froscow

thanks guys.

the party is tonight. just gonna have a nice cozy evening at home with netflix and a good home cooked meal.

ScottFromWI

Sounds like a great plan to me froscow! You'll never regret the decision to NOT drink ;-)

Briansy

I was in a bit of a similar situation this week. I stressed all week about a meet up today with me and my business colleague (super sociable guy) and our ex colleagues - the relationships were very much founded on boozing although there's certainly one or two I have a lot of time for - we just would never see each other outside of a boozing context.

I ended up going and thankfully it was cut short for various reasons. I made my excuses with drinking diet coke and stood there feeling how I always feel at the moment, glum and down. I couldn't join in with any of the banter - there was some needle about my being single etc which I just didn't have anything to bounce back at them with. It was all in jest but I did think to myself: in truth, this is me without alcohol. I've probably been mildly depressed all my life and drinking has perpetuated that. But while I was drinking I could come alive and be "Mr Fun".

Although I feel greatly relieved to have come out of it unscathed, I will take the advice of others and not put myself in that situation again any time soon. It will mean not going to two weddings and definitely no bachelor parties next year. I know I'm depressed at the moment and am going to see someone a doctor later today about it. I do wonder if some actual medication to get me out of this funk is in order and perhaps make me less likely to turn to alcohol when these feelings of inadequacy rear their head again. Whilst the drinking me, "Mr Fun", was not the real me, perhaps doing something about this permanently low mood (but not major depression) will bring me closer to that Brian than the one in my body at the moment.

I really don't see "snapping out of it" happening any time soon.

ScottFromWI

Glad to hear you are going to seek some help for your potential depression issues Briansy. Keep in mind that most meds really only treat the symptoms of conditions like anxiety and depression- not the core causes. Not to say that they can't help you get "over the hump" so you can start making the necessary changes to you life. But just like there is no magic pill to fix alcoholism, there's not one for depression either. If you do find that you are clinically depressed, i'd highly recommend speaking with a therapist too - MD"s can usually only do so much to help.

I would also add that most people don't just "snap out" of mental illness. It's generally a process where you improve bit by bit and learn techniques to make every day better than the next. But it's also pretty amazing when you do work on it for a while and suddenly realize how far you've come.

Zebra1275

A lot of people don't go to work parties because they really don't want to see the people they work with, outside of work.

One of the problems is that the biggest thing you have in common with these people, is work. So that's what people generally talk about. Who needs that?

Have a family event planned (even if it's just walking the family dog!) that conflicts with the work party and you have a good excuse.

SoberCAH

You made a very wise, and healthy, decision, froscow.

I made a similar decision at 6 months sober involving a car race.

I got uncomfortable when I was there for the Saturday preliminary race and simply sold my ticket for the big race on Sunday and drove home.

It was one of the defining moments in my recovery.

You have just experienced such watershed moment in your sobriety.

Congratulations.

JeffreyAK

Early on I did skip a lot of events like that, not so much because I was afraid I would drink but because I didn't want to deal with the anxiety, and especially because I didn't want to be around drunk people. I still don't want to be around drunk people 8 years later, just because they annoy me.

At some point we have to go, and what I did was plan the event carefully in my mind so it felt like I had it somewhat under control. This is how I'll get there, this is how I'll leave if I need to escape, and this is what I'll say to people about it if I do bail out. There's a meeting before, a meeting after somewhere if I feel like I need it, this is what I'll say if someone offers me a drink or asks why I'm not sucking down the alcohol (no one ever did...). Etc. Just having thought through the event in advance did a lot to calm my anxiety about it, and made it easy to get through.