Every year, the popularity of “Janeiro Seco” continues to grow.
The concept is simple: the participants simply abstain from drinking alcohol for 31 days. Some think it is a healthy way to start the new year. Others enjoy a long drying after all the holiday indulgences.
While health experts are quick to admit that taking a few weeks of alcohol will absolutely have tangible health benefits – including lowering blood pressure, better sleep and weight loss – an addiction expert said he is concerned that a month of sobriety might , in fact, mask long-term problems among some devotees of Janeiro Seco.
Josh Smith is the director of the Center for Drug and Alcohol Programs at the Medical University of South Carolina. He said that heavy drinking before January 1 and heavy drinking on February 1 – as a way to celebrate the completion of the program – may indicate risky drinking behavior, even if participants strictly follow Dry January rules.
“There is a difference between quitting drinking and pressing for a break,” said Smith, who fears heavy drinkers could use a month of sobriety to make excuses for abuse, addiction or addiction for the other 11 months of the year.
He suggested that adults who wished to participate in Janeiro Seco should make an appointment with the doctor and talk about alcohol use – whether or not they perceive a personal problem with the drink. The pandemic has certainly exacerbated problematic alcohol consumption for many people, he said.
“It’s a recipe for something that is really toxic for people: drinking to face.”
According to the 2020 County Health Rankings, compiled by the University of Wisconsin and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 23% of adults in Charleston report “excessive drinking” habits, a rate considerably higher than in other parts of South Carolina. In fact, a few years ago, another MUSC researcher told the Post and Courier that he had difficulty recruiting “light” drinkers in Charleston for scientific studies. The good news is that young adults seem to be drinking less, said Smith.
“My understanding is that many millennials are looking at alcohol and saying that it just isn’t worth it,” he said.
It is one of the trends that led South Carolina native Douglas Watters to open “Spirited Away”, New York’s first “non-alcoholic bottle store” earlier this year on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Many young adults are looking for high-quality alternatives to alcoholic beverages, he said, and Spirited Away stocks a variety of brands to address this need, including non-alcoholic IPAs, elixirs and sparkling wine. He predicts that Jan Seco will further boost demand for these products.
Some of the products from Spirited Away, New York’s first “non-alcoholic bottle store”. The store opened earlier this year in Manhattan. Store owner Douglas Watters, a native of Upstate South Carolina, says “there are so many excellent alternatives” to alcoholic beverages now. He predicts that demand for these products will increase during January, when many drinkers observe a month of sobriety. Provided
Watters himself said he was never very good at resolutions and has never participated in Dry January before, but plans to this time. He only drinks one or two alcoholic drinks a week, he said.
“I feel the need to drink less now than before, because there are so many excellent alternatives,” said Watters.
Outside the dry January limits, experts believe that the demand for alcohol-free and low-alcohol drinks will continue to grow. Bacari Limited (maker of rum), announced this month that it anticipates that this category of drinks will grow 400% by 2024 in Western Europe. In the US, Instacart, a company specializing in food deliveries, said sales of alcohol-free spirits have grown 195% year over year.
While these trends are encouraging, Howard Becker, who runs the Charleston Alcohol Research Center at MUSC, said that some of these younger consumers are likely to be using drugs, such as marijuana or opioids, instead of drinking alcohol.
He said the main benefit of Janeiro Seco is to allow people to evaluate their behavior.
“How much do you depend on alcohol? How much do you consume when you drink? Are you having difficulty abstaining from drinking?” Those are some of the questions that people should ask themselves, he said.
“It is a really valuable opportunity for people to evaluate their own behavior, their own lifestyle.”
Reach Lauren Sausser at 843-937-5598.