Sober socialization can include visits to coffee shops, theaters, and other places of entertainment that don't serve alcohol. While it may not be possible to avoid all incidents of exposure to alcohol or drugs, minimizing this contact is a great way to maintain sobriety for most recovering addicts. I was always the drinker who felt these deep spiritual connections with his drunken friends. I met someone in a nightclub bathroom at 2 in the morning and I was attracted to her.
We would be best friends the rest of the night. Sometimes these “friendships” lasted and we would become party friends. I had a lot of party friends, people I could call any day and any time and convince them to drink with me. Ever since I came to sobriety, I've realised how false these connections were.
It takes much more than sharing shots of tequila to be close to another human. Sobriety has shown me that genuine connections are made with a clear mind. For me, socializing in an active addiction always had a hangover. That's because I didn't know how to socialize without consuming alcohol.
I'm not going to lie to you, some days I had a lot of fun while drinking, but the price I always paid was a disgusting hangover. No matter how well I thought I was having fun, the next day I paid for it. Socializing sober doesn't require the social currency of a hangover. Today, when I socialize, I wake up the next morning feeling refreshed.
Besides the fact that drunk hookups aren't genuine, they don't have substance either. When I came to sobriety, I left a lot of friends because I realized that we had nothing in common. What we had in common before was drinking and theater. Once you leave those things behind, you realize that you need to socialize with other people who have similar worldviews and goals.
It's easier to find people who share your views and goals when you're sober, you understand what you're looking for in this life, and you go to the right places to achieve it. Do you know how many times people trusted me and told me serious things while I was intoxicated? More times than I can count. Not only that, serious things happened in my life: surgeries, deaths, and other important events that I can barely remember. It hurts me to know that I can't remember crucial details of my life because of my addiction.
Now that I'm moving around the world sober, I can remember all my conversations, big and small. I never realized it until I was sober, but socializing became mandatory for me, meaning that drinking was equated with socializing and socializing was equated with drinking. I didn't have a choice in this matter. I felt like I had to put on a face, be the life of the party and act as if I were enjoying and interacting with people no matter what.
Now that I'm sober, I can choose if I want to socialize or not, what a crazy concept. Besides, I no longer compare socializing with drinking. Once I separated drinking and socializing, I realized why socializing is so much more enjoyable when sober. You can be who you are and thrive in any situation.
Of course, it took time for me to get used to being part of a crowd: sober, making friends without exchanging shots of tequila, and knowing when I just want to stay home on a Friday night. But socializing has become one of my favorite things about being sober. The only thing I have to worry about when I socialize now is being myself. I met my fiancé before I was sober, so I've never had to deal with sober dates, but just thinking about it gives me the worst goosebumps.
She writes about her life as a former party girl living in recovery in The Adventures of The Sober Señorita. Every event and situation in which I participated sober was a new learning opportunity, and they showed me that socializing sober is much better than socializing drunk. .
