FIGHTING SPIRITS

ANDREA MCCARTHY TOLD FRIENDS and family when she gave up alcohol on January 1, 2024, that she would toast 12 months off the sauce with a drink to ring in 2025. As that anniversary approached, the Los Angeles-born content creator told Newsweek she had had a change of heart.

- PAUL RHODES

“At the beginning, if you asked me, I would have said, ‘At midnight, I’m having a shot at tequila to celebrate not having a drink for the entire year.’ But now that I’ve gotten to an entire year, I couldn’t think of anything worse than drinking,” McCarthy said. “The feeling that I thought I would get for not drinking for an entire year in terms of my mental clarity, my physical health, like, everything—it is exactly what I thought. It feels incredible, so I don’t necessarily want to go back.”

Since the 1940s, roughly 60 percent of Americans have said they drink occasionally, according to analysis by The New Consumer/Coefficient Capital, a statistic that has stayed consistent until today. But that stat is beginning to drift downward, with 26 percent of Americans polled saying they planned to drink less in 2025. Describing the reasons for this planned decline, 47 percent said they wanted to do it for their physical health, 32 percent to live longer, 24 percent to lose weight and 23 percent for their mental health.

As Dr. Joseph Lee, president and chief executive officer of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, told Newsweek: “We know that the preponderance of the research says no amount of alcohol is really good for you.”

In December 2022, the World Health Organization stated that “no level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health.” Americans know it, too: Gallup found a record-high 45 percent believe that consuming one to two drinks a day is bad for their health, and 41 percent are trying to drink less, according to NC Solutions.

Dry January