SOCIETY VS. SOBRIETY

Are You Jeopardising Your Sobriety By Hanging Out At A Bar?

The answer is not as simple as you think

“If you walk into a barbershop, sooner or later you’ll get a haircut”

— Popular AA phrase

Most addiction counselors would tell you that hanging out in a bar is a gigantic red flag of impending relapse. But what if it’s your friend’s birthday and the party is in a bar? Or you get invited to a work lunch in a bar? There’s a big difference between actively seeking to hang out in a bar and an event that you want to attend occurring in a bar.

Sadly, motivations aside, the risk is pretty much the same.

Here you potentially are in a bar.

You can have any drink that you want and the server is going to happily serve you. The stakes are as high as they get here, so don’t throw in all your sobriety chips until you have really assessed the risk.

Think about the location.

Bars = Booze. Therefore at the beginning of my sobriety journey, I found restaurants to be acceptable and bars impossible. Apart from Italian restaurants. I still find those difficult, due to my incredibly strong association between Italian food and alcohol. However, these are my rules. Part of your sobriety journey is working out your own boundaries.

On the flip side, bars unlike restaurants are much easier to escape from if you feel a crawling temptation to drink. Leaving a restaurant in the middle of a meal is much more conspicuous than leaving a bar in the middle of a party.

Also, in a bar everyone is doing their own thing, meaning, unlike a restaurant you can drink soda without too much attention. If you keep out of rounds it is totally possible to never have to announce that you’re not drinking.

But you really need to be honest with yourself, is this a bar where you are going to want to drink? Is it somewhere where the cocktails are good and you are going to be really tempted? Or was it your favorite boozer where you used to get s**t faced?

If this place has any kind of attraction or familiarity then everything else aside it is seriously not worth going to. It could be a massive trigger for you. Being flooded with cravings or shameful memories in a bar is really not safe in early sobriety.

Think about the crowd.

Who will be in attendance? Are there going to be others who aren't drinking? If it’s going to be a boozy crowd how are you going to handle that s**t?

Is there potentially someone there who will not leave you alone until you do a shot of tequila? Are you strong enough for this?

Be honest with yourself here as you are the only one who is going to lose out. If you attend and end up f**king your sobriety then how are you going to feel?

Is there anyone who has your back?

In early sobriety, if I was around people drinking, I made sure I had buddies who had my back. I didn’t put a time on when I could handle the situation alone but I felt like I’d know when people cracking open a beer in front of me wouldn’t phase me.

On one of my first attempts at sobriety, I was given a can of Tsingtao beer at a party (if you’ve never heard of it, it’s the Bud of China). My addict brain tried to rationalize that it was only 3% and therefore really hardly a drink.

I remember the hiss as I cracked open the can, the belchy stink of crappy beer. Luckily a good friend quickly pulled the can out of my hand, fake mopping his brow, “phew that was close. Don’t f**k this up for a can of Tsingtao.”

I did break that attempt at sobriety later. I was going to fall sooner or later because I was a dry drunk, I hadn’t done the work on myself that I needed to do to stay sober.

However, a good friend in these kinds of situations is really important, they could be the one who saves you from making a mistake that costs you everything.

How long have you been sober?

It has taken me a long time to be comfortable around alcohol. I would feel this bolt of fear if I even glimpsed a bottle of wine. Even now, if someone just asks me to hold a bottle it doesn’t feel right.

Is it that I still don’t trust myself? No. But it’s just that I created such strong boundaries around myself and alcohol in my first year that it totally breaks those.

In my first few months sober, I entered an Airbnb rental only to find they had left wine for sale on the table. I called the owner furious and I remember their surprise, you don’t have to drink it. Sorry, Airbnb owner. I was newly sober and it was a hard time.

But I know did the right thing there, even if I came across as a bit cray-cray. I asserted myself. Enforcing your boundaries around alcohol is really f**king important.

Slowly I began to feel comfortable being around people drinking. But for me it took time. In my first year, I simply said no to anything that I wasn’t 100% comfortable with.

Augusten Burrows in his memoir Dry, describes his difficulty upon entering a bar for the first time after a month of sobriety:

“Behind the bar, colorful liquor bottles are lit from below like fine art. They look breathtakingly beautiful. Seeing them, I am filled with longing. It’s not an ordinary craving. It’s a romantic craving. Because I don’t just drink alcohol. I actually love it. I turn away…I feel uptight, stiff. The phrase social lubricant comes to mind and I realize this is what I want, social lubrication. Cocktails. My mouth is dry and I take a sip of seltzer.”

— Augusten Burrows, Dry

Don't underestimate just how triggering entering a bar can be. All your senses are involved here and going into a bar without a support network in early sobriety can be incredibly difficult.

Visualize the situation.

At some point in your life, you will be around people drinking. But you need to work out if you are ready to do this now or not. You need to actually imagine people there right in front of you drinking.

Are you truly confident that you can watch people enjoying your favorite drink and not be itching to drink it too?

Only you know the answer to this. I have friends that really couldn’t be around people who were hungover, let alone drinking. Be honest about what you feel comfortable with.

Making a decision

If I feel at all unsure or uncomfortable going somewhere I don’t go. Because I put maintaining my sobriety before everything else. Before my job (I didn’t attend work events), before friends (I wouldn’t go out for dinner if I knew it was going to be a piss-up), and before family (I wouldn’t allow myself to be guilt-tripped into family do’s if I knew I couldn’t hack it).

Admittedly, saying no to friends’ birthdays doesn’t feel good. But I decided that my sobriety was more important than that. And the truth is, true friends will understand.

So you need to check in with yourself: Are you comfortable with being in this situation? If you are not, then is it really worth f**king up your sobriety for?

If you do decide to go: Plan this s**t

• What will you drink? Are you going to hide that you are not drinking by drinking a soda and pretending it's booze or are you going to be honest?
• What will you say in the situation that someone will not leave you alone until you are drinking? I have written a post on phrases to help to survive an alcohol heavy situation when sober.
• Emergency exit plan: If you instantly have to leave the bar, is there someone there who will be able to make an excuse for you?
• Is there someone you can call if you are really struggling? If you leave the bar where will you go? Think of a friend who will help you?

Takeaway

So is it safe to hang out in a bar when you’re sober? Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to this question. Sobriety is about you taking control of your life and making decisions that you are comfortable with. Everyone is different. This is an opportunity for you to put yourself and your sobriety first.

Don't shamefully assert yourself and don't apologize. Be proud. Because in making this decision you are showing to yourself and to everyone else that you matter and your sobriety is important to you. The people who truly care about you will respect that.

Own your journey, whatever it looks like, and remember to have compassion for others and theirs. No two journeys look the same and if you are never comfortable in a bar then that’s your truth, no matter how many people it p**ses off, you should be eternally proud of yourself for putting your sobriety and your health first.

Doran Lamb is a freelance writer on addiction and mental health. She writes to challenge the stigma that exists as a result of mental health and through her writing wants the world to know that individual difference makes the world dynamic, sexy and beautiful. She is proudly an addict in recovery, a mother, and an opinionated woman, who has learned not to give a f**k what anyone thinks.