Early this month we ran into a friend at a social occasion. He was uncharacteristically demure, sitting by himself on a sofa, ostentatiously drinking a diet soda. We didn't even have to ask, he volunteered.
"I'm taking a break from drinking," he said. "My liver's a little sore."
Fair enough. Maybe everyone could use a break now and then. Despite what the members of the Ancient Order of Knights Who Say "Tsk" (AOOKWST) might think, your Drinkies correspondent doesn't drink every night, and only occasionally on consecutive nights. Three or four nights out of seven feels about right. (There are other rules: avoid hangovers, no day drinking, no drinking alone, no Jagermeister or Fernet Branca. But we're pretty flexible. If I wanted to follow a lot of rules I'd be a folk singer.)
I don't know whether or not my friend was participating in this Dry January thing that I've just heard about, where apparently dozens of people from all over the country decide to heal themselves by giving up booze for the month. The theory is that by taking a month off from alcohol, you can improve your liver function, sleep better, reduce your risk of diabetes and maybe get a head start on better drinking habits throughout the year.
(The movement started in the United Kingdom, where it is quite a thing, with more than 2 million of the queen's subjects participating in it this year. See the website dryjanuary.org.uk.)
There's some evidence that quitting booze for a month can be beneficial. A study published in Health Psychology, the official journal of the Society for Health Psychology, reported that even attempting to stop drinking for a month led to a decrease in alcohol consumption over the following six months. According to that study, 64 percent of the 857 study participants not only upheld their commitment to a booze-free January but were consuming less alcohol six months later.
A much smaller survey, conducted by the staff of the New Scientist in 2013, found that the 10 members of the staff who quit drinking for January benefited on average by a 15 percentage-point drop in their liver fat, a 16 percent drop in blood glucose levels and almost a 5 percent drop in total blood cholesterol. The four staff members who refused to participate in this silly team-building exercise realized no such benefits.
It's hardly surprising to learn that quitting drinking makes you a little healthier.
But let's consider that most of the people who sign up for something like Dry January are probably not problem drinkers anyway. In general, they're not the ones who are doing themselves real damage by drinking. And maybe we should consider some contrary evidence. For instance, the nonprofit British Liver Trust doesn't endorse Dry January. Its position is that a January detox can be a dangerous thing if you believe it inoculates you from "aggressive drinking" the rest of the year.
I think you probably do more damage drinking a quart of whiskey one night a week than having a couple of glasses of wine every night, but I don't have much science to back it up.
But there's this: Last year the BBC aired a documentary about an experiment involving identical twin brothers -- both physicians specializing in infectious diseases -- who drank exactly the same amount of alcohol each week. The difference was that one drank it all in one evening while the other had a little every night. The findings were depressing.
"All of us -- doctors, patients, publicans, public health officials, multinational drinks companies -- love the idea that alcohol might be good for us and binge drinking might not be that bad, and want this to be true," Dr. Alexander van Tulleken, the designated binge drinker in the study, wrote in the Daily Mail. " The sobering reality is that it isn't."
Both of the brothers suffered deleterious effects from drinking, but Alex also had to deal with severe blackouts and hangovers. Worse, his stomach lining was so irritated that bacterial endotoxins -- the bacteria in his gut -- were leaking into his bloodstream.
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Still, most of us believe there are real benefits to moderate drinking. For one thing, the social lubricant factor shouldn't be overlooked. We live longer -- and better -- when we have friends and lovers in our lives. To the extent that alcohol helps us connect with other people, it is an undeniable good.
If you look for them, it isn't hard to find all sorts of arguments that moderate consumption of alcohol is good for you. There are those who will argue that non-pathological drinking cuts down on your risk of heart attack and may help ward off dementia. There's the curious fact that Americans have about twice the levels of diabetes, cancer and heart disease as residents of some heavier drinking European countries.
I tend to think that it's more complicated than red wine or any other sort of alcohol actually being good for you. It might be that abstentious people are wound tighter than people who can relax with a drink -- it might be their personality that puts them at risk more than the lack of alcohol in their system.
And I wonder if a five-week break is really necessary to reap the physical benefits. The liver is a pretty incredible organ, and, absent any problems, can generally repair itself in about 24 hours. So maybe it's a good thing not to drink every day, but a month might be overkill. It's probably better just to be moderate throughout the year.
Also, I think that you probably ought to pay attention to what you're drinking and to why you're drinking. While our policy is that people ought to drink what they want -- if you like something, you like it -- it's worrisome that so many people seem to want to disguise the alcohol in their drinks. You can discover a world in a sip of Scotch or Grand Cru Medoc -- if you want your liquor to taste like candy maybe you ought to reconsider your life choices.
Plus there are other studies that contradict the finding of the Health Psychology study that showed most people who pledged to give up drinking for a month kept their promise. A survey of more than 1,500 British adults by the juice company Ocean Spray released recently suggested that 90 percent of those who sign up for the pledge will fall off the wagon.
The survey found that the No. 1 reason for giving up Dry January is a busy social life. A special occasion comes along and boom, before you realize it you're having a shot or a tipple. And about 25 percent of the pledgers simply forget about the commitment. According to the juice company, one in 10 are likely to simply get bored with teetotaling.
It's not like Ocean Spray doesn't have a dog in this fight -- they would like to "help Dryathletes" (yes, some of them actually call themselves that -- they are competing in a "Dryathlon") by providing a tasty alternative to alcohol. (Their study says 20 percent of people who give up do so because they don't like foul-tasting "water and fizzy drinks.")
It goes without saying that some people ought not drink.
It probably won't hurt you to take a month off. And maybe a lot of people ought to drink a lot less. And there are certainly drinks that no one should ever drink. It's a personal choice and people ought to respect it. Some of my best friends don't drink.
But if you're not going to drink, maybe you shouldn't pretend that it's a far, far better thing to do than you have ever done before.
When you write a column like this one, you get to hear from the AOOKWST on a fairly regular basis. But, like I stated in the column that started all this, I've never backed the Volvo over anybody's kid or anything. I will concede that drinking is sometimes a crutch, but sometimes -- like when your leg is broken -- you need a crutch.
My experiences with alcohol have been primarily rewarding ones. Like all friends, we sometimes disappoint each other, but not past the forgiving point. And I wouldn't presume to tell anyone what to do, but maybe it's useful to remember that moral superiority is not attained by strict attention to what we put in our bodies. Hitler was a vegetarian. Christ lifted up the cup.
Quitting almost anything will make you a little healthier. The truth is that living is killing you, that every breath contains a risk. And everybody has a right to decide what's worth the calories and what's not.
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A couple of quick product hits to finish off the month. Suntory's Hibiki blended whisky (about $78, 86 proof) may not be new to the market but it's relatively new to me, and it may in fact be my favorite blended Scotch-type product. (It's a Japanese "meticulous blend of the finest select whiskies" so it's not technically correct to call it "Scotch.")
Also, new to this market is Serpent's Bite Apple Cider ($16, 70 proof), yet another flavored product designed to appeal to the flavored whisky demographic.
Email:
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Style on 01/31/2016