Originally Posted by tealily

Less,

I appreciate your willingness to be frank. I get that is pitiful right now to be a non drinker in a sea of drinkers. You understand part of it is just that it's still early for you. But I sense a couple other things going on too:

You seem to have a chip on your shoulder. That you are pissed off about having your alcohol taken away from you (even though it's your choice) and you are asking for us here to knock it off, so you can take it out on us. Knock down our arguments. Say we are kidding ourselves about human social life. That alcohol is this gift that makes life better that you can't have anymore.

That is fine.. but realize how much power you are giving to this substance. This beverage. Do you really want to defend it that much? For whatever reason, physical or psychological, it has not been a good thing in your life. I submit that it's actually not a good thing in any of your friends' and colleagues' lives. It may not be devastatingly damaging in their case, but it's objectively NOT a good thing.

Is it really worth the aggravation, energy, wistfulness, resentment you are indulging in (which I think you are, even though you say you are not)? Maybe this is what you need to do to get through these early days. But I urge you to let it go.

I am in the same sort of social circle you are in. Professionals in their 40s and 50s with alcohol part of just about every event: golf, beach, book clubs, dinners, girls nights out, concerts. But I have gotten to the point where the alcohol part of that leaves me totally cold. In fact to me, it is gross. If I had friends who smoked, I would have no interest in lighting up with them. I have no interest in that, or in pouring alcohol through my liver. You don't have to miss out being with those people.

This is a mental switch you are capable of making.

You are a good writer. If you truly think life is not as meaningful without alcohol, try to defend that.

I'm not usually this argumentative and confrontational, but I am just trying to help.