuse. You can start interjecting natural dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, oxytocin. Those are all the necessary hormones to start healing, to start to detox, to start moving in the right direction, to start living your best life. Now, let's jump into this week's episode. It's January. We're in the mid-January. So a lot of people might be in the middle of this whole dry January trying to understand their relationship with alcohol, what they need to do. Do you know the reason why most dry Januaries don't work? Because it's a white knuckle type of event where someone is just trying to almost fast themselves for 31 days of not drinking. And then supposedly then on February 1st or February 2nd, groundhog day, to possibly drink. The problem when you're dealing with addiction, you're dealing with brain chemistry, you're going to have urges, especially in those first 30 days. And sometimes it's going to be overwhelming. And if you're not invested in it and you're just doing this as though you are in 40 days of Lent, I'm going to give up alcohol for Lent, or I'm going to give up beer or chocolate or soft drinks or whatever it is that people give up for Lent, they think it's the same thing. Dry January will never really work. Unless you are also conducting and hiring maybe some type of coach to kind of like get you to like 30 days. If you don't have someone there to hold some type of accountability, dry January is really just an exercise in white knuckle. It's almost just a step below true abstinence. I'm just not going to drink today. And then you're going to have some types of physical, mental, psychological responses that you're going to then have to kind of deal with and hopefully fight through and find different ways to fight through it. What are some of the ways to fight through it? First of all, take some deep breaths. Maybe drink some water, maybe go for exercise, call someone, pray, watch a movie, get your mind off of alcohol. The problem is a lot of times then, unfortunately, if you are somebody like me that has a family that drinks, that has buddies that drink. You know, when you went to an I went to an all-boys college prep high school, I was in a college frat. I know a lot of guys, and I know a lot of guys that like to drink, watch sports, eat, a lot of that. There's phone call away, and they're always been calling me. So when I even when I first stopped drinking, I constantly got bombarded or urged, do you want to go out? Do you want to meet up? Do you want to do this? And the only way to handle it back then was that I just didn't answer my phone. Uh back then I stopped drinking in May 24th of 97. So there was answer machines that were not really cell phones. But that is really, really the idea is that if you're going to try to really do dry January, you really got to commit to it. I always say, don't drink for 90 days, but you can't really do this alone. 12-step meetings are great because there's not a large financial investment in it, unless you're really uh, because a lot of people don't even want to admit that they have a drinking problem, let alone say that they're alcoholic. So the in the beginning, it's really that kind of fight. What is my identity? And so that's why even if you someone kind of admitted you to a 30-day, 45-day treatment center, they don't work and constantly the next once they get out, even that next same day that they get out, within hours, they're drinking or they're smoking. And it's no different if you're trying to do this on your own, wherever you live, to do dry January. Even if you set up, first of all, you have to set up some type of calendar each day and be very, very clear. And also every day wake up. And you better speak into existence, mantra, pray that I am not going to drink today, I'm going to have a good day. I'm going to really be kind to my body because alcohol does nothing, nothing worthwhile or good for your body. It will damage your brain, it will do, it will age your skin, and it will do damage to your organs. It will increase certain percentages and certain types of cancer. There is just nothing, nothing good that alcohol does for your body physically. And you do not need alcohol, let's say as a man, to talk to a woman. You don't need alcohol to socialize in a business atmosphere. You don't need alcohol to deal with your family. You don't need alcohol to have a good time and have sex. You don't need alcohol as you watch sports. You don't need alcohol for the maraud of reasons, excuses, rationalizations that we do. And it's not just one beer. Uh, because I've been asked that over my 28 years. It's just one beer. I get it. It's just one beer, just like it's just one pill or one injection or one bet or just one fuck. Whatever it is, it's always a choice. Uh I personally have never believed in the whole uh does a person have an alcoholic allergy? I think that was just an easy out for people to say that they're different than saying, I don't need kiwi because I have an allergic reaction to kiwi. Other people with nuts, other people with milk, other people with seafood. You know, there's a lot of different of these allergies out there. Well, that's fine. If that's if that helps, you just explain it so people don't. I just tell people I don't drink. And if they really push me, I said, I just don't put poison in my body. That always starts some type of debate. I call it's not a debate, it's how I view alcohol. I think alcohol is pure poison. Just like I think gambling is pure poison because the you'll never win. And the 1% time you do win, yippee, and then you will keep losing. We can go on and on. I just wanted to come out here, just the reason why dry Januaries don't work is there's really no reason to quit except to try to put up some type of merit badge, as though you're in the Boy Scouts that you didn't drink for 31 days in the whole month of January. But there's got to be a better reason, is though, saying that I'm not drinking because I'm taking care of my health. I'm not drinking because I know that I need to. Look, I get it. Everyone wants to stop drinking, stop gambling, stop smoking on their own before they ask for help. But here's the thing is when you're dealing with something as cunning and baffling as alcohol, you need help. You can't do this alone. You can't do this alone. Like, I've been in this game for a long, long time. I've watched people, I've seen it. Uh look, I've done it myself, learned how to deal with it. I went to 12-step rooms. I also started to increase gambling for three years before I stopped gambling. So I had outs. I also went to the gym, played a lot of basketball, watched a lot of movies. Those were things that I did not to drink. So I wish you well, but you're better off trying to do something. Let's say, Mike, my um strong leader, strong character course, man, it's less than a hundred bucks, 84 bucks. And you'll learn more about self-awareness and more about yourself, and so that you can then live a better life. And that's truly what it is. What is your character? What do you stand for? How do you view honesty, hope, faith, courage, perseverance, discipline, all those wonderful character traits that you need to instill in yourself so then you can live your best life, live in peace, live in freedom, live in serenity. And with that, we're going to conclude this episode of the 1% in recovery podcast. Till next week.