Can you go without booze for 31 days?

I'm absolutely not having a go at you personally Grannyknot as I hope you realise, simply putting another point of view.
I doubt the value of this exercise, challenge or whatever you want to call it.
Targets should be achievable, realistic and capable of being maintained.
There is evidence to suggest that moderate alcohol consumption is actually beneficial to health.
It seems to me that it would be better to aim for a permanent, sensible limit of no more than 2 units a day with possibly an alcohol-free day each week.
Just off for a nice healthy hike in the Tyne Valley

jane I don't take it personally. As I said, colleagues are doing it and I'm in on a whim.

I do see the value of it as an awareness raising exercise, simply a pause for thought about how much alcohol we consume as a nation.

I hadn't seen my SIL for ages and was shocked by how much weight he'd put on. I usually keep quiet about most things, family wise, but I did mention it to my daughter [who agreed]. Next time I saw him he looked 10 years younger [and stones lighter]. He'd given up alcohol completely and was exercising again. People just get into the habit of opening a can of beer etc when they get in from work and [like with smoking] you need to break the habit.

Yes.

How can it be so hard to give up alcohol when we all know what it does to our bodies not to mention our weight. I only have maybe the odd glass now and again but most of the time I just cant be bothered -sooner have a cup of coffee.

I think a break like this is a challenge rather than a target - and I do think that it is a good idea for someone who drinks regularly, although not necessarily, heavily to do it.

I knew someone some years ago who was a regular drinker, enjoyed several large glasses of wine of an evening and a bit more at lunchtime. He caught some illness, nothing serious, but he was in hospital for 10 days and didn't drink alcohol while he was there - and was somewhat shaken to discover how better he felt every morning when he woke and how better he felt all day. When he came out of hospital, he did not become teetotal but he reduced his alcohol consumption considerably because he realised his work was so much better and he enjoyed lif much more when he wasn't permanently slightly hung-over.

In my younger years I drank barley wine and new castle brown at weekends.
After getting married we made our own beer and wine it was the 70s and boy did we enjoy the results but as I've got older I drink very little now so it wouldn't be any problem to give up alcohol for a month.

I still remember the barley wine hangover I had 43 years ago which resulted in me sitting next to a window feeling as if someone was hitting me over the head with a hammer. Unfortunately it only seems like yesterday..[never again]

Flickety I accept the difference between targets and challenges, but I still think long-term targets are better for health than short-term challenges.
I'll shut up now

When I saw this thread, I had a vague recollection of us being told about a year ago that giving up alcohol for one month was futile as a means to detox the liver.

I have just Googled it and found a link:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16354472

Amongst other things, it tells us that abstaining for several days a week is much more beneficial for the liver.

Of course, it is probably a very good idea to give up alcohol for a month if you want to get your weight back under control after the festive period, or for many other reasons too. Just not, so they claim, for the liver!

MamaCaz the organisers of this campaign are aware of the criticism and that is why they say it is an awareness raising exercise, not a detox. Here is a GP blogging about taking part:

paulinegrant.tumblr.com/post/70063302003/dryjanuary

Grannyknot
The good doctor says
"I don’t like getting plastered but drink to the point where I feel clever, witty and beautiful, and so do all my friends. The food is delicious, the ambience perfect and the evening could stretch on forever….. ..... later on I wake with palpitations in the night and unable to get to sleep. It usually takes 3/4 of a bottle of wine to get to this stage. It used to be a lot less but that is tolerance for you. Like my patients I am experiencing more of the side effects of the substance and less of the joy...........Most evenings we drink 1/2 a bottle of wine each with dinner"

She has a problem, doesn't she?

On Christmas Day I don't think I went without a drink for 31 minutes!

Nothing wrong with that from time to time. I am hugely worried and saddened by the huge denial out there of the 10000s of 'successful functioning alcoholics'- like the doctor in the blog- never drunk, but who cannot face the day, or rather the evening, without half... and for many, a bottle and who totally refuse to see there may well be a problem with this- long term, and that they are addicged and causing irreversible damage.

Well I like a drink. I am 64, never had a day's illness in my life really (I am touching wood as I type). I haven't had a cold for about 35 years, never get aches, pains or headaches. I am about half a stone overweight (after the Christmas festivities). My life, like a lot of others, has not been easy and a drink at night helps me relax. I am a firm believer in 'whatever gets you through the night'. My mother never touched alcohol in her life and died of a massive heart attack at 58 after a terrible, stressful life. Maybe if she had had the odd tipple to relax her - who knows. And my father was an alcoholic so I am fully aware of the dangers.

Katy my post had nothing to do with yours, as such- but with genuine concern I have for younger people I know- and who all think drinking too much on a daily basis is 'normal' because they 'all do it'- thus confirming the denial. The comment 'i've just had 2 glasses' the glasses being the size of a gold fish bowl, and said 2 glasses = 2/3 of a bottle.

My DiL and her sister are doing it to raise money for charity. I shall sponsor them but I like a drink now and then and as we are having a little holiday in January I wouldn't want to be "dry" then. Cheers

Granjura - yes I realise that and I agree with you. Watching young folks falling in the gutter on nights out is horrendous. I don't ever remember that happening in my younger days, although young folks liked to drink a bit.

After the last week, I do need a 'dry' period, but still have to get over New Year.

janea well, she'll find out if she has! Here is a follow up blog, it seems her family pulled her up for that first one:

paulinegrant.tumblr.com/post/70474816319/preparation-for-dryjanuary

I thought she was quite brave to go for it so publicly.

I have a doctor friend who says he finds it very difficult to tell patients that they need to lose weight - when he is overweight himself

grannyknot She may be brave, but not very wise, and perhaps that's an indication that she's in denial.
Drug and alcohol addiction is a serious problem in medicine and dentistry, and drawing attention to yourself via a blog that would appear to be accessible to anyone, and could find its way to the GMC, seems crazy.

Kids falling in the gutter out on a bender is indeed tragic, and very dangerous in so many ways, but it was not what I was talking about.

What really concerns me is the amount of denial about alcohol from 'middle aged' and successful people, often in very good jobs and businesses- who NEED to drink on a daily basis to survive- often 1/2 to a whole bottle- and insist that it is 'perfectly normal' as 'all their friends' (eg 'everyone') does it- day in, day out.

Would the GMC really be bothered that a doctor drinks half a bottle of wine most evenings? It's hardly unusual among the professional classes and depending on the strength of the wine might only be the equivalent of 3-4 units.

I'm not saying it's to be condoned, but I'd have thought the GMC had more pressing problems to deal with.

Posts crossed, granjura - mine was in response to Jane's.