10 ways the Dry January® challenge works to drive alcohol behaviour change

At the heart of its success is a behaviour change programme that is of the highest quality, is evidence-based, and is continually innovating.

Here we set out 10 key ways our behaviour change approach actively helps participants to change their relationship with alcohol long-term.

1. Who is it for? There are at least 10 million people in the UK who consume alcohol hazardously or harmfully: either over 14 units a week, or under 14 units a week but with a ‘binge’ drinking problem. This group’s consumption creates harms for them now and has a higher chance of escalating into dependent drinking in the future. Tackling this group’s consumption now, before they get to the point where they require alcohol treatment, saves money and improves lives now[1] and saves money and improves lives in the future.

2. Fatal alcohol withdrawal. The Dry January^® challenge is not for those at risk of fatal alcohol withdrawal and our materials contain warning messages about this, and signpost to further support throughout the journey. By promoting the Dry January^® challenge by Alcohol Change UK, and discouraging people from ‘going it alone’ in January, you will improve safeguarding by optimising the chances that this vital message gets through.

3. Previous cut back attempts. A huge proportion of this group of people knows (subconsciously or consciously) that their alcohol consumption isn’t healthy, wants to cut back, and will have tried to cut back on many occasions. In particular, our forums tell us that a huge proportion of them will have tried the ‘set myself rules’ approach, like ‘I’ll have three alcohol free days’, ‘I’ll not drink Monday to Thursday’, ‘I’ll have a maximum of two drinks each evening’, and so on. Many of them will have tried these techniques themselves for years, even decades, with little to no success, because of the nature of alcohol.

4. Alcohol free days? The alcohol-free days concept, for example, means constant ‘on-off’ switch-flipping, confusing the brain and deepening the drinking habit. While the Chief Medical Officers are absolutely right to say that lower risk drinking means having a few days ‘off’ a week as the endpoint, trying to use a weekly on-off pattern as the means to move from hazardous or harmful drinking to low risk drinking is likely to be ineffective or even damaging. Avoid advising people to try the ‘alcohol free days’ technique as a method of cutting back.

5. A proper reset. Our Dry January^® challenge and year-round 31-Day Anytime challenge are both powerful components of the Try Dry^® programme. While the programme does not rely on challenges like these, because people can set any goal they like within the Try Dry® app, these structured challenges are extremely popular. Consciously or subconsciously, people know that they need a proper break, a chance to reset their brain, if they are to beat their habit. The 31-day period is long enough, in many cases, for that habit to weaken significantly.

6. Embodied learning. At the heart of the behaviour change techniques across the Try Dry^® programme is a focus on embodied, personalised, experiential learning. The experience of experimenting with setting and trying to achieve one’s goals, generates significant embodied learning – helping participants to see and feel how life can be better physically and emotionally when we have more control over our drinking. Our programme actively helps participants to identify this learning and make it their own. The five built-in learning outcomes are: overcoming denial, identifying triggers and cravings, growing self-belief in beating triggers and cravings, building a new realisation that being alcohol free can be desirable, and changing their ‘drinking identity’. This learning is designed to set people up for permanent, long-term change.

7. Content is king. This learning is supported by carefully curated behaviour change content. Our challenges, in particular, come with specific content that educates, informs and inspires, covering topics like understanding cravings, the short- and long-term effects of alcohol on the body, coping with socialising without alcohol, managing cultural factors, and the benefits of cutting back; alongside stories of people like us who have gone from habitual drinking to being completely in control. At the heart of our content is a stigma-busting commitment to making cutting back on drinking alcohol a simple, shame-free lifestyle; not about “having a drinking problem”.

8. Accountability is essential. The Try Dry® app is a free, premium app that enables accountability in private. Embedded within it are a host of behaviour change tools, including gamification (streaks, badges, goals and missions), tracking for personal accountability, a repeatable self-complete AUDIT-C scoring module, a powerful savings counter, signposting to further support, and a combination of both positive nudges and rewards for cutting back, but without ever imposing on the user any particular outcome. A key design elements of the app is to encourage ongoing usage, so what might start as just entering data during January becomes a new habit, creating ‘stickiness’ and driving ongoing behaviour change.

9. Connection matters. The Try Dry online community is where connections are made and positive biases (social desirability, social conformity) can develop. The community is highly supportive, with people sharing their successes and ‘failures’, their learning and reflections, their tips and ideas, and encouraging each other regardless of their different goals.

10. Empowerment rules, free from judgement. Nowhere on our website, tools, or content, do we specify what the ‘desirable endpoint’ should look like for anyone, when it comes to their alcohol consumption. We do not promote an alcohol-free lifestyle, lower risk drinking, or any other particular level of drinking. This is vital. The opposite of dependence is independence. Everyone in this group has found that alcohol has taken some degree of control over their life. Our task is to help them get that control back, to regain their independence from alcohol. They, and only they, should decide what their ‘current goal’ and their ‘end goal’ should be, with their control of that decision building empowerment and self-efficacy. It is noteworthy that people change their goals throughout this process, often significantly (e.g. people start off thinking they want to moderate but end up embracing alcohol freedom). This experience of changing their own perception of what is desirable is an essential component of the behaviour change process. Non-judgemental experimentation is at the heart of Try Dry^®: hence “Try”!

A recent (2024) study[2] of 25 alcohol apps and tools found that the Try Dry^® app contains more behaviour change techniques than any other assessed app, and significantly more behaviour change components have been added to the Try Dry^® app since this study was undertaken.

The Try Dry^® app is also the top rated alcohol app assessed by the Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Apps (ORCHA). Most importantly, the app is loved by its hundreds of thousands of users, rated 4.7/5 on Apple store and 4.8/5 on Play store.

So, taking the initiative to promote the Dry January^® challenge each year and the Try Dry^® programme year-round to people in your community is an effective and cost-effective way to bring big benefits to people in your community to help them drink more healthily for January and beyond using Alcohol Change UK’s dedicated tools and resources.

[1] It is a common mistake to think that the costs of alcohol harm are limited only to people experiencing alcohol dependence. In reality, the group of people drinking at hazardous and harmful levels creates a huge strain on the health system, on the policing and courts systems, and on national productivity and GDP – not least because of the size of this group. See: https://alcoholchange.org.uk/publication/alcohol-harm-across-the-spectrum-of-drinking

[2] Roy-Highley E, Körner K, Mulrenan C, Petticrew M (2004) ‘Dark patterns, dark nudges, sludge and misinformation: alcohol industry apps and digital tools’, Health Promotion International, Oct 1;39(5)