I need drink to enjoy myself

davyjose

This isn't quite true. I can enjoy myself without drink, and have done on countless occasions, but there are 2 things that keep me coming back for pints.

1) I always feel that if an occasion can be had with drink, then the occasion will be better with drink. So if I'm at, say, a barbeque, and I'm having a chat with my mates, biting into a burger, and having a grand ol' time. In my head, if the ingredient that is a nice cold bottle of heineken, is missing, then it affects the flavour of the whole occasion.

2) And this is the one that bothers me the most. In certain social situations, I get anxious, this leads to me being self-conscious, nervous, low on confidence. Throw in a couple of beers, however, and I'm everybody's favourite David - the life and soul of the party.

So these are the two things in the way of me becoming a member of the Non-drinkers club.
If any of you could offer some advice as to how you guys dealt with either of these (if you have), that'd be great.

NonDrinkersClub

You can still be a member even if you drink. There'll be some non-drinking events organised soon. You should come along or maybe help organise something yourself.

davyjose

NonDrinkersClub wrote: »

You can still be a member even if you drink. There'll be some non-drinking events organised soon. You should come along or maybe help organise something yourself.

Yeah but I'd like to be able to address those issues and not drink, than feel compelled to drink. So I was wondering if you teetotallers had any advice?

seanieclarke

im sure there are lots of other people here who cud advise u better than me but heres a couple of tips.

if u feel anxious+low on confidence,try and get to the root of why u do and try and work on inproving them without using drink as the solution.

also if u feel that ur conversations are boring with no drink on board,then that wud be a reflection on urself so maybe the 'real you' isnt the soul of the party-and theres nothin wrong with that!

hope that is a little help but as i said im sure there are people with better advice than me

LaVidaLoca

QUOTE:

"1) I always feel that if an occasion can be had with drink, then the occasion will be better with drink. So if I'm at, say, a barbeque, and I'm having a chat with my mates, biting into a burger, and having a grand ol' time. In my head, if the ingredient that is a nice cold bottle of heineken, is missing, then it affects the flavour of the whole occasion.

2) And this is the one that bothers me the most. In certain social situations, I get anxious, this leads to me being self-conscious, nervous, low on confidence. Throw in a couple of beers, however, and I'm everybody's favourite David - the life and soul of the party.
"

Both of those feelings go away as you get used to partying without drinking. However you must remember this: Drinking is a sedative that WASHES AWAY your real feelings about things/people, so we use it socially to smooth things over.

In real life, for example, you only really like about 30 per cent of the people you meet. When you're drunk EVERYBODY is your best friend. Then you wake up the next day, and think "Why did I spend 3 hours talking about politics with that wanker, I dont even like him!"

When you're sober you enjoy talking to people you like and you dont enjoy talking to people you dont like. This is great cause you never have that confusing feeling mentioned above. For a sober person, a party is good if the people are nice, and the music is good, and there's a good atmosphere. A drinker is largely more interested in getting drunk.

Its great to wake up the next day and think: "Wow that was a really great conversation I had last night, I must call that guy/girl and see if they wanna hang out some time." instead of waking up with a viscuos headache and a vague recollection of a conversation that probably consisted of drooling "Your my besht Mate!!" all over some randomer you barely know.

Thus if you really intend to give up it can cause some difficulty, particularly in Ireland. In Ireland the whole culture is based around getting smashed and talking crap with strangers. So you can feel a bit like an apostate when your not part of it. The advantage is, you feel better, and you can look at nights out as they are, AND you dont have to spend the rest of your life being a stereotype drunken Irish waster.

Plus, you'll be better with the ladies when you're sober: FACT: No sexy chick has ever wanted to sleep with a guy who has uttered the phrase: "Wa-Hey The Lads", Im here to tell you.

Morf

LaVidaLoca wrote: »

FACT: No sexy chick has ever wanted to sleep with a guy who has uttered the phrase: "Wa-Hey The Lads", Im here to tell you.

Can you spread the word around my way please?

