I made a massive effort when I first got sober to go to after work pub visits and made sure I was still available for corporate entertaining. After all, it is expected. But it was to my own detriment. I felt awful and wouldn't have wished that experience on anyone. Despite putting on my best smile and making a huge effort to be social I was still berated for not drinking. This was tough to deal with early on, but even now after a year and a half sober it is annoying as hell. The only difference being now people don't really expect me to drink.
The thing is though that I wonder how much of this expectation was something I was putting on myself. I have a colleague at work who never comes out, so no one expects him to, nor do they sit there saying how anti social he is (though I to be honest think that), and another colleague of mine never does any of the entertaining anymore, she just says she's busy, and my boss never says 'well you have to it's in your contract' (it is) or says she's being anti social. So early on in my sobriety I carried the brunt of all the corporate entertaining, being barmaid for a bunch of clients while trying not to gag on the smell of alcohol, and I always made an effort to go out with colleagues. Needless to say when I realised I was the only one making an effort I have dropped off the radar and have suddenly become very busy too. This might make me come of as incredibly childish but I do think that most of those expectations of attendance I put on myself. Maybe my boss does sit there thinking I am anti social, I don't know, but I spent all my drinking years trying to be someone I am not for other people so I don't want to do the exact same thing in my sobriety.
So no, I don't think you should have pushed yourself to go if you didn't want to...