IARD – funded by 13 of the world’s largest alcohol companies – used a trade media interview to discourage people from trying a month without alcohol. Independent research shows Dry January works. The industry’s revenue model depends on continued high-risk use of alcohol.
The alcohol industry’s global public relations vehicle used a sympathetic trade publication to cast doubt on the benefits of trying a month without alcohol – contradicting peer-reviewed evidence and obscuring the industry’s financial dependence on high-risk alcohol use.
In January 2026, The Drinks Business published an interview with Julian Braithwaite, chief executive of the International Alliance for Responsible Drinking (IARD), under the headline “Does the science support ‘Dry January’?” The article gave Braithwaite an unchallenged platform to question the value of a month without alcohol and promote “moderation” as a preferable alternative.
The timing was not incidental. Dry January has grown from 4,000 registrants in 2013 to millions of participants worldwide. For an organisation funded entirely by 13 of the world’s largest alcohol producers, including AB Inbev, Diageo and Heineken, the rising popularity of alcohol-free periods represents a direct threat to revenue.
What IARD’s CEO claimed
Braithwaite acknowledged that pausing to reflect on one’s relationship with alcohol is “a good thing,” but argued that “altering long-term drinking patterns is better than any short-term, one-month reset” and warned against “the cycle of binge and bust.” He promoted a “sustainable, moderate place” in relation to alcohol, and claimed that people who use alcohol moderately “live at least as long as people who don’t drink at all.”
Perhaps most strikingly, Braithwaite suggested that “withdrawing from social life to avoid alcohol” can be harmful, citing studies on social isolation, anxiety, depression, and weakened immune systems. The underlying assumption is remarkable: that socialising without alcohol is effectively not socialising at all. Rather than acknowledging that people can – and increasingly do – participate in social life without alcohol, Braithwaite presented abstinence and social connection as mutually exclusive. It is a framing that reduces human relationships to occasions for alcohol use, and one that serves the commercial interests of his funders far better than it serves public health.
What the evidence actually shows
A scoping review published in Alcohol and Alcoholism in 2025 by researchers at Brown University analysed 16 peer-reviewed studies involving more than 150,000 Dry January participants. The findings directly contradict IARD’s framing.
Participants who abstained for one month reported better sleep, improved mood, and weight loss. Biological markers showed lower blood pressure, reduced liver fat, improved blood glucose and insulin resistance, and decreases in cancer-related growth factors. Even those who did not complete the full month reported improved mental well-being. Six months after the challenge, participants still reported sustained decreases in alcohol use and reduced instances of intoxication.
As lead author Megan Strowger noted, the effort “leads to sustained moderation: most participants continue to drink less alcohol rather than increasing consumption afterwards.” Dry January is not a “binge and bust” cycle. It is a low-risk, non-stigmatising intervention that produces measurable health improvements and lasting behavioural change.
The review also found that Dry January disproportionately reaches people who identify as heavier-than-average in their alcohol use – a group typically difficult to engage through conventional programmes, and the group the industry depends on most.
The “moderation” claim Braithwaite did not mention
Braithwaite’s claim that “moderate” alcohol use is associated with longevity has been comprehensively debunked. A 2024 systematic review of 107 longitudinal studies found that the apparent health benefits of low-volume alcohol use disappear entirely when researchers correct for selection biases – most critically, the “sick-quitter effect,” where former heavy users with compromised health are misclassified as abstainers, making continued alcohol use look protective by comparison.
The U.S. Surgeon General in January 2025 called for cancer warning labels on alcoholic beverages, citing 100,000 cancer cases annually. A 2025 study found no safe level of alcohol use in terms of dementia risk.The WHO’s position is unambiguous: alcohol is a Group 1 carcinogen, and no level of use is safe for health.
The financial conflict IARD cannot escape
Research published in Addiction in 2018 by the Institute of Alcohol Studies and the University of Sheffield found that in England, people who use alcohol above government guideline levels – 25% of the population – account for 68% of total alcohol sales revenue. The 4% engaging in the highest-risk use of alcohol alone account for 23% of all revenue. If everyone followed the guidelines Braithwaite himself cited, the industry would lose an estimated 38% of its revenue – approximately £13 billion.
IARD’s 13 member companies – AB InBev, Asahi, Bacardi, Beam Suntory, Brown-Forman, Carlsberg, Diageo, Heineken, Kirin, Moët Hennessy, Molson Coors, Pernod Ricard, and William Grant & Sons – collectively dominate the global alcohol market. Their revenue models are structurally dependent on the patterns of high-risk alcohol use that campaigns like Dry January help people interrupt.
A familiar playbook
IARD describes itself as “a science-based organisation” managing “the world’s largest database of research on alcohol and health.”
A 2023 study in Globalization and Health found that IARD’s transition from its predecessor, the International Center for Alcohol Policies (ICAP), was not accompanied by any meaningful shift in activities. Its core function remained the same: to advance the alcohol industry’s policy positions while presenting them as science-based contributions to public health.
IARD’s preferred policy menu – education, self-regulation, and “targeted” interventions – is precisely the set of measures that evidence consistently shows to be least effective in preventing and reducing alcohol harm. The WHO’s Global Alcohol Action Plan 2022–2030 recommends comprehensive marketing bans, ambitious alcohol taxation, and availability limitations. IARD and its member companies have consistently lobbied against all three.
IARD’s attempt to undermine Dry January follows a well-documented pattern: the alcohol industry promotes “moderation” not because it is the best available evidence, but because it is the narrative that best protects sales.
Sources
Schmitt, P. (2026, January 27). Does the science support ‘Dry January’? The Drinks Business. https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2026/01/does-the-science-support-dry-january/
Strowger, M., Meisel, M. K., Uriarte, S., & Colby, S. M. (2025). A scoping review of Dry January: Evidence and future directions. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 60(5), agaf057. https://doi.org/10.1093/alcalc/agaf057
Bhattacharya, A., Angus, C., Pryce, R., Holmes, J., Brennan, A., & Meier, P. S. (2018). How dependent is the alcohol industry on heavy drinking in England? Addiction, 113(12), 2225–2232. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.14386
Lesch, M., & McCambridge, J. (2023). Evolution of the major alcohol companies’ key global policy vehicle through the prism of tax records 2011–19. Globalization and Health, 19, 34. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-023-00933-w