#dry-january

#dry-january

You join us this dry January day as a survey shows that fewer people in Germany are drinking alcohol, with consumption down sharply over the past decade.

The dates don't matter, I wanted to say. It's the 31-day stretch that's important you could do it whenever. But of course this is wrong: we reserve these privations for January on purpose. Despite, or perhaps because of the month's prodigious capacity to disappoint, we go out of our way to make January hard on ourselves. It starts with the tremendously misleading idea of a clean slate.

Many Americans enthusiastically partake in Dry January, but it is rarely pitched as fun. After the holiday stretch of office parties and family gatherings, Americans have come to use the start of every year to abstain from alcohol in the name of health and auspicious beginnings. It's a time of discipline, of cleansing, of embodying your mood board, even if it makes you a drag at parties. And it is also, as weed companies have learned, a marketing opportunity.