So part of being sober is: accepting that you’ll sometimes not be able to immediately immerse yourself in the energy of a gathering, or enjoy a social interaction when your heart isn’t in it. Sometimes, you just won’t like an evening with hordes. You have to start obeying your natural moods: no more drowning a few and suddenly feeling talkative, exuberant, thrilled, energized, sexualized, rowdy.
You will definitely begin to see things about people you never noticed before, or didn’t care about before. During one of my many sober streaks, I began to realize that I really didn’t like hanging out with certain people and couldn’t figure out why I was friends with them in the first place. I’m not going to jump on the “you can have fun without drinking” cliche, cause honestly some of the funniest, best moments of my young life involve drinking stories, but that cliche does have some merit to it. You just have to be confident in the person that you are… sober.
I appreciate both of your responses here.
I’ve attempted the “take it easy” thing before, and it actually isn’t easy if your existing lifestyle is one big ongoing effort to be entertained and stimulated. It can be a bit rough to separate yourself from that, especially if you have so much energy that needs to be burned off somehow (and, like me, if you’re the type who has trouble redirecting that energy into being productive with significant analytical or comprehension tasks). I would say that, for 18 years, speaking only of human engagement, I’ve been on a constant ride that doesn’t even stop for breaks or holidays. And when it has stopped, I’ve been a fish out of water.
I should note that I’m only looking to keep this up for a month, and that I’m hoping a month off will make me less eager to resume poor lifestyle habits. But, two days of it already seems nuts and we have a holiday weekend coming up. I’m going to be consuming so much fruit juice that I’ll be sick of it by July 5th…
