Fear of relapse with upcoming changes
 

I feel I'm at a crossroads in my life.

Truthfully, I know I will have to abandon my relationships in order to distance myself from my old life.

Now, I've always said my friends and girlfriend drinking doesn't bother me, in the sense that it doesn't make me want to drink, that's true.

However as my sobriety has started to reach maturity, it has become obvious that me and many of my friends and girlfriend have simply become too different for that to be my social group.

I think most of them feel this is a phase and expect me to become the "old Ben" at some point.

I'm terrified of being alone, and I'm afraid of how I will deal with being alone without alcohol.

My girlfriend is moving at the end of the year, and I'm not going with her. I can't, I'll start drinking again because I'll be unhappy. I only see my old drinking friends through her, when she leaves, my relationships with those friends will fall to the wayside as well.

The clock is ticking down, I'm just hoping I have the strength to handle it.

Mr Ben this is you reaching this stage, sobriety has helped you here but it's you that is here not just sobriety. You are at a crossroads and isn't that wonderful? You can look left and right, up and down and you can decide which way to go.

March out confidently.

5 months until the end of the year - plenty of time to build up a new social scene :)
Sports centre? Evening classes? If you really think about it, there are more things to do that DON'T involve drinking, than those that do :)

5 months? It's funny, that seems like both a scarily short and long amount of time.

It's only short, if you count 'weeks to Christmas' ;)

Best get my chocolate calendar on the ready =)

Hold it, wait....I thought sobriety WAS a chocolate calendar? :)

There's no need to fear being alone MrBen, there's plenty of people and activities out there that don't have to involve alcohol.

I had to make some decisions in my life too about the people I was going to hang out with when Sober, in the long run you'll look back and see you took the right turn at that crossroads!! :)

In my life I've found and lost many friendships and romantic relationships. Life just keeps moving forward.

I agree to take up some activity that you've had an interest in doing. When you're out living life, people will be there and you'll naturally make new friends.

Kind of a side (non-drinking) related question. Basically I've known I don't want to be with my current girlfriend for a little while now. Because she's moving at the end of the year, I've lucked into having an "out" without breaking her heart, because she's in love with me.

This obviously means I'll have 5 or so months of being with someone I'm not that into, but I've pretty much considered that a price worth paying for not hurting her. Does this seem like the kind thing to do?

She's a lovely girl, just no romantic feelings there. This is a way of keeping her as a friend and letting the relationship naturally burn out without damaging her confidence.

Oh just so you know, we've agreed to part when she moves. So there's no room for awkwardness there.