By EJ Ward

Dry January is back...

Every year it arrives with the same earnest intentions and the same faintly puritan edge, as if the only way to prove you are serious about self-improvement is to exile yourself from the places where life actually happens. Drink less, feel better, reset the system. All fine.

Sensible, even. But somewhere along the way, Dry January has picked up an unnecessary extra rule, the idea that if you are cutting alcohol you must also cut the pub.

That part needs binning.

December is a big month for most people. Not just financially, although that matters, but emotionally. It is noisy, expensive, social, relentless. It is family and grief and old memories colliding at speed. For a lot of people, the pub is where December is survived.

It is where friendships are maintained, arguments are settled, work is moaned about, football is watched, and loneliness is kept at bay for a few hours at a time.

Come January, when the lights go down and the credit card bills arrive, that role does not suddenly disappear. If anything, it matters more.

The pub is not a drinks delivery system. It is a community hub. It is where we go to celebrate the best days of our lives and........

© LBC