mr tog and I have decided to take part in Dry July – no booze for a month. Anyone want to join us?
Mission
Dry July’s mission is to directly benefit adult cancer patients with real and tangible change. We will achieve this by providing organisations with funds to create better environments and support networks for patients and their families.
Dry July also aims to make people aware of their own drinking habits and the value of a balanced, healthy lifestyle.
The beneficiaries of the Dry July fundraising are direct treatment oncology units in each State and Territory plus some research foundations i.e. this is not just about cancer “awareness”.
The fundraising runs off a sponsorship model which you can sign up for as either an individual or a team, and the official Dry July website has its own social network and special add-ons to generate more sponsorship excitement, like Head to Head challenges for fundraising against a friend, colleague or family member; Golden Tickets, where you donate extra $ to have a designated night back on the booze for a special occasion; and Designated Dryver nights, where you commit to being the chauffeur for some of your still-drinking friends in return for their donations.
I know that I do drink more than I should. I drink 20-22 units of alcohol a week instead of the recommended Australian maximum of 2 units per day/14 units per week – I stick to 2 most nights, but a couple of nights a week I indulge in significantly more. I need to have more zero alcohol units days, and ideally only one night a week where I enjoy a blowout. I know that if I averaged more like 10 units as week, the occasional heavier booze week wouldn’t be a big deal.
So I’m hoping that Dry July resets my booze habits to a healthier level. I haven’t signed up yet, because I’m waiting to see whether I should start a team or not based on responses here (or email, if you’d rather), If people don’t want to join the team, I’ll be very happy with some sponsorships!
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- Feed the wo-orld… one baby, anyhow. by Lauredhel
- The Inaugural Down Under Feminists Carnival by Lauredhel
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- Finding the gaps in Australian women’s health services by tigtog
* Quicklink to recent open threads
mindyhoyden: 
bluemilk: 
vivsmythe: 
CastIronBalcony: 
puzzlement: 
ChallyWrites: 
ilauredhel: 
I frequently go a couple of weeks between drinks when we don’t see friends for a while so it wouldn’t be hard to forgo the occasional after dinner Baileys. I’d be in it for sure if it weren’t for the fact that we have 4 nights away booked for late July with Ariane and other friends! Count me in as a sponsor instead :-)
4 nights away – yoiks! mr tog has a late July birthday, but we’ll just take the Golden Ticket option for that night.
I like sponsors. Sponsors are good.
I’m a teetotaler so signing up for this would be a bit hypocritical on my part since I’m not actually giving anything up, so I’ll sponsor you instead TT.
I had a teetotal pregnancy and would prefer to continue enjoying my two to four days with alcohol a month?—?this isn’t a position of conscious moderation, it’s just my alcohol setpoint, as it were?—?so I’m not going to join Team Hoyden. (Although I guess at that level of consumption, Golden Tickets would nearly suffice.) But will throw a little sponsorship your way.
Hmm… I have a couple of social events in July at which I’d like to drink, and I don’t drink excessively anyway (the last time I got drunk was at Mimbles’ Christmas party last year! :)) — but I shall consider sponsoring you!
I don’t drink.
So I can join you in solidarity readily :3
Of course that means I’m not exactly *saving* money since I wasn’t planning on spending any to begin with…
Yes, well, my drinking habits are very much like yours, tt, which is NOT GOOD for me. I do have the occasional dry day, but they’re very, very rare. So I’d be a starter for team Hoyden. I’ll see if my partner wants to make this a household effort.
Hmm. After 2 months of not drinking (exception: a Ball, five weeks in, where someone else ordered a glass of sparkling for me and I felt it would be rude to refuse) for the purposes of being more awake for my thesis, I’ve said ‘fuck that I miss being able to have one glass of wine with dinner when I go out’, because I don’t drink at home anyway, only when I go out and usually only one or two. Prob about 2 units a fortnight. If I’m driving, and I usually am, then I don’t drink at all anyway.
so Dry July makes me feel a bit weary because I was planning to revert back to Normal Drinky Time levels to cheer me through the end of my thesis.
I :have: found it to help with my energy levels, and I’m a fan of people not drinking all the time, so despite grumping about in the paragraphs above I fully support your doing Dry July… put up donation info and I’ll donate :)
My partner won’t be coming to the party, ‘though he figures that he might drink beer instead of wine for the month. But I’m definitely in. It will be good for me.
I’m also in because my 11 year old is convinced that I won’t be able to do it. She’s promised $2 if I do make it through the month.
He’s decided that he is in after all. So that’s the two of us then. How many more do we need for a team?
Add me to the list of sponsors, tigtog :)
Deborah, I will be registering a team for us later today. Teams can be as small as we want – I think they’re keen for families to make teams, for instance, so that they can use the site’s social network features to chat and offer each other support.
Thanks to all who have offered to be sponsors – it’s a good cause.
We’re contemplating setting up a star chart at home, with the girls giving us the stars. There’s nothing like a bit of filial pressure to help with the will power.
Still tossing it up… If I don’t do it, I’ll sponsor. Have you joined up yet TT? Can’t find you to sponsor under any of your known monikers.
My brane has not thawed from last night’s frost yet, Helen. I will get it done today though.
Ok, done. We are team Hoydens Ahoy.
https://www.dryjuly.com/groups/hoydensahoy
Donations made by tomorrow are tax deductable this year. Saves losing the receipt next year before you remember to claim it.
Oh, very very good point.
So, dinner for Day 1 is finished and no grog was drunk. (actually, mr tog and I started our no-booze from Sunday just because it seemed like a good idea, so this is my 5th grog free day now). Feeling good, no awful withdrawal symptoms over the first 2 days, eating more chocolate instead (I normally don’t eat much sweet stuff).
We drained our last bottle of Lindauer last night, and tossed the empty into the recycling bin. We’ve had a successful first day, even though I went out to dinner with my singing group, and drank… water. They were quite intrigued by the concept, but none of them showed any desire to join up. Things got interesting when I outed myself as writing a blog, and a leftwing feminist one at that, which of course, is how I somehow ended up doing this Dry July thing. We ended up having a very pro-Julia discussion. There was a lot of admiration for her, from women and men alike.
Well done for sticking to the water!
I’ve had those evenings after outing myself as a lefty feminist blogger. It always makes young comedians a bit twitchy :)
I can’t drink due to medical conditions/medication, but good for you! *moral support*
Deborah and I are past the half-way mark now! I’ve been enjoying Deborah’s virtual star chart marking off her non-drinking progress through the month.
For anyone who meant to donate and hasn’t yet done so, here’s the team link again:
https://www.dryjuly.com/groups/hoydensahoy
Both Deborah and I are visible there as team members with our normal avatars, so if you’d prefer to donate to either of us individually, you can do that too/instead.
Team donations or donations to tigtog would be fine by me. I can’t recall exactly why I thought this was a good idea now, but it’s all In A Good Cause, and I’m not too concerned about which little bit of the cause gets the good.
11 days to go. Not that I’m counting. Oh no.
Mmmmmmm. Riesling.
Congrats and cheers to all :-)