This month, many people are choosing to take part in “Dry January” and giving up alcohol for the month. Kelly Ripa has taken on the challenge before, and she claims it has led to her staying sober for the last few years.
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How A ‘Sober Month’ Led To Ripa Giving Up Drinking
It all started when Ryan Seacrest joined Live! With Kelly and Ryan. His debut at the show coincided with a pact Ripa had made with friends to stop drinking for a month. “Ryan likes to blame himself for me stopping drinking, he’s like, ‘I got here and you stopped drinking.’ It really was not that,” Ripa told People.
“I did a sober month—all my girlfriends did it, we all did it together—and I just never went back to it,” she continued.
“It wasn’t even really a thought process. It felt great, I felt like I looked great, I felt like I didn’t feel hungover. Not that I was a heavy drinker—I wasn’t someone who got drunk—but even like two glasses of wine at a girl’s night out dinner; I would feel it the next morning.”
Ripa concluded, “I just didn’t really feel the need or desire to go back to it. It wasn’t really a choice or a thought, it was just, ‘Yeah, I guess I don’t drink anymore.’”
Quitting drinking might have been easy for the talk show host, but she did reveal the habit she had a hard time kicking: smoking.
The Habit Ripa Had A Hard Time Giving Up
“Quitting smoking I really had to think about,” Ripa shared. “I was like: ‘Smoking leads to cancer and it will kill you.’ It was a thing I had to tell myself. And I was like, ‘It gives you wrinkles.’ And that was the thing that was really terrifying. But you don’t want to die early, needlessly, over cigarettes. Over something you don’t even like that much anyway. But drinking was very easy. I didn’t really think about it at all.”
Ripa also pointed out the difference between people’s reactions when they found out she stopped drinking versus when they found out she stopped smoking. The talk show host said she faced far fewer questions about why she quit smoking than why she quit drinking.
“I’m not comparing cigarettes to alcohol, but for me it was just like, I don’t do that anymore. I felt better so I just stopped,” Ripa shrugged.
It’s inspiring to see that what started as a month-long hiatus from alcohol developed into a lifestyle of health and happiness for Ripa!