Dry January

Is anyone partaking in this ghastly tradition? How is this even legal in America?

Truth be told last year I noticed a few friends of mine I see from time to time abandoning alcohol all together….

The savings are supposedly amazing!

I did dry Q1 last year and then resumed drinking until about July or August then stopped again until current.

Admirable

Is your body ok?

How about mental health?

Hutch wrote:
Is your body ok?

How about mental health?

No.

Oh.

Well…kudos.

Sort of doing it. First time ever. Though I went through much of my 20's without really drinking at all.

Normally I split a pint with my wife with dinner or every couple of weeks split a bottle of wine.

For January, no drinking. Except for the one day we go to Richmond, and maybe a second where I'm doing a hike and might stop for a pint afterwards.

I'm also cutting down on calories (since mid-December) with the hope of losing 10-15 pounds by my mid-February physical.

You know what, I think 2-3 boardies already know this so as good a thread to share in as any:

My wife had a very serious mental health crisis in late in 2022 and started self-medicating heavily with alcohol and also other things (but alcohol being probably the most deleterious). I did Dry Q1 (2023) in an attempt to make it a thing we did together and joined Al-Anon but it did not take on her end (she would destroy Al-Anon stuff she found in my home office and refused to acknowledge any issue) and I would go out of town to work and check my Ring doorbell and basically find our home was being used as a flophouse. She moved out around July to start a relationship with another dude but has basically harassed me constantly since then, refusing to agree to a divorce agreement despite a pre-nup.

A "gentleman" she knows who is SOMEHOW a member of the Virginia bar is attempting to extort me for over a half a million dollars for . . . reasons? (He is also openly doing this on a contingency basis which is eventually going to get him disbarred but this process is proving slow.) She continues to come over and access the house thru whatever means necessary with a gang of hooligans at various hours of the day and night and has threatened to kill me and our cat. I had to couch surf with friends out of an attempt to protect myself and my sanity and pay a security guard to basically try and make sure she doesn't access the marital home. I have been able to get very temporary orders of protection but nothing long lasting and since the divorce isn't finalized, I cannot bar her from the house. She threatens to "death by cop" me every so often.

Out of an abundance of caution, I am pretty much scared to be inebriated at all because I have no idea when she might appear and I need my senses about me. Also my anxiety over all of this makes drinking very unpleasent even when out of town or she couldn't find me if she was trying. The panic attacks have been so bad I have had to be hospitalized over this twice.

So, in longer response to your queries, neither my body nor mental health is ideal right now.

EDIT: To tie up lose ends on one of Yada's long-unanswered questions, I and her mother GPS tracked "her" Subaru to her hometown of Saratoga Springs in the summer during Travers week, back during a time period where we held out hope that some sort of rehab would be possible. I do not want to get into specifics about why we were hopeful that within the confines of that court system we would have a better chance of getting her TROed of 72-hour-held or whatever they call it in NY (because I fear getting an in-law doxxed or accused of something), but it was a working Hail Mary. I and a "private investigator" tracked "her" car to the Phish show I attended in hopes of getting her brought in front of the legal system in that particular county but we sadly never found her. I think she might have spotted me first and left. By the time we rechecked the Subaru app she was halfway to the Canadian border. Sadly she returned to the US.

Space, I think that is called Measured January…

This time of year is so depressing probably makes sense to take a break in January.

Oh wow I am so sorry Julian.

I had no idea.

Yeah, in that case it really makes sense to cut down on depressants and mind altering stuff.

Hutch wrote:
Oh wow I am so sorry Julian.

I had no idea.

Yeah, in that case it really makes sense to cut down on depressants and mind altering stuff.

Thank you. It is also, at least for me, very hard to watch a person descend into that level of absurd alcoholism and get calls from when she's checked into hospitals because she's fallen through train trestles or gotten into drunken fights with some rando new guy and then look at alcohol the same way. Like no judgment and I will probably drink again at some point when this is resolved but I could not see going back to "7-ish drinks a week as a dude" after watching that. Nooooo way.

Between Julian's situation and Hutch with the  big C, I'm so grateful I only have an occasionally mean, anxiety ridden wife to share life with.

Julian - thank you for sharing. I hope you're able to find a way out of this horrid situation soon.

Someday I may share my darkness. In the meantime, I see and feel your struggles.

excontradiction wrote:
Julian - thank you for sharing. I hope you're able to find a way out of this horrid situation soon.

