The Dry January Hangover

"loved to drink and to write about every aspect of drinking, from the proper way to fix a Martini (very cold) to the best way to cure a hangover ("Go up for half an hour in an open aeroplane"). But even he knew that, sometimes, it is wise to take a break. "Earlier this year, I went off the booze for a few weeks, a purely voluntary move," Amis wrote in one of his newspaper columns about drinking, which were collected, as "Everyday Drinking," in 1983."

"The most obvious evidence of that trend is currently taking place in the form of a monthlong exercise in abstemiousness known as Dry January. What began, in 2011, as part of a British woman's half-marathon training has turned into a global phenomenon. Statistics suggest that as many as a quarter of American adults partake. It's not just January, either. The popularity of the practice has paralleled a broader drying out."

Kingsley Amis celebrated drinking but sometimes took breaks and found short teetotaling underwhelming. Over the past forty years, society and science have shifted toward reducing alcohol consumption. Dry January began in 2011 as part of a British woman's half‑marathon training and has become a global phenomenon, with up to a quarter of American adults participating. Recent polls show a broader decline in drinking: a Gallup poll found that only fifty‑four percent of Americans drank, the lowest share in nearly a century, and surveys show about sixty percent of drinking‑age Gen Zers consume very little or no alcohol.

Read at The New Yorker