After a month of festive indulgence, a January detox may sound tempting. One writer reflects on her relationship with booze and how she fared giving sobriety a go.
Ireland’s relationship with alcohol is a fickle thing.
We’re a nation built on having the craic. We pride ourselves on our soundness, our lack of notions and our ability to split the G. We can recite Pintman Paddy Losty’s soliloquy by heart (“I wouldn’t be fond of the drinking, but when I go at it, I do go at it awful and very hard”) and a hot whiskey is practically a state-sanctioned flu remedy at this stage.
If you went to a Catholic primary school—as so many of us did—your entire existence led up to taking the pledge at 12 years old (essentially a guarantee you’ll abstain from alcohol until at least 18 years of age). I recited my oath with the gravity of a man delivering his marital vows. I later cried when my mother added a splash of red wine to that night’s bolognese.
In secondary school, drinking was social capital. You did it in fields, on buses to underage discos and crammed into a bathroom cubicle with three of your friends. I took my pledge very seriously… until I didn’t. I never got too drunk, for fear of my mother finding out, but the reins loosened when I went to college and, independent for the first time, I didn’t know when to stop. This was, to quote The Guardian, all happening “in the wake of the 1990s and Britpop’s deification of cigarettes and alcohol”. Admittedly, I was less interested in indie boybands and more focused on Kate Moss; I wanted to be a model and permanently wasted (or at least give the appearance of such) like her.
I didn't realise it at the time, but alcohol was the root cause of much of my anxiety. I thought it made me fun; it did not.
Since graduating, I’ve scaled back massively. I still drink but not to the extent that I did back then. Nowadays, I contain it to a glass of wine (or two) with dinner, a couple of pints with friends or a few too many Whiteclaws at a festival. I avoid hangovers like the plague, scarred by my youth when they used to be multiple-day affairs—the day after brought the physical hangover, while the rest of the week was clouded by The Fear—and almost always have Dioralyte on hand.
A couple of years ago, I decided to do Dry January for the first time. The Christmas indulgence had caught up with me and I needed a break… and a way to justify my sobriety, if I’m honest – this was before the phrase “sober curious” had been coined and well before zero-alcohol beers became the norm. As those who know me personally will tell you, I can be a bit of a stickler for the rules and so, I intended on holding out right up until the 31st, despite a pre-planned outing and my birthday falling before the end of the month. A Diet Coke was more than enough to keep me happy but I was genuinely shocked by the cries for me to “lighten up” and “just have a cocktail”. My not drinking was apparently considered a cardinal offence by some; a flashing, neon sign informing everyone how “un-fun” I was.
Thankfully, we’ve evolved as a people since then. My brother has been sober for over two years now and, save for a few unwelcome questions about “being on antibiotics” (the only reason a person might not want to drink… please sense the heavy sarcasm), he’s experienced very little stigma for it. According to recent figures produced by the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI), alcohol consumption was at its lowest level in Ireland in 2023, dropping below 10 litres of pure alcohol per adult annually for the first time in 35 years. Consumption of non-alcoholic beer has also doubled in the last four years… turns out I wasn’t alone in wanting to re-evaluate things.
Looking back, I had a very unhealthy relationship with alcohol during my college years. I found the transition from secondary school to third-level education quite difficult. I went from a relatively small all-girls convent in Longford to a massive campus in a completely unknown city. There were hundreds of people in my lectures and I struggled to make friends. I missed home, didn’t like my classes and spent much of my first year contemplating dropping out. I used alcohol as a crutch when socialising, often going overboard and wallowing in shame and self-loathing for days afterwards. I didn’t realise it at the time, but alcohol was the root cause of much of my anxiety. I thought it made me fun; it did not.
This time of year always causes me to question my drinking. January thrives on shame, you see. This month is all about paying for December’s ‘sins’; last month they bottle-fed us Baileys as we shimmied around the Christmas tree, this month they berate us for indulging. As a recovering dieter and child of the 90s, January used to be a month of penance for me. I totally bought into the idea that deprivation was the only way to ‘right’ December’s excesses and so chocolate was exiled, along with cheese, alcohol and carbohydrates of any form.
Beauty is pain, I told myself, convinced I’d enter February a newly minted version of myself. Spoiler alert: that never happened. Now in my late twenties, my attitude toward alcohol has changed massively over the past five years. Sorry to be that person and quote Wicked but it’s not a jump to say I have been changed for good. My boyfriend is (amazingly!) on the same page as me when it comes to the sesh and I thank my lucky stars he doesn’t spend his weekends chasing the sunrise at an afters in some stranger’s dingy sitting room. I’m not sure if it’s resilience or reason I’ve to thank, but I’m happy those days are behind me.
Like most things, my relationship with booze is an ever-evolving thing that varies by the day (and the party). One week into January, I’ve already indulged in a few glasses of wine but that’s not to say I won’t abstain now for the next few weeks – I think the biggest learning has been realising that we’re allowed to change. We’re allowed to evolve and redefine our own boundaries and think one thing today and another tomorrow. Ireland’s relationship with alcohol may always be a bit of a dance—part tradition, part temptation and probably part peer pressure too—but the steps are changing, and so are we.
Photography by Inga Seliverstova via Pexels.
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