Dry January: What are the immediate and long-term health benefits of alcohol-free month?

“The less you drink, the better.” After the excesses of the holidays, perhaps you are preparing, like many French people, to give up alcohol for a month, the time of the famous Dry January that we owe to our British neighbors.

This operation, promoted by a consortium of associations that fight against alcohol addiction, aims to raise awareness among everyone about its consumption and the risks it poses to their health. Because giving up the glass of wine, beer or digestive, even just for a month, has real benefits for our body in the short, medium and long term.

Immediate benefits

Thanks to the alcohol-free month, “there are benefits that we immediately feel: we sleep better, we have better concentration, we feel better,” emphasizes doctor Bernard Basset, president of the French Addictions association. “Liver functions are regularized (…), the liver functions normally.”

An observation supported by Pierre Arwidson, doctor and deputy director of prevention and health promotion at Public Health France. After the Dry January In 2018 across the English Channel, “71% of participants reported having slept better, 70% felt better, 67% had more energy and 58% had lost weight,” he explains, citing a study conducted in 2020 by British professor Richard de Visser.

The “January challenge”, the French version of the Dry January – has “benefits that we do not necessarily see and that are very important”, continues Bernard Basset. “We have lower blood pressure – it’s mechanical when we stop drinking alcohol – and we lose weight, as long as we don’t replace (alcohol) with sugary drinks.”

“And the less we drink, the less risk we have of promoting vascular and cancerous diseases,” adds the specialist.

200 alcohol-related diseases

Because alcohol consumption is implicated in more than 200 diseases, traumatic injuries or other pathological conditions, including cancers (particularly breast, liver, head, neck and esophagus and colorectal cancer). In France, 41,000 deaths are attributed to alcohol consumption each year, according to Public Health France.

In the face of these preventable deaths, several studies have shown that participants in the alcohol-free month had lastingly changed their drinking habits by the end of this period of sobriety. A study from Lyon revealed on Friday by RMC shows that three months after dry January, almost two-thirds had reduced their alcohol consumption, either in frequency or quantity.

“After the January challenge, people consume less because they have asserted themselves,” observes Bernard Basset. “They realized that you didn’t have to take advantage of every opportunity to drink, that you didn’t have to always drink.” “And they realized that we felt better without alcohol, so they started again at a lower volume and that is good for our health,” adds the doctor, for whom the operation is neither “moralistic” nor “sad.” .

And to summarize: “All alcohol consumption is negative for health. The less you drink, the better.”

“Alcohol consumption does not provide any health benefits,” says Pierre Arwidson.

“It’s okay not to do the whole month”

An observation difficult to affirm in France, where alcohol consumption is well established. Criticized for opposing an increase in taxes on alcohol, the new Minister of Health, Yannick Neuder, announced that he would participate in the Dry Januarybut in recent years, successive governments He refused to support this sobriety operation.

“It is an almost impossible battle to fight in our country,” said Agnès Buzyn on France 2 in 2024. The former Minister of Health mentioned in particular the weight of lobbies and wine as an “image of French culture.”

“We ended up understanding that having fun means drinking,” laments Dr. Basset. “But not necessarily. Seeing the place that alcohol occupies in your life is good, both for your health and for your social relationships.”

And the reflection is interesting even if the challenge is not followed to the end, insists the public health doctor. “It doesn’t matter not doing it all month, the operation is voluntary, not moralistic,” insists Bernard Basset. “No one will judge those who collapse before the end of the month or one day drink alcohol.”

“The consortium of associations promoting the January challenge does not say that abstinence is necessary, but simply a moment of reflection with significant success,” adds Pierre Arwidson, who estimates that two million French people are preparing to participate directly or indirectly. in the challenge. Dry January in 2025. As a reminder, Public Health France’s recommendations are a maximum of “2 glasses per day and not every day.”