A couple of quick questions....
 

Hi all,

I registered here a while back, but have just been lurking.

I have 2 main problems and I simply do not have the answers.

First - How does anyone deal with new friends/dinner guests that have no idea that I don't/shouldn't drink and show up with a bottle of wine or something? It's more complicated than that too. What about relatives who drink.

What do you do with these new friends who come over. There's not supposed to be booze in the house, so what do you serve them? How do you handle it if/when they bring something?

Second - Everytime I quit (ya, you know :headbange ) I start getting really healthy...sleeping great, feeling good, happy, etc. - THAT'S exactly when the voice in my head starts saying, 'man, it's a sunny day, you are feeling great! You can handle a beer or two!' Ugh...that's when the cycle starts all over again.

Any ideas?

Sometimes the choices in early recovery are hard ones.

We don't keep alcohol in the house, nor do we serve it, so if someone brings wine, we give it away. There are so many things you can serve for drinks- sparkling water with lemon is a great opion. In my opinion, you do not owe anybody an explanation as to why you drink or not.

You can try keeping a journal of your thoughts, and when the voice starts speaking to you, go back and re-read how you felt when you last drank. Re-read how good you are feeling now, and it might help you not want to go back.

Thats a tough one, if you have people coming around & they might bring booze with them. If you really can't tell them, there are really two options. You can cancel the dinner/ party or maybe try to make it into something like "Hey, why don't we have a dinner once without any booze and let's see how it goes" - either way I would not have any booze floating around the house. The temptation is what got us here in a first place.

Good luck!

I would serve the wine they bring to others as a compliment....when it's gone the company usually is too....just because I don't drink, I won't impose that on others.

I know it's not a good idea to have alcohol in the house....but I still have bottles of hard liquor and wine unopened and untouched at my house (not anything appealing that I would LIKE to drink).... I plan to give it away as I go places....thrifty and flirting with danger, I know.

I guess I am like the dieter with the candybar in my pocket.

Serve the wine with dinner, or thank them for their thoughtfulness and put it away for some unspecified future special occasion... then give it away if you don't want it your home.

Relatives? Hmm, I keep a few bottles of beer around, from a previous party, for my adult son or for an expected visitor. My son complains though, says it's stale... tough I say, bring your own next time!!;) My brother who is AA 24 years used to always have a few bottles of beer for me when I came to visit, now he can serve his BIL....

I'm almost 18 months though, I couldn't keep any beer around early on.... My wife always has had her Reisling somewhere in the fridge...

Axe... Make your sobriety the number one priority... if that means a dry home for you, well, that's what it means... whatever it takes. Do what's right for you.

Maybe a program of some type to help you stay sober once you start feeling good.

Mark

Hey, I fear that exact same thing! I start feeling awsome and I allow myself a small amount (relatively small) to drink, nothing bad happens so then I have more, and pretty soon I am back into it!! I dont have the answers...sorry..but I am making phone calls daily to people in the program, and being honest with them. So once I get feeling that way, i'll try calling. Good luck to both of us!:You_Rock_

There is nothing wrong with having no interest in alcohol. We all have our likes and dislikes. I have been to family get together s where some drink alcohol and others don't, some go outside for smoke breaks and some don't. It is no big deal.....unless you are concerned with it triggering you.

Feeling better and feeling like u can drink again is a common pattern. The more u can stay focused on doing something for your continued recovery during this period the better.

My usual reply when offered a drink is, "I don't need it." It tends to eliminate the prompting.

The thought of having a drink slips into my mind occasionally, but prompts me to recall why not having one is the better idea. It's no longer the struggle it used to be. After a while you become accustomed to your new normal (of not drinking). But until that happens it's a good idea to keep a mental list of your reasons for not taking that drink. AA helps. If you're struggling most around the "cocktail hour" find a meeting around that time and go.

