James Etheridge

I’m ten days into Dry January. I have participated in the challenge since 2020, with the exception of 2022, the year I retired. I figured I would leave that particular year open. The thing about Dry January is that it’s really not that difficult to go four to five weeks without imbibing. It’s actually pretty easy. By the end of the year I realize I have developed some really poor habits and am hitting it too hard anyway, so Dry January seems like a good way to cut back on drinking in general for better health.

Most New Year’s resolutions usually involve a healthier diet, more exercise and losing weight. Drinking less or not at all can be a way to accomplish all. It’s a great reset for the mind and body and kind of fun to see how disciplined one can be. I still play golf once a week and though I never drink on the golf course, afterwards s is another story.  But now instead of coming home and having a couple of Crowns, I have an Arnold Palmer, a ginger ale or a Dr. Pepper.

I feel like I’m getting a few things accomplished around the house, although I’m still working my way up to tackling blowing the leaves out of the yard. It’s been raining a lot and it’s cold outside. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Back in the Eighties, before it was known as such, my brother-in-law and I used to observe Dry January.  There was a stipulation in place then that has since been removed, at least in my observation.  If an ice storm hit and shut down the roads, work and school, Dry January went out the window. Usually by the third week of the month we were watching the weather maps in the newspaper and on TV, hoping and praying for a blizzard to hit. It’s much easier to make it through the month now, maybe because I’m sixty-eight instead of twenty-eight. Whatever the case, I think we only made it through the whole month a couple of times.

Snow or no snow, I have made up my mind this particular Dry January that I am not going to do a face plant off the wagon on the first of February. I have some goals or what I suppose could be called resolutions for the new year concerning potables. I am committed to sticking to these goals and trying my best to see that they don’t go the way of the dodo by spring like most New Year’s resolutions.

There are a couple of other months during the year in which abstinence is observed. One is Sober October. I’m sorry, but for me that is simply not going to happen. October is slap in the middle of college football season, not to mention the baseball playoffs, the World Series, golf and the PGA Tour. All that will undoubtedly involve a few sports bars, nineteenth holes and Old Fashioneds. The other is in the middle of summer, Dry July. I am planning on observing that one. We shall see.

Being Catholic, I have in the past abstained during Lent. Since undertaking Dry January over the last few years, I have foregone temperance during the Lenten season, at least when it comes to drinking. That does not mean that I have not made sacrifices for the season, far from it. This year for Lent, I am giving up liver.