aeo1313

In thinking about not drinking I remember so many fun times drinking with friends- I tend to forget the days after filled with guilt, dread, and depression. I am a social binge drinker and it is pretty much expected that i will be wasted when we are at a party, bar, bonfire, etc. I have no daily drive to drink, and therefor will not be tested daily in my desire to quit which almost makes it harder bc by the time we go out next I will figure- gee, I haven't drank in x-many days/weeks I'm fine! I just can't imagine having fun at a party and not drinking.

Fubarcdn

If you are filled with dread, guilt, and depression afterwards perhaps you are not the fun party girl that you remember yourself being.
Drinking distorts our perception of ourselves.
Stick it out and you may find that you are more fun to be around sober than you were drunk.

Mammyof3boys

I've gone to a family gathering in the last 12 days without drinking and also had my first sober New years eve in 5 years and although it was a little boring on new years, i can tell you that I felt wonderful the mornings after. No hangover. No depression. No guilt. Just great. Try it.

ovrock

Same here, but that is the cross we have to bear. You'll be fine, there are too many other things in life to enjoy...

Tigger41

aeo1313 - it's okay to mourn the loss of that time in your life. Look back on it and have your moment (or a few) to say good-bye to the party girl. Then let her go. I had the same feelings but they're gone now - I no longer mourn the loss though I still sometimes have cravings - there's a difference. It takes some time but you stop romanticizing alcohol - you really will

Hard to believe but it will happen. Ever see a bunch of kids having a blast? I don't think we out of the blue need to have alcohol to have fun once we turn 18 or whatever. The potential is there - we just have to let it go and have fun.

I guess what I'm trying to say is - when I read your post I thought. Oh I felt just like that in November but now I don't at all. I wonder how I can communicate to this person that there is fun and calmness and joy in the world once you get rid of this monkey on your back. I hope I did in some way.

Good luck.

totfit

There are a lot of "parties" that would not be fun going to while not drinking. There would likely be no point in going to "some" parties and not drinking. Find something better to do.

Mammyof3boys

Tigger41 I'm looking forward to that feeling because the evenings are hard, gatherings with family/friends and deciding not to drink has been difficult. I hope that feeling of joy, calmness and peace comes to me soon.

aeo1313

I could have written every word of this- except I'm 36 I think I'm having fun, but how embarassing is it to get kicked out of a bar bc you are hitting on every guy there- and you are 34 and married! I only drink when I am with friends...what about you? I also, am always the drunkest one at the party...the one flirting, flashing, dancing...etc.

Inca

I know how you feel. It's really hard to give up something that seems so "fun". The thing I'm realizing is that the fun was an illusion because with the "fun" of drinking came all the nasty stuff too.

I just started a new post last night because I went to a birthday party at a bar for the first time since I stopped drinking and I was surprised at how much fun I actually did have. For me, it took me some time and a couple of relapses out with friends because I thought I was missing out to actually realize that I'm not really missing out. I still get to be with friends, I still get to dance and let loose, and I can actually remember all of it the next day.

For the past three years I really struggled when people told me "the party's over, get with the program". I would say, "no it's not" and then turn around, go to the bar, and drink. Now that I've surrendered to the fact that my way of life wasn't working it's become a lot easier. Keep working at it, it will come

1983ritag

I found that even in my drinking days, I always had much more fun sober because if I started drinking, I wouldn't remember the fun I had. I was a blackout binge drinker but I cherish my memories and it was no longer fun if people had to tell me about all the fun I had.

Imperium

I am new here (and to this lifestyle), but let me share my experience. I had the same fears as you outlined above, but instead of turning down these invitations, I accepted them, and prepared myself for the comments that would ensue. I have been out basically every day since sobriety (a week), and zero comments. I ordered a soda with lunch, and a soda at happy hour. Nobody said anything. Maybe they thought I was hungover. Maybe they thought I was broke. Maybe they thought "FINALLY! He's going dry!" LOL.

