Here in Finland we have had this concept of tipaton tammikuu for quite a long time.
You are supposed to give a break to your body and especially to your liver on January. Do you have it in the other countries as well?

I've never done it but this year I noticed an advertisement for it in some internet site I was visiting. I like the calendar they have made for you to fill up. It has some similar elements as I used to keep score of my drinking some years (quite a many I think) ago.

I was giving myself a + sign every day I did not drink any alcohol. They were called "plussapäivät". So I tried to be on plus side at the end of the month. Another system was to colour a day black in my calendar if I drank more than hmm maybe it was 2 or 3 portions of alcohol. If I drank one (or maybe it was max two) I got to colour only half of the square. The more black my calendar looked like the more I was supposed to disapprove myself. Maybe it worked, maybe not. At least I was paying attention to how much I was drinking then.

So here is my January 2007 drinking diary:
  1. 0
  2. 0
  3. 0
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. ... it is going so horrible that maybe I should stop writing down. But If you visit 82 year old dame can you say no if she wants to share a bottle of bubling w/ you? ok, 6
  7. ½
  8. ½
  9. ½
  10. 3, pretty good as we were invited to a disputation dinner
  11. 2, extreamly good as we were invited to masters degree coktail party
  12. 0, some white wine in the fish poaching liquid does not count ;)
  13. 0
  14. 0, proud of it, Seniors dinner at Ostrobotnia
  15. 0
  16. 0
  17. 4, most likely,  we had great outdoor party w/ soup and chocolate fondue
  18. 1½, with exellent sourkraut soup
  19. 0, amazing number
  20. 0
  21. 0
  22. 0 = 12 zeros 50%/50% ;)
  23.  L&T party with free drinks = 2 ½
  24. 2, Dinner with Italian-Greek couple
  25. 2, Dinner w/ Seppo, Anja,Mari, Heka and Wiltsu 
  26. 0 as a result of hard dicipline at my favourite Japanise restaurant
  27. 0, depressing, If I wish to have more zero's than not in January, there is no more drinks to be had
  28.  0
  29.  0  These last two days were horrible in the sense that I had to sniff red wine around me and not to drink it ;) Eat a piece of cheese and not to take any wine.. specially as you are doing the table order for 420 guests...