Can’t beat a cool Coca Cola on a hot summers day 
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Every time I see this thread title pop up the voice in my head just screams NOOOOOO, I wouldn’t!!! I have no other answer lol
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THEM: Have you studied for the test?
ME: Nah, I know what I’m doing. Don’t worry…
THEM: How’d you go?
ME: … Failed. Not sure why 
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Thank you for bumping up this thread, I needed that today. I find summer in the city and everyone being out there with a drink harder than other seasons. Holding on. tight to my gingerale. Odat.
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My friends drink a lot, my family produce a famous white wine known all over the world, I live in France.
My whole life is a test I have to take if I don’t want to be alone 
And I take it. But it’s only me. My choice. I wouldn’t recommend it at all.
In the end it gives me strength to see how they live, how stupid they can become while intoxicated, how normal it is supposed to drink a lot, everything I hear and see in this wino country.
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I’m too busy building a fortress around recovery to take a test!
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Just a friendly reminder to all my American friends. You do not need to visit your hometown bar tonight to see all your high school friends. If you go and you drink you have given up the right to act surprised. You’ve been warned.
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Word. I got my tools, but still remember the gauntlet of my first holidays sober. Talk about being on guard.
I spend every Thanksgiving with my father and stepmother. He got sober long before me (by grit) and knows my score as well.
Which is good cuz he lives in Vegas. 
He knows what sobriety means to me and pretty sure he’d knock me into last week if I tried to grab a drink. Can’t sh-t a sh-tter!
On a side note, packing is a helluva lot easier when you’re not trying to figure out where to squirrel your bottles away.
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Gonna have to bump this thread.
The concerts/parties/weddings can wait, your sobriety can’t.
If you can’t prioritize your sobriety now you definitely won’t be able to enjoy it in the future
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I do appreciate this general warning for safety around early sobriety, but I had a really different experience.
I didnt drink or do drugs in any normal kind of life setting. I was a young hard bottom, and I got sober at 20. I was warned by AA members about the barbers chair, but I did what I felt comfortable or not comfortable doing. I think I was 2 weeks sober when I went dancing with a sober friend, and we had a blast. I didnt see the alcohol in that I wasnt there for that. Much of my drinking was in dark corners or alone, and part of sobriety for me was going out and becoming part of life. For me, the world is a goddamns barbers chair. Alcohol is all over and we each have to figure out what we are comfortable with. I had 10 yrs of sobriety where I didnt notice alcohol around me in a way where I desired it. Now I am a bit of a hermit so I wasnt out and about often anyways, and I didnt much care for bars…but I became comfortable in my decision not to drink, and wanted to and want to live free.
If I get a prickly feeling, or even a sort of excited like “oooo danger” feeling that is associated with alcohol then I would decline. This time around and for the first time since living with and marrying my husband (10 yrs) I asked we have no alcohol in the house. I want to protect my decision not to drink and not do things like gargle with beer, but generally we cannot know what could trigger us…we have to get to know ourselves, and as we do that and get to trust ourselves its always good to check in :). I was a young person who had not experienced life, and I got to do that without being tempted even when around others who drank…just my 2 cents, because I believe we should be vigilant in healing but I dontbwant to live in a state of hyper-vigilant fear. Xo.
Edit: oh, and in early days have a plan! I saw a great post about that and I alwaysvhad a non-alcoholic bevvy in hand, and I am famous for the Irish Exit to this day 
If alarm bells start ringing you GTFO and if they ringing up till a secondbbefore you leave, hey. Its okay, you donot have to go…xo.
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Oh wow, this has really hit a nerve. I am going to share this in the hope it might help others, but feeling really stupid right now.
It honestly hadn’t occurred to me to make real changes to support my sobriety (aside from not buying wine). Honestly. It hadn’t occurred to me that I shouldn’t do things that would jeopardise the process. I think I just thought “well I won’t drink” but it never occurred to me not to go. Luckily I am a bit of an introvert in my 40s so not exactly overwhelmed with invites, but reading the thread I realised that it wouldn’t occur to me to turn down a party, quiz night (believe it or not, they are the worst), family day to protect my sobriety. Why not? I honestly don’t know, but have just resolved to automatically say no until at least after the Christmas party season. Like I said, I sound a bit stupid, but think we may have found one of the reasons I relapse “unexpectedly”!
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I 100% get your poiint. I felt as you did. I still cut my social life out of the picture. The first few days (maybe longer)…i felt and emptied hole inside me.
It was an important step for me to do. It was far more than “just not being around temptation”. As an alcoholic for decades, I had to relearn how to live. It seemed like a slow process. Looking back, it wasn’t.
You are absolutley correct that we are social beings. That forced me out into the world…this time looking at it through a sober view point.
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Its not stupid at all! I think it makes sense that we’d think, hey I just wont drink! I remember being told when I was young and first got sober that I had to change EVERYTHING and I dove there and changed all I could within my power (some things I couldnt, but that is life). I honestly appreciate your share so much and dont shit on yourself. Not stupid, hind sight is always 20/20. Seriously appreciate hearing how it evolved for yoy, and how you came to learn about you & your needs. Xo.
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Thank you, that really helps 
Its definately not stupid …i tried getting sober loads of times before i found this site and began to learn from others who had longer term sobriety about what actually need to be done to attain it and to give yourself the best chance to have a sober life, its all a big learning curve that im still on myself thats why this site is so amazing so we can all come to these types of realisation, this is a good thing and definately not something to feel stupid about xx
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You’re right, sobriety is hard enough with the normal rigors of life so why would a person choose to make it harder by putting themselves in high risk situations?
And you’re also right that it can be difficult stopping your social life, but I know I valued my sobriety enough that it was a pretty easy choice.
The first time I tried to get sober I wasn’t willing to do that and I relapsed at an event I shouldn’t have been at in the first place
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I think if many of us were honest…when we started this journey…just not drinking was what we thought the answer was. It took a lot of sober time for it to finally make sense that it goes far past that. I am reminded of that epiphany, when the new comers start their journey here.
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Id rather be a sober hermit for a while than a relapsing social butterfly
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Having been both. I would also choose sober hermit. Eventually the drinking and drugging will take away the social life as well
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Dunno… I was a naturally drunk hermit. Now I’m a sober hermit. The hermit-ing wasn’t the problem. 
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