In reflection, I think they pay attention to what you order to drink like you pay attention to what kind of shoes they wear. All the sudden your brown loafer wearing friend puts on black dress shoes and braces himself for the public reaction. I guess I'm just not staring at his feet. Furthermore if my fat friend decided to start eating salad, the last comment I would make would be "LOL, some good that will do!", and IMHO the people who make that comment are pretty much going away now that I'm sober anyhow.

Good news: Get this, when you have ten drinks at happy hour and they're all diet coke, it costs $2.50. For all of them! I've never spent 4 hours at happy hour and paid with a $5 and gotten change back!

EarlHickey

You gave binge drinking a chance, why can't you give your sobriety a chance I think you'll like trust me I'm only 60+ days sober and I wish I could take all them drunk days back. Feels great being clean I'll tell ya that.

Dee74

I think it takes time to learn to live sober - it's like any skill.
I drank for 20 years - my drinking defined me.

I did mourn the loss of that, even tho it nearly killed me, and I did have trouble finding the joy in my life for a while after I was sober.

I realised eventually tho that I was so accustomed to finding fun in a bottle - I actually didn't know how to have fun sober. I had to relearn that.

I stayed away from alcohol events for a while. That doesn't mean you need to be a hermit tho

Revisit old hobbies, think of things you'd like to do, reconnect with old sober friends or make new ones...

Once you have a sober life you're happy with?
then you can decide if you still miss parties or whether you find, like I did, that parties were actually just another excuse to drink....

D

Pigtails

Hi. I was a Party Girl to the extreme! So I can definitely relate to your post. It was hard for me to imagine a life that didn't revolve around going out all the time, being the popular center of attention, dancing, drinking, doing coke, being hit on by guys, getting free drinks/foods/rooms/VIP/other special perks... not to mention having some kind of identity that WASN'T about being the fun, wild, silly, happy-go-lucky party girl who was always down for a good time.

By the time I decided I wanted to stop drinking, I realized there was a very negative side to being a party girl. For one thing, we get old, and it's no longer "cute" or fun to be a party girl. I started to feel more silly and obnoxious. I started to feel like everyone else around me had grown up and moved on with their real lives, and I was stuck in immaturity and irresponsibility. Also, there was the next-day regret you mention: the guilt, the embarrassment, the hangovers, the sickness... it just plain sucked. Not to mention the close calls with DUIs, the friends who got DUIs, the friends who did stupid things when drunk and getting myself into stupid situations and dangerous places with sketchy people... I had a lot of fear about what the consequences of my getting obliterated and out of control could be, and I feel lucky to have gotten out before horrible things happened, although honestly I did a lot of damage to my self-esteem and well-being by some of the things I did when drunk/high.

There were a lot of reasons to stop being a party girl. But when I dug deep, I realized I was clinging to this party girl life/image because I was uncertain of who I was. I was insecure and unhappy and empty, and felt like something great and happening was right around the corner... or at the bottom of my cocktail glass. By the end, or maybe for most of the time, I realized I wasn't even happy or having "fun" when I went out, but I just kept thinking something else would happen and I didn't want to miss out on it. I began to realize I was just escaping form myself, but making my own life more miserable.

Now I'm 62 days sober (after quite a few attempts at starting/stopping... it's not as easy as you think, with parties, drinking spots, old friends and habits constantly beckoning to us), and I don't really miss the party life at all. I was just plain tired of it, when I was being honest with myself, but didn't know what else to do because I was so used to it. I still go out and have fun, but my time is more meaningful because I am present and focused on the conversation and people. I feel real joy instead of a blur or buzz. And if I feel tired or bored, I can just get up and go home! Which I've also found to be a lot of fun lately. If I feel uncomfortable or shy (which I often do, without alcohol), it's a good opportunity to reflect on myself and find out why I feel that way and what, if anything, I should do about it, or if I should just myself feel free to be me, even if that "me" is reserved or stuck in my head at the moment etc. I don't have to fill myself up with alcohol and fake friends and try to be something that I'm not.

