RobbyRobot

I think threads like these have room for all kinds of experiences and informed opinions. Sober living is entirely a personal choice made and we all have similar and also dis-similar challenges and responsibilities to our chosen sober / abstinence lifestyles.

One size does not fit all, as we all realise, of course.

LadyBlue0527

Hear Hear!

Ptcapote

Yes, I have to agree with BigS on this one. I will be nine months sober in about a week and I avoid bars and drinking venues like the Plague. I have been in them out of necessity (the dreaded work function that I didn't have time to pre-plan to not be there) and early on I felt very nervous. Now? Not so much but I still don't like being there. Honestly, and very hypocritically I suppose, because of the people. I have a very low threshold for drunk people these days. Maybe because it makes me realize what an a$$hole I looked like and what I inflicted on others when I was drinking...

As for business functions...yes, yes, yes. I work in a town where drinking and business are synonymous. Particularly in my field, where a lot is built into having to gain someone's trust to get access to sensitive information, drinking is normally the main way to do it. (I realize how messed up this is but...there you have it). So I completely understand having to deal with these situations. I had to make adjustments there too. I will still take a client out to lunch and he/she will drink. I just do not make reservations to dine in a bar or in the bar section of the restaurant. Watching people around me enjoying a Coke or a tea rather than a glass of wine helps. I tell clients I have quit for health reasons and that is a very hard thing for them to push back on without looking like insensitive jerks (and some do, but very few).

I skip happy hours for the most part and, when I go, I try to get there early and have a cranberry/seltzer in my hand. I have also figured out new venues to go where alcohol doesn't feature prominently.

So, yeah, totally get it when it comes to work and dealing with others who drink. That is a very real thing and part of many of our lives and professions.

But to voluntarily put yourself in a bar/pub/club in early sobriety because it's what you always have done and your friends wouldn't understand otherwise?

Russian roulette, in my humble opinion.

Thanks for the thread, BigS.

bigsombrero

I stated more than once in my post that it was just my opinion. My experience. I have 16 months of sobriety, and I battled that demon of going to bars right out of the gate. I am simply trying to share my opinion. If you don't share that opinion, that's fine by me.

As for client lunches and dinners - I was a high-level sales manager for 10 years in downtown Chicago, and I've been to socials, dinners, and and conferences where I drank. Not once did drinking EVER play a role in getting a contract signed. It was sure nice to pretend it did, though, especially as an alcoholic.

jdooner

I agree now but in my first month and second of sobriety, I would have disagreed (where time and wisdom helps). I fought this bc deep down there was a subconcious that was fighting these ideas and I did not even notice. I tried and found it impossible to acclimate.

When I truly realize and admitted I am an addict and my life had become unmanageable and I needed the help of others, the surrender has allowed me to not only see clearly but have no desire to frequent such establishments. I used business, as an excuse to attend bars and a club but it was just that an excuse.

Now if I really do have a business meeting that cannot be moved and has to be at a bar (this will almost certainly never occur) than I will go. Before, I was the one though that was steering things towards the drink subconsciously.

Good post.

bigsombrero

That's what prompted me to start this thread. I totally understand why they think that way, because I did too. Not sure if this helps anything, but I just felt like throwing it out there. It's a hard truth to swallow, but I feel it's important.

MIRecovery

Another point of view

A friend of mine in AA goes to drinking events on a regular basis and he says it does not bother him a bit. I know him well and I believe him but he has also ben sober for 6+ years. The big book even says we can be in drinking situations if our spiritual condition is well maintained.

For me I avoid them.

foolsgold66

Perhaps this is social commentary, but in general, I never saw 'happy hour' as much about being happy anyway. Happy people don't need an occasion.

Sobersunshine

If I'm faced with a decision that I'm having trouble with, I ask myself, "am I walking towards, or away from, a drink?". Generally I see spending time in drinking establishments or at drinking events as walking towards a drink. So I avoid them.

Deckard

When I started running, I could not run for distance. It took months to years of training, practice, steadily getting better and increasing my endurance.

I think it's the same with "slippery places."

For someone who has quit drinking, going to a bar and staying sober is like a marathon. It's really difficult to do right off the bat, IMO.

Dee74

I certainly did not intend for you to feel that way.

We may disagree, but your POV is your POV shaped by your opinions and is at least as valuable as mine - but I can't not share my experience, or agree with everyone all the time Crois

My opinion is not automatically better than yours because I'm a Mod, and it's not better because I have some years up...but my POV has changed a lot since my early days.

For years, and when I first got here my recovery mantra was get on with life - alcohol's everywhere, so deal with it. IN YOUR FACE ALCOHELL!

The thing was....I didn't deal with it very well.

If I didn't relapse, I was thoroughly miserable, depressed, or unquenchably angry.

So...this last attempt at sobriety after I joined SR, I opted out for a while.

I understand that some peoples job's may depend on them being around alcohol sometimes - you guys will have to make the best of that - but I actually did give up my job for my recovery.

I was a gigging musician - I'd fallen a long way down the totem pole due to my drinking but I could always get a gig - but I chose not to.

I stayed away from alcohol, I worked on my life and myself, changed a lot, grew 'some sober muscles'...then I re-entered society.

I needed time to move away from the mindset of the alcohol victim I had been.

