New Year, New You: a qualitative study of Dry January, self-formation and positive regulation

Abstract

In the last 5 years, giving up alcohol for January has become a common social practice in UK. Inspired by Alcohol Concern’s Dry January initiative and other related campaigns, an estimated 5 million UK adults attempted to abstain from alcohol in January 2017. Moreover, evaluative research has suggested that a 1-month spell of abstinence is an effective way of reducing average, longer-term drinking. However, the popularity and apparent effectiveness of Dry January are not well-understood. This article presents the first qualitative analysis of the meaning and significance of this important new cultural phenomenon. Based on analysis of media and social media content, it examines both how Dry January is managed by Alcohol Concern and how it is experienced by participants. The burgeoning popularity of Dry January is found to result from how this process of temporary abstinence is underpinned by positive regulatory techniques and the salience of embodiment. Consequently, rather than being a simple regime of bodily abstinence and self-control, Dry January should instead be understood as an embodied experience of ethical self-formation. The article also reflects on the implications of this finding for alcohol regulation more widely.

Keywords:

• Dry January
• temporary abstinence
• temporary sobriety
• alcohol
• drinking
• positive regulation
• embodiment
• self-formation

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on a conference presentation given at an event held by the British Sociological Association’s Alcohol Study Group. I am grateful to group members for their helpful feedback. I am also grateful to Michael Thomson, Thomas Thurnell-Read, Sarah Moore, and Adam Burgess for their valuable advice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Robert refers to these campaigns as ‘temporary sobriety initiatives’ (2016a, p. 413). However, the campaigns are based around abstinence from alcohol rather than simply a commitment to remain in a psychological or pharmacological condition of sobriety. Hence, I prefer to use the TAI.

2 The research project was given ethical approval by the author’s institution.

3 Licensing is applied directly only to licensees and, hence, the upper part of the licensing strata does not extend to the full width of the pyramid. The lower part of the licensing strata does extend to the full width of the pyramid to indicate that, indirectly, licensing affects all alcohol consumers within a population. See Yeomans (2017) for further discussion of this pyramid.

4 It is acknowledged that, geometrically, this is not a pyramid but a heptagon. However, it is arranged according to the same principles that Ayres and Braithwaite (1992)—and subsequently many others—have used to discuss regulatory pyramids. Hence, it is conceptually pyramidal.

5 Plus, participants in TAIs may not be representative of drinkers in general. Indeed, evidence suggests that moderate drinkers are more likely to participate (Robert, 2016b).