Dry run: How local and national attitudes toward alcohol are changing
Mixed drinks are displayed at a bar in Baltimore. (Julio Cortez/AP file)
Last year, 38-year-old local attorney Laura Gates decided to give up drinking alcohol for Dry January.
She’s been sober ever since.
Each year, millions of Americans start the New Year sober for Dry January, an annual 31-day challenge in which participants don’t drink any alcohol. Launched in 2013 by a UK-based charity, it has since grown in popularity.
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Aisling Mäki
Aisling Mäki covers health care, banking and finance, technology and professions. After launching her career in news two decades ago, she worked in public relations for almost a decade before returning to journalism in 2022.
As a health care reporter, she’s collaborated with The Carter Center, earned awards from the Associated Press and Society of Professional Journalists and won a 2024 Tennessee Press Association first-place prize for her series on discrepancies in Shelby County life expectancy by ZIP code.
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