Staying Sober at a Wedding

Part 2 of my Trip to the West Coast

Photo by Álvaro CvG on Unsplash

Last week, I wrote about my recent trip to the west coast and how I was unexpectedly tempted by the abundance of legal pot in California. In this week’s newsletter, I’ll be writing about the other half of that trip: My cousin’s wedding in Washington.

When I first quit drinking, I used to worry a lot about how sobriety would impact my social life. Would I have to skip every event with alcohol? Would getting through a party without a beer feel like torture?

Attending a wedding would have been my nightmare scenario. Weddings are notorious for heavy drinking. Even relatives who rarely drink are known to have a few glasses of champagne.

Between an open bar, heightened social anxiety, and the pressure to celebrate with a drink, wedding parties sound like the perfect storm for a relapse.

Fortunately, that was not the case. In today’s newsletter, I’ll be telling you what it was like to go attend my cousin’s wedding while sober, and then share how my approach to these types of events has changed over the past six years that I’ve been sober.