September 16 I had my last glass of alcohol. I was a weekend binger, always with groups of friends. I’ve been frustrated with so many things lately, my weight gain and aches and pains, wasted days from hangovers, just generally feeling unwell. We had our anniversary on the 16th and went to a club that had a Latin band playing and salsa dancing. I wanted to dance but my feet hurt because I have bad plantar fasciitis and heel spurs, and I’m very overweight. So instead we sat and ate and drank and enjoyed the music. I was feeling kind of crappy and sad that I’ve let myself get to this point.
Then we ran into a friend we haven’t seen in 12 years or so, he was on the dance floor and dancing like professional salsa dancer. The last time I saw him he was struggling with drugs and alcohol. Once I got talking to him, he told me he has been sober for 6 years and learned salsa and bachata and is loving life. I finished my glass of wine and told myself that was the last.
So here I am 3 weeks later and now the initial struggle is finally hitting. I feel like I’m not ready to announce my sobriety yet, but now people are inviting me for drinks and stuff. My neighbor just asked me to come over for a fire and have some whiskey. I’m having a hard time navigating that. We also have year 10 of our Halloween party coming up at the end of the month. Usually an absolute drinking fest. I’m excited to go and have been working on my costume for a couple weeks already but having the conversations with people about not drinking just seems infinitely difficult.
Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.
Navigating social situations where you used to drink is hard. It gets easier though. The first party I went to and didn’t drink I dreaded and thought it would be miserable but it was actually pretty fun. All though drunk people can be incredibly irritating. With some practice, your brain will rewire and you’ll stop thinking of drinking as being the default activity.
If your sobriety is really raw, avoiding situations where the urge to drink will be overwhelming might be good for a little while but you sound like you have a handle on it. I think it’s also helpful to face it, and when you have fun anyway and then wake up the next day feeling good it’s an incredible feeling. I didn’t realize how much of my life I planned around being hungover. I never made plans for Sundays because I just assumed I’d be miserable. That’s about 14% of my life just thrown away.
And you don’t need to make a big thing of it and announce that you’re sober, do whatever makes you comfortable. Just saying your not drinking today doesn’t need an explanation. You might be surprised how understanding people actually are.
Hope that’s helpful, good luck!