First off welcome to SR (Sober Recovery) and you are the most important person here! You have quite a situation with alcohol as do most of us.
You asked how to be around people that are drinking...I don't hang around people that are not on the same journey as I am intending to do. The reason for that is because I've been down this road so many times my friend, and if I start hanging around the people that I used to use with, I will be drinking before I even know it and than me, a junkie that I am, will be slamming dope and probably wouldn't even realize what I was doing. See the what we have is a situation, disease, whatever you want to establish it as, will continue to get worse even when we are not using.
I let go of over 25 months of sobriety, and it has been heck getting back. It only took that one beer, I even took a picture of it, I don't remember much but I even taped a video that is on youtube asking some girls a few questions just playing with a new camera and I don't remember doing that, behind there are 4 Budweiser beer bottles stacked up in a pyramid
so as you can see it never gets better. I don't have a lot of support in my journey anymore I have pretty much screwed all of that up also on my years since I joined here. But just hang in there my friend! It can be done.