Dry January Could Get You A Free Holiday

Now is the ideal time for you to think about doing Dry January.

Well, I say that. January 30th might be the best day to think about it if you want to set your target low.

But for many drinking less would be a good idea, and a team have done some maths to try to convince you to try. They have worked out how much money you could save by not drinking.

Before we get into the stats, the actual amount you could save depends on hos much you drink and where you live. If you are Pete Dougherty or you live in London these figures would be a lot higher. If Pete lived in London and he stopped, he'd kick Jeff Bezos off the richest man list.

The headline is "Stopping drinking for a year could get you a holiday in the Caribbean".

Wow, let's break it down.

If you do all of January and a little bit more, so five whole weeks off the booze you could save enough money for a two-night stay in Amsterdam.

OK, yes, two nights in Amsterdam might lead to activities that are worse for you than drinking, but the maths doesn't judge.

If you stayed dry for ten weeks they say you could save the equivalent of five nights in the Algarve. Ah, Portugal. Known for it's green wine, beers and… man-alive, you can't get away from the stuff. It's all very well saving up your beer money to spend on a holiday but it just concentrates the drinking while you're away. Technically this is making binge drinking worse.

That's what Dry January does any way, isn't it? People stop for a month and at the end they celebrate by going out for a session. Why? That's like doing a diet and celebrating by eating 4 trifles.

The top prize in this research – that's if you did Dry January and then stayed drive for the rest of the year – they say it would save you enough money to have a week-long all-inclusive stay in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

Again, what's the point in "all-inclusive" if you're drinking water? So the temptation is to drink on your holiday when your tolerance has dropped.

In a bid to cut binge drinking maybe the headline should be, "Giving up just one a holiday in the Caribbean could let you drink for a hole year!"

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