When I initially quit drinking (years ago), I finally realized that if I looked around (in a restaurant, on an airplane, etc.), a LOT of people were not drinking.....certainly not as much as I did. I drank to get drunk....no doubt about it. After I had been sober awhile, I would just order something non-alcoholic, and nobody even questioned it. (Everyone knew I was a drunk , I guess, but me). Even with new people, though, I would just say something like "I don't drink" or "I've drank enough to last a lifetime".....if the conversation persisted.

Could be that she doesn't know that you quit drinking but because she doesn't like your behavior when you are drinking or because she doesn't want to contribute to a problem that she perceives you have.

I thought for sure that when I quit drinking it would be on the 6:00 news, turns out it wasn't near as newsworthy as I thought it was.

Just like normies never wonder if they have a problem with drinking, they also never pay attention to someone's non-consumption of alcohol. It is not a high priority with them

The only people who pay attention to someone's non-consumption of alcohol are those to whom alcohol is a huge priority. So when I start the process of making personal decisions about present actions and future consequences, I don't weigh their opinions very heavily.

I'm so glad the dinner went well for you. It was profoundly uncomfortable for me, too, at first. Like others have said, a lot of it is projection. Give it time. People were used to seeing me drink, and some did question it at first, but most shrugged their shoulders. Now everyone who knows me is used to it, people I've met since I've been sober have never seen me drink, and it's totally normal. Your behavior will put it out in the open. Give it time.

Everyone's different, but I don't publicly talk about being a recovered alcoholic except in very rare circumstances. But I'm very open and comfortable about being a non-drinker. It's way more normal than I had ever realized, hahaha!

Well done on getting through the dinner! I hope you have many more good times with friends, sans alcohol! :)

Spot on, Driguy! Thanks!

I usually start with a simple, "No thanks; I'm good."

I prefer to use humor. If asked directly, I often respond with:

"I drank more than my lifetime's supply before age 50, so..."

This gets a laugh and shuts them up.

The longer I'm sober the easier it is. I'm a musician and perform regularly in bars and venues with alcohol. People often want to buy me drinks between sets, and sometimes drinks are delivered to the stage. They just sit there, or a band member drinks them (although the drummer is not allowed, that animal).

Some family kind of avoid me because they drink and my sobriety and subsequent success (career, financial, joy) causes them some painful self reflection, I suspect. It is what it is.

I get not wanting to address it head on with people in early sobriety. For me, it was lack of confidence that I would remain sober, as well as shame for feeling I had to quit and that moderation had proven a non-option.

After a few years, my sobriety became of source of pride rather than shame. People have told me it's awesome that I don't drink and I don't judge those who do. In early sobriety I found being around people drinking kind of annoying, but now it doesn't bother me. Plus, I can be silly and hang with a drinking or stoner crowd, and then wake up the next morning and do yoga and have plenty of energy.

I think once I stopped judging myself for not drinking I stopped worrying about what others think about me not drinking. If folks don't want to hang with me, that' fine, cuz I'm fine with or without them.

so the problems not so much people asking you but you wanting to tell them, less?

I told every one when quit. I think I might have been a little like my well meaning vegan friends who manage to shoe horn veganism into every discussion :)

I was proud of what I was doing, and to be honest, my re awakening ego wanted the attaboys.

The reality is most peoples eyes will glaze over.
What I drink or don't drink just not a topic of interest to 99% of people.

I learned that the hard way and I also learned there were very few attaboys too.

Its hard for non alcoholics to appreciate the travails of the journey.

One of my particularly blunt mates said no one gets a parade for doing what they should have all along.

Harsh, but honestly? true, as hard as it was to hear that.....

Over time I lost what I see now as a need for external validation and I gained so much more from being sober that this ceased to be a problem for me.

I hope it will be for you too Less :)

D

​​​​​​Close to on point but not quite. It's not that I want credit from anyone really, instead I just want it known rather than something that has been discussed outside my presence and has this air of suppression about it or something. I don't like thinking that it's something that people know but are too uncomfortable to broach or to discuss. I don't know exactly, just don't like the idea that people know and are somehow too uncomfortable to talk about it. But I'm not really getting out what it is. I think the response about that I agreed with and one of the reasons that I sometimes go to AA gets closer to the truth of the matter.

And in terms of your friend's comment, the one that I really like best is - nobody gets credit for running out of a burning house.

