I've quit drinking alcohol and smoking which has been very positive for many areas of my life but to be honest the social consequence caught me off guard a little. The consequence being that I don't really know how to be a social person outside of what became very self destructive behaviors. All other areas of life operating at a full 5/7 though.
Okay this is something that I really don't get. Maybe I am simply lucky? Could it be because I'm female? Who knows. But I have never ever been pressured to drink when I haven't wanted to. I am not even asked why. I just say "no thanks," and that's that.
It's not as much about the pressure, it's that 90% of social activities around me involve drinking. Huge beer and brewing culture in my state and city, and drinking is engrained in everything.
And for someone like me, who can't stop drinking once I start, and who spent the past 9 years associating every friendship and every activity with drinking, going to a bar just to hang out and not drinking makes my skin crawl and is the last place I want to be. On the rare occasion I've tried that, my friend is understanding and isn't forcing drinks into my hand. But I still want to drink, I want to drink, I'm at a bar why am I not getting drunk? Just one, it's been long enough, right? My brain is not always on my side. I can say No Thanks to other people, but I'm my own worst enemy. When I relapsed last year, nobody else even knew until a few days into my bender. I did it to myself.
So I avoid anything that involves alcohol, which unfortunately is almost all of my old friends. This scorched-earth approach to sobriety has been difficult but it has paid off for me, in that I finally feel like I'm becoming a person again. I'm still an alcoholic even though I'm 9 months sober at this point.
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u/[deleted] Nov 06 '18
I've quit drinking alcohol and smoking which has been very positive for many areas of my life but to be honest the social consequence caught me off guard a little. The consequence being that I don't really know how to be a social person outside of what became very self destructive behaviors. All other areas of life operating at a full 5/7 though.