Woke up feeling a little groggy yesterday morning? Or was it the full on steel band playing in your head and a mouth so dry you must surely have eaten your pillow whilst you slept? Thank heavens for that New Year Resolution you made to never drink again ever in your entire life...

Well, being a bit more realistic, and in a gesture of supreme kindness to your liver, let's talk about just refraining in January.  Most people do resolve to give up drinking for a month, and most of them last between a week and ten days. Whilst this is definitely better than nothing, it does little to significantly benefit your health or wealth.

Give up drinking for a full month and after a week you'll notice your skin tone improving, losing its dry, slightly grey pallor and puffiness, literally knocking five years off you in seven days!  You'll be sleeping like a baby, proper sleep that leaves you feeling bright and refreshed when you wake up - research has shown that even moderate drinking disrupts sleep.  After a couple of weeks your energy levels will be soaring and you'll probably have dropped a couple of pounds (and your wallet may have hung on to a few more than usual!)  And by now you will probably find you're hardly missing alcohol at all.  

By the end of the month your delighted (and extremely resilient) liver will have cleverly regenerated itself, as the ill effects on the liver of moderate drinking with periods of over indulgence are generally reversible (although prolonged alcohol abuse requires expert attention of course).

And to strengthen your resolve why not sign up to Cancer Research UK's Dryathlon?  Originally scheduled to start on the 1st January they have just extended the deadline for signing up to the 6th January, so you have absolutely no excuse!

You can enter on your own or as a team.  Get yourself sponsored or just donate the cost of your usual weekly wine consumption. Put your mind to it and you can raise enough to collect Dryathlon™ trophies whenever you reach a milestone,  or be crowned top of the team leaderboard.  The Cancer Research UK website has a host of fundraising ideas and tools to help you raise as much as possible.  There are posters and leaflets and Facebook/Twitter profiles so you can let everybody know you're involved (makes it MUCH harder to cheat as well!)

Try fancy dress down at the pub, download and print off the Dryathlon™ pint glass insert, which transforms your usually beer filled drinking vessel, into a Dryathlon™ collection pot, or charge for your services as designated driver (well you wont be drinking, they'll expect you to drive anyway!) or you can use your JustGiving text code and convert drink offers into donations to help beat cancer sooner.

And if you're reading this thinking 'oh, I'd love to get involved, but I'm getting married/have mum and dad's golden wedding/celebrating my 40th in January...' well don't worry - all you have to do is apply for a Golden Pass.  This will give you one night off (at a cost of course!) so you can hop off the wagon for your special event, and still complete the challenge honestly and successfully.

For every £1 raised 80p will directly fund the ground breaking research undertaken at Cancer Research UK which is surely incentive enough on it's own. So do yourself, and the thousands of people who benefit from the work of Cancer Research UK, and sign up now.