Trying Dry January ? What to know about apps that claim to help.
If you want your January to be dry or dry-ish, alcohol reduction apps say they can help. Should you believe them?
Image: jayk7 / Getty Images
2020-12-30 20:21:13 UTC
On New Yearâs Day, many people will kick off Dry January, when theyâll try to go a month without consuming alcohol, or at least drinking less.
As we ve done with many things this pandemic year, including talking to friends and working, many are turning to apps and online tools for help.Â
Search âDry Januaryâ in the Apple App Store, and youâll get half a dozen apps that say they can help. Related searches for âreduce drinkingâ or âdrink lessâ will bring up several more. But not every app is created equal.Â
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There was however also a small percentage rise among those who said they did not drink, from 34.7% to 41.3% between March and September.
The latest numbers are a surge on figures published in a survey last month by alcohol education charity Drinkaware, which suggested 26 per cent of people in the UK increased their alcohol consumption between March and June.
A record number of people are drinking more than three times the recommended amount of alcohol a week, according to Public Health England (stock image)
That survey also found most of the increase in consumption was driven by women, with 14 per cent saying they were drinking more than 14 units per week.
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If Covid-19 gave us anything, it was a great excuse to drink too much. It might come as a surprise, then, to learn that overall booze sales in the on and off-trade slumped by 35% year on year to 1.3 billion litres in the first lockdown [Nielsen and CGA].
Of course, supermarket booze sales went through the roof with pubs shut for much of the year, surging 19.4% on volumes up 18.1% [Kantar 52 w/e 4 October 2020]. But these gains were dwarfed by the percentage growth of low & no-alcohol beer, spirits, cider and wine. Sales are up 31.2% on volumes up 29.7% [52 w/e 1 November 2020].
That makes them the fastest growing area of adult soft drinks, delivering £44.1m of the category’s £86.5m growth. “Shoppers are increasingly looking to moderate their alcohol,” says Kantar analyst Oliver Bluring. “There are signs sales will continue to grow, with 24.4% of the population buying into low & no alcohol, and new products still coming onto the market.”
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As anyone who is used to drinking alcohol will attest, it can be hard to cut yourself off from the sauce, whether it s Dry January or not. In fact, so ingrained is alcohol into British culture that non-drinkers, more often than not, will likely experience a form of ostracisation in social settings that centre around drinking.
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