LaVidaLoca

Not some nasty fake-tan splathered harridan with a laugh like someone machine gunning a seal.

luckylucky

LaVidaLoca wrote: »

Not some nasty fake-tan splathered harridan with a laugh like someone machine gunning a seal.

lol, class one liner.

LaVidaLoca

LaVidaLoca wrote:

Plus, you'll be better with the ladies when you're sober: FACT: No sexy chick has ever wanted to sleep with a guy who has uttered the phrase: "Wa-Hey The Lads", Im here to tell you.

Mm - drunk guy ain't a turnon. At all.

In certain social situations, I get anxious, this leads to me being self-conscious, nervous, low on confidence. Throw in a couple of beers, however, and I'm everybody's favourite David - the life and soul of the party.

Tbh, I have a friend who was like this. I haven't seen him since he moved off so I don't know if he still does it, but one night at a party I suggested that if he was anxious etc, just try not drinking til say, 11pm. Preferably the whole night, but at least til a certain time. He thanked me afterward and said he'd had a much better time than usual.

You see, if you're using drink every time to make socialising easier, you're not giving yourself a chance to learn how to do it without drink. Even if you go through the anxiety for a while, you have a fail-safe in the back of your mind going "well at least I can fix this feeling when I drink."
Try taking that away one evening, and figure out how to do it without drink. Not having it in the back of your mind. It'll be hard at first because you're not used to it but stick at it.
When you say "I need drink to enjoy myself" you've stuck yourself from the start - you're just excluding the possibility that you don't need drink. You've already decided you do need it, and because that's in your mind without question, it affects everything else.

Oh, and you certainly don't need ot be "the life and soul of the party" to have fun. Lots of interesting conversations are a lot of fun too.

...Hope this helps!

TommyGunne

In all fairness, to put across the other side of the argument, drinking is great fun!

NonDrinkersClub

TommyGunne wrote: »

In all fairness, to put across the other side of the argument, drinking is great fun!

you're definitely helpful did you happen to catch the name of this form or the point being made? haha

MattKid

I have to say I spent 10 months Tee total once and it wasn't easy. After a certain time in the night everyone else is on a different wavelength and you can't relate.

I'm more likely to be violent when sober in a busy pub being barged about from pillar to post whilst trying to watch a band play.

I did the sober thing last Saturday night and it wasn't that enjoyable, it was really hard trying to 'get out of my head' and be fun and sociable.

I'm much more fun with a few drinks, but I would like to have the option and then I can drive more and go out more without spending crap loads of money

fizzynicenice

as unpopular and alienating as it may seem, maybe nights out in pubs or on the town aren't the place to be if you want to stay off the drink.

I know its s**tty to say "don't go out weekends if you don't want to drink", but the temptation is just too much in that sort of atmosphere.

9/10 people in nightclubs act like dopes (FACT) and without the social lubricant of alcohol its really hard to get past this and enjoy yourself


that said if you can actually do this good for you

MattKid

I had a good night out last night sober. Open Mic and then to see a band and have a dance. The two girls I was with whilst drinking weren't getting drunk and have such a fun energy you couldn't help but have a good time. So I think the company you keep is the key to this.

Jayage

jsut be hyper and talk to anyone they wont care if your sober or not i think
i have great nights out just going crazy anyway ^_^

MattKid

I'm reasonably reserved, but I working on just drinking 4 pints to get socially lubricated and then hitting the water, I'll then try and slowly decrease the alcohol, the idea of being able to drive in and out of town and saving so much money whilst still enjoying myself is a fantastic goal

Pen1987

I tried teetotalling for a while, i'd honestly say I'd find it seriously diffucult to do again unless I had a medical reason.

The problems I had were:

You lose touch with conversations when youre talking to drunk people, they might make a joke that they find HILARIOUS, but your thinking, "eh... wtf, **** joke"...

Its hard to relate to someone messing about drunk when your not drunk yourself, like someone doing something slightly illegal, everyone drunk is thinking, "what a legend, gas craic"... your just sober thinking "what a knob", totally alienated.

