Good morning, fellow sobernauts, IWNDWYT, 😁!
We may be anonymous strangers on the internet, but we have one thing in common. We may be a world apart, but we’re here together!
Welcome to the 24 hour pledge! I’m pledging myself to not drinking today, and invite you to do the same. Maybe you’re new to c/stop drinking and have a hard time deciding what to do next. Maybe you’re like me and feel you need a daily commitment or maybe you’ve been sober for a long time and want to inspire others.
It doesn’t matter if you’re still hung over from a three day bender or been sober for years, if you just woke up or have already completed a sober day. For the next 24 hours, let’s not drink alcohol!
8 days in today. It’s not been hard yet. I’ve quit for a month before. It’s things like vacations and holidays that are going to be tough. I’ve got an NHL game on the 23rd, Christmas Eve, and New Year’s Eve that are all going to be tough this year. Every time I think about drinking and it sounds good, I remind myself that the positives are not really positives and the negatives are very very real.
Welcome, we’re glad to have you here 🙂
I’m a great believer for having a plan for difficult days, so what’s your plan? Who knows you aren’t drinking? I found it was easier not to drink if people knew in advance.
Can you make sure there’ll be nice non-alcoholic drinks (take your own, if necessary)?
Are you prepared to leave if it gets hard? I was dreading my first work Christmas party after I stopped. I wasn’t sure what AF drinks options there would be, and forced socialisation with people I wouldn’t choose to socialise with is not my forte. So I told myself I could stay until I’d eaten and then I could bugger off.
My top tips for surviving parties:
Get there under your own steam (bonus points if it’s by a method you can’t drink with, e.g. driving or cycling).
Don’t offer lifts to anyone, that way you can leave on your own timetable, not theirs. If you have a partner, get them onside so they will leave if you say “honey we need to go now.”
Set yourself a curfew (leave after you’ve eaten, for example). You can stay later if you find you’re having fun, but having that “I only have to stick it out until then,” at the back of your mind is really helpful.
Get an alcohol-free drink in your hand as soon as you arrive, mentally setting your “tone” for the event. If you’re worried there won’t be anything AF, or the AF options will be childish (I never drank Coke when I was a child, why are you offering it as the only option to a grown adult?), take your own.
If your partner isn’t present, have them on standby to send you an emergency “get home now, [insert plausible but not overly dramatic excuse here, no deaths or explosions or you’ll be dealing with concerned enquiries for days]” message. If you don’t have a partner, or helpful friend, reach out to someone here, I can make up “the dog’s got diarrhoea/the kids have just started vomiting, please can you get home?” excuses with the best of them.
Take time to check in on yourself somewhere quiet, every hour or so. Do some box breathing (in for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four), and just recombobulate yourself.
Don’t tangle yourself up in long goodbyes, just slip away, like a little ghost. 👻 You can always send the host a thank you message the next day “sorry I left without saying goodbye, but you were too busy being fabulous and I didn’t want to interrupt, I had a great time, thank you!”
Remember it’s a Christmas party, not a hostage situation. You can just leave.
This is good advice. I plan on bringing my own Liquid Death. That’s my go to when not drinking, however I don’t mind a nice Diet Coke. However, I tend to suck down every single liquid in front of me when drinking anything. I probably won’t tell anyone that I’m not drinking, because none of them are really big drinkers anyway. I was always the one guzzling booze and hiding it trying not to seem like I was drinking any faster than anyone else. If I don’t drink, I’ll just look like everyone else.