lightanddark

My friends and my girlfriend both drink a lot. Always on nights out, or meeting up over beers in a pub or at home. I've been sober for 2 weeks, and as such avoiding nights outs, and heading over to have beers.

I hung out with a friend who smokes weed the other night, and had a few smokes. I just felt anxious when I was high, and today I feel groggy after smoking yesterday too. I was planning on keeping one thing that I could do on nights out, but now I think I need to cut that out too as I don't like this muddy headed feeling I have right now.

The real test is next week, St. Patrick's day, and a music concert. My girlfriend and her friend are doing drugs and want me to actually get it for them. While my other friend for the Music gig wants to do cocaine.

I know I didn't chose to go sober for no reason. I know what drugs do to me. And I know what alcohol does too, which is why I want to stay sober.

When I look to the future there's not really anything to look forward to. Just two battles with substances and willpower that I feel I might just lose. I want to go out with my girlfriend and meet her cousin, I want to go to the music gig too. ...But I also want to stay sober, but I am also wary of the part of me that doesn't want to stay sober. The voice that I'm scared of that will just say F it and want to have a "good time."

I have a meeting tomorrow and I'll bring it up there. But yeah not really sure where my head is at!

ReadyAtLast

Keep it simple.

Avoid places and people who are drinking if you really want to get sober. The concerts etc will still be there in the future and it's not a case of avoiding them forever, just till you are more secure and stable in your sobriety.

Does your gf know you have quit? Tell her to source her own drugs, this should have no part of your life now.

Dynamics change when 1 party gets sober.

I have no experience of smoking weed but imo it's a mind altering drug and if you are replacing alcohol with it then it's not really sobriety.

Wishing you the best.

apollo986

Go and have a good time. It's an opportunity for you to grow your confidence. You'll probably gain admiration and respect from your friends. If not, that should tell you something.

CRRHCC

I use to take drugs and drink because I was uncomfortable in, "my own skin."
Sure drugs make it easier at the time but you can do it, "Normal!"
Drinking to excess always serves an emotional purpose. We don't necessarily chase feelings, we escape our feelings. Feelings need to be faced and not run from.
Be a rebel and empower yourself and face your feelings and get high from enjoying life sober. You can do it if you really value a sober life.

sydneyman

I know where you coming from. I used yo think like you do. It never go me sober. Sobriety and recovery takes 100% commitment. I never lasted sober as I did not accept the fact that I could not use or drink EVER again.
I have had to let people go in my sobriety. I used to hang in the club scene and almost all of my friends use. Your whole life changes. I no longer want to hang around pubs and listen to drunk people blabber on about nothing or repeating themselves a million times. The dynamics of friendships change. Until you are ready to embrace all that staying sober is going to be really really hard. I would not plan to be part of the scene early in sobriety its just too risky.

tomsteve

Keeping sober is the most important thing in my life. The most important decision I ever made was my decision to give up drinking. I am convinced that my whole life depends on not taking that first drink. Nothing in the world is as important to me as my own sobriety. Everything I have, my whole life, depends on that one thing.

Can I afford ever to forget this, even for one minute?

Meditation for the Day
I will discipline myself. I will do this disciplining now. I will turn out all useless thoughts. I know that the goodness of my life is a necessary foundation for its usefulness. I will welcome this training, for without it God cannot give me this power. I believe that this power is a mighty power when it is used in the right way.
__________________________________________________ _________________________

one part disciplining myself meant gettting away from wet faces and wet places. if i were to keep wet faces in my life and walk into wet places i would be playing russian roulette. its a game im glad i stopped playing.

i dont have another recovery in me so it aint worth it.

Dee74

when I quit I had to put clear distance between who I had been and who I wanted to be...that meant being very careful - rigourous even - with the invites I accepted.

I couldn't be around drinkers or tokers, bars, or concerts for a while. Not forever, but certainly longer than 2 weeks.

Your addiction will kick against turning down invites and try and tell you that you're in danger of losing your social life but thats not true.

I don't regret the few concerts parties and nights down the pub I missed.

You've got a lot to gain if you have the courage & commitment to make some bold decisions and put up with a little self sacrifice for now

D

Robert88

I have changed all of my friends and I would have even dumped my girlfriend if she was using since I want to stay sober 100 percent. I wouldn't put myself in that type of situation. That is all I can say about it. I don't know what you are going to do and that is not in my control. I can only say what I would do.

