January - Completed

January has come and gone! Dry January is officially over, and I am glad I completed it. I want to set the tone for exactly how I feel about this month and include a yummy-looking NA beverage. Bradley Cooper described it perfectly in the interview below. "Very difficult? No, beautiful!"

As mentioned in my previous post, I had the opportunity to go out with my peers and stay sober. And as expected, everything went smoothly! YAY!

I received the question I most expected, “Are you pregnant?” – I was ready for this. I had rehearsed my answer, “No, I am just participating in dry January.”. I wasn’t sure this would be enough for anyone, and I prepared for pushback. Ya’ll – I didn’t get any pushback. Not one person questioned me again about it. This retaught me that the people I share my life with now take me at face value and don’t need to pursue further questioning, thinking I would keep something from them.

The second thing I heard a decent bit was, “You don’t need to babysit us!”. This came from men who had been drinking all day. Because I know these men, I know they just wanted me to have fun, and it wasn’t meant in a demeaning way. This leads to my next worry: I wasn’t going to have fun/I was going to be annoyed at all the drunken behavior going on around me. That definitely didn’t happen, of course, I shared a few looks with my friend, Jahnna, but that would’ve happened regardless. Overall, I was happy to be with everyone and let them be silly, loving, or whatever they needed to be at that moment. I didn’t feel left out, and best of all – I felt AMAZING the following day. That was probably my favorite part of all during this month. I never once woke up and felt tired or sick.

I tried two NA beers during my weekend out, and here are my candid reviews…

Budweiser Zero:

This was my first ever NA beer, and I had no idea what to expect. At first, this beer tasted good for a NA beer. However, after drinking the bottle down about halfway, all the carbonation was gone. If you have ever baked anything with yeast, the beer tasted precisely as yeast water smells. I definitely didn’t need a second. However, it might stay carbonated longer if you slammed this beer. It definitely could’ve been worse!

Heineken 0.0:

The second NA beer I tried, and it was WAY better! Heineken stayed carbonated while I was drinking it and never tasted like yeast water! I do enjoy Heineken beer sometimes, so I don’t think the 0.0 version was far off that, besides being NA. The only downfall of this beer was that I got a stomach ache. This could be a ‘me’ problem, but I am being very honest, so I wanted to share that.

I also had the opportunity to experience Dry January when spending time with family. In January, I had a baking date set with my Gram. Wine is a fun beverage when you are cooking/baking, and chatting. I will be the first to admit that I enjoy that. However, I let her know I was participating in dry January, and she understood. While I know I said Gram was totally understanding, I wasn’t understanding to myself. I kept going back and forth on if this qualified as something that could get a ‘pass’ or not. Continually I was thinking about how unique and fun this day/night would be and that having wine would complete it. That thought brought me back to why I wanted to start with Dry January. Moments aren’t special because of alcohol; they are special because of the people you are with and the memories you make with them. So, while picking up the groceries to make dinner that night, I saw a bottle of sparkling cider and snatched it up! We shared the bottle of sparkling cider together, and it was perfect!

Overall, I am so glad I participated in dry January. I have had a beer since the end of January, and honestly, it was okay, nothing like I remember it. I also had a glass of my favorite wine; it was better than the beer, but it wasn’t as good as I remember. Even though Dry January is technically over, I will continue to try different NA options. My reviews will be posted on the ‘Forum’ page. Please feel free to go there and share any NA recipes or brands you enjoy.

Cheers to the first completed month in 2023! The month of February is a nightly routine – feel free to check out the post The Plan to see the objectives I put in place for this month. In all transparency, I struggled the first few days!

More to come soon!

XO

Mariah