"Everyone I know drinks"

For a lot of people the evenings at home are the easy part to imagine. The hard part is other people. Your friendships run on pubs and dinners, your family opens a bottle when you arrive, and work has a Christmas do. The fear has several parts, and I'll take them one at a time.

The first is being quizzed. You will be asked, usually once, usually in the first ten minutes. A short answer with no apology works best. "I'm not drinking tonight." "I'm having a month off." Then ask them something about themselves. The answers that cause trouble are the long ones, because a justification invites a debate. Have something in your hand, too. A glass with anything in it ends most of the interest before it starts.

Now and then someone will push. In my view a person who badly needs you to have a drink is usually asking a question about their own drinking. You don't have to answer it for them. You're not judging anyone by ordering a lime and soda, and you needn't act as though you are.

The second fear is rounds, and it's easily solved. Say "I'll get my own tonight", or buy your round and include yourself at soft drink prices. Nobody minds the cheap member of a round.

The third is that refusing feels awkward, and at first it does. It's a skill, and it improves with use. Richard de Visser and colleagues followed 857 British adults who signed up for Dry January. Six months later they were drinking less and felt more able to turn down a drink. That held even for people who hadn't managed the whole month, though it was stronger among those who had. Very few reported drinking more afterwards. These were volunteers with no comparison group, so the study can't show that the month caused the change. It does suggest that refusing gets easier with practice, as most things do.

The fourth fear is being bored, and here the answer is mixed. Some evenings are dull without a drink. If a night is only bearable after four pints, I'd say that's information about the night. You'll leave some things earlier than you used to, and you're allowed. Other evenings, mostly the ones built around food and people you like, turn out about the same. You also remember how they ended, and you can drive home.

The situation that gets least attention is the one at home. If you and your partner share a bottle most evenings, then the hardest social occasion of your month happens nightly, on your own sofa. My suggestion is to present it as an experiment about you and not a verdict on them. Don't ask them to join in, and don't count their glasses. Keep the part that was always the point, which is sitting down together when the day's over. Expect a little prickliness in the first week, since a change in one person's habit can feel like a comment on the other's. In most households it passes once it's clear that nobody is being judged.

There's a quieter fear underneath these, which is about who you are. "I'm someone who likes a drink" feels like a fact about your character. It's more a fact about your history. You adopted it around eighteen, when it was the only version of adult social life on offer. You can like pubs, know about wine, be the last to leave a good dinner, and have something else in your glass. The people worth keeping will adjust in about a fortnight.

Alcohol-free beers and wines have improved a lot and many people find them useful, because they keep the ceremony and the glass in the hand. One caution. If you've been dependent on alcohol, ask your alcohol service what they think before relying on them. Opinions differ on whether they help or act as a reminder.