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31 Dec, 2014

Dry January: How to cut down your alcohol intake – The Independent

By Joel Harrison

As a drinks writer, it is difficult for me to take a whole month off the booze. However, I often take a short break of a week, sometimes two if it is quiet, away from anything with an alcoholic content above about 0.5% abv. It is tempting, after a week of sampling for articles, judging competitions, visiting distilleries, and attending launches, to hit the town at the weekend with my mates, merrily chugging back beer and beer with little or no regard for my liver and the punishment it has endured in the previous five days of ‘professional use’.

“Be careful”, my dad once warned me. “You wouldn’t get a professional footballer training all week, playing for his club on a Saturday and then turning up for a pub side at Hackney Marshes on the Sunday with his mates, would you?” No dad, you wouldn’t. His point was valid and well made.

So how do you avoid both the relaxing imbibing of a post-work G&T as well as the peer-pressure of heavy nights out with friends, if you are well and truly on the wagon?

Read the rest: Dry January: How to cut down your alcohol intake – Features – Food and Drink – The Independent.