Like people said in this thread, "just get hyper and people wont even know your not drinking", yeah all well and good until they say "what are you drinking/Im going to the bar/can I buy you a drink?" and you reply "ah no I grand/I dont drink" and they either push you with "g'wah Im buying" if you say no thanks even if you insist, or if you say your not drinking they look at you like "****e, better not do anything stupid around this guy so" (total downer for everyone)

You get KNACKERED. When your drinking you dont notice the night rolling in, its 4AM and your like, "what, its closing"... when your sober your knackered and ready for bed at about 1AM, MAX 3AM... even if your drink the high-suger non-alcos your still tired and irritable by 3AM, again irritable people, downer for everyone...

I'm not saying teetotallers are a shower of dry-****e, fair play to you for standing the rest of us, but above are the problem I encountered when attempting it...

NonDrinkersClub

Pen1987 wrote: »

I tried teetotalling for a while, i'd honestly say I'd find it seriously diffucult to do again unless I had a medical reason.

The problems I had were:

You lose touch with conversations when youre talking to drunk people, they might make a joke that they find HILARIOUS, but your thinking, "eh... wtf, **** joke"...

Its hard to relate to someone messing about drunk when your not drunk yourself, like someone doing something slightly illegal, everyone drunk is thinking, "what a legend, gas craic"... your just sober thinking "what a knob", totally alienated.

Like people said in this thread, "just get hyper and people wont even know your not drinking", yeah all well and good until they say "what are you drinking/Im going to the bar/can I buy you a drink?" and you reply "ah no I grand/I dont drink" and they either push you with "g'wah Im buying" if you say no thanks even if you insist, or if you say your not drinking they look at you like "****e, better not do anything stupid around this guy so" (total downer for everyone)

You get KNACKERED. When your drinking you dont notice the night rolling in, its 4AM and your like, "what, its closing"... when your sober your knackered and ready for bed at about 1AM, MAX 3AM... even if your drink the high-suger non-alcos your still tired and irritable by 3AM, again irritable people, downer for everyone...

I'm not saying teetotallers are a shower of dry-****e, fair play to you for standing the rest of us, but above are the problem I encountered when attempting it...

It can be tough being a non-drinker when you're still hanging around in pubs with people who are drinking. It might have been a better experience for you if you had tried broadening your horizons maybe? There are plenty of places you can go and things you can do that don't involve drinking and are still lots of fun (cinema, meals out, gigs, comedy nights...).

Hope I'm not being too nosy here, but what was it that made you try out being a non-drinker and for how long did you keep it up?

LaVidaLoca

I think it really depends. I find that with the non-drinking you become much more discerning about who you hang out with, and where you do it.

With good friends (i.e people you actually like) a night out is still fun, but without the longevity - For any human being, sitting at the same table for 5 or 6 hours at a stretch would be intolerable.

I find I like parties fine, I can move around, play guitar, dance or just leave the room and go to another and talk to a different group of people. The pub thing of sitting at the same table for hours on end is insanely boring for a sober person (after about 2 hours).

Secondly, when you're sober, you dont have false friends: You cant just make friends with any random punter : "Wahey guys, this is Darren, he's functionally illiterate and just got out of the 'Joy, but he'sh a shound bloke!" Obviously, this limits you to people you have something in common with, making socialising harder, but ultimately far more fun.

But neither of these things are bad. If you lived in a culture in which smoking dope was the norm, people would think staying in eating Jaffa Cakes and watching dumb-ass kung-fu movies was the height of entertainment. You happen to live in one of the world's most alcohol-dependant cultures. Many Irish people think being hammered and talking crap to people they barely know is the pinnacle of human experience. Needless to say, it isn't.

All you need to do is find things to do that are actually fun in themselves, with people you actually like.

For me this has meant rediscovering some friends I had let slide, and occassionally being uninterested in some of the people I had considered to be good friends of mine for years (in reality they were just drinking buddies). It can of course be hard to see things as they really are, but it's also more rewarding in the end.