One last thought... whenever you do find yourself nostalgic about your party girl days, it might be helpful to take a close look at what exactly you're pining over and why. It could simply be that you miss drinking/coping with life by escaping/living on the edge etc. Perhaps you miss youth or the illusion of outter beauty. For me, I've realized I miss the attention, which is false and fake, but which made me feel better than I felt inside. Whenever I listen to hip hop songs, I miss going out and drinking, but I've realized lately that the lyrics are so shallow and are all about clothes, money, drinking, drugs, and being the center of attention. That's no longer the person I want to be. On the other hand, whenever I hear techno/dance music, I realize I miss dancing, which I can still go out and do without alcohol! In fact, some girls in my AA group go to a dance club and dance all night, totally sober, and I'm excited to go with them, because no one says I can't go out and have fun anymore... I just no longer want to drink, or to have my life revolve around constantly going out and over-indulging myself.

Best wishes in your attempts at sobriety. If you find it harder than you originally thought, we are here for you, and so are people at AA... I am good friends now with some other former party girls who understand exactly what I'm going through.

Pigtails

Hi ScarletRose. I could so relate to your post. Thanks for sharing!!!

I understand what you're saying; however, just remember that if anyone only loves you for your fun party girl ways, they probably have issues themselves and are just using you. Your real, true friends and family members should love you for who are you SOBER because that is the real you, and they should want you to be happy and healthy, and be encouraging with regard to your sobriety. Eventually you will feel comfortable enough in your old skin to enjoy yourself and be glad you're not making a drunken fool out of yourself. But in the meantime it's perfectly fine to feel whatever you're feeling; just try to love yourself and not be so hard on yourself. Make a list of things that are true about the SOBER you-- ex., caring, smart, pretty, well-meaning, and on and on and on-- and remember that THESE are the reasons people love you and, even more importantly, they're the reason you love yourself.

Ha, amen to that sister. And I am only 31. But I hung out with a younger, just-out-of-college crowd (or a much older professional crowd who never really grew up and feel entitled to drink until they're drunken fools, because they are "successful"), because, surprise surprise, these people liked to drink as much as I did. When I turned 30, I realized that I was getting way too old for this stuff and I stuck out like a sore thumb. I realize now that it was more internal... I look very very young for my age (some people mistake me for a teenager!... most guess young 20's), I wasn't an old dud in the corner and I liked to have fun and party all night with the rest of them. But I began to feel that something was wrong with my life if I was still doing the same things that young people did... young people who eventually grow out of it. I felt stuck in a cycle of partying and drinking, and not getting much done with the rest of my life. When I was 30 this guy I was dating (who was very bad for me, but rich) got me and my friends VIP and bottle service (a huge bottle of Grey Goose that we couldn't even finish because we had been pre-partying in the room, and kept going back up to do coke) at a club, and, I remember at the time (this was before I had the desire to stop drinking) that I was just pathetic, acting like I was turning 21 instead of 30. I didn't *feel* 30 at all. But in deciding not to drink, and sticking to it, I have made a decision to start
growing up, so now I'm proud of myself, and you should be too.
I can totally relate, again. I knew people wouldn't take me seriously and part of me didn't WANT them to take me seriously, because then I'd have to be held accountable to my decision. I wanted the luxury of going back to drinking, guilt-free, if I wanted to. Well, I did go back to drinking, several times, and it wasn't guilt-free because **I** knew that I had made a decision and was letting myself down. Worse, I knew I was an alcoholic, a problem drinker or whatever you want to call it (I'm not too big on labels... but basically I knew alcohol was dragging me down and keeping me unhappy, and was determined to change things), and so having that knowledge took all the fun out of trying to get wasted into an unthinking oblivion.

You do not have to tell anyone of your private decisions and it's perfectly a good idea to avoid temptation right now. Eventually, of course, you will have to face life as a sober person when the temptations of alcohol are all around. You will have to decline drinks, even if they are pushed on you, or even if the circumstance is really uncomfortable. You will have to not care at all what other people think about the fact that you're not drinking or why, and only care about what you think of yourself, which is all that matters in the end. You may lose some friends if they were only party/drinking friends or if they can't support you in what is the most important thing to you right now... recovery. For all of these reasons it's a great idea to learn tools to life life sober, rather than just not drinking. But one day at a time, you will get there, and I know exactly where you're at; it's normal. I am just encouraging you to start thinking about how you want your life to look without alcohol-- you can still have a full, active, engaging life, and probably more peace, calm, and inner happiness along with it-- and take steps to make it happen, so that you feel confident going out and living life no matter what other people are doing/saying.

