So for those unfamiliar with the acronym, fear of missing out. I definitely used alcohol as a crutch for socialisation (autism, and when I drink, I don’t feel so autistic). I have been out to a pub / karoake night and successfully not drunk alcohol, twice so far.
When I think about the future and the idea of ‘never drinking alcohol again’ it makes me feel a little sad. I imagine all the fun nights out I used to have, that I won’t have anymore… I imagine sitting around sighing, twiddling my thumbs while everyone has raucous fun.
I don’t feel like these are unreasonable worries, so hoping for some insights to puncture them. My main weapon to fight back is to imagine how I feel the morning after (nauseous, pounding head, sweating) and how that day is wasted; then to remind myself that drinking kicks me into a manic phase, with inevitable week+ of depression to follow.
I used to know a guy called Brian, friend of the family… he was always the life and soul of every party despite being teetotal. Always admired him, maybe that should be my mantra… “WWBD?”
I think that for many of us we use alcohol as a shortcut, instead of working to become more social or deal with our emotions sober or whatever your issue may be. Instead we remedy these things temporarily with drugs or alcohol. If you want to become social it may take work even more so with the autism but I believe you can achieve it. I’m able to handle situations I never thought I could sober at this point and I know that is a show of hard work paying off
This is probably the most difficult to implement advice so far, but also the deepest / most effective. Changing our brain and the way we think is incredibly hard, but not difficult. I have a bit of a problem with catastrophising - stressing about a situation, trying to pregame every eventuality, with my brain focussing on the worst case scenario - until I altered a technique I read in a self help book.
It said “When you notice a negative thought, say to yourself “this is my negative voice, and I’m not going to listen”.”. But that didn’t work for me. The voice was too strident. Instead, I play a game called 'If you don’t have all the info, why not imagine a positive conclusion?". I still pregame to an extent, but the positive scenario seems to cancel out the negative one.