Sobriety And Changing Your Social Group

Does the title of this post scare you when you think about getting sober?  Does it make you reconsider sobriety, even if all the arrows in your life are pointing in that direction.  OK, there may be one possible way to keep your entire social group when you decide to become sober.  Your entire social group gets sober right along with you.  If that sounds like a near impossible task, then you get the point.  Getting sober may be absolutely necessary for your life, it does require some real sacrifice and change on your part.

What Will You Do With Your Time Sober

You may be wondering what in the world you are going to do now.  What if you can’t hang out with the girls after work on Thirsty Thursdays, or on the usual Tuesday Happy Hour, or getting drunk together in the backyard throughout the summer while the guys grill?  And the ladies bowling league – every Saturday night for nine months out of the year.  And that doesn’t even count the times you drink at home, either on your own or with anyone who comes over.

When you take a closer look at it, you may be stunned at how deeply drinking is embedded into your daily life.  What do think about when it’s your usual time to drink?  Do you think about it much at all, or does it all seem pretty automatic anymore?  Work is done, it’s the weekend, it’s league night, a friend has dropped by – and you crack out the alcohol right away.  You drink until you are drunk most if not every time you start.  Most of the time, even if you say you aren’t going to drink that much, you get drunk anyway.

Social Influence Matters With Alcohol Recovery

How in the world could you stay sober if you kept up with that bowling league group, with your friends that drop by and drink with you, with the people that come over in the summer to grill and drink, stopping by Happy Hour and Thirsty Thursday with those friends?  The answer is that most likely you can’t.  Even if they are sympathetic to your needs, are they all going to stop drinking entirely when they are with you so you have no temptation?  If they all would, that is an incredible group of friends.  If not, you’ll need to make some decisions.

Perhaps after you have been in alcohol treatment, you might ask someone if they know of people who don’t drink while they bowl.  Maybe you can see that a few of your relatives or friends may not drink much to start with and would enjoy starting a different social tradition.  Or maybe some of the people you meet in AA already do some of these types of gatherings that you could attend.  Regardless, the reality is clear about your social group.  A dramatic change needs to take place if you are going to truly stay sober.

Alcohol Treatment Helps You Manage Your Fears

This may seem really hard to imagine, frightening because you don’t know how you’ll handle the boredom and loneliness.  Alcohol rehab can help you work through those fears and find solutions to you social struggles.  The support you find at alcohol treatment sessions can help you get through the valleys of alcoholism recovery.  Yes, you’ll need to make change, but you won’t have to be alone through it.

Photo credit: romana klee