Regarding the whole sober thing, I hate the fact that I have to say "I'm worried about what my friends will think," because I don't mean it in that way. There is not a chance in hell that any of my friends would be like "We don't support this because you're not going to be any fun anymore." I guess some newly sober people have to worry about that? Those worriers should probably get some more supportive friends anyway. I also don't have to worry about, like, being judged for sobriety, which is pretty helpful. The friends that I've told so far have been wholly supportive.
So when I say I'm worried, I just mean that I worry that the people I care about are going to feel some sort of responsibility to treat me differently, now that I've made such a radical decision, different in ways that they might feel would be helpful or even necessary to me, the alcoholic. I don't want someone to feel like they can't invite me to a bar, for example. At this current juncture (65 days sober), I don't feel like I need to avoid even being around alcohol, and I'd really hate for someone to assume that and to feel the need to alter plans around my supposed needs.
I'm not making this shit up, either. I know that this is what happens, because I've been on the other side of the fence before. I have friends who are sober. I have always been supportive, I have been happy that they are making the healthy choice, I make my support and my happiness known, and... I have also been really confused what is okay and what is not okay, in terms of making plans and maintaining a friendship. Asking a question like "Can we go to a bar?" is a little awkward, in both directions. You don't want the friend to feel pressure to do something that they don't feel like they can handle, but then also you don't want the question itself to imply that the friend is "weak" and "can't handle" something that they absolutely can handle.
Now that I'm the sober one in that equation, I'm finding it tricky but in the opposite way. I don't want to talk up the fact that "I'm fine, I can handle the bar!" and make it seem like I'm protesting too much. I also don't want someone to assume that I can't handle the bar, because I don't feel that way, and I honestly believe that if I felt a moment of weakness that I would be able to be self-aware and address it appropriately by, ya know, not going to the bar.
Honestly, I just want people to know that I'm okay. I want to make it clear that if I have a problem with a plan, I will let you know about it. Otherwise, I want life to continue on as it was before, just without me shoveling alcohol down my throat. I have indeed received a text recently that went "I don't know what we should do without being able to go to the bar," and the text was sent with the best of intentions, which I appreciated wholeheartedly. I responded "I'm not that kind of alcoholic, and I'm not going to be that kind of friend. Let's go to the bar." I don't really know how else to respond other than that, and I hope that my friends feel like they are close enough to me at this point that they'd feel comfortable saying something if they want a different response.
Because here's why this is all so fucking important: I am finding that I am extremely comfortable in sobriety, as long as the social circles I've had for years and decades at this point are still around me. I was at Book Club and at a college friend's wedding on back to back weekends at the end of April, completely sober in situations that have historically been huge drinking opportunities for me, and I was relieved to find that I was still able to have a good time. I could've maybe had a more fun time with alcohol, but I could have very well had a much worse time with alcohol. I'm not comparing, I'm just taking each event in a vacuum, and I can say: good time, even while sober.
The reason that was the case in each of those scenarios was that I was hanging out with people whom I know pretty intimately and whom I have a noted history of hanging out with and having a good time with. Alcohol was a constant in the fun, but without alcohol, there is still another constant: my friends. They make me feel comfortable. (Sidenote: Hope it goes without saying that when I say "friends," I'm talking about various levels of people in my social circle, anyone from longtime friends whom I don't see too often anymore, up to my best friend, Pam, and family members and whatnot. "Friends" are "the people I usually hang out with in my life.")
The only situation thus far, in the past 65 days, that made me feel claustrophobic in a new-to-sobriety-and-I'm-scared sort of way, happened outside of my tight-knit social circles. On my last day of classes (for god willing the rest of my fucking life), I went to New Deck with a bunch of folks from my final class. A really great group of people, but really only one person out of the group I considered a friend, currently. Mostly more like acquaintances, people I knew from various classes over the past few years, people I've had small-talk conversations with in small moments to varying degrees. Enough to know that these were good people, through and through.
And there we were at New Deck, the bar that was more or less my "spot" these past two years, my "bar away from home," if you will. Felt like a nice full-circle moment. There was even a round of shots ordered, and everyone cheers-ed to the accomplishment of completing grad school, and we shot the shit for a while, joking around and yukking it up with the various in-jokes we've built up over the shared academic experience.
I... did not do well in this moment, emotionally speaking. I got out of dodge as quickly and as discreetly as I could. After some reflection on why I needed to escape those circumstances, I'm drawn to the conclusion that this typically would have been the ideal drinking scenario. The beers and shots are how I would have typically connected myself to these people. It's how I would have really, truly cemented a bond. I would done that round of shots, had a few more, pounded some beers, opened myself up to strangers, turned strangers into friends, and I would've used that experience as proof that there was more to our connection now than just some fucking classes that we'll forget about in a few months. We had drinks together at New Deck. I can't overemphasize how important these scenarios have been to me in my lifetime.
In that hour or so, I felt the crushing weight of sobriety, due to what I had lost. It wasn't so much that I was cut off from making new friends—since that responsibility lies on me, and not on the alcohol, and fuck me if I can't do it sober—so much as I was just perplexed on how to make that connection, since connection-building-via-inebriation is the only way I know how to do it. I've leaned on it for so long that I honestly am fucking lost when I try to consider any other way. It's horrifying, in a way. In this very specific aspect of my social existence, I am so completely broken.
Which brings me back to why my friends and my support system are so fucking important in this process. It's not that they have to do anything—and like I said, it worries me that anyone would feel like they have to be any different than they've been in the past fifteen to 20 years. It's just that they have to be there. And they are already. I'm just saying that sobriety seems easy when I'm with people I'm already chill with. The people with whom the connection already exists. If I don't know how to make a connection, then for now I'm just going to have to lean on the connections that are already made.
There are probably subsequent worries that stem from this mindset. For instance, I have always enjoyed the idea of being someone who likes to "try new things" and who is "adventurous," and I wonder if I'll be able to be that person again, without alcohol, of if alcohol was the whole fucking point of any of that, and I'll find myself slinking back time and again to contexts and scenarios that are comfortable and familiar and very unadventurous. But that's a worry for later, I think. For now, I'm basically doing Cold Turkey, and for however long that feeling lasts, I'm going to just hang on as tight as I can to what I know.
And what I know is the people I know. The people I know are going to be what saves me, ultimately. So if you are one of those people—and if you are reading my fucking stupid ass blog, then you most assuredly are—then I need you to know that there is nothing you need to do, and no adjustments that you need to make. Just pretend that I'm the same as I've ever been, and let me worry about the sober part. You're doing enough by existing in my life.
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