Being the sober one at a Christmas party

Something worth knowing: this interacts with other things I take and a pharmacist gave me a much more precise answer than I expected.

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

I stopped entirely for six months, not as a rule, just because it stopped being interesting, and started again occasionally.

What I found is that the first drink now does what three used to, so I have stopped at one and been perfectly content.

Somebody in this circle said that not drinking is not a moral position and does not require a defence, and I have used that at three parties.

Reading and nodding. Nothing to add, and I wanted you to know somebody had read it.

My rule now is that I do not drink on the day, which is entirely my own rule and my prescriber was fairly relaxed about the whole subject.

Moray said something I want to sit with for a second.

What helped was noticing the pattern in my notes. Three difficult mornings across two months, all after the same thing.

Nothing here is medical advice, and on interactions specifically a pharmacist will give you a better answer in five minutes than any thread.

Two landed like five for me, very early on, and it took one uncomfortable evening to work out that something had genuinely changed.

Nothing to add except that I am glad this thread exists.

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

Coming back a year on to say it settled into something I am comfortable with, which is less and better and much less thought about.

The pub is still the pub and I still go. That took a bit of working out and the answer turned out to be that the pub was never about the drink.

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

Marking that I am here, in case that counts for anything today.

The thing I did not expect was how much better my sleep got, and how much of what I had blamed on other things had been the drinking.

This is the honest version, and the honest version is harder to write.