Dry January: couple who quit drinking alcohol are slimmer, healthier and have more energy now; you can go sober, too
- With Dry January here, you may be thinking about giving up alcoholic drinks. Find out how one Hong Kong couple did it
- With plenty of alcohol-free wines, beers and spirits to choose from, giving up alcohol might be easier than you think
On New Year’s Day in 2018, Adrienne Walder stopped drinking alcohol. Up until then, the UK-born teacher had been a binge drinker, rarely consuming alcohol during the week but drinking heavily at the weekend. When she realised her relationship with alcohol had become toxic, she knew something had to change.
“Within my community in Hong Kong, drinking is the go-to social activity and problem drinking tends to be normalised, blurring the line between socially acceptable drinking and addiction,” says the 49-year-old, who has lived in Hong Kong for nine years.
“It was becoming increasingly apparent that I was occupying this grey area and I was uncomfortably aware that I was not as in control of my drinking as I wanted to be.”
Bingeing on alcohol took a massive toll on Adrienne’s health – something she realised only after she quit.
“I’d get depressed at the start of the week; I was anxious and experienced ‘brain fog’. I often felt fearful and was filled with a sense of self-loathing and shame,” she says.
Adrienne’s husband, David, quit a few years later. The 41-year-old, who works in the yachting industry, had been highly stressed at work and noticed that he was drinking almost daily at professional and social events.