Eventually I felt like the scales fell from my eyes. I preferred being sober, I loved my sober life and alcohol ceased to be my obsession.

These days I can go anywhere - I even went back to music. I go and buy scotch for my dad, I socialise with people who drink (altho not to excess) - alcohol is no longer on my radar - but I had to work to get up to that kind of security.

For better or worse...thats my experience

I see a lot of people hit the dirt because they bit off too much too soon.

All I'm saying is be aware and be careful, and I think we can both agree on that Crois

D

Twinings

I don't mind going to bars, it's not a problem for me, and I've never lapsed when out... I don't enjoy it as much sometimes as when I drank but I always make sure there's an escape plan.

I'm a loner drinker, I drink at home, that's when a lapse is likely to happen, but I can't exactly avoid my house or the shops. It's different here in the UK, we don't really have liqueur stores. I have 3 shops in the vicinity of my house and every single one of them sells alcohol. So even if I need a loaf of bread, or some fruit, that's when the battle comes in... and there's nothing I can do to avoid it.

EndGameNYC

If I'm going to a bar, it's for one reason. So I don't go.

Kaneda8888

I am still in early sobriety so I avoid any drinking establishment except restaurants. Initially, I even had trouble walking past liquor stores without feeling the draw. Fortunately, that seems to have passed but as others have said, why tempt the devil ? I am at the point where I feel indifferent to alcohol. For example, I chose the wine at a dinner function last night and watched my friends drink. Didnt bother me at all. However, a pub, bar,etc is a different story. While it may be socialising, the drink has much more emphasis.

I do have sympathy for folks in their 20s and 30s as bars and pubs are part of their social scene. To not participate would likely mean curtailing a notable chunk of their social life.

deeker

Above is why I avoided bars and drinking establishments,even Applebee's cuz it is where I drank my 2 4 1's. It was not fun watching other people drink when I knew I could not do it , so why put myself in that atmosphere.

Today I still do not go to those places unless I am with family or others in recovery. It's easier but if that waitress walks by with a Marquerita I am distracted. I don't want to be distracted so for the most part I go out seldomly and if I do it's for an early lunch.

But what has surprised me is how many people actually are not drinking.

lillyknitting

My virtually entire social life when drinking would be in pubs, bars restaurants. Anywhere I could get booze I would be there. Culturally in the UK we frequent pubs but nowadays it is socially acceptable to drink anywhere. But, fundamentally one goes to a pub to drink. So in my ethos I would not frequent a pub if I was tee total. Sometimes I might if, say, a group of us were meeting in the pub before say, going out to dinner, for example, but that wouldn't be my meeting place of choice. On the other hand, when I had my daughter and I wasn't able to get out so frequently, and obviously one cannot take a child to a pub @8pm then I started drinking at home. Now, I do not have any drink at home. I would never consider drinking at home. If we have friends over for dinner etc, they either bring their own booze, or, my husband organizes the booze. I hope this is clear. It must be very difficult for peeps who solely drank at home and I'm not negating that fact.

Banquo

I consider myself lucky in that being in bars, restaurants and off licenses doesn't bother me. I can go into a bakery and not have a cake. The same thing applies with pubs. I also love eating out so removing that from my life would be awful. All the shops where I live serve alcohol and I used to frequent them a lot for my whisky in the morning. If I run out of milk what do I do?

The desire not to drink comes from within and I'm not going to lock myself away because a shop sells alcohol that I would have to make a conscious decision to ask for.

Blessdmess

I agree with the OP.

Every time I have quit drinking, I have attempted to make that the only thing that I've changed and it doesn't work for me. I look at my attempts to keep the same people, places and things in my life, but without using, as just setting the table to inevitably go back out to using.
My ego, so often, screamed at me that "I can show everyone how strong I am by being able to go out to bars and NOT drink". This is foolish. This didn't work. For me, I no longer fit in with the people around me at the bars and let myself feel bad enough about that which eventually gave myself permission to drink again.

I think we all want to "fit in", wherever we are. I believe the real strength lies in admitting that I am weak and then setting up my surroundings in a way that makes it as easy as possible for me to succeed.

Today, in order to "fit in" I go to meetings. I go to church. I surround myself with people that are serious about recovery. It took a long while to accept that. Someone once told me that if you are to go somewhere where there is drinking for a specific reason then that is ok, but if you are just going to absorb something from the atmosphere then you are in a dangerous place.

resolute50

Agree 100%
I doesn't bother me the least that there may be "scary" alcohol around.
When I said "I'm done" I meant it.
I walk my dog past one of my local neighborhood pubs almost every day.
Never once thought of stopping in there.

When I did relapse it had nothing to do with alcohol being present.
It had everything to do with me wanting to drink it.
Everybody is different.

BTW,I quit smoking (almost 2 pack a day) 20 years ago and still frequented the pubs without going back to smoking again.
Some said It would be impossible.
Not if you have resolve to do it.

UnixBer

Agree with what majority here think: Avoiding those places is a smart move. It has paid off and made sobriety not only easier, it has taught to live a better life, to find that there are also a whole lot of other places to go, and sober, and during the night as well.

Finding those places is becoming the true quest and there are lots and lots... Still intend to stay away from bars and the like... don't have much tolerance for drunken folk either these days... and to think I used to be like that.

Nice thread btw.