I tried Dry January and now I’ve not touched alcohol for three years

A woman who attempted Dry January has now been sober for three years and was not even tempted to drink alcohol at her own wedding. 

Aimee Pearce, 38, from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, gave up booze for the first month of 2020 after battling a  ‘horrendous’ hangover on New Year’s Day.

The mother-of-four felt ‘totally fine’ having cut out alcohol for 31 days and decided to keep going.  

Both Aimee and her husband Peter Janicuicz, 45, a project manager, have been sober for three years and do not plan on taking up drinking alcohol again anytime soon. 

The person trainer did not drink when the couple got married in May last year, providing alcohol-free alternatives to her guests and inviting them to bring their own booze.

Aimee said: ‘If I’m brutally honest, I had a really horrendous hangover and I just thought I’m a bit too old for this now, I’ll try Dry January.

‘I ended up not really missing it and not really needing to drink. Then COVID happened – which for our lifestyle just involved needing to drink less and less.

‘I never felt my drinking was a problem, but it just kind of snowballed.

Aimee with a glass of wine in France, 2019. However, the mother-of-four felt ‘totally fine’ having cut out alcohol for 31 days and decided to keep going.

‘We would regularly drink in the house and at special occasions, but it wasn’t something I did a lot, so the appeal was waning anyway.

‘Now I don’t even think about it, I don’t miss it, I don’t feel the need to drink alcohol. A few of our friends have started to try the alcohol-free drinks as well, and so we haven’t received anything negative about not drinking.’

Before going tee-total Aimee and Peter would drink a couple of glasses of wine with a meal which would come to a bottle each week. 

They say they are ‘happy’ without alcohol and have not missed out on their social life after axing it.  

Both Aimee and Peter only provided alcohol-free alternatives to their guests at their wedding, and told guests if they wanted alcohol they would have to bring their own (Pictured: The ‘bar’ at Peter and Aimee’s wedding in the Peak District, 2022)

Aimee, who is mum to Ava, 10, and Finn, 12, and stepmother to Evie, 12 and Emily, 19 said: ‘Now my husband doesn’t drink either. He had already decided not to drink just before I did, as a kind of experiment.

‘We’ve found alternatives that we like, things like non-alcoholic gin, and CBD drinks, Kombucha, and my husband likes non-alcoholic Guinness.

‘That first January was quite easy to avoid alcohol, because I had to home-school my children and do PT classes online. I was busy enough already without drinking.

‘At the time I did feel a bit of pressure to start drinking around March, April time in 2020 because it seemed that alcohol was how people were going to survive Covid.’

Before going tee-total Aimee and Peter would drink a couple of glasses of wine with a meal, which would amount to a bottle each week

The couple decided not to break their streak when they tied the knot in May 2022.

‘When we got married, I didn’t miss having a drink at the wedding,’ Aimee said.

‘People think that you’ll be more likely to break and have a drink because you’re getting married.

‘But because we had been sober for two years at our wedding it didn’t really even occur to us that we would do it any differently.

‘It seemed silly to drink just for one day – especially when we have found alcohol free alternatives we enjoy.

‘We asked guests to bring their own alcohol if they wanted it, which people did without question or complaints.

‘We enjoyed the day without needing a drink and woke up the next day without a hangover to start the rest of our married lives together.’

Aimee has noticed benefits to her mental wellbeing because of her alcohol-free lifestyle.

‘The main positive is the improvement in my anxiety levels. It feels strange saying it, but over Covid I was able to be mentally tougher, I wasn’t as anxious about things or as sad.’

Aimee and Peter still have an active social life – even going out with friends to pubs or bars.

But now they no longer worry about driving back in the evenings after social events.

Sobriety has also influenced Aimee’s work as a PT, as clients now ask her about reducing or quitting alcohol.

‘I’m finding a lot of clients are sober curious, so I can talk to them confidently about going alcohol-free in a positive way,’ Aimee said.

‘It’s a lot easier now to carry on as there isn’t the stigma around it as in previous years.

‘You don’t need to have a big story around not drinking. At the end of the day it’s a poison, it doesn’t make me feel good.’

Aimee’s top tips for avoiding alcohol are drinking good alcohol free alternatives including kombucha and CBD drinks. 

She found reading Catherine Gray’s ‘The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober’ helped her understand the impact of alcohol on the body.

And importantly, support from friends and family helped her give up alcohol.