The New Dry January

You probably think your drinking is pretty moderate...ish—a glass or two of red after a long day, a few cocktails to pregame a first date, a series of tequila shots after an awkward Tinder meetup leaves you begging the bartender for some liquid aid.

- Joy Manning & Ashley Oerman

Here’s the deal though: All this tippling can add up, and these common behaviors—especially that last one—might be a red flag for high-risk drinking, defined as downing four or more boozy bevs per day. More truth: The number of women doing this type of imbibing has soared in recent years. Meanwhile, the number of 25- to 34-year-olds dying from alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver jumped an average of 10.5 percent annually between 2009 and 2016—the most of any agegroup, according to the scientific medical journal BMJ.

And then there are the hangovers. Yeah. All of which tends to make the ever popular dry January—a month of zero alcohol—sound like an excellent idea. But for those who don’t want to get quite so drastic this year, there’s a new style of abstention on the rise: sober curious. The term was coined by Ruby Warrington, author of a new book by the same name. Instead of skipping booze altogether, sober-curious peeps question why they’re drinking in the first place and zone in on how it makes them feel...and that usually leads to cutting way back on their regularly scheduled sauce.

(Not) Cheers-ing to Your Health