Mags1

Welcome to the Weekenders

FOMO Do you feel like you’re missing out not drinking?



When I stopped drinking I realised I had to keep away from anything or anyone that I thought would tempt me to drink. I hadn’t enough sober muscles yet.

I recall one Christmas when 6 months sober a few work colleagues went out for drinks, I really wanted to go but I feared I would have a drink forced on me and not be able to say no, or even worse they’d spike my orange juice, so I refrained from going.

For days after at work they talked of their Christmas after work do, which spread into the evening. I really felt like I’d missed out on a good night and isolated at work.


When I put things into perspective I realised I was still sober, I wasn’t hung over all weekend as I heard the stories unfold and I could hold my head up. If I had gone there’d have been stories of how drunk I had gotten, I’d have been embarrassed for another week.

Phew, I didn’t miss out after all!

I had a clear conscience, had a sober and productive weekend, maybe considered boring by others but for me, I kept my promise to myself, to stay sober.

Nowadays I wouldn’t want to go on a boozy night out at any cost. Drunks aren’t that funny, they repeat themselves and things are often said that would be regretted later.

FOMO? No chance!




If this is your first weekend sober, or many, come join us for support and chat...as we know the weekends can be a struggle sometimes. (We’re here all week too!)

Dee74

Thanks Mags

D

Lava

Shotgun!

I'm in for the weekend. Thanks, Mags.

Lava

The only FOMO I experience is from a safe distance via social media. I'm living a bit of an isolated but, honestly, full life. I don't have many friends where I live so going out is unheard of. My kids keep me plenty busy, though, and in a good way. So, for now, I'm avoiding social media.

theVman31

Hello Mags, and Weekenders,

I have been absent for a while. Sorry.
Starting over again. Day One.
Just wanted to come clean.

So this will be my first weekend sober and i will be joingin you.

Take care,
Vinny

Mags1

Hi Vinny good to see you, you can get this weekend under your belt sober.

Hope1989

I'm going strong this weekend . Everyday of the weekend I wake up sober... I take a deep breath and I'm like "Man, this is good, it would be horrible to be hungover".... and hear this, I actually enjoy my own company. Who would've known!

kenton

Hi Mags! Hi Vman, so happy you're back xx

I don't suffer from FOMO anymore .... I used to massively. But now I love my cosy nights in, snuggled with my family on the sofa watching Agatha Christie mysteries and the Great British Bake Off! Wouldn't trade those evenings for drunken nights in pubs and clubs, that's for sure. But what I seem to be suffering from at the moment is OPTMIMO .... Which is something I've just made up and stands for Other People Telling Me I'm Missing Out.

It's happening a lot. My sister routinely tells me I'm boring. And yesterday some mum's at my kids school told me surely I'd been sober for long enough now. Surely it was time to go out again and end up collapsed in a heap in the gutter.

It's funny, isn't it? I don't judge anyone on the way they live their lives yet I get labelled as dull just because I like reading about planets and fossils and trees these days ... And I like to be in bed asleep by midnight each night. And what's really ironic is that since I stopped drinking, I've done loads more interesting things than I did during all the years of drinking. I've set up my own business, swum with a dolphin, explored a wonder of the world, become a reiki master, written a book and become pretty darn good at yoga.... Even if I do say so myself! So, regardless of what other people may tell me, I know I'm not missing out. I may be boring ...they may have a point about that..... Exhibit A - books about trees and fossils..... But I'm happy and I'm definitely not missing out. I love boring weekends. That's often when the best stuff happens xxxx

Mags1

Kenton good to see you. Like yourself I don’t mind anyone calling me boring. So much better than where we was.

Agatha Christie and Bake off. Can’t beat it. I have visions of me baking those marvellous masterpieces. Then I wake up!

STDragon

I had a little bit of that in the early weeks 7 months, I think it was just my A/V telling me I couldn't do without. The only FOMO I have now is missing out on all the interesting things I could be doing. Like classes and projects.

biminiblue

I can't tell you how glad I am to see this post in the thread, Vinny, I have been thinking about you.

Sometimes life is truly overwhelming and I need outside perspective. I know you're a strong intelligent guy but that independence is what bites me in the backside. I need others' perspectives.


Mags, I don't suffer from FOMO. I'm not the social butterfly at all. Too many years of trying to be the cool kid and thinking I was the life of the party. I'm done. Give me a nice walk and a cup of tea and I'm good.
^^This cannot be said too many times, though.

