This weekend marks the end of Dry January. As someone who has completed Dry January before, I know the relief experienced after a long grey month of being broke and staying home of finally getting paid and going out with friends. It’s the return of life in technicolour.
However, though I haven’t drunk alcohol since Christmas, this year I am pushing things a bit further with the so-called Dry 100 challenge: no alcohol for 100 days.
A quote posted on Instagram sums up why, at 40, I am doing the Dry 100 now: “Being an adult is all about being tired, telling people how tired you are, and listening to other adults tell you how tired they are.”
For the past five years, most days I have felt “a little bit tired”, not enough to interfere with my daily tasks, but enough to put a drag on the day.
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I have tried to figure out why. I diagnosed myself with long-Covid after searching WebMD. Later, my GP diagnosed burnout and advised me to take a solid month off work. However, being self-employed, a month off work was out of the question.
Instead, I improved my diet, got regular exercise, made lifestyle changes to reduce stress, and took supplements (B-Complex, magnesium, Vitamin D), all of which did nothing to improve this feeling of waking up tired, getting a brief hour of energy after my morning coffee, then lapsing back into a mild state of fatigue.
However, there have been two moments in the last five years when my energy levels returned to normal. Once, when I completed Dry January in 2023, and then again when I stopped drinking for five weeks early last summer. Both times, by week four my body felt different; an energy returned that had been absent for a decade.

I got first drunk with friends at the age of 13 and this continued into my 20s. This was the era when an alcohol-fuelled lifestyle was presented by the media as one of glamour and freedom.
There were the ‘ladettes’ – Zoe Ball, Sara Cox and Denise Van Outen – photographed leaving clubs, the Brit Awards where champagne flowed and things got rowdy, and Sex and the City cocktails served in glamorous New York bars.
There were alcopops, Jägerbombs, and Absolutely Fabulous “Stoli-Bolli”, all of which presented a celebration of outrageousness, and if you didn’t join the hedonism, you were no craic and needed to lighten up.
Most hungover Sunday mornings I declared I would never drink again. I always did, usually the following weekend. What ultimately brought an end to binge drinking was something different.
Am I always tired because my 40-year-old body is in a constant state of recovery from the poison I’ve been consuming?
As I moved into my 30s, increased responsibilities meant “mad nights out” were no longer possible. Gone was pre-drinking Blossom Hill Rosé with uni friends before heading out or buying rounds of shots. Alcohol became linked to food rather than nightclubs and, excusing one or two blips, notably a friend’s 50th last March and a dinner party that went awry in 2023 when my friends and I danced around the kitchen table to Atomic Kitten at 3am, I became someone who drank within the HSE guidelines of fewer than 17 standard drinks for men (170g pure alcohol) per week.
Despite my drinking habits moving into the moderate range, the issue of fatigue arose, days, weeks, months and years of feeling “a little bit tired”.
The link between the two has been a slow one for me to accept. I am caught between two arguments: the first being, “I drink moderately. Who doesn’t like a ‘grown up’ drink at the weekend? Will I be half as fun with friends if I don’t drink? Will they just stop hanging out with me if I give it up?” The other is: “The only time I have had good levels of energy in the last five years is when I’ve chosen to be sober.”
The latter argument is backed up by the latest research. All the health benefits we have been told about alcohol are now utterly debunked. It massively damages body and brain.

So, I am left with the simple question: “Am I always tired because my 40-year-old body is in a constant state of recovery from the poison I’ve been consuming?” For example, if I were to take a microdose of arsenic a couple of times a week, not enough to kill me but still a certain amount, could I be surprised if I felt exhausted?
This has all led me to this point, when I am undertaking the Dry 100. This will be my longest time without alcohol since I was 17. From the books and articles that I have read, notably The Accidental Soberista by Kate Gunn, there is a good chance my ties to alcohol might be gone for good.
I have just concluded week five and for the most part it’s been fine. With no-alcohol beers, Guinness 0.0, elderberry tonic on ice and alcohol-free rosé, I have enjoyed my “grown-up drink” each weekend. I use the expensive glasses from the nice press; it would make a glum Friday evening to use the Ikea tumblers I use each day.
Last week, I was on holiday in Gran Canaria with friends and though there were one or two moments, notably a friend’s Aperol spritz winking at me while we ate in the mountain village of Fataga, I reminded myself each morning when I woke up feeling fresh how good it was to feel that way and that, yes, alcohol does bring pleasure, but it is a pleasure bought on credit that one repays in the following days.
Bottom line is this: it’s very hard to put a glass to your lips when the belief “I’m drinking poison” really sinks in.
I also think of the seasonal affect disorder that used to cripple me in those years. Was it real or simply alcohol?
Perhaps the most painful part of this journey thus far is reflecting on my teens and 20s. It’s the great wonder of youth how the body appears indestructible, how I used to binge on the weekends, fall home at dawn, then go to the gym, study for university and work 30 hours a week.
Yet, it makes me sad to imagine what I might have achieved if that energy had not been used to recover from poisoning myself but applied to something I was passionate about.
I also think of the seasonal affect disorder (SAD) that used to cripple me in those years. Was it real or simply alcohol? Or the periods of depression that eventually put me on Prozac? Was any of this necessary?
I am still in the process of figuring out if during my 20s I was having the time of my life or if I was a bit of a train wreck. I think it’s a bit of both. The bottom line is this: the past can’t be changed, only learned from, and I must own the choices I made.
So, I’m a third of the way into my Dry 100. Do I feel energised, like some Instagram influencer every day? No. Have I had the most productive and consistent month of writing, diet and exercise of some time? Absolutely. Has the background anxiety levels vanished? No, but they are down about 80 per cent.
I am interested in going beyond Dry January, the point where I previously slipped back to drinking, and see what 100 days brings. If it returns me to the energy I had when I was 25, it would be hard to see how a few glasses of wine a week could be worth the sacrifice of it.
I am envious of the younger generations who weren’t presented with the “glamorous” lifestyles we were lied to about as teens.
As long as I allow myself any alcohol, the potential to binge drink will be there.
Jamie O’Connell is a writer who, with his husband, John Hallissey, owns Bean & Batch in Kenmare, Co Kerry @beanandbatchkenmare on Instagram
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