Dry January Journal Prompts: A Check-In for All 31 Days

Does Dry January actually work?

The best known study is encouraging, with limits. In 2016 Richard de Visser, Emily Robinson and Rod Bond followed 857 British adults who signed up for Dry January, with questionnaires before, at the end of January and six months later. Six months on, participants were drinking less and felt more confident turning down a drink, and this held even for people who did not complete the month, though the changes were larger for those who did. Very few people drank more afterwards.

Two limits are worth knowing. These were people who chose to sign up, so they were already motivated, and the results were self-reported. The study also found that people who got drunk less often before January were more likely to finish. Dry January seems to work best as an experiment for people who drink moderately and want to look at the habit, which is exactly what a journal is good for.

What should you write before January 1?

The entry you write on December 31 or January 1 is the one you will lean on later. On a hard evening in week two, your reasons in your own handwriting, or your own typing, carry more weight than any motivational post.

Be specific. "To be healthier" is hard to hold on to. "To find out whether I sleep better without the two glasses on weeknights" is a question January can actually answer.

• Why am I doing Dry January this year, in my own words?
• When and where do I usually drink: which days, which places, which people?
• What am I hoping to find out by the end of the month?
• What will I drink instead, and do I have it in the house?
• Who will I tell, and who might make it harder?
• What is the first social event in January, and what is my plan for it?

What should a daily Dry January check-in include?

Keep the daily entry small enough to do on a bad day. Four lines, written in the evening, take about two minutes and give you a month of data that is far more useful than memory.

Over the month the check-ins become a map: which days of the week are hardest, which places, which people and which moods. That is the information you need to decide what to change in February, and it is almost impossible to reconstruct afterwards.

• Urge: how strong was the pull to drink today, from 0 to 10?
• When and where: what time was it, and where was I?
• What was going on: tired, bored, celebrating, stressed, with someone?
• Instead: what did I do, and did it help?
• One more line: how did I sleep, how was my mood, or what did I not spend?

What are journal prompts for the first week of Dry January?

The first week is often easier than people expect, because January 1 is a fresh start and the novelty carries you. Use the energy to notice things you will want to compare later.

• What is different about my evenings this week?
• What did I do tonight in the hour I would usually have had a drink?
• How did I sleep last night compared with a normal week?
• What surprised me about how others reacted?
• What am I missing most: the taste, the ritual, the break, the company?
• What is one thing that went better than I expected?

What do you write when a craving hits?

Writing during a craving is one of the most practical things a journal can do. It puts a few minutes between the urge and the decision, and many people find the urge rises and then fades if they wait it out. Writing also turns a vague pull into something with a time, a place and a reason, which makes it easier to plan for next time.

Keep it short. You do not need a full entry in the moment, only enough to get through the next ten minutes and to learn something for tomorrow.

• What exactly do I want right now: the drink, or the feeling I connect with it?
• What happened in the last hour?
• What would I tell a friend who felt this right now?
• What can I do for the next ten minutes instead?
• After the urge passes: how long did it last, and what helped?

What are prompts for the middle of January?

Weeks two and three are where Dry January gets real. The novelty is gone, the first paychecks of the year arrive, and Friday evenings start to feel long. This is the stretch where many New Year plans quietly stop, a pattern covered in why resolutions stop in January.

The prompts here are about what you are learning rather than how well you are doing. Read your December 31 entry before you answer them.

• Which day of the week has been hardest so far, and why that one?
• What has changed in my sleep, mood or money since January 1?
• Which social situation was easier than I feared?
• Which one was harder, and what would I do differently?
• What do I do now on a Friday night that I did not do before?
• Is my reason from December 31 still the real reason?

What if you slip during Dry January?

A slip is information, not the end of the month. The 2016 study found that people who did not complete Dry January still drank less six months later, so stopping at the first drink and writing off the rest of January throws away most of the benefit.

Write the slip the same way you write any check-in, without a verdict. What happened, where, with whom, and what was going on. Then decide whether to continue, which most people can.

• What happened, in plain facts?
• What was going on before it: the time, the place, the people, the mood?
• What would have helped, if anything?
• Do I want to keep going for the rest of January, and what will I change?

What should you write on February 1?

February 1 is the most important entry of the whole exercise, and the one most people skip because the month is over. Before you go back to your old habits, read the month. Thirty-one short check-ins take about ten minutes, and the patterns are usually obvious once they are side by side. How to review a month of journal entries walks through doing that well.

If you wrote in Reflectize, the Insights screen shows what kept coming up across January and what came up around your heavier days, which is a quick way to see the patterns before you read every entry. Then answer the questions below and decide what you want drinking to look like in February and beyond.

• What did I learn about when and why I drink?
• What changed that I want to keep?
• What did I not miss at all?
• What did I miss, and is there a way to keep that part without the drink?
• What, if anything, do I want to change for February?

When is Dry January not the right tool?

Dry January is designed for people who drink and want to look at the habit. It is not a treatment for alcohol dependence, and a journal is not one either. If you find you cannot stop for even a few days, if you drink to get through the day, or if you feel shaky, sweaty or anxious when you do not drink, those are signs to talk to a doctor rather than push on alone.

If something surfaces that does not settle, or you are thinking about harming yourself, talk to a doctor. findahelpline.com lists free support services in your country. If you are already in recovery, a structured approach works better than a month-long challenge, and journaling apps for recovery compares the options.

Is a journal app or a Dry January app better for tracking?

They do different jobs. A dedicated Dry January app, such as Alcohol Change UK's Try Dry, is good at counting days, units and money saved. A journal is better at the why: the words around each evening, which are what you need to change a habit rather than only pause it.

Many people use both. Reflectize is a journal, so it does not count units, but it remembers the people, places and plans you write about across the month. When you mention the friend whose birthday drinks are next week, it asks about that evening the next time you write, so the hard evening becomes part of the record instead of a gap in it.