Should You Avoid Socialising?

Socialising sober can be hard. It’s got more triggers than The Magnificent Seven. It’s full of the kind of things that would make you think about reaching for a drink.

Social events are a constant reminder of alcohol, from seeing people drinking, hearing about drinking, even smelling the drink. It’s fraught with obvious triggers.

Social events can be full of tricky situations

But it’s also fraught with less obvious ones. There’s the low-level nerves we often get when socialising, that feeling which comes from the fear of social rejection. There are also positive emotions that you might find trigger, celebration and goodwill are things that often made us drink in the past.

Now that I think about it, it sounds like a nightmare, maybe I should stay home! But let’s not be so hasty, sure there are triggers, but there are also massive potential benefits.

Most people have heard Yohan Hari’s great line “the opposite of addiction is connection”. It’s so oft repeated because it’s true. We crave connection. Sadly, alcohol often prevents us from maintaining the connection that we need. It stands to reason that building (or rebuilding) connections should be part of our recovery. The bad news is that connection often goes hand in hand with socialising.

Out there in the real world, where does that socialising often take place? The same places where it’s common for alcohol to be consumed.

I want to stress that I’m not suggesting you should hang around bars and clubs. What I mean is that while creating deep connections you will get invited to parties, dinners and even occasionally, the pub.

If you can find places to socialise where no alcohol is being drunk, that’s grand. But there are things you may want to do which happen, where alcohol is being served. If, like Esther, (please link to episode 8) you like going to gigs then you will be in a situation where people are drinking. Your choice is don’t do it, or learn to cope.

Why People Struggle in Social Situations

The honest answer is that to an extent everyone struggles in social situations. And I’m not just talking about the sober people, I’m talking about all the people.

Everyone gets nervous sometimes

This is something that comes up time and again when I work with smokers – they often talk about smoking in the context of difficulties with social situations. At some point we have all experienced the pressure of facing a room full of people we don’t know and making small talk. It’s hard!

Point one, socialising can be difficult. Point two, staying sober has its challenges. That’s a potent mix. What can you do?

The truth is that sobriety is an attitude, a mindset, and if you get that right then socialising becomes much easier. We discussed developing this state of mind last month in some depth in Effective Relapse Prevention Strategies for 2025 (link to “Effective Relapse Prevention Strategies for 2025”).

You’d be forgiven for thinking that all I ever talk about is getting your head right, but it is the key to managing the twin difficulties of sobriety and socialising. The first part of that mindset is realizing what’s important in life.

That starts by accepting that sometimes those boots are made for walking.

Walk Away if You Need to

Some social events are important, let’s take a friend's wedding as an example. That’s a big day for them and you want to go along and support them. Sure, it’s important, but how important?

You wouldn’t ruin your recovery for an event like that. The occasion is important but not that important. Once you can see that any social event you can think of is not as important as staying sober then you have already put yourself in a great place.

Because if you can accept that living alcohol free is a bigger priority than any celebration, then you always have the option to walk away from that event.

Walk away if you need to

In the abstract sense no one would put a night out over staying sober, but until you truly believe that you’re allowed to walk away from an uncomfortable event, you’re in danger. You’re in danger of getting caught up in the event, your brain would start to say, “I can’t leave now, what will people think?”.

Why not take a moment, right now, to make a commitment to yourself? Commit to leaving an event if the drinking, the drinkers or the vibe is making you nervous. Shout it out loud right now, “I will walk away from any event if it’s making me uncomfortable”.

This commitment was exemplified on the very first episode of Flat-Pack Sober by the wonderful Nicholas Ingle (link to episode 1). He is very stubborn about it, if he feels even a little unsure about the levels of drink, he walks. He’s stubborn like that. In fact, he’s a great guy precisely because he’s stubborn like that.

Remember, there’s no such thing as a social occasion that’s more important than your recovery. Walk away if you need to.

