Every June, without fail, someone in my group chat posts the same meme: a wine glass crying. That’s usually my cue. Dry July is coming, and once again, I’m in.
Five years ago, I didn’t expect this to become a tradition. I signed up almost as a dare. A friend was doing it for the first time after her dad went through cancer treatment, and she didn’t want to do it alone. I figured a month off wine wouldn’t kill me, even if “wine o’clock” had become less of a joke and more of an actual appointment in my calendar by that point. I thought I’d survive July, collect my little badge of honour, and go straight back to normal on August 1st.
That’s not what happened. Here’s why I keep signing up, year after year.
It gave me back my evenings
The first year was about willpower. By year three, it had quietly become about something else entirely… Clarity. Without that 5pm glass as the full stop on my day, I noticed I had more patience for the bath-dinner-bedtime chaos, more energy left over once the kids were finally down, and mornings that didn’t start with a faint headache and a long mental list of regrets. I wasn’t doing Dry July to prove anything anymore. I was doing it because by the end of June, I could already feel how much better July was going to be.
It’s not always easy, and that’s fine
I won’t pretend it’s a breeze. Friday night drinks at a friend’s place, school trivia nights, that one mum’s birthday at the pub. There’s always a moment where everyone’s holding a glass and I’m holding a soda water. Wondering if anyone’s going to ask why. Some years I’ve caved for one night and started again the next day. Dry July was never meant to be about perfection. The version of me that gets back on the wagon after a wobble is, frankly, more useful to my kids than the version chasing a flawless streak.
What’s made the wobbles less frequent is that alcohol-free options have genuinely come a long way. A good mocktail, a proper zero-proof spirit, even just dressing up soda water with bitters and a slice of orange. It turns out the ritual of having a drink in hand matters almost as much as what’s in it. These days I’ve got a small rotation of go-to swaps, and most local cafes and bottle shops around here now stock something decent, which makes the social side so much easier than it was that first nervous year.
The community makes it stick
What’s kept me coming back more than anything else is doing it alongside other local mums. There’s something different about a Dry July you do in a group chat full of people who actually understand the 3pm slump versus one you white-knuckle through alone. We swap mocktail recipes, complain about how long the month feels in week two, and check in on each other after the inevitable rough days. By year five, it’s stopped feeling like deprivation and started feeling like a shared seasonal ritual… Our version of a winter reset, done together.
The reason I started is still the reason I stay
Underneath all of it is the part that actually matters: Dry July exists to raise money for people facing cancer, and every year I’m reminded that a month of mocktails is a pretty small ask compared to what so many families are going through. My friend’s dad is doing well these days. I think about that every single June when the sign-up emails start landing.
If you’re on the fence
You don’t need five years of practice to start. You don’t even need to nail the whole month. If all you do is swap a few nights, try a decent mocktail, and donate what you would have spent on wine to a good cause, that’s a win. I promise the version of July with clearer mornings and a few extra dollars in your pocket is worth finding out for yourself.
See you in the group chat!