The January First Fetish
Fetish is a rich and versatile word for which a person could look up synonyms all day long. We leave aside any meaning that connects to a physical object or refers to disproportionate fondness for a particular human body part. There are plenty of other definitions from which to choose.
In the real world, and in dictionary pages, “fetish” has gathered to itself more esoteric meanings than most clumps of letters could ever dream of acquiring. A fetish is an object or idea that inspires a seemingly unreasonable and/or unwarranted amount of reverential attention, preoccupation, fixation, or obsessive attachment. Mysterious powers are attributed to a fetish, and it is regarded with awe.
We are brought up to revere certain teachings about how we are supposed to feel on certain significant days, and what we are supposed to think about between dawn and dark on those occasions, and especially about how we are required to observe and commemorate the date. Such superstitious beliefs both arouse and attract excessive, and even irrational, devotion that amounts to reverential idolatry.
Whether or not it is a good idea, people are able to believe that various objects and phenomena possess unearthly spiritual properties.
A certain number of people are convinced that the first day of the year is the only one that promotes lifestyle betterment. This superstition may be more widespread than anyone realizes.
Quite possibly, a subset of addicts are unable to shake their habits because of a deeply buried superstitious belief that certain things can happen only on one special day every year, or else not happen at all until the next magical 365-day interval has passed.
Certainly, enough evidence exists out there to promote the idea that many people — whether or not they realize it themselves — suffer from New Year’s Delusion. To the point where, for that person, it might be true. For someone fixated on a magical ability to embrace sobriety on January 1st, it could work.
The subconscious mind is a mysterious entity that arrives at its own conclusions, forms its own opinions, and makes its own decisions. What if it could be any anniversary? Maybe the day Dad moved out, or the day Mom died. Each year when that date approaches, maybe we feel a need to acknowledge it — even in the most incoherent language — and commemorate it somehow. It could be theoretically possible to burn through 20 or 30 years, promising to kick a habit, and then fail again because, once more, we unknowingly missed the day.
Determining why people do things has never been an exact science. To recognize an event tied to the anniversary paradigm might turn out to be incredibly important. Some people succeed in recovery, and others don’t. Could it be possible that a previously unrecognized number of addicted folks fail again and again to escape because of a central, subconscious belief of which they are unaware? What if the entire secret is to discover the one and only true anniversary event that can be exorcised?
Step 1: Identify the operative anniversary.
Step 2: Quit on that day.
Step 3: Finally, succeed!
The more closely this concept is examined, the more possible it seems that what stands in the way of a lot of people who want out but can’t find the exit is an alternate version of the January 1st Fetish. No matter how widespread a superstition might be, there is no rational excuse for tying it to a certain date. For some reason, misguided humans promote the idea that there is only one possible reset point in the calendar. That is just the world’s biggest cop-out, because if you blow it, you’re entitled to another year of futility.
When Synanon founder Charles Dederich wrote “Today is the first day of the rest of your life,” surely he never meant that only one “today”could fill the role. We should think big. Think about how every day can, and will be, the first day of the rest of your life. We are all too ready to grab an excuse and abandon the whole concept of change for another year. But it just may be that the first step is to pinpoint the correct anniversary.
Some posts here have suggested that New Year’s Day is not the only possible, legitimate day to start over. If even a small percentage of addicts are caught in that trap, exposing it could make a meaningful difference. This should be obvious, but a troubling number of publications, and indeed the entire contemporary culture, seem to have sworn fealty to the New Year’s exclusive mental construct, to a point where it’s more like an idol — and not the wholesome sort — than anything that resembles a sensible idea.
Written by Pat Hartman. First published July 9, 2026.
