Just over a year ago, I was at the airport, returning home from a business trip to London and feeling like crap from the night before. It hit me that l'd been drinking more than I had ever intended.

I realized I desperately needed to reevaluate my relationship with alcohol. In London, I had heard of a new tradition, a government-sponsored Dry January when people pledge to take the month off booze while also raising money for charity. Although I would be spending January in the States, I decided to give it a try, hoping it would help me transform my overall drinking habits.

I quickly realized that approaching the challenge as if it were an "alcohol diet" would be torture. Instead, I need to change my mentality—focusing not on what's hard about giving up alcohol but on what's so great about not drinking. Here are just a few of the ways a Dry January transformed my life: