The Realistic Collectivism of Dry January

On pairing externally-oriented resolutions with humane expectations

I finished 2023 in a moment of rare optimism—I’d sent out the drafted remainder of my dissertation to the powers that be, taken a week to put my home and brain in order, and felt ready to head into the new year with a renewed sense of possibility. For a moment, I had also drafted my perennial list of New Years Resolutions: to cut out carbs, exercise more, read in print more, and generally become the person I’ve always aspired to be. But apart from Dry January (more on that later), I’m throwing out that list in service of something else: resolutions that allow me to serve others instead of myself.

Historically, resolutions have always been tethered to sacrifice, the intentional relinquishing of material possessions in order to unlock the possibility of future happiness. These sacrifices could allow communities to curry favor with the gods, to ensure bountiful harvests, and to signify to others that each member of the community was invested in the greater good. In ancient Rome, making sacrifices to the god Janus (whose two faces looked both into the past and future) would allow the subsequent days to be as joyous and peaceful as possible. But some sacrifices are not about investing in the new, but in jettisoning the old. On New Years’ Eve, some Southern Italian households participate in a tradition known as “buttare le cose vecchie” (“to throw out old things”), which involves throwing old furniture, dishes, and other household items into the street below. While not all New Years’ traditions are as hazardous as this one, I like its spirit, rejecting what no longer serves us as we enter a new year.

Perhaps this is why I’m reticent to make self-improvement resolutions this year—because so many New Year’s resolutions put an emphasis on individual perfection rather than collective reengagement with the world. It’s a deeply American impulse, one that conflates moral perfection with personal perfection, and reinforces the idea that self-improvement is an individual responsibility, rather than a societal goal. In his 1791 Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin attempted to distill the tenets of good behavior into thirteen virtues. He covered all the basics, writing of temperance in appetite and alcohol (“eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation”) and diligence in labor (“lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions”). But he also made diligence a virtue, and gave zero space for a lack of follow-thru. (“Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.”) Franklin’s advice gives little guidance on what to do when one fails to maintain one’s virtues, when one slips up and eats carbs or misses a gym day or abandons a book after 10 pages. He offers suggestions on how to be a perfect subject, but not necessarily on how to be a good human.

Making resolutions for an entire year, let alone an entire lifetime, rarely offers a strategy for turning momentary ambitions into lifelong habits, especially if the habits you’re hoping to cultivate are yours and yours alone. No matter how badly you want to lose weight or become mindful, unless you can find a reason to do so beyond your own sense of personal fulfillment, you’re very likely going to fail. If there’s anything that parenting has taught me, it’s that human beings need external rewards, even tiny ones, that make us feel like our efforts are worth sustaining. A 2020 psychological study suggested that the most successful resolutions were ones that were approach-oriented—to reach or maintain a long-desired outcome—rather than those that required avoidance or abstention from past behaviors. Moreover, those approach-oriented resolutions were framed as time-specific, measurable, and achievable—bounded by reality rather than broad aspiration.

All of the above is why I’ve come to embrace Dry January for the last two years, and why I’m happy to guzzle my mocktails this month. It’s not an innate belief that alcohol is bad for me (though there’s plenty of evidence on that front) or that I fundamentally need to cut back, but rather a time-bounded desire to see if I can uncouple my consumption of alcohol from my day-to-day experiences for an entire month. It’s not difficult to step away from alcohol on health grounds, especially when one has already done so for nine months of pregnancy. But as someone who thinks about food in various capacities all day, it’s hard to untether wine or spirits from the joys and sorrows of my gourmand and adult life. Whether the occasion to drink is to mark a well-prepared meal, a day of frustrating feedback, or just a long-anticipated night off, all signs generally point to a bottle of sorts.

Yet the brief, collectivist experience of Dry January makes being sober less of a lonely experience, and by participating it, it reinforces the idea that one can be in society without being a regular consumer of alcohol. When almost 20% of the American public decides to sign onto a #dryjanuary challenge, for better or for worse the industry has to show up to support that demand (lest they lose out on a month of sales). Those going off alcohol for a month or longer are well-supported by the multitude of low- and no-alcohol mixologists now working today, along with a vastly expanded selection of non-alcoholic beverages on the market. Plenty of professionals in the food world have been pushing back against the ubiquity of substance abuse (booze and otherwise), both on health grounds and as an opportunity to be more present in the highly-social, highly-sensorial aspects of culinary work.

The brevity of the Dry January experiment makes it feel like a resolution I can actually meet—something that requires strict adherence for only a month, but can offer a meaningful opportunity to step back and reset my appreciation for alcohol if and when I have it. It also allows me to envision my action as part of a broader movement, both inside and outside the culinary world, that embraces rather than stigmatizes sobriety, and doesn’t define our cultural cache by why we consume, but by how we contribute. It’s caused me to rethink my other resolutions, and to make a list of resolutions that makes me accountable to someone other than myself. So this year, I’m resolving to give less to Amazon and more to local businesses; to organize more dinners with my neighbors and strengthen my community ties; to find a volunteer opportunity I’m passionate about . . . and to finally—finally—quit the social media diet that tells me that self-care is the same as community care.

Recommendation: While catching up on my must-watch list (Oscar season just around the corner), I made it through Saltburn, Maestro, May December, Anatomy of a Fall, and Rustin, all of which were excellent in various ways. But I’ve given the most thought not to the current awards contenders, but to the 2022 film Bodies Bodies Bodies, a very on-brand dark comedy release from A24 starring Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, and the ever-excellent Rachel Sennott. (The screenplay was also written by Sarah deLappe, who wrote one of my favorite plays of the last decade, The Wolves.) Whether or not you love the film, it definitely has something to say about the consequences of self-regard and the social media landscape, and the lies we tell online and in-person. A very provocative watch.

The Perfect Bite: Though we’re a bit cautious about restaurants right now (hello current COVID wave), we had a great outing to a local Italian place in our neighborhood, da la Posta, and finally got to sample their wood-fired pizza. We ordered two—one with ricotta, chicory, walnuts, and calabrian-chili honey, and another with sausage, broccoli rabe, and smoked mozzarella—and I’d be hard-pressed to say which I preferred. But the true winner was our appetizer of baccala crocchettes, resting in a pool of parsley and orange-infused aioli. Delicious.

Cooked & Consumed: Our household started the new year with plenty of home cooking, and dishes like baked mac and cheese, pan-roasted sausage and grapes, and lentils Provençal have all been big hits. But I’m aiming to put a few more meatless meals in our weekly rotation, both to boost our veg intake and to make better use of our endlessly overflowing spice drawer. So I improvised on this base recipe for coconut curry stew from Jeanine Donofrio’s Love & Lemons (a great resource if you’re looking for ideas for plant-based meals). I used Japanese sweet potato, bell pepper, broccoli, and frozen corn for the veg, gave it a protein bump with some canned chickpeas, and paired the whole thing with a bowl of purple sticky rice. A thoroughly fulfilling and delicious dinner on a cold night.