Robertstone

I know what you mean Doug. I worried about the social thing for about 3 days and then I realized that people really are more concerned about themselves in general. It really doesn't matter to them if we stopped drinking, they are just asking to be conversational. But I found that once you tell people you don't drink anymore, they understand. They know that alcohol causes major problems in our society and they probably have had some bad things happen themselves, so they really do understand why someone would not want to drink anymore.

You've had plenty of fun in your life without alcohol, you just have to remember that it is possible. Your addictive voice is probably still trying to whisper to you that it's impossible to have fun without the drug, but don't listen to it. Tell that sucker to go away!

But I really don't know what it is like to reach 100 days sober... but that is because I never counted. I overcame alcoholism somewhere around Feb or Mar of 2009 and have never looked back. I haven't had a drop since then, but I really don't know how many days it has been nor did I count them to reach certain milestones. I didn't see the point in that, as it just seemed like a way to look backwards and to treat my overcoming alcohol as something that was not complete. I was and am free from the addiction and I didn't want to dwell on it anymore.

With that said, I think maybe your fear or your anxiety might stem from a fear of relapse? Have you not told your addictive voice to go away? Have you refused to give it one second of attention and you refuse to listen to it ever again? Have you made the covenant with yourself that you will never ever drink again? You may want to give this a shot - tell yourself out loud a few times that you are never drinking again, that you are done forever.... your addictive voice will scream at you a bit, it will try to give you all the reasons as to why you cant do that. It will pile on the excuses, such as, "I don't want to deal with questions about why I am not drinking and/or be a stick in the mud while everyone else is doing shots, making toasts and getting hammered." And like the REAL YOU said, maybe this is just all in your mind. That is it exactly! Your mind, the part of your brain that craves the alcohol, is giving you these thoughts to entice you to keep drinking. That is the addictive voice that is trying to deceive you.

Anyway, tell it you are never drinking again and listen to what it tries to tell you. Write all the excuses all down, then when it is done telling you its lies, read them over and determine how many of the things it told you are actually true. I bet NONE of them are true! An example from my experience with this was that the voice told me that I couldn't stop drinking because what if I went bowling, I wouldn't have any fun bowling without alcohol! Crazy, eh? Well, as I read that on my list and tried to determine whether that was true or not, I realized that I only go bowling maybe once or twice every five years! So what, I should keep being an alcoholic because I might go bowling one day and it would be absolutely no fun without alcohol? I should continue to wreck my life so I may have a great bowling experience on the off chance that I actually do go bowling? I then remembered that I used to bowl a little as a kid and in high school. I wasn't drinking then and I was having plenty of fun. So, I knew the addicted voice was lying to me, trying to deceive me for its own sinister purpose. I did this with every excuse it gave me and I knew I had been listening to a voice that I thought was my own. Knowing at that moment that that voice wasn't really me empowered me to shut it out.

Sorry that this turned out to be a novel. I certainly didn't mean for it to be this way, but in the things you were saying, I was hearing your addictive voice. My dear friend, give it a try, recognize this voice that wants to deceive you, realize it is separate from the real you who wants to never drink again, and never listen to it again. If you do that, you can go to your party anxiety free!

Feel free to message me if you wanna chat about your experience. I know you have the power to overcome!