I've had a lot of surprises along the way so far and you probably will too. For example, I lost my "best" friend, the young 23-year-old I partied with, which wasn't much of a surprise but still hurt like heck. But I thought for sure that my one good friend who is close to me in age and who is more of a domestic homebody, non-partier type, would cheerlead me along the way, be totally happy for me and support me 100%. Actually, it has not been like that at all. Instead she seems suspicious and annoyed at the fact that I'm not drinking. I've realized that whenever she DOES want to go out and drink, she expected me to be her ever-ready drinking companion, and now that's not possible. And I also realized that she (as well as most non-alcoholics) just doesn't/can't understand what it's like, so, I get comments from her like "you just need to cut back on your drinking," "you were just going through some hard times and were young and single, so now you can drink normally," or "just stop at one or two beers." I think she can't or doesn't want to admit that her good friend is a flat-out alcoholic who can't handle her liquor!! Just because I have finally come to accept and deal with that, doesn't mean that she can. So for awhile I avoided her, for awhile I came up with other reasons, like my sleep disorder/health reasons, and only recently, when she STILL couldn't believe I'm not drinking and tried to test me by offering me a drink of her beer, was I confident and sure of myself enough to say "I haven't had a drink in over two months and I feel so much better physically and emotionally, so, I'm going to just keep going along this same path of not drinking." It felt good to say that, to stand up for myself and my goals, and to realize that I am the only person who can look out for me, so I can't depend on what other people, even those close to me, think, say or do. But if I hadn't had some sober time under my belt, I wouldn't have been strong or sure enough of myself to say that, and would have slipped back into "let's grab a beer" with her (and then going home and drinking more on my own, or trying to find other friends who were out who I could join for more drinks), and my horrible cycle would have continued. But now, I realize that just because SHE can have a beer or two and go home happy (as far as I know), and just because she wants me to join her or doesn't understand/like that I can't, doesn't mean I should let that threaten my sobriety.

That isn't to say it has been easy. In fact it has been very hard. I get angry that my boyfriend and sister, who DO understand exactly what's up with me-- that I have a drinking problem and want desperately to stop-- don't always support me or believe in me. Actually I get mad at the notion that I can't drink and other people can; it feels so unfair. But I keep on not drinking no matter what, and so should you. Eventually we will be completely okay with it, I think, and if not, at least we won't be dancing on table tops at the bar when we're 50!
Please don't be mad at yourself for letting it get to this. It isn't your fault; it is the nature of the disease. Alcoholism is progressive and sneaky. There is a reason you love drinking hard and having a good time. Because alcoholism is in your nature, your personality, and it tries to lure you in all the time. It seemed harmless at first but it was just starting down its path. Instead of being mad at yourself, you should be proud of yourself for recognizing it and stopping it while it's still relatively early!! Every time I hear a bottom-out drunk's story at AA, my first reaction is to think, "I wasn't that bad, perhaps I don't belong here." But then when I really think about, I WAS very bad off, for myself. Alcohol affects everyone differently, and perhaps some big burly old men may get into fights and end up in jail when they're drinking, but for me, it was more like losing my self-respect and dignity, hooking up with strangers, doing dangerous things that could easily send me to jail or the crazyhouse, etc... so I should not so easily compare myself to other people, but instead focus on what it was doing to me. I knew I was bad off and I am doing what it takes to stop, so I do belong here, with the guy who was a homeless alcoholic for years, and I, just like him, need to keep doing everything I can to stay sober. Because if I don't, it will just keep barreling down the same ugly highway, and my own personal bottom will get lower and lower and lower. To me that universal truth is what makes places like SR and AA so beautiful. It is people who know they want to be done with drinking coming together to support each other. I am DONE with drinking, and so are you, and for that we should be proud of ourselves for recognizing and addressing. All the best to you!!