CRRHCC

When you face your feelings directly (no quick fix or mood changer of booze), it is hard at first but gets easier and easier. Living in your own skin, accepting yourself is a learned behavior. Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life. Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed with new thinking. . What we think (cognition), what we feel (emotion) and what we do (behavior) are intrinsically linked together.

lightanddark

Thank you all for your advice. The meeting helped ground me after airing how I was feeling.

I know it's time for me to come first. I don't enjoy "going out" sober, it's full of triggers for both alcohol and drugs. It's time to set boundaries and stop people pleasing. Sobriety is becoming an important part of my life right now, drugs and alcohol caused me a lot of trouble, and the only way to make sure I stay on the straight and narrow is to stay off drugs, which means staying off alcohol, as the two come combined for me.

There's going to be some natural changes as you guys say with relationships and friends. I told my girlfriend that I won't be around the weekend (she was expecting me to go out with her and her friend who is visiting.) and she seemed disappointed. But what reason do i have to go out while her and her friend do drugs? I will 100% have a beer, and then I will do drugs, that is fact of what will happen if I go out with them.

I'm going to be honest with her and say look I am making a big change here and that's why I'm not coming out, I will relapse. I am in recovery and this really matters to me. Likewise to my other friend.

It's hard as hell this whole thing, I'm not going to make it harder. But I'm going to stick to this. I have faith in myself, I'm choosing a better life.

lightanddark

Just a further thought. I'm here trying to put everything back together again due to my relationship with drugs and alcohol. I am on my longest run of sobriety from drugs and alcohol, 17 days.

I have been on top of my sh** many times, and it feels GREAT. My life has been cycle of mountain climbing. Get to the top, then self-destruct and fall down, then have to hike up again.

The thing is I'm done that, and like as you guys say, sobriety has to come first. It's the ONLY way I don't fall again.

August252015

How many days have you been sober now? I mean that from weed and other drugs, and alcohol.

I echo all the others - not putting ourselves in risky situations, which is making bad choices, has to be replaced with making the right and good choices to stay sober. Completely.

If that's what you want.

Hope to see you here and learning to live sober. You said you don't have anything to look forward to in that kind of life - I have found more than I could have imagined.

MLD51

It's hard at first to make the necessary changes. But if you really want sobriety, it's so important to be aware of your pattern of using, and break that pattern. If you KNOW hanging out with certain people puts you at risk, just don't go. I didn't, for several months. My friends all knew what I was going through, and most of them supported me 100%. But not all of them. They were my "drinking buddies," and once I wasn't drinking anymore, they just faded away. I don't even miss most of them. My true friends, the friends who actually care about ME as a person, are still around and I can hang out with them again, even though most of them drink. It doesn't bother me until people start getting actually drunk, and then I always have an escape plan, and I go home. I just find it annoying and boring to hang around people who are drinking a lot. I still love them, just not when they get sloppy drunk.

You will find your balance eventually. But for now, don't take unnecessary risks.

DreamCatcher17

What a great decision you have made.

When I got sober I immediately dropped all using "friends" I knew having them around was nothing but a relapse in the making.
At about month 6 I dropped the boyfriend at the time. He wanted to continue using and he would drink in front of me every single night.

I am so FREE and ME and I LOVE my life.
I do not hang out with people who drink often. There is so much more to life than a bottle.

have a blessed day,
DC

MindfulMan

Stop all of it, and don't put yourself in situations where you might drink or use. That is if you really want to get and stay sober.

I can be the DD on wine tastings day trips, and I will evaluate wine solely by smell. I have no desire to drink it. I studied wine for years and have many friends who are deeply into wine, know a lot of people in the business, so I still go occasionally. I'm also 100% positive I will never drink again.

Did I try this at 2 weeks sober? Oh HELL no. A friend mentioned that friends had plans to go when I was visiting and of course she said no. I thought about it and decided to go as the DD. This was about 9 months in, and I knew I was done. I still had an escape plan, but didn't need it. One person got really drunk, I found it annoying.

Give yourself as much space as you need away from temptation. I did until I really had lost all desire for alcohol. And I have.