I won't say it wasn't easy, because I had no desire to drink. But, man, people are just relentless about pouring you drinks!
I went into the city for a show with my husband and got in touch with some friends we hadn't seen in a while. They suggested we grab dinner after our show, which was a great relief instead of asking if we wanted to go to a bar. I was going to recommend coffee, but dinner sounded safe enough.
Get to the restaurant, a tiny little place without a table open, but they assured us it would be just a few minutes. So we stood there and were poured, without being asked, four glasses of wine. I obviously haven't told these friends (or really any friends) about my lifestyle change and wasn't in the mood to get into it right then. I told them I was driving and asked for a glass of water instead.
Over dinner our friends had a bottle of wine and kept trying to get my husband to drink more and more. He was very respectful of me and slowly sipped a glass to quiet them, but GEEZ, it's hard to get people to let up! And these friends of ours aren't even big drinkers!
Anyway, I didn't drink, didn't want to, and didn't feel too awkward in the situation. Driving is always a good reason to get people to back off on offering you drinks. Lucky for me, I LIKE driving, so I guess when this happens again it will be the same thing. Eventually I'd like to tell my friends that I just don't drink any more, but everything is a little too fresh for me to want to get in to.
Is it bad if I just want to get a few months sober before I say that I quit? I feel like if I have some distance from it, I won't have to offer so much of an explanation. Or, at least if I have some time sober, they won't try to convince me to have "just one" with them. I mean, obviously if I told them I have a problem with drinking they might not do that, but I don't necessarily want to tell all of my friends exactly my reasons for abstaining. I'd prefer just to phrase it more from a health stand point.
Well, weekend down. I'm at 2 solid weeks without booze and feeling good about it. I still get a pang of guilt, depression and other bad feelings about it from time to time, but then I remind myself why I am making this decision. Hoping I can keep that up as time goes by, but so far so good!
