Dealing With Former Drinking "Buddies"

[Phil W]

I just stopped drinking on Jan. 11. Nobody I know knows I stopped.
I'm not sure how I will deal with my first situation where everybody
else is drinking. They will notice its abnormal I'm not drinking if
they are. What do I say?

[Plug]

"Phil W" <chainstay@aol.com> wrote in message
news:58ef47eb.0401272209.332db329@posting.google.c om...
> I just stopped drinking on Jan. 11. Nobody I know knows I stopped.
> I'm not sure how I will deal with my first situation where everybody
> else is drinking. They will notice its abnormal I'm not drinking if
> they are. What do I say?

I was a secret non drinker too. I practised a little speech for the first
time I met up with my drinking friends and do you know what? No one noticed
I was not drinking. After a few months I found their company boring - they
probably found me the same - we no longer had much in common. It's a bit
like having a work friend you really get on with and when one of you leaves,
you promise to keep in touch, but the only thing that you had in common was
work. I don't see my best friend at all any more. She and her partner are
both heavy drinkers. Nothing has been said, but I feel I have had to choose
between them and my sober future. Of course it was a no brainer.
Deb/Bubba

[Christine]

>I just stopped drinking on Jan. 11. Nobody I know knows I stopped.
>I'm not sure how I will deal with my first situation where everybody
>else is drinking. They will notice its abnormal I'm not drinking if
>they are. What do I say?
>

You could say you started a new med that interfers with your drinking - hee
hee.

Over the Holidays I said I was on teh Atkins diet and would rather use my carbs
p w/stuffing and whatnot than booze. It seemed to work ... don't know what was
said behind my back, though. lol

[Bpyboy]

for me, going out with the old friends always ended up at a bar, or at least a
resturant that served alcohol. And with a picher of beer sitting there, and me
not able to drink it? MADNESS! I failed every single time I tried it (and it
was SEVERAL times).

So I fessed up to my REAL freinds (not just the ones I hooked up with at bars),
but the real friends and explained my situation, and they were mostly like
"yeah, I was getting a little worried about you" and left me alone. THey
stopped asking me to go out barring with them (when they realizied I wasn't
kidding about the need to quit), and when we went for lunch, I didn't get my
charicteristic bloody mary.....

And I didn't lose any FREINDS in the deal. TONS of Joe 6-packs, and fair
weather freinds, but no real freinds.