How to Say No to Other People

There are people out there that think that saying no to other people is the hard bit. It’s not, saying no to other people is the easy bit.

It’s saying no to yourself that’s the trick.

We’ve all met “Have a drink” Dave. He’s the guy who says, “Go on, you can have one”. The bloke who always wants to point out that it’s Christmas/someone's birthday/sunny/Friday. He can always think of a reason why now is the perfect time to have a drink. He’ll follow it up with his burning conviction that one can’t do any harm. Incidentally, he’s married to “Have some wine” Wendy.

Some people just want to spoil your day

Dave and Wendy are going to be insistent; they aren’t planning to take no for an answer – surely that makes life harder? Not really, so long as you don’t want to drink, then it won’t matter how much they badger you.

In truth, I’ve never met a heavy drinker that really wants to have a drink. What I mean is not so much that you dislike drinking, more that you have completely internalised the idea that alcohol just doesn’t serve you.

If, deep down inside, you feel that there’s no way a drink will enhance your experience, then you won’t want to do it. Which is obvious, if you don’t believe drinking will improve your life at that moment, why would you drink?

To do that you need to get to grips with your beliefs about alcohol. This was a subject we cover in depth in a recent article “Effective Relapse Prevention Strategies for 2025” (please link to the “The Foundation of Alcohol-Free Living” section). Simply put your need to uncover what you believe about drinking and examine whether those beliefs are true as well as whether they’re helping you live your best life.

Once you have your beliefs straight, you can say no to yourself. Once you can say no to yourself, and truly mean it, then Dave and Wendy are the easy part. In fact, you can even get to the point where they’re not even annoying any more, they become a beautiful reminder of the trap you escaped from.

Have a Plan

Nothing says party like having a plan!

We don’t usually plan our social events in great detail. We probably work out where it is and what time it starts, but after that we tend to leave it to chance. Sometimes taking a free and easy approach to life is the way to go. But do you want to leave sobriety to chance?

Having a clear idea of a few aspects of the event can make the experience much more enjoyable. A clear plan works because it takes away the doubt, you know that you aren’t going to end up in a difficult situation because you’ve worked out how it's going to go.

The things that you need to consider fall into the three sections:

● What you are going to drink

● When and how you’re going to leave

● How to talk about not drinking

The good news is, we’re about to run through each of them. You spend time thinking about what you’re going to wear (even guys do), so why not spend some time planning the rest of the event to make sure staying sober is easy?

What to Drink

What to drink can be a contentious subject. Some people hate the new swathe of alcohol-free options, arguing that 0.5% is still alcoholic. And some people absolutely love them.

If you don’t really care what you drink, then there isn’t much to plan in this section. Honestly, I stopped drinking before there was so much choice, so I got used to drinking sparkling water. That and the fact that I watched too many Peirre ads when I was a kid, so I think that fizzy water is the acme of sophistication.

But I do understand that there are plenty of people who would like something a bit more sophisticated than a glass of warm coke. If that’s you, then you probably need to do some planning.

Ultimately if having to drink lemonade is going to ruin your evening, then it’s worth checking out the options ahead of time. The good news is that many restaurants now have their drinks menu online. You can check out their full AF range from the comfort of your own home. This doesn’t work for everywhere, but you can always give them a call if you need more info.

There’s a great range of alcohol-free options in many places

If it’s a private event, then you can just ask the organiser. Honestly, they won’t mind. They’re organising an event that they want you to enjoy;, they’ll be pleased to let you know what they’re planning. In fact, if they haven’t got a good AF option, maybe they’ll find one after you get in touch.

If you want some recommendations on what’s good to drink, the short answer is listen to the podcast, it’s something that comes up a lot. We’ve spoken to a few people who are mad keen on the alcohol free options like: Ben Gibbs (Please link to episode 27) Trevor (link to episode 32) and Denise (episode 56 - not out yet!)

When and How You’re Going to Leave

One of the strange things about events is that they hardly ever tell you when they finish. Invites usually only have the start time on them. But when you leave is very important.