This morning when I sat up in bed the first thing I thought was, "God, thank you for my sobriety. Without it the whole thing falls apart." My inner thoughts have done a 180 in sobriety. What used to be a constant fearful negative loop that I felt I needed to drown out is now mostly calm with a very occasional fearful blip that passes quickly. I have tools now, thanks to you guys and lots of reading. I really can't afford a negative thought and it requires some daily maintenance to keep them quiet but I don't have the runaway anxiety and hopelessness I did when I drank.


Kenton, your post is awesome. So good to read.

In and a kitty gif. I'm bearly awake. *ba dum cchh*

4:44AM here in the PNW.

dpac414

abgator

We were talking about this in rehab and people started naming off things to do. And then you realize how common bars are in....just about everywhere. It's crazy how fully integrated alcohol is into nearly every social activity. Movie theaters, even races like "beer runs", etc. For those who are triggered by the very presence of it, it's got to be brutal.

kk1k5x

I get AFOMO lol, i.e. Abstract FOMO. Since I know any drinking would lead to disaster, I'm sometimes left with these fantastic, TV-like images of drinking events. Or these events are actually on TV and then I might think "this might be fun for some, but I was never like that". My mind wanders, but not too much. I don't actually miss drinking, at worst I miss the idea of drinking in a way that I never drank, if that makes any sense. This notions can be squashed fairly easily. And I'll put their appearance down to still being in the early days.

Have to agree with dpac - I never drank for any reason other than to get further and further smashed. I never understood how people could just up and leave a pub with some beer or wine still in their glass. That right there is evidence enough that when it comes to alcohol, I'm not missing out on anything.

The mind drifts sometimes and I understand why this could be difficult, when that focus doesn't want to lift from booze and go on to genuinely great things that sobriety gives. For me, that's the main reason to be grateful for the positive little day-to-day things in sobriety.

Reading others' posts - it's so weird that people would call another out for being dull in the sense of not drinking. Where were they when the drinking got real bad, eh? I was always offered drinks when I said I wasn't drinking. When I was drinking, no one wanted me around. As if I don't have more important things to do than to try and standardise my consumption to peer-reviewed and -accepted quantities Hypocrites...

Couple more days and then off to Italy!

Kaily

So very pleased to see you back Vinny, hope things haven't been too brutal. I can imagine just how you feel.

FOMO not so much now but funnily enough more so when I was drinking.

I had lost control so much that I couldn't ever allow myself to socialise with my work colleagues. So for 15 years I worked for a big hotel which had a great active social life that I was never part of. Oh how much I wanted to be but I just knew I would drink to a point of no return. Lose all inhibitions and actually enjoy shocking people in so many misguided ways.

I was well respected, so had I ever allowed that to happen I know it would of led to me being too ashamed and embarrassed to ever return. I needed the job too much to risk it. I was always sad to miss out. There lay the beginnings of isolation.

Now I have a fear of relapse more than any fear of missing out.

Thanks for the thread Mags.

saoutchik

Welcome to Weekenders kenton, abgator!

So good to see you VMan! You have long spells of sobriety so you must just need a few tweaks to your routine to alter that mindset so it is not a daily struggle. You just have to search for that something that makes the difference.

Like others here I had a fear of missing out when I was still drinking. Because I didn't get sober until I was 54 I did not really have that concern when I quit. My few friends are mostly not big drinkers and I did not want to appear drunk in front of them so most of my drinking was done home alone.

This has been playing on the radio at work recently and I like it (his voice reminds me a little of Jamiroquai frontman Jay Kay). A few days ago I made the effort to find out who it was - Brandon Paak Anderson (Anderson.Paak)
https://youtu.be/8IDmv0MoxR8

MyLittleHorsie

Oh Vinnie welcome back, big, virtual, healing thoughts streaming your way!

I am missing out on nothing, this weekend or any other because there is nothing to miss out on.

BeABetterMan

biminiblue

I like that music vid, Sao. There is a lot going on there. He does sound like Jamiroquai.


I do actually know who that is.


I just got back from my walk. I saw goats and horses, chickens and doves, a Pileated woodpecker, a bunch of dogs, tons of crickets, and there is a story of an abandoned rooster who I think has finally been captured and blended into the flock of a lady who lives on the trail. He's been crowing from the blackberry brambles, she was trying to lure him in for days and then today I heard him crowing from her barn, so she must have captured him.

Not sure if that pleases him or not, but she does have lady chickens. I was kinda rooting for him to live free and eat crickets and seeds.

The first day he was "abandoned" I talked to him and he came right out. He had to have been used to people.



No drinking for me this weekend.

Kaily

For one horrible moment I thought you were going to say blended into pate or something.

Think he will be much safer and happier with all his hens in the barn.