Fair enough - I'm not sure you can wrangle people tho Less - they're a lot like cats...ornery ones :)

I found when I made my peace over what and who I was, what others said thought or did mattered a lot less?

D

Drinking responsibly umm what does that mean?

Thank you for your post LG but there is no way to drink responsibly. norms think there is but is a lie.

Alcohol is a toxin and a depressant and no matter how low levels or social you are with it is affecting your health.

The big C , your brain your liver your emotional being its all being affecting no matter how responsible you are. this believe makes me very angry because yes i had become unresponsively with my drinking but no i started thinking i could drink responsibly and look at me now.

alcohol is a drug and i way dangerous one we let the public believe . we let ethanol into our lives our thumps and demises and it lets us think its a friend.

well look at me now... i will probably died from this... it all started by drinking responsibly.

don't go back you are in the right path everyone else are drinking the cooley.

I tend to agree — yes, alcohol is an addictive poison, and a 4th macronutrient that the human body has to work very hard to break down. But for many of us here it’s simply not enjoyable in any moderate amounts... it’s incredibly addictive and destructive. It’s bad news for alcohol to enter my bloodstream.

But I also know it can be consumed responsibility and enjoyed by many people in moderation. My wife can enjoy a single glass of white wine but never has more than that — I have never seen her drunk. When I told her I was having difficulty with alcohol, it gave her no difficulty whatsoever to give it up in solidarity. I’ve never experienced alcohol the way she does, where it’s just “no big deal.” I was hooked from my first drink at 19 years old.

For me personally, it would do me no good to snub my nose at people who can and do enjoy alcohol. But they are no more “normal” than me.

Yesterday a friend came over and brought us some lunch for helping him with his homeowners' insurance claim. Right before he was leaving, he said "I'm sorry I didn't bring you any beer (to my husband), but I thought you two might have quit drinking"....I was so proud to say "We did"! Of course, he has known me forever.....sober and drinking, and he knows of my struggles with alcohol, so it wasn't hard to tell him, or for him to say that. Then he told me how much better I looked, and it's only been 3 days....so that was a motivator too...even though it's also my ego!

lg, i think i get it.
and know the feeling.
what helps me, and, i hope, others at such gatherings who know but don't say, is to make a joke about it occasionally...poke some fun at my former drinking self, so to speak, in company i trust. and though they don't "get" or understand, it does loosen up the topic if anyone else wanted to ask something.
i don't do this often, but a little one-liner can help diffuse the "suppression" if i feel there might be stuff we are tiptoeing around. the tiptoe is tense and work, so if i feel it among trusted people, i try to open it up without making it the topic.

I know you're not looking to be congratulated, less; more like standing out in a crowd, wishing the elephant in the room could go away. I totally get that.

I agree with fini: a quick, toss-away one-liner works for me. My standard: "Oh, I don't drink any more, I had more than my share over the years...waaaay more than my share." It's always met with some chuckles and nodding heads; never once did it become, "oooh, you're an alkie? Let's discuss!"

After going through a few months of having to explain to my friends that I wasn't drinking and then answering the questions about WHY I wasn't drinking - I found just this past Saturday at a b'day lunch that it wasn't even an issue anymore with them . It has only been 5+ months, but it seems they have now also accepted it as "normal"

Also , I never pass on the offered wine glass - I prefer having my sodawater and lemon in a wineglass. Some of my friends even order the sliced lemon for me in advance now.

It used to be a difficult situation for me - but it has calmed down and has now become a non issue. When they have pre dinner cocktails - I have juice or something - But in the same pretty glasses as theirs.

I'm glad it went well, less- sounds like one of the "early" (however one defines it so for me where you are, this would have been early) situations where it went as well as possible which is better than we worried it would - and we deduced a few things.

Realizing it isn't as big a deal to people as we are worried it is- def a process.

The VERY key point of us being the only ones who really get us is dead on. The longer I have been sober - especially because recovery is the backdrop of my life, pretty literally, as I am the daily ops person, if you will, for a restaurant industry recovery group in addition to my own program....it still takes me by surprise that more people don't get it, duh. And that's ok - I've got people here and IRL who do.

Keep going - you are on a path that is working well for you!!

I agree with Ayers...about having something non-alcoholic in a wine (or pretty glass....although, sometimes (for me) it makes me think of alcohol in those "pretty" glasses and how it was "glamorized" by my parent' generation. I am not glamorous when I'm drunk....even though I thought I was when drinkinking:headbange