Why I'm skipping Dry January | Hacker News Reader

Why I'm skipping Dry January

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17 pointsthm17 comments

Even if moderate alcohol intake only increases risk from diseases like cancer a tiny bit, it still negatively affects your sleep, increases inflammation, ages your skin faster, etc.

A glass of wine with dinner is unlikely to significantly disrupt your sleep - provided you finish at least four hours before bedtime. Treat alcohol like food: avoid both in the hours leading up to sleep for optimal rest. Likewise, one glass of dry wine (about 5 oz) is unlikely to increase inflammation and may even offer mild antioxidant benefits. The key is moderation - one glass, not two - and choosing drier wines to minimize added sugar.

Maybe Dry January should be Dry Wine January?

The potential benefits of alcohol are hard to decipher because of the population data:

“A lot of people who don’t currently drink are people who used to drink heavily, or who have health problems that led them to quit...” said Keith Humphreys, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and the Esther Ting Memorial Professor. “That skews the data, making moderate drinkers look healthier by comparison.”

https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/08/moderate-alcohol-c...

I wouldn't drink alcohol for health benefits. I'm just saying a glass of wine per day with dinner won't have adverse health effects for most people. If you don't currently drink, then there's no reason to start. If you're having more than one drink per day, then you should cut back to just one. If you do drink, then do so several hours before bedtime because alcohol does affect quality of sleep.

>A glass of wine with dinner is unlikely to significantly disrupt your sleep

it will and it does. anybody who owns a smart watch with heart rate monitor can observe it. the proverbial glass is very visible as a spike of resting heart rate and especially horrible on HRV.

besides, there are "glasses" which can take full 750ml bottle. may be most people don't go such extreme but still very good to fool themselves about alcohol volume consumption

I gave up alcohol years ago. One of the best life choices I ever made.

Same. And I'd advise anyone to attempt it. You'll learn a lot about yourself and your society by quitting alcohol, even if for a brief moment. The benefits are immense.

Many people questioned why I'd given it up or said I was alcoholic. Some even said to me "never trust a man who doesn't drink".

Giving up alcohol has made me feel a lot better. It hasn't cured all my problems but it has made life easier. Heavy drinking put me in situations that were dangerous and I don't miss that at all.

I'm all for being more healthy but at the same time I think a lot of people are failing to talk about the fact that this current generation (younger than millennials let's say) seems to be not drinking at all. While that might be healthier by the book, one thing it certainly decreases is time with friends and potentially time to network with others or make connections you might not otherwise.

If one to two drinks per week, or a glass of wine with dinner with friends increases your overall happiness because you had healthy relationships, or because you met somebody who opened up some other opportunity for you, that probably is an overall net positive compared to not drinking and thus perhaps not going out.

Inb4 "you shouldn't need to drink to have good friendships" yeah okay but sometimes it can just be fun to loosen up a bit and have a good time with your friends and i don't think looking back on my 20s i'd trade my fun nights out for the alternative (staying in and likely grinding CS. counterstrike, not even computer science). YMMV.

But if everyone is not drinking and you are, wouldn't that make you the odd one out? You would be going out to meet... nobody.

That type of setup is indeed odd. When it happens I usually don't care and take a glass anyway, hoping it'll convince someone else to follow me.

>While that might be healthier by the book, one thing it certainly decreases is time with friends and potentially time to network with others or make connections you might not otherwise.

I'm a bit confused by the conflation here. You can drink alone or socialize sober. It may be the case that kids these days are socializing in person with friends less, but it's almost certainly not because they're drinking less.

Not drinking does not equal not socializing or going out? You can go out to eat with friends without ordering a glass of wine...

You missed the part where it loosen up. Some people are shy and a drink help them speak up in groups. The younger me felt that way.

The trick there is that when everyone else is drinking they'll be making huge social gaffes almost continually. Makes it much easier (for me at least) to relax and not worry so much.

I started drinking up alcohol a couple of years ago. One of the best life choices I ever made.

Tbh I don't care if I get cancer

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