Instead of the usual hopeful New Year's message, the speaker offers a toast that is funny and bleakly honest. The clock strikes midnight and everything resets, but the "new slate" only brings "new problems" and "more chances to do wrong." Fresh starts, the poem suggests, don't make people any wiser.
The speaker seems tired but not defeated. The list of what's coming, "heart ache, procrastination, / Regret, and insanity," is delivered with a shrug, as if these things are just part of the deal. "Don't look back" sounds like advice, yet it also reads as a way of dodging the mistakes of the past year. The mood is wry and sarcastic, but there's warmth underneath. Everyone raises their cups together and wishes each other luck, so the gloom becomes something shared. The last line, "Cause we sure as hell need it," lands the joke and the sincerity at once: luck is the only thing the speaker is willing to hope for.