Hypnosis for Dry January
Late December. The holidays were what they were, and a sentence has been going round your head for a few days now: a month off, just to see.
You do not have a problem with alcohol. You tell yourself so, and it is probably true. But there is that Friday drink that became the Thursday one, then the Tuesday one. The reflex on getting home. The bottle finished between two people when half of it was the plan.
Dry January is not a morality test. It is an experiment, and it is worth mostly for what it teaches you, including when it does not go as planned.
What it feels like as Dry January approaches
Read this before you start.
A month without alcohol is not harmless for everyone. If you drink every day, do not stop abruptly on your own: talk to your doctor first, who will tell you how to go about it.
Medical advice is needed before stopping or cutting down sharply if any of these apply to you: you have been drinking daily for a long time, you get tremors, sweating, nausea or strong anxiety when you do not drink, you drink in the morning or to take those sensations away, you have had a seizure or an episode of confusion when stopping before, you take benzodiazepines or sleeping pills, you are pregnant, or you are on any medication.
This is not legal boilerplate: in someone who is dependent, unsupervised withdrawal can cause serious complications.
You are not sure you want to stop. Mostly you are curious to know whether you can, and slightly annoyed at yourself for wondering.
That is exactly the right frame of mind for this challenge. An experiment is run to see what it teaches, not to be passed.
What is Dry January?
Dry January is a public health campaign born in the United Kingdom in the early 2010s and taken up since in many countries. The principle: no alcohol for the month of January, then watch what changes.
A few useful distinctions, because they decide what applies to you.
- The one-month challenge is a voluntary, temporary pause, in someone who is not dependent. That is the subject of this page.
- Lasting reduction aims at a change of habit over time, without aiming for abstinence. That is the subject of Hypnosis to Drink Less.
- Withdrawal is stopping in someone who is dependent. It is a medical process, supervised, sometimes in hospital. See Hypnosis for Alcohol Withdrawal.
What the month does not do
The word "detox" circulates a great deal around Dry January; it does not describe what happens. The liver works continuously, it does not wait for January to do so and it does not "cleanse itself" on command.
Studies have observed, in groups of participants, changes in certain biological markers and improvements in sleep or energy reported by the participants themselves. These are group observations, they vary from one person to the next, and nobody can tell you in advance what you will feel.
During the month, one sign should send you to a doctor.
If on stopping you get tremors, sweating, nausea, a racing heart, unusual anxiety, marked sleep disturbance or confusion, get back in touch with a doctor without delay, or call the emergency services if the signs get worse. These need to be assessed medically and should not be got through alone.
What Dry January costs day to day
The difficulty of a month without alcohol is rarely the one people expect. It is almost never physical craving, in someone who is not dependent. It is the social side: the after-work drinks where you have to justify yourself three times, the friend who insists "just this once", the family meal where your glass of water becomes a topic of conversation. It is also the empty gesture: hands that do not know what to do at the start of the evening, the ritual that marked the end of the day and is replaced by nothing. And it is the tiredness of the second fortnight, when the novelty has worn off and January is still long.
Many people who "fail" Dry January do so on one of those three points, not on the craving itself.
Recognised approaches other than hypnosis
The starting point is your doctor, especially if you drink regularly. They are the one who will say whether a month off suits your situation, and how to go about it.
- Official campaigns and their tools: in France, Alcool info service (in French) offers information, self-assessment and conversations with professionals; in Quebec, Info-Social (811, option 2) and Drogue : aide et référence refer people free of charge.
- Tracking apps, useful mostly because they make visible a habit that is always underestimated.
- The people around you, which changes everything: doing the challenge with someone, or telling the group, removes much of the social difficulty.
- Support groups and forums, including those organised around the challenge itself.
- Psychotherapy, cognitive and behavioural therapies in particular, if the drinking is tied to anxiety or to a difficult period.
- An addiction specialist, if the question goes beyond a one-month trial.
Hypnosis sits alongside these approaches, on the side of automatic habits and situations.
What a hypnosis session can aim at
Let us start with what hypnosis does not do.
It does not remove the craving for alcohol. It replaces no medical follow-up, and it has no place in withdrawal for someone who is dependent. It will not make you feel disgusted by alcohol: we use no aversion suggestions, on this subject or any other. It does not put you to sleep and it makes you do nothing against your will. And it does not guarantee that you will last the month.
