I gave up drinking for a month… I wasn’t prepared for the dramatic effect it had on my body

Thousands of Brits will undertake Dry January this month — ditching booze for a month for the good of their health. 

Participants could see sweeping changes in their body, according to the experience of one man who has already completed the challenge.

US Youtuber Jordan LoNigro went teetotal for 30 days in 2019 after noticing he had been drinking more than usual including having a ’48-hour hangover’ after St. Patrick’s Day.

In a video documenting his experience he said one of the ‘awesome’ changes he had seen was losing 10lbs — around three quarters of a stone — in just a month.

‘I’m officially down 10 pounds just by simply cutting out alcohol for a month,’ he said in the documentary, that’s garnered 1.8million views.

He added that going alcohol-free gave him bags more energy, and also freed up time for hobbies like playing music, exercising and reading. 

‘I feel like I have a bit more energy I feel a lot less sluggish than I usually do,’ he said.

‘I’ve been more creative I obviously haven’t been waking up with hangovers on the weekends so I’ve been using my time to my advantage and just being more all-around productive.’

He particularly enjoyed the absence of hangovers.

‘When I drink too much I get really really bad hangovers that come with really bad anxiety,’ he said.

‘It leaves me feeling miserable and just anxious all day and not wanting to leave the house.’

Another obvious benefit he highlighted was a boost to his wallet.

‘It’s pretty simple if you go out to eat and even if you just get one beer that adds five to six dollars to your meal and if you cut that out over the course of a month you save money,’ he said. 

However, he added that going alcohol-free hadn’t been without challenges.

‘The most challenging thing for me this entire month and that is social life,’ he said.

‘When you cut out alcohol and you cut out those activities that involve drinking you don’t want to go put yourself in those environments so you stay at home you just you chill and you don’t really hang out with people too much,’ he said. 

He cited special occasions like birthdays and visiting family filled with ‘booze after booze after booze’ as particularly challenging points of his 30-day marathon. 

Mr LoNigro added that while he wouldn’t be cutting alcohol out of his life entirely going forward, he was ‘going to be a little bit more aware of when I drink and how much I am drinking’. 

Some 200,000 people are thought to be partaking in this year’s Dry January.

The NHS recommends that people drink no more than 14 units of alcohol per week — the equivalent to six pints of beer, or six medium glasses of wine — spread out over at least three days.

However, up the one in four adults in England report drinking over this level.

Brits are also some of the continent’s biggest boozers ranking third in a league table of alcohol consumption.

British women specifically came second in terms of binge drinking, with a quarter doing so, only beaten by their Danish counterparts. 

In contrast British men came fifth in Europe with 45 per cent reporting ‘heavy episodic drinking’ in data from 2022.