Axe, my wife still drinks, though not much. Wish I could drink like her – a couple glasses of wine once or twice a week –*but I can't. I'm an alcoholic and she's not, so good for her. Relatives on both sides of our families abuse alcohol so that's a challenge to be around. One thing I've noticed however, is that without me contributing to the cut-loose party drinking atmosphere, everyone else seems to drink a little less, too. Perhaps seeing me decide to abstain has forced some of them to monitor their drinking habits more, too. Or maybe I just assumed everyone else was partying while I made an ass of myself. I hope the former.
Friends have been every bit as difficult. Go back and read some of my old posts from last summer for insight if you like. Some, and we're talking well-to-do, pillar-of-society kind of folks, have been very openly questioning of my decision not to drink and been downright disgruntled about it. I ignore them.
You're going to be around alcohol more frequently than you'd probably like. You just can't drink it, Axe. I can tell you that it gets easier with time. For me, the first few weeks was hard physically. Then the next two to three months, the mental part, the ritual of drinking was challenging. But, though it hasn't completely dissipated, those associations have begun to fade as drinking is just no longer part of my personal lifestyle.I would even argue that they have faded faster than I would have anticipated. I can't remember what my favorite beer tasted like. Believe and follow the one-day-at-a-time advice. Personally, I stopped counting days quite a while ago, but I figured it out this morning, and I'm bearing down on 300 days. You can, too, believe it.

reading this thread makes me want to have a glass of wine....I am seeing that cabernet again swirling in the glass...

(none of THAT in my house, i couldn't allow it).

I wish I had experience to share, but we rarely entertain - too small an apartment - but when I'm out and around alcohol it doesn't faze me....I don't particularly enjoy watching drunkenness but it doesn't faze me.

I never thought I'd get to that point, but I did.

Til I got to that point (I have nearly 3 years) my solution was to tell everyone I don't drink. It needn't be more complicated than that.

Everybody who knew me back then knows I'm an alcoholic - everyone who's met me since knows I don't drink.

I'm lucky I have the friends I do I guess. I've never set any rules but noones ever bought booze over either.

D

Just tell em you're a recovering alcoholic. Should end any confusion pretty quickly.

The second question has to be resolved with applying a recovery programme to your daily life, accepting life on lifes terms and an absolute desire to want to stay sober more than getting drunk and everyhting that entails.

Oh yer, total and utter acceptance that you're an alkie.

Just my humble opinion obviously and everyone is different or so theeir alcoholic mind will have them believe! haha.


peace

I just let people know I'm a non drinker. If they bring wine they can drink it and bring the leftovers back home with them. I choose not to drink, and I choose not to keep liquor in the house. Anything that comes into the house needs to be drank or taken out.. My house, my rules :)

As for the feeling better then feeling like getting drunk again.. I did that a ton too before I was really serious about living a sober life. Once it became less about "not drinking" and more about "living sober" I didn't really relate feeling good with wanting to get drunk anymore.. but it took a long time sober, and lots of working on my recovery to get to that point.

..some-one recently offered me a beer..

.."come on,1 beer won't hurt!!"

."no thanks",I said.." the hurt has already been done...

I'd serve them their own wine and let them take home any that's left over. Just because someone brings alcohol into my home doesn't mean I have to drink it.

I have wine in my fridge, its the roomies. If I ever again have the urge to drink, she will have to keep her booze elsewhere. Pretty much everyone I know is aware that I don't drink.

so all this talk of bringing and serving wine made me *antsy* today...it's Friday night and time on my hands.....I do not want to drink but i want to drink...(does that make sense)?....I want a *treat* for a long week of work....

I think about this all the way home....I steer my car into the mall, grab 2 old wet and soggy Bed Bath Beyond coupons off the floor of my car, go inside to purchase the keurig herbal teas...(I am out and the order won't deliver until next week)..they are out too...so I get some raspberry black tea with caffeine and purchase a pretty new heavy glass mug....home to a cleaned driveway and walkway...good thing cos i have a splitting headache....

at this point i don't care what my title is (Dry Drunk)..all I know is I stopped my urge because I wanted to for tonight....it's another day sober for me, I didn't fail myself.