Many who had a free drink in the year 2020 were waiting for 2021 to announce the New Year resolution to give up alcohol this January. With pandemic still all around, the New Year has dawned for millions to re-examine those choices. This January has gone touch on different drink brands as 6.5 million people have declared to go without alcohol. This goes to around 3.9 million USD as per the recent data from a UK based NGO called Alcohol Change. The NGO has been working in this domain for the past few years. As per the reports, one out of five people in the west is likely to give up drinking alcohol, which is 20 percent. In terms of the UK, the calculation goes to around 12.4% of the entire UK adult population has declared to go alcohol-free.
Looking at the health perspective, the numbers seem too impressive when compared to the previous years ever since the campaign called Dry January was launched in 2013. The said year only had 4000 people signing up for the pledge to give up alcohol. Since then, there seemed meager inflation in the number of people pledging to give up drinks in the coming January. The giving up momentum seemed to have reached its zenith when in January 2021 we witnessed a huge surge. Perhaps the pandemic has to do with this high figure. The above figures are still not the exact same as the officials claim that there are many who have given this year to make January dry rather than recording their signatures with them.
2020, however, was different as more and more people were seen heavily drinking but with the pandemic attacking the world, things changed. What started in the early weeks of 2020 was bad to see. Around 29 % of adults were seen drinking so heavily. The earlier two years it witnessed around 29 and 31 per cent for 2019 and 2018 respectively claims Alcohol Change UK. Now, with the Pandemic situation still continuing, people have realized that they have found the right time to give up the drinks. People who do not care about giving up drinks are likely to invite too many health issues that are going to remain for the long run.
The research also suggests that giving up the drinks for one month can also help in resetting the bad habits despite them returning to the drinks. People going with the dry drinking for six months were able to continue with the good habit, while the ones who gave up early also reaped the benefits. This somewhere helped in reducing the total units of drinks from 8.6 to 7.1 units. Also, it helped in reducing the frequency of drinks taking the figure of 3.4 to 2.1 a month, claims the 2020 study published in Psychology & Health. Earlier, in 2018, the Royal Free Hospital gave a report stating that even one month away from alcohol has helped to reduce the blood pressure along with keeping them relaxed on issues like diabetes risks, lesser cancer risks and cholesterol.