What the work does aim at:
- Preparing situations in advance rather than meeting them as they arrive: the first drinks after work, the family meal, Friday evening. What is anticipated in session is lived through differently.
- Replacing the gesture, not just removing it. An end-of-day ritual that disappears without being replaced leaves a gap, and the gap fills itself, rarely in the way you would choose.
- Saying no without justifying yourself, which is a social skill far more than a matter of willpower.
- Finding elsewhere what the drink was bringing: unwinding, the transition between work and the evening, ease in a group.
- Getting through a slip without abandoning everything. A drink on 12 January does not end the experiment; guilt does, not the drink.
If, as the month goes on, you find the question goes beyond the challenge, it continues here: Hypnosis to Drink Less.
What 1 February reveals
This is the part of the challenge nobody talks about, and it is the most instructive.
A month without alcohol teaches you little in itself. What teaches you a great deal is the way you start again. Had the restart been pencilled in since 3 January? Did the first drink taste like a deserved reward? Does the following week already look like a week in December? Or has something shifted, without your having decided anything?
There is no right answer, and none of them puts you in a category. But these observations are worth more than any questionnaire, and they are only available once a year. Write them down.
What the research says
We may as well be blunt: research on hypnosis and alcohol is scarce and does not allow any conclusion.
A Norwegian randomised trial published in 2019 compared Ericksonian hypnosis sessions with motivational interviewing in people hospitalised for alcohol use disorder. Thirty-one people took part, far too few to settle anything. Both groups reduced their drinking, and the gap in favour of hypnosis at one year did not reach statistical significance. The authors note themselves that only two randomised controlled trials existed at the time on this question.
For comparison, a Cochrane review of hypnotherapy for smoking cessation concludes that the evidence does not establish superiority over other behavioural approaches, and that if a benefit exists, it is small at most.
In other words: what is documented in the field of alcohol is addiction medicine, not hypnosis. We offer it as complementary support, and we would rather tell you so than quote studies that do not say what they are made to say.
An example: Caroline
Caroline came in mid-December. A wine lover, she did not consider herself in difficulty, but she had noticed that the occasions for drinking had multiplied without her deciding it, and that the budget had followed. The first conversation served to check that a month off carried no risk in her situation, then to spot the precise moments when the drink arrived without a decision: getting home from work, and the evenings when she had people over. The work was on those two moments, and not on wine, which was never cast as an enemy.
> "The hardest part was not the not drinking. It was explaining why, the first six times." > Caroline, name changed
She finished the month with one slip, on a Saturday, which she described without drama. What interested her most, she says, is what she observed in February.
*Every situation is different. Caroline's path is her own and says nothing about what you will experience.*
How a session on this subject unfolds
The conversation. Your actual habits, not the ones you assume: when, with whom, how many times a week. Your medication and your medical context. And the screening questions set out at the top of this page. If your answers point to physical dependence, we will refer you to a doctor before anything else, and we will say so plainly.
The objective. Worked out together, and always tied to situations rather than to a count. For example: getting through Friday drinks without it being an ordeal, or finding an end of day that does not go through a glass.
The induction. A natural state of focused attention, which you already know without naming it. You stay conscious, you hear everything, you can speak and you can stop whenever you want.
The work. On this subject, it is mostly about anticipating the situations ahead, the resources that can do the job the drink was doing, and how to turn down a drink with ease. No aversion suggestion is used.
The debrief and the exercise. A conversation about what you experienced, and a self-hypnosis exercise to take away, often aimed at the twenty minutes before an evening out. January plays out in real life, not in the consulting room.
The number of sessions is worked out at the first conversation. Sessions work in person and by video alike.
Book an appointment
Ideally in December, to prepare the month rather than catch up with it. A question before you decide? Write to us: a clear answer, including "see your doctor first", is part of the work. You can also book an appointment directly. Our practitioners who work in English see people in Montreal, Sherbrooke, Gatineau, Paris and Lille, and by video wherever you are in the world. The number of sessions is worked out at the first conversation.
If your question goes beyond the month of January, our page Hypnosis for Alcohol and Drinking Less sets out the common ground: what hypnosis can and cannot do, and when the first step is a doctor.
Where would you like to consult?
