Tag: motivation

Demi-Sec Demi-Année

I began the year with the intention of having at least three days per week without alcohol, as described in my Demi-Sec January post. This was in part driven by the slow realisation that I have somehow become older over the years (and thus more vulnerable to the potential harms of drinking) and also in recognition of the fact I did not want to do Dry January this year.

Today marks the end of six months and I am pleased to report that I have stuck to the rules. It has been tricky at times, there were occasions when I could have “justified” breaking them, but with some jiggling round of various social engagements and anticipating days when I knew I would want to drink, it has all come good.

I spent many hours with clients throughout my career discussing their drinking behaviour and helping them to understand the risks of relapsing after implementing positive changes. I even ran groups on the topic. The struggles they faced were mightier than mine, so I do not want to sound smug about my achievements. But the underlying mechanisms and strategies share a commonality. I mentioned “justifying” having a drink. In clinical parlance, we call these “permission-giving thoughts”…

Who wouldn’t want a drink after the day I’ve had?

I really deserve a drink

Just one wouldn’t do any harm

Thus begins the slippery slope. There are strategies people can use to counter these thoughts. It is often helpful to encourage people to think about how they will feel about their choices the next day. We could all benefit from improving our consequential thinking skills.

I also mentioned that in order to stick to my rules I had to engage in some forward planning. This is an important skill to develop if people want to avoid relapsing. They can be helped to recognise high risk situations and how to avoid them or mitigate the risks. These situations are idiosyncratic – they could be about being with specific people, or in specific situations, or related to emotional states such as depression, loneliness, anger or anxiety.

I noted last time that I sadly keep a record of my drinking. I can report that I have achieved to date 81 days of abstinence this year. Having the three days of abstinence has made up for not doing Dry January – last year at this point I had achieved 80 days of abstinence (31 of those in January, of course).

The key question now is will I continue this for the rest of the year? I think I feel marginally physically and emotionally better by not drinking so often. It is a bit of a challenge at times. If I were to just see how it goes, without making a commitment, then I will end up drinking more often. Making a commitment is fundamental to implementing any behavioural change (be it eating more healthily or taking more exercise) – it is the bedrock of motivation. And letting others know about your commitment gives it a bit more cement.

So?

I will stick to my goal of three days of abstinence per week. I will perhaps, dangerously, give myself a bit more flexibility – if I am in violation one week, I will make up for it the following week. Sound fair? I will provide updates.

No, on second thoughts, that won’t work. A slippery slope. The rules stay as they are. No free passes.

Demi-Sec January

This time last year I was coming to the end of my fourth or fifth Dry January. I decided to take on the challenge because the previous year I lost control of my usual drinking rules. It was not that I spent the year in a state of permanent intoxication, rather I adopted – to put it mildly – a “screw it” mentality. There were only 26 days on which I did not have an alcoholic drink, due to my carefree attitude and a number of emotional challenges. Often, my drinking would consist only of a can or two of beer and/or a glass or two of wine – hardly a non-stop party of drunken bawdiness.

My decision to take on Dry January 2025 was an attempt to regain control of my drinking and to reinstate to my old drinking rules – i.e., at least 2 days of abstinence per week. In this I was successful – I had 151 days of abstinence (approximately 41.4% abstinence over the year). It is probably a bit sad that I keep such detailed records. This was borne of my career in psychology being mostly in the field of alcohol and other substance misuse. This alerted me to the extensive harm caused by excessive drinking and the ease with which one could slip over the line from control to loss of control.

Another factor influencing my decision was the slow and sad acknowledgement that I have somehow entered the “elderly” population, which during my teaching of trainee clinical psychologists I was at pains to point out carried increased risks when it came to alcohol consumption. Who knew I would join their ranks?! The risks arise from changes in metabolism (the liver finds it more difficult to break down the alcohol), effects on cognitive function (“Where did I put that glass of wine?”), increased risk of falling over, and multiple harmful effects on physiological health (e.g., blood pressure).

Given my success in re-establishing my drinking rules throughout 2025, I decided not to take on the Dry January challenge for 2026. The decision was also shaped to some extent by further emotional challenges as the year got under way. I am not saying that drinking is a solution to these life problems, but it is a pleasure and temporary refuge that I value – and respect.

So, my compromise was to instigate Demi-Sec January – literally translated as “half dry”. I introduced the rule that I would have at least 3 days of abstinence per week. I have achieved this thus far – in fact, to date, I have hit 50% abstinence. I am not sure if I will continue this for the rest of the year. However, the original 2 days of abstinence per week will remain in place. At least you have been spared my daily posts about alcohol that I posted throughout last January! Which is not to say that there will not be further posts on my progress…

Day 28 – cravings and relapse prevention

Yesterday I looked at motivation as a way of understanding how and why people make decisions about their health-related behaviours, and how changes in motivation can affect how they pass through the various stages of change. Hopefully there were some useful pointers there to help with your decision-making processes.

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Day 27 – are your cogs dissonating?

I am aware that as we come into the last few days of Dry January I have not really provided anything helpful in terms of how you can make changes and stick to them, be it in relation to drinking, smoking, dieting or exercising. I will try to redress the balance over the next couple of posts or so. Some of the material can then be replicated in the main body of this website as static pages that people can more easily access. It is after all a self-help website, although I do have problems with that terminology. It does carry (unintentionally) undertones of “pull yourself together” and “I did it and therefore so can you“. What works for one person may not work for another, and everyone has a different starting point.

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Day 6 – for sticks and sticking

As part of my drive towards improving my health and well-being, I took advantage of the sunshine this morning to dust down my homemade bo stick and did some gentle drills after not doing any drills for the past three months. I remembered some moves from my martial arts training (Tang Soo Do) and found a lot of other stuff on-line. When I say homemade, I mean I stripped the bark from a stick and sanded it down. That level of DIY is pretty good for me.

And talking of sticks, I thought today I would write something about sticking. By this I mean how difficult it can be to stick to those important changes we want to make. Here we are looking at a key stage of the change cycle – maintenance. No, not cycle maintenance – this is a reference to the Stages of Change model proposed by Prochaska and DiClemente that is widely used in the area of behavioural change (e.g., eating habits, drinking, gambling, smoking, and other health related behaviours).

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In the Beginning…

Dry January was started by Alcohol Change UK in 2013. The thinking behind it was to encourage people to examine their alcohol drinking, especially after a period of traditional celebrations where alcohol often features quite prominently. It fits in nicely with making New Year resolutions that involve a degree of self-improvement – whether this be about food choices, being more active, learning new skills, giving up smoking, or any of another hundred ways we could all be “better people”.

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