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A subtle vibe shift at the very start of the year grew into a rumbling that at the end of the month is an outright outcry. What the New Yorker headlined as a "Dry January Hangover," Business Insider suggested is a "Wet Winter." An opinion piece in Food Dive by a pollster at Curion went as far as to proclaim that "Dry January is dead." That's too strong. Even a sizable chunk of respondents to that co's surveys said they planned to participate in the month-long sobriety challenge. But for any number of reasons, the conversation shifted this year, leaning more heavily into long-term moderation over short stints of self-imposed prohibition. Dr Oz Returns to Play Both Sides: Alcohol Isn't Healthy, Social Connection Is Each of the 3 pieces (all published today) explore different aspects of what's going on. The New Yorker takes a decidedly political tack at first, coding "the backlash to alcohol" as "a progressive project" and therefore the "backlash" to the backlash as conservative. But that's overly simplistic and crumbles under the weight of none other than Dr Oz, who said Dry Jan "reboots the system" in the same ways that "a cold plunge or fasting intermittently" can, as the magazine paraphrased. Much as he did during the release of the Dietary Guidelines, the Trump Admin advisor agreed with public health advocates who "would not tell someone to drink to be healthy," but emphasized the value to sociability. "The fact that it allows you to have a ritual that's associated with social connection, that's also going to relieve your stress, that, I think, is part of the benefit."Moderating the Message and the Consumption Habits For its lengthy entry, Business Insider turns first to a bartender who claims he hasn't poured many mocktails, but plenty of shots this month. The outlet sums it up this way: "more people are moderating and drinking less overall, which may alleviate the desire to take a full month off." And crucially, "the rhetoric around drinking has cooled off, too, moving from "ALCOHOL WILL KILL YOU," to "OK, it's not great for you, but also, if a little helps you socialize, by all means." There's that word again&hellip;. So "perhaps last year, 2025, was peak noise or rhetoric on alcohol and health," Bernstein analyst Nadine Sarwat told the outlet before wondering "are we now stabilizing or reversing?"Pandemic Impacts, Year-Round Shifts and Rising Alternatives Both pieces point to the rise of Dry Jan as a natural response to a period of perceived over-indulgence during the pandemic. Then too, "the backlash to Dry January is a symptom of people's general exhaustion (look at the world we live in!)," a writer focused on medicine told the New Yorker. For her, the "better approach is a year-round curiosity," anyway. That's the emphasis of Curion sr veep Katie Fellowes in Food Dive: the other half of the headline is "Long live intentional drinking." Her co's survey results point to less "cutting out" and more "cutting back" as folks find the active moderation involved in a "Damp January" to be "a sustainable behavior shift." Those are the folks most likely to seek non-alcs, according to Katie, who highlights long-term gains for brands offering "alternatives that deliver ritual, sophistication and choice.""High January" and High Horses Purchases of non-alc bevs using Square payment tech grew 19% in the first 2 wks of Jan, Business Insider wrote, but same-store sales at clubs & lounges jumped 34%, while bars got a 10% bump and breweries +7%. Alternatives to alcohol also increasingly include THC drinks, which the NY Times highlighted this wk by headlining that "High January Is the New Dry January." It outlines the "explosive" growth of hemp bevs at nearby grocery outlets like Stew Leonards as well as the countdown to a potential ban on such bevs set to take effect in Nov. Cannabis use may play a role in the backlash, too, according to the New Yorker, which points to frustrations with the "performative" aspect of Dry Jan and a sense that it's "'hypocritical' that people tout their sobriety when they still use cannabis or microdose hallucinogens." (This rhetoric is cooling too: consider the Today Show's deep-dive on various alternatives, concluding that not all of them are as "safe" as they say.)So What? To be clear, Dry January isn't over. Plenty of folks still planned to participate in some form or fashion for at least part of the month. But if it's less alluring than it used to be and if folks are more interested in going out to drink with their friends than in recent years, that's undoubtedly a good thing. So is the possible cooling off of the rhetoric around alcohol. That said, more folks leaning towards sustained moderation may still pose a challenge for overall alcohol consumption. And while Dry Jan might not provide the same kind of pop or mktg oppy for non-alcs that it once did, there may still be potential for long-term growth from folks "cutting back."

January Gets a Little Wetter as Voices Rise Up to Push Back Against the Annual "Dry" Challenge

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