All areas
Annie Mayrand
Gatineau - Cumberland (ON)
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Christian Rocher
Beloeil
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David Veilleux
Montréal - Anjou
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Florence Aton
Sutton
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Jessica Reid
Sherbrooke
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Julie Rocque
Montréal - Jean-Talon
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Nuria Pérez de León
Montréal - Rosemont - Saint-Lambert
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Réjeanne LeBlanc
La Prairie
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Frequently asked questions about Hypnosis for Dry January
No. For someone who drinks occasionally, it is an experiment with no particular risk. For someone who is physically dependent, stopping abruptly and without supervision can cause serious complications. If you drink every day, or if you get tremors or strong anxiety when you do not drink, talk to your doctor before starting: stopping remains possible, but it has to be organised.
No. The hypnotic state is a state of focused attention, not sleep and not being under anyone's influence: the available research shows no loss of control over your own actions, and people told they can resist a suggestion do resist it. You stay conscious, you hear everything, and you keep at all times the ability to refuse a suggestion, to speak or to stop the session.
Hypnosis is a non-medicinal approach that adds to your follow-up without interfering with it: simply tell us what you are taking. How a medication interacts with alcohol, on the other hand, is a strictly medical question. Any decision about your treatment belongs to the doctor who prescribed it.
Psychotherapy is a regulated framework, practised by professionals whose title is protected, and it can address psychological functioning as a whole and diagnosed disorders. Hypnosis as we practise it is a narrower form of support, centred on a specific objective and on the automatic habits attached to it. For alcohol use disorder, addiction medicine remains the reference and hypnosis a complement.
No, and that is not what we are after. Aversion suggestions are not part of our practice: the idea was tried as early as the 1950s and tested in controlled trials that showed no advantage over usual care. The work is about situations, and about what the drink was filling in for.
No. A slip is a piece of information, not a verdict. What decides what comes next is not the drink, it is what you do with it: starting again the next day, or deciding the month is ruined and giving up. The second option costs far more than the first.
That is the real question, and it is often the moment people come to see us. If you want something to change lastingly rather than picking up exactly where you left off, our page on hypnosis to drink less takes it from there.
The number of sessions is worked out at the first conversation, based on your situation. No serious practitioner will give you that figure before having met you.
Sources and references
Helplines
- Quebec: Drogue : aide et référence, 1 800 265-2626 (or 514 527-2626 in the Montreal area), free, confidential, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Quebec: Info-Social: 811, option 2.
- France: Alcool info service (in French), 0 980 980 930, anonymous and charged at a local rate, from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m., 7 days a week.
- Emergencies: 911 in Quebec, 15 or 112 in France.
- If you are in distress or having suicidal thoughts: 1 866 APPELLE (1 866 277-3553) in Quebec, 24 hours a day; 3114 in France, free and confidential, 24 hours a day.
Sources
- Gouvernement du Québec, *Alcohol and other drug use* (in French): official information on effects, dependence and resources.
- National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, *Rethinking Drinking*: the NIAAA self-assessment tool.
- Barnes J., McRobbie H., Dong C. Y., Walker N., Hartmann-Boyce J., *Hypnotherapy for smoking cessation*, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2019, CD001008.
- Shestopal I., Bramness J. G., *Effect of Hypnotherapy in Alcohol Use Disorder Compared with Motivational Interviewing: A Randomized Controlled Trial*, Addictive Disorders & Their Treatment, 2019, 18(3), 169-175 (doi 10.1097/ADT.0000000000000170). A trial on thirty-one people, with a non-significant result.
Hypnosis as practised by the members of Solutions Hypnose is a complementary support approach. It is neither a medical act, nor a diagnosis, nor psychotherapy in the regulatory sense, and it in no way replaces a consultation, follow-up or treatment prescribed by a health professional.
Our practitioners do not assess and do not treat mental disorders or illnesses. They never ask for an ongoing treatment to be stopped or changed: that decision rests exclusively with your doctor.
No result can be guaranteed. The testimonials and examples presented on this page describe individual experiences and do not predict what you will experience.
In case of significant distress, unexplained physical symptoms or suicidal thoughts, contact a doctor, emergency services or a helpline without delay.
Page written by Sandra Djina Ravalia
hypnotherapist and art therapist
partner at Solutions Hypnose.
English version reviewed by David Veilleux