How do you cope with invitations to the pub?
Hello again
Today, I got invited to go to a see a local band by a friend in one of the pubs. I agreed to join. The thing is, when faced with something like that, it's a dilemma of do I miss-out and be sat at home bored, or do I run the risk of temptation?
I must confess that tonight I had three pints. Fortunately the friend I was with who gave me a lift had to be home so he could get up early. After leaving, I was itching to stay out, or to carry on drinking when I got home.
The good news is that there was no alcohol in the house. When I got back I was climbing the walls for another drink, but fortunately the urge to drink more of that filth has since gone and I'm now drinking decaff tea.
The thing about pubs that are busy with loud music and people dancing is that I find them difficult environments to cope with and nerve-wracking (think cycling at rush hour in London between two streams of buses). The biggest sources of uneasiness are the pressure to be dancing, and that pressure to look like I'm 'being sociable' which only makes me feel more closed up and stiff. It's that pressure which also makes me see solace in a drink. 'Ah, you know you want to, drink this and all that will be gone'; logical me knows that in the long term, that's a complete load of bollocks. Anyway, that type of environment is the hardest of all to cope with being sober. The questions I have are, how can I cope with environments like that without drinking? What can I do instead of being sat at home?