The weekend my husband and I stopped drinking was a surprise for both of us. I spent my first single mom weekend with my two year old son, staying at a beautiful beachfront hotel. I went there with no intention of changing my behavior. In fact, I had several bottles of red wine ready for the occasion. My vision is to spend three days wrapped up in a Pendleton blanket next to a fire pit with nothing but my Kindle and a large glass of red wine.
The night before we left, my sister-in-law and I went for a few drinks. why not? After all I only have more time off in the morning. But the next day, I felt like hell, a feeling that gets stronger (and easier) as I get older. I was hungover and exhausted. Physically I felt like hot garbage, but the psychological side effects should not be underestimated. i don’t even have responsible For my children that day──all I had to do was get on the boat! –but i feel ashamed and guilty have The hangover felt almost as bad as my headache.
During my trip, someone recommended a book to me that completely changed my perspective. and after completion The Naked Mind: Take Control of Alcohol, Find Freedom, Discover Happiness, and Change Your LifeI called my husband and told him I wanted to stop drinking. To my surprise, he said he was ready to resign as well. But we have one big fear: We worry about how our sobriety will affect our relationships with our friends.
Half of our friends in our close circle are DINKs, happily traveling the world, sleeping in, and truly living life to the fullest without a single kid to make ends meet. In short, deciding whether to have a third cocktail is just different math for them. We are really worried that we will become the ultimate killer to our circle of friends. Not only did we change the dynamic by having a baby, but we also stopped drinking. Who else wants to hang out with us?
As it turns out, our friends did.
Since I went through nine months of enforced sobriety during my pregnancy, I’ve gained some insight into what the sober friend hanging experience is like. But my husband was new to socializing sober, and he had reason to worry that quitting drinking would affect his ability to connect with friends. Given everyone’s busy schedules, opportunities to hang out tend to be short-lived, and — this being Seattle — usually take place at some craft brewery or other. He was often tired when he went straight to see friends after get off work, his mind still immersed in the meeting he had just attended. With limited opportunities and time for connection, he felt alcohol helped speed up the transition.
To be honest, I had the same reservations before quitting: Would every social interaction begin with painful, mundane small talk? I had always been the class clown, and I was also worried that my jokes wouldn’t come out as easily and that I wouldn’t make my friends laugh like they used to.
Turns out my friends still laugh at my jokes and I still laugh at theirs. Meanwhile, my husband still has his friends, who are as close as ever (they play golf more often, I admit that). This is obvious once we quit smoking, but somehow before that, our friends don’t just want to drink with us – they want to be with us.
My husband and I realized that some settings can be awkward whether you’re a little buzz-worthy or not. Weddings, parties, happy hours at work—many times, all it takes is a few minutes of uncomfortable relief. Getting mad at my kid just because he did toddler things (think putting grapes up your nose). It’s also nice to have the embarrassing memory of not actually going to “Gettin Low.” Some people can make it work – I’m not one of them.
Bryn Lansdown is a writer living in Seattle, Washington, where she lives with her husband, son, and rambunctious 14-year-old Jokip.
