Pleasure, just think no one in sobriety ever wakes up wishing they had got hammered the night before! Very different story for those waking up with hangovers, I find it amusing and also a little bit smug too 😁

I wrote that a while ago, it does get easier and to be honest I prefer now to socialise with the friends ive made in AA, but def def make a plan and stick to it :)

Is it someone you are very close to? Can you just roll in for the wedding, give hugs and congrats, and roll out? I've found at weddings most of the time the happy couple doesn't even realize who all is there, anyway. If that would be the case with you, I agree with the others telling you to maybe skip this one.
Or better yet, send a gift and your apologies for not being able to make it. :)

Anyway, how do you deal with events that you would normally be drinking at? I feel like it's not going to be fun, I'm going to miss out etc etc.[/QUOTE]

I never had fun at those sort of events if I was drinking.
I would drink too much and blackout.
Then I would wake up the next day with no memory of how I got home, what I did, what I said.
Then I would spend the next 2 weeks or even more hating myself and beating myself up about what other people thought, what other people said.

Booze ruined EVERY single time that was supposed to be a celebration.

I find events like weddings, parties, birthdays hard work to be honest.

I feel like I have to 'get through' them which takes work but it is worth it.

But I would rather feel like that than feel like I want to disappear off the face of the earth and never be seen again because I am so ashamed of what I may have done or said.

Now I don't drink, I feel I am not missing out.
When I drank, I missed out ALL the time because I never remembered.

The other thing I noticed at events where I did not drink was that actually, people drank a lot less than I thought they did.
Some people had 1 or 2 drinks. Then they went on to soft drinks or a tea or coffee after a meal.

No-one was rolling around on the floor plastered like I was capable of.
No-one was loud and slurred their speech like me.
No-one fell over.
Problem drinkers stand out for all the wrong reasons at gatherings in my opinion.

Honestly just watch and learn.
It will be enlightening for you I think. It was for me.

I wish you the best.

PS - I often nominated myself as the driver or the 'unofficial photographer' so I would not/could not drink. Take lots of nice photos and present them in an album a few weeks later to whoever was holding the do. Nicer to be remembered for that than wrecking havoc!

Hey fini, that was very enlightening. Thank you so much.

No problem pianoman. Glad you noticed something that helped you.

Hope stuff is okay EP. Empathy and support from me.

I think everyone considering being sober has FOMO - fear of missing out.

We worry life won;t be as good, we worry we'll be ostracised, we worry people will find us boring....

for me, I had to make a l;ot of changes - I can;t deny that - cos my old life was drink sodden.

But the life I found was way better than the one I left behind :)

Noone would stay sober if they thought they lost out on the deal EP.

My life has, literally, never been better and I'm more social than I ever was drinking.

I missed an awful lot of things through being wasted, blacking out or choosing to drink alone in my room.

I don't miss out on anything I don't want to miss out on any more - and I have a great time doing it :)

Don't listen to the fear - it wants you to stay the same.