Someday I may share my darkness. In the meantime, I see and feel your struggles.

I couldn't have said it better… but fuck Jules, that is horrific. Sorry man!!

edit: To answer the question, I will be doing dry January and most likely longer (I've done it the past five years (minus the year my dog was dying) and it tends to not do too much to impact me positively, but at least it feels like I'm trying). I still medicate to the high heavens with THC, no pun intended.

In reality, I just want to be healthier, lose some LBS… don't really have a drinking issue though.

Yada wrote:
I couldn't have said it better… but fuck Jules, that is horrific. Sorry man!!

Thank you. I don't know if you saw my edit, but I wanted to make sure, since apparently I'm doing this, that you got the answer to the question you've long been asking:

EDIT: To tie up lose ends on one of Yada's long-unanswered questions, I and her mother GPS tracked "her" Subaru to her hometown of Saratoga Springs in the summer during Travers week, back during a time period where we held out hope that some sort of rehab would be possible. I do not want to get into specifics about why we were hopeful that within the confines of that court system we would have a better chance of getting her TROed of 72-hour-held or whatever they call it in NY (because I fear getting an in-law doxxed or accused of something), but it was a working Hail Mary. I and a "private investigator" tracked "her" car to the Phish show I attended in hopes of getting her brought in front of the legal system in that particular county but we sadly never found her. I think she might have spotted me first and left. By the time we rechecked the Subaru app she was halfway to the Canadian border. Sadly she returned to the US.

Last year, I did a dry mid-January to mid-February. This year, I'm mostly just abstaining during the week…partly to lose a few pounds I put on from eating like shit over the, and partly because I indulged a little too much, over the holidays. 

But more importantly, fuck that's heavy, Julian.  That sounds like a nightmare…seems silly to say anything, but I'm really sorry you're going through something like that.

excontradiction wrote:
Julian - thank you for sharing. I hope you're able to find a way out of this horrid situation soon.

Someday I may share my darkness. In the meantime, I see and feel your struggles.

Ditto. Really sorry, Julian. And kudos to you for being fucking brave enough to share. I know we'll all be pulling for you, thinking good vibes and thoughts, praying…whatever it is we do to get by.

Julian, wrote:

Yada wrote:
I couldn't have said it better… but fuck Jules, that is horrific. Sorry man!!

Thank you. I don't know if you saw my edit, but I wanted to make sure, since apparently I'm doing this, that you got the answer to the question you've long been asking:

EDIT: To tie up lose ends on one of Yada's long-unanswered questions, I and her mother GPS tracked "her" Subaru to her hometown of Saratoga Springs in the summer during Travers week, back during a time period where we held out hope that some sort of rehab would be possible. I do not want to get into specifics about why we were hopeful that within the confines of that court system we would have a better chance of getting her TROed of 72-hour-held or whatever they call it in NY (because I fear getting an in-law doxxed or accused of something), but it was a working Hail Mary. I and a "private investigator" tracked "her" car to the Phish show I attended in hopes of getting her brought in front of the legal system in that particular county but we sadly never found her. I think she might have spotted me first and left. By the time we rechecked the Subaru app she was halfway to the Canadian border. Sadly she returned to the US.

Well… you can't make that up!

I'll also say that I'm not a fan of weed, but in terms of self-medicating mental issues, it's world's better than alcohol. I only have to compare my highly functioning pothead wife with her fucked up alcoholic brother to reach that conclusion.

jez, don't check the board for a few hours

Jules, I am sorry you had to go through that, I wouldn't even wish that on my worst enemy
sounds traumatic, and hope things in your life get brighter

Kinda feel like an ass wondering why you would neglect to retort to my childish digs at you over the past year

Learn from the past; you can't alter it, but accepting it and gaining insights will guide you and hopefully bring you peace in the future that you are no longer living that past


I've had my fair share of darkness over the past few years, not sure I could be so open to sharing it here
but do appreciate that some of you show that you are real human beings and feel honored that you would share


I came here to originally say I've been on a dry-weed stretch since Christmas day, not sure how long I will keep it up
been harder than I thought it would be

Semi-Prime-hatch wrote:



I came here to originally say I've been on a dry-weed stretch since Christmas day, not sure how long I will keep it up
been harder than I thought it would be

At this point, it's the only thing that helps sleep… unless I want to get addicted to Xannies or something. If it wasn't a sleep aid, I could easily give it up.