Hi guys, just wanted to restart this thread as it's a relevant topic for me.
Well, can I first caveat that I'm not completely sober yet. I have been having 1-2 drinks here and there, but not typically on a regular or weekly basis. The idea of drinking alcohol seems more and more perverse to me, and the times I do have a beer or two are more infrequent as a result.
I've found that the majority of my friends from school and university still like to hang out and drink. The problem is that they will typically have more then two drinks at any given time, so allowing myself to drink with them is allowing myself a very likely opportunity to continue drinking. That moment when a friend says 'come on, one more!' and your defences are already down.
I have found that trying to do sober things with that group of friends is challenging for me. It's weird that if we were 'just' going for a coffee, or a juice, or a pizza, that it would feel strange. And my friend would ask me why I wasn't drinking etc.
So to be honest, it's definitely harder. I missed a 30th birthday yesterday. It was an all day boozing session. Why would anyone want to drink all day long? You would be feeling tired on Sunday, and tired for the rest of the week. And why as a sober person would you want to join in that sort of event?
So certainly, it does create a bit of a rift. I like the idea of going out and not drinking but somehow I do struggle with dare I say it social anxiety - although the social anxiety seems to only crop up when I'm sober in a drinking establishment etc. Perhaps I could experiment a bit more with going out to events that I really want to go to, i.e. live music and stuff and see how it goes. But going to events where there are a lot of people I don't know and it's effectively just talking, I find those events difficult. Which is probably not surprising.
I know there are tons of hobbies out there but it's finding the right ones outside of working full-time and being able to integrate them into your life.
I was doing a fine art course at a school, and the second half of that fine art course starts in September. I met some great friends there, and had a really good time. I would have gone onto a course over summer but I had no job and hence couldn't afford the instalment. Outside of that, I was also planning on joining a community choir. Singing is of course a really positive thing and doing that in a group could be great fun, and of course a great way to meet new people.
I guess my social life has been in a bit of a rut recently. I know there are a couple of things I could sign up to and start to turn it around, but somehow I was stopping myself from actually making the steps.
There is indeed a world outside of drinking if we pause and think of all the ways we could meet new friends through hobbies and so on.
I may also create a mindmap of things I could do outside of alcohol to brainstorm and see all the ideas that come to fruition.