Three Keys to Socializing Sober — And Loving It!

It took me ten years to quit drinking. Ten! Almost no matter how long this little earthly jaunt lasts for me, that’s a double-digit percentage of my life spent trying to quit drinking. I know I make abstinence look effortless and marvelous now in my fourth year of permanent sobriety, but I know how gruelling it is early on (and by early sobriety, I mean that whole first year — don’t get cocky early on me now, unless you want it to take you a decade to get over that hump).

I wanted sobriety to change nothing for me. I wanted to go through my normal life, just without a beer in my hand. It doesn’t work that way — not for me, nor for any of the thousands of sober badasses with whom I’m familiar. Sobriety changes everything, but in a good way (which I never believed possible until a couple of years ago).

I made all the mistakes in the book of failed recovery efforts. I kept my busy social schedule in early sobriety. I stared temptation in the eye and dared it to be in total control of my neurotransmitters and subconscious mind (which it was, by the way). I even became a non-alcoholic beer connoisseur before there were any good non-alcoholic beers. It was a skunky, arrogant, impatient, ignorant disaster.

That was my story. I don’t want that to be your story. Enough about my failure. Here are the three keys to…