If you’re leaving on your own, then you may want to play it by ear and leave when it feels like a natural conclusion. Or you might be like Nicholas Ingle and reserve your right to walk out if it feels even a little bit doggy.

That said, if you aren’t planning to leave alone, then it’s important that you all agree on a time to leave. You don’t want to be in the situation when you thought you’d be leaving about ten, but they were expecting to leave at dawn. Of course, you don’t have to be bound by the time you agree, if you're both having fun, stay longer.

You might want to give some thought to the people you’re going with. Are they likely to have a few drinks and forget the time you agreed? Obviously, if you’re the designated driver then they probably must leave when you do, but you don’t want to end the evening on a bad note.

Which is an important point. Don’t just know when you want to leave, know how you’re going to do it. This has the added advantage of changing a vague notion of leaving about ten into a concrete plan of which train you’re going to get.

Turn ambiguous ideas into proper plans

If you want my advice – and after all you are reading my article – leave by eleven. That’s the witching hour, that’s when parties tend to go south. At that point everyone who’s drinking has drunk enough to stop being fun and start getting repetitive and boring.

How to Talk About Not Drinking

This is something that stops a surprising number of people from socialising. They’re just not sure what to say when people ask if they want a drink. Especially if the person asking is “Have a drink” Dave.

Having a standard response makes this much easier.

If anyone asks me if I want a drink, I tend to say something like, “No thanks”. That works in about 90% of situations. It really is that simple. Most people don’t actually care about what you do, they accept your decision not to drink in the same way that they’d accept what you’re wearing – they mostly don’t notice.

But what about “Have a wine” Wendy? She’s not going to accept it, is she? This is where you move to phrase two, “I’m not drinking at the moment, and it seems to be working out for me”.

No doubt, that seems like an odd thing for me to say. I haven’t drunk for ten years, and it changed my life – I’ll never drink again. So why do I say it that way?

This phrase is designed to defuse the situation and take the pressure off Wendy. If I said “I’ll never drink again” then I’ll make Wendy uncomfortable. While I’m not actually telling her not to drink, I am forcing her to think about her drinking. Which is something she doesn’t want to do.

“I’m not drinking at the moment” makes it sound like less of a thing. I doubt Wendy likes dry January, but it doesn’t scare her as much as never being able to drink again.

“It seems to be working out for me” further reduces the pressure on Wendy by not implying she should stop drinking, because it’s just something that might be helping me.

Honestly, if you say to Wendy and Dave, “I stopped drinking and it changed my life” what they hear is, “You should stop drinking because it’s ruining your life”. That is going to raise the temperature of the conversation and increase the likelihood that Wendy now sees it as her mission to get you to drink.

“I’m not drinking at the moment, and it seems to be working out for me” defuses the situation by giving people nothing to push up against. Memorise it, practise it in the mirror if you have to – just use it.

How to Socialise Sober

Here’s it all summed up in a few neat phrases:

1, Socialising is difficult but invaluable

Yes, it can be hard to go to social events, it can be uncomfortable. But connecting with other people is essential to sobriety, Sometimes, you have to connect at events that have alcohol there.

2, Be prepared to walk away

If you’re uncomfortable – walk. There is no social event out there that is worth risking your sobriety for.

3, Sober is a mindset

Getting your head right is the key to enjoying alcohol-free living. Get your mind in the right place by looking at our other articles (link to Effective Relapse Prevention Strategies for 2025)

4, Have a plan

Get clear on when you intend to leave and how you plan to do it. Then make sure everyone you’re leaving with is on board.

5, Get comfortable with talking about not drinking

Learning to use phrases like “I’m not drinking at the moment, and it seems to be working out for me” can help you defuse potentially difficult conversations.

6, Enjoy yourself

Social events are meant to be fun, they’re not supposed to be like Indiana Jones escaping from the Temple. Make sure you are prepared and go with the expectation that you’ll have fun.