The pub is still the pub without the pints

What surprised me was how much I did not miss it. I had expected to and I genuinely did not, and that told me something.

Ned, I have been where you are and I would rather say so than stay quiet.

My honest report is that I still drink, less, and I enjoy it more, which was not the outcome I predicted.

The thing I would flag is that if drinking has become a way of managing something, that is a different conversation and worth having with somebody qualified.

What helped was telling one friend, so that in a group there was somebody who knew and quietly covered for me.

My tolerance came back partially after about a year, which nobody had told me might happen and which I should have expected.

The social pressure was harder than the physical change. Explaining why I was not drinking was the whole difficulty.

I read this twice. The second time was for the last paragraph.

What I would say is to test this somewhere safe rather than at a wedding. I did the opposite and regretted it.

I found that eating less alongside drinking was the actual mechanism in my case, rather than anything more mysterious.

Something practical: I switched to something non-alcoholic that looks like a drink, and the number of questions I get dropped to zero.

I had one evening where I was much more affected than expected and it frightened me, and I have been careful and fine since.

It simply stopped appealing. I had not decided anything and one day I noticed I had not wanted a drink in three weeks.

Mine hit much faster and lasted longer, and the following day was noticeably worse than it used to be.