You made the impossible possible and completed Dry January: Here’s 10 ways to celebrate the end

Enjoy your first vodka lime soda of 2023, you’ve earned it

1 year ago

The start of a new year is often accompanied by many empty promises to exercise more, wake up earlier, and eat healthier.

Along these lines, many students have taken on the challenge of Dry January and attempted to spend an entire month free from the dreaded mornings of hangover and regret after drunken nights at Gravity and Lakota.

If you’ve got this far, you deserve to celebrate the end of your short-lived sobriety properly.

Head down to the pub

What better place to go to as a lightweight who hasn’t drunk alcohol in a month than the infamous The Coronation Tap. Maybe you could push the 10 before 10 challenge to 11 before 11, celebrating each month of the year you’ll now get to enjoy their glorious homebrewed cider.

No doubt you will end up on all fours spewing up in the alley and vow to stay sober for the rest of 2023 instead.

Go crazier at the club

If you’re keen on the “new year new me” idea, take your big night out to Clock Factory to sample the all new and improved BED Mondays in City Centre.

The move from cheesy tunes to DnB and techno is almost metaphorical – like your transformation from sensibly sober to shitfaced.

Make sure your friends get plenty of videos of you on the mechanical bull if you have a tendency to black out and might need to jog your memory in the morning.

Be classy at a bar

If classy drinks are more your style, make sure to get yourself to the lovely Vittoria for a civilised evening of drinking. You can spend all the money you saved over January on a few rounds of cocktails for you and your friends.

And even better, you can get a nice pic for the gram so you can flex your willpower and resolve on everyone and show off that you completed Dry January.

Get all your friends pissed at a house party

The biggest and best way to get back to drinking with a bang, would be to throw a massive house party in your honour. Bring it back to secondary school days and make sure all your supportive friends get absolutely sloshed with you.

Just make sure the house doesn’t get trashed or you’ll be remembering why you gave up alcohol in the first place…

Boozy bottomless brunch will get you leg-less

Why wait till the night time to celebrate your success? The 1^st of February starts as soon as you wake up, and so should the drinking.

Get down to Turtle Bay for a morning of bottomless mimosas and organised chaos. It’s more than likely you will end up on a pub crawl down Gloucester Road for the rest of the day so email your tutors about your absence in advance.

Get groovy at a gig

If you’ve actually learnt your lesson from Dry January and want to ease yourself back in gently, get a ticket for an upcoming gig at one of Bristol’s stellar music venues.

Whether it’s a student open mic night or your favourite artist, take along a couple of tinnies and you’re guaranteed to have a great night without getting paralytic.

Simply stay in

Since the first of February does fall midweek, you would be forgiven for wanting to get an early night before your 9am. In the spirit of wine Wednesdays, have a glass of corner shop rosé with your dinner to mark the occasion.

Maybe even splash out on something more expensive than Penguin Sands and split with a housemate who is also willing to sit and watch Winter Love Island with you.

Wine and dine

Try something a bit different this year and order a drink you wouldn’t normally have at a restaurant. A jug of sangria with some tapas, a limoncello shot after some pasta, or a glass of sake with your sushi.

Hopefully the food will line your stomach so your dinner doesn’t come back up the next day. Lowered tolerance and that.

Big dirty event

A big rave at Motion or High Rise is definitely a memorable way to wave goodbye to Dry January.

Whatever your music tastes are, make sure to support these iconic local venues by buying some vodka lemonades that will undoubtedly get knocked out your hand before you get to drink them. Pre hard on that good old squashka – you know you’ve missed it.

Keep up the good work

If you don’t feel like starting drinking again on an arbitrary day of the year (or ever), make use of Bristol’s ample no-alcohol-necessary amenities.

Treat yourself to a morning trying pottery painting, an afternoon at the cinema or an evening of bowling and karaoke (The Lanes in city centre has both!) for a fun filled time with soft drinks. Your liver will definitely thank you.