TAMPA, Fla. — With the new year starts a new challenge to take on Dry January, a personal goal to not drink alcohol for the first month of 2024.
It comes as Tampa Bay area establishments, like Willa's bar and restaurant, are seeing a growing demand and are serving up more non-alcoholic options.
On Monday, Willa's hosted a New Year's Day brunch, where Nancy Kipnes ordered a drink on their zero-proof menu called 'Lil Parsley Pepper Margarita.
"It has no alcohol," Kipnes said, holding up her bright green drink, garnished with black salt on the rim.
Kipnes is doing Dry January.
"I do it every year," she said. "It's just a great way to just get focused for the new year."
It comes as an August Gallop Poll shows those 55 and older drink 10% more than in the previous two decades. This is while younger adults, ages 18-34, drink 10% less than their generations before.
Trends that Willa's co-founder Nate Siegel said they are investing in. The bar has a "zero-proof" mocktail menu with crafted non-alcoholic beverages called the "Phony Negroni" and "Soft Sangria."
The restaurant serves its own tonic and ginger beer. A passion project first started by his bar staff, some of whom don't drink.
"Some of our original team members behind the bar didn't drink, so we supported them by letting them really drive this program," Siegel said. "It's way better than we ever thought it was going to be in my wildest dreams."
At Riverside Recovery of Tampa, medical director Dr. Michael Sore has also seen some trends.
"There are definitely trends in younger people having less alcohol use. With that said, what we do see with younger people is a lot more of them utilizing marijuana as their kind of substance of use," Dr. Sore said.
However, he said there is a concern with one sector drinking more.
"Where we've noticed an increase in alcohol use, especially heavy alcohol use, is in women," he added.
2024 will be the first time Dr. Sore is doing Dry January after he said there is proof of the benefits of putting a pause on drinking: financial, better sleep, and weight loss.
"This will be my first time," he said. "Four drinks at $15 a drink, it starts to add up. In fact, in Britain, they found that folks that were able to do Dry January ended up losing about four and a half pounds more on average than others trying to lose weight."
And if you are up for the challenge, Dr. Sore offers this one tip.
"Do it with someone else. That's one of the best ways to be able to be successful at it," he said.
Riverside Recovery of Tampa has more here on the benefits that come with Dry January.
They also offer resources if you may come to realize it was harder to stay away from alcohol than you thought.
"For some people, it really can be. It can be a significant eye-opener, especially if they have a really hard time with it. The hope is if they do find that it's really difficult that they reach out to someone to try to get some help because there's definitely help available."
