Dan13

I have to bbq for my In-laws tonight and I’ve never done it sober before and I only have four days under my belt. Please help

Anna

That's what I'm doing right now, enjoying the gorgeous and warm weather.

Try to focus on what you're cooking, put on some music, and enjoy. Are the others drinking? If so, maybe you want to leave the cooking to someone else and just show up for the meal. Maybe you can do cleanup?

trachemys

HI Dan. You don't drink, do you?

bigsombrero

Step 1: purchase meat
Step 2: heat up grill
Step 3: place meat on grill
Step 4: serve meat on plate

Pour yourself a glass of seltzer water with a lime wedge, nobody will suspect a thing nor will they give it a second thought. Good luck.

rmeatgt350

Seltzer and a lime wedge, throwing people off for 100 years. Great advice.

dwtbd

Great advice so far, I'll just add on't touch grilling surface and if you are serving a pasta side dish don't forget to add in time for water to boil, I trip on that one a lot
And yeah and don't drink, you'll be fine

Zebra1275

What bigsombrero said, except he left out putting BBQ sauce on the meat.

Dee74

I have ten and a half years of sober bbqs. Not a worry - you can do this

Here are some more good ideas and hints:
https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...val-guide.html (Social Occasion Survival Guide)

Maybe after this you might want to cut back socially for a while, until you feel stronger?

D

notgonnastoptry

drink coffee. This has been my to-go drink. I'm not going to say it's fun. Fourth of July sucked. It felt like the longest day EEEVVVEERR, especially when normies give themselves a pass to drink like we drank daily. It would be easier if it were the normal normie drinking (which I'll never understand) of one beer over 1.5 hours.

FreeOwl

and there's the winner.

Dan13

Thank you for the advice i will try it. I don’t think I’ll be grilling anytime soon. 10 years of bbq blackouts. I don’t even want to put myself in that situation.

Mark1014

Hi Dan. Welcome to SR.

Early on I had to really change my routine and just not do some stuff that were completely tied to drinking for me. Grilling was one of them, as was watching football with my brother. I needed the time to get my feet on the ground and never regretted it the next day. With time, I've been able to add back the things that I enjoy....even grilling!

This site is a great resource. Be proactive in your involvement here and it'll be a great help.

Meraviglioso

It's easy, you just get to cooking and eating! But, that said, I had to make some big changes during my first real go at sobriety. While I have recently relapsed, I do have enough sober time under my belt where I can enjoy and participate in activities that once were a huge trigger for me given the fact that wine was such a part of them. For example, for a long time I could not eat certain meals for dinner, they were just too connected to wine for me. Fuit and cheese plates were out- the wine was such an integral part of that meal for me. Sushi no because of the white wine. A bloody rare steak no because of the red wine. Dinner at the seaside with my feet in the sand, no.. the prosecco. Other foods and eating situations were ok. Not that I didn't drink when eating other foods, but what I was drinking wasn't so crystal clear- any alcohol would do. Whereas with cheese, sushi, steaks, beach dinners it was always specific and critical to the meal. For a long time I didn't eat those foods or go to those places. I am happy to say that now I can enjoy those foods and go to those places and have no greater issue than I do with any other situation but it did take time.
I think you can get back to BBQing too, but give yourself all the time you need.

nova84

I think your advice is fab Meraviglioso 👍

August252015

I would not have gone/done this. My recovery came - and still comes - before ANYTHING and ANYONE else.

When I started going to events (note- I started out with a very close circle of my parents and a couple of friends I spent time with) it began as one on one dinners or lunches with people I shared my recovery with. I didn't go to my first "big event" - a 40th birthday party - til I was 13 mo sober - I didn't go to my first wedding til 18 mo. And.....I didn't do little stuff that I didn't feel totally ready for - I didn't even go to the beach for family Christmas for very specific reasons related to the heavy drinking my brother does and many past incidents of my own damage inflicted on everyone.

I don't worry about drinking now - but I always have a plan for any event I do attend, including leaving any time I feel emotionally unsettled.

Perhaps I am an extreme example, but my carefully constructed world where only positive people, situations I want to do (never that I have to do) and a deliberately created existence of peacefulness and calm with my fiance and stepdaughter to be, beats anything else I can imagine.

Just one of my very strong mantras is that people who care about us will understand if we do not attend something - and anyone who is bothered or expresses something negative, might have a problem themselves or is at the least not someone we should give our time or attention - including family members.