The health benefits of Dry January

Holiday hangover season is upon us, and murmurs of Dry January are back. The popular month of alcohol abstinence has become tradition for people hoping to hit “reset” with the clean slate of the new year.

Founded by the charity Alcohol Change UK, the month-long challenge started in 2013 with 4,000 registrants. By 2025, that number had swelled to 200,000. And those are just the official registrants. Many people worldwide participate unofficially. In 13 years, Dry January has become a recognizable shorthand for avoiding booze at the turn of the year. And while there are numerous reasons to take a hiatus from alcohol, none seem to be more pressing than health.

A recent review paper published in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism describes the positive health effects of participating in Dry January and the benefits of taking short-term breaks from drinking.

“Even with a one month pause on drinking, there were noticeable changes in several biomarkers that are associated with alcohol use,” Megan Strowger, Postdoctoral Research Associate and lead author of the paper, tells Popular Science.

Strowger and her team at Brown University analyzed 16 studies, comprising more than 150,000 participants. They found that participants who sobered up for one month reported better sleep, elevated mood, and weight loss. Positive biological changes included lower blood pressure, less liver fat, better blood glucose, improved insulin resistance, and decreases in concentrations of cancer-related growth factors.

“Alcohol affects all aspects of the body,” Strowger says.

We’ve all heard about what booze does to the liver, but according to the paper, a drinking habit leaves a mark on nearly everything.

Strowger says the data initially surprised her. “I didn’t think that that much could change in the body after just one month.”

The positive changes also last. People’s improved well-being appears to linger for some time, as does a changed relationship with alcohol in general.

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“Even six months after the challenge, participants reported sustained decreases in their overall consumption,” Strowger says. “They also had a reduced risk for developing issues with alcohol use disorder or becoming addicted to alcohol.”

Dry January’s mass uptake is a small push against alcohol’s omnipresence in daily life. In 2024, 66.5 percent of American adults reported drinking in the past year, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Alcohol plays a causal role in 200 known health conditions, and remains a leading cause of illness and death worldwide. The public’s burgeoning awareness of these dangers has fed into a rapidly ballooning sober-curious movement. Now well-known, Dry January comes with a sense of community. The “everyone’s doing it” effect can be motivating for people trying to stay on the wagon. The paper says many people’s Dry January success was made easier with the help of social connection, the use of abstinence apps such as the Try Dry app, and supportive emails and texts sent by the Dry January campaign.

And for anyone whose Dry January might’ve been a little less dry than they planned, there’s still good news. According to the data, people who didn’t do a perfect Dry January reported benefits as well, making a good case for “Damp January” for those who aren’t ready to go cold turkey.

Strowger says the science behind Dry January made it all very clear for her. She even did a Dry January of her own, achieving better sleep quality and a lasting reduction on her own consumption.

“My anecdotal experiences do map onto what we found in the paper,” she says.

While it’s a good idea for most, abstinence challenges aren’t for everyone. Anyone suffering from a true alcohol use disorder should speak with a medical professional before embarking on something like Dry January, as withdrawal is a very real danger.

Strowger says that anyone without a chronic condition who is questioning their relationship with alcohol should feel good about giving the one month challenge a try.

“From my own experiences, those of my team, and then from doing this review, it shows that there are far more positives than negatives to participating.”