One of the reasons people find it hard to decide to quit alcohol is that alcohol is a socially acceptable drink. Even if you decide to quit, people around you might encourage you not to.
Alcohol is different from drugs. Drugs are illegal. Alcohol is not. Statements like “Why aren’t you drinking?” “Just have one drink,” “Oh, you are being so fussy about drinking!” make you doubt your decision of drinking.
You feel disconnected from your drinking friends. They distance you, as they, no longer, find you interesting. According to them, you don’t know how to have fun in your life.
You begin asking yourselves, “did I make the right choice to quit drinking?”
It is at this phase that AA meetings come to your rescue.
Importance of meetings
Many people think they can quit alcohol anytime and need no meetings. Yet, when they are bombarded with questions from their “friends,” they succumb to peer pressure. They always struggle to recover.
- Meetings provide you with an atmosphere wherein you realize sobriety is a beautiful way of life. Drinking isn’t the only way to have fun.
- You realize life is much more than things like binge drinking, celebrating with drinks, and others.
- Meetings help you re-discover your confidence and strength to live life without alcohol. You are able to go sober continuously. Tools like Sobriety Calculator help you keep a tab on your sober days.
- Not drinking alcohol does not make you boring.
- You put more faith in yourselves and a higher power.
- You realize how you missed life while you were drinking.
- You come to know it is possible to quit drinking even when you have been drinking for decades. It all starts with a will.
AA meetings in Utah have helped thousands of men and women discover a new life sans alcohol. They also found the right answers to give to people who question them about their sobriety decision.
Things you must be prepared for when quitting drinking
A lot of shifts happen in your life when you quit drinking. Even the very decision of quitting may make many people in your life uncomfortable. Somehow they will want to convince you that lifetime sobriety is impossible or that having a drink once in a while is okay.
Some might even say blatantly that it is impossible for YOU to quit drinking.
The first thing to do when you decide to quit alcohol is to quit hanging out with such “friends.”
Time to make new friends.
One of the advantages of local AA meetings is that you find like-minded people who were alcoholics before and are now sober. You can learn a lot from them. They are people who inspire and who make your drinking friends prove wrong.
It is possible to quit drinking anytime in life.
How quitting ‘drinking friends’ help
- You are relieved from pestering questions from drinking friends.
- You save yourselves from triggers. Your old friends would drink in front of you and tempt you.
- Surrounding yourself with sober people helps you see life from a new perspective.
Give life a try without alcohol.
