Sober curious? Here’s how to socialize without alcohol

Drynuary. Sober October. Dry July. Cute nicknames for alcohol-free months have made it increasingly socially acceptable to take a break from alcohol.

People are stepping back from alcohol consumption, in part due to growing awareness of alcohol’s impact on physical and mental health. Mocktail sales are booming, while younger generations are drinking much less than their elders did at the same age.

“People are just generally looking at their relationship with drinking, thinking about it as part of their health and health behavior and less like, ‘This is just something I do,’” said Katie Witkiewitz, PhD, a clinical psychologist and the director of the Center on Alcohol, Substance Use, and Addictions at the University of New Mexico.

But for the newly “sober curious,” stepping into a dinner party, wedding reception, or work happy hour without the intention of drinking can still be wildly intimidating.

“A lot of us have never learned how to socialize as an adult without using alcohol,” said Amanda White, LPC, LMHC, director of the Therapy for Women Centeropens in new window in Philadelphia. “A lot of people will tell me they can’t do it. It’s not that they can’t do it. They’re just not experienced with it.”

Using a “dry month” event is one step toward making alcohol-free socialization more comfortable. Because these events are now so mainstream, they’re an easy way to negate any potential peer pressure around drinking. “The typical response to, ‘Oh, I’m doing Dry January,’ is ‘Oh, cool.’ And done, end of conversation,” Witkiewitz said. Outside of January, a casual explanation that you’re doing a dry month, or a health reset, is usually as easily accepted.

While this approach can be helpful for external pressure, it doesn’t do much for internal pressure. Alcohol is rewarding to consume, and it can decrease anxiety in the moment. One early fMRI study of intoxicationopens in new window found that alcohol calmed responses to fearful stimuli (in this case, scary-looking faces) in regions of the brain that respond to threats. In inebriated participants, these regions—the amygdala, insula, and parahippocampal gyrus—did not react more strongly to threatening facial expressions than they did to neutral expressions. If it feels scary to face down a crowd of acquaintances sober, that’s in part because you’re not switching off your brain’s threat responses.

On the other hand, this anxiety-soothing mechanism only appears to work in the (tipsy) moment: The anxiety may come roaring back when sobriety hits. A 2017 studyopens in new window found that 22% of young people who had experienced a hangover reported feeling anxious while recovering, while 34% reported feelings of depression.

“What we’ve seen in laboratory study is there’s an ascending limb and a descending limb,” says Jodi Gilman, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School who led the fMRI study on alcohol and fearful stimuli. On the ascending limb of intoxication, people feel looser and less anxious; on the descending end, the anxiety may rise again. There isn’t much neuroscience on the sobering-up process, because it’s harder to catch people at the right moment in an fMRI machine, Gilman said, but this anxiety rise may be related to the amygdala and other threat centers coming back online.

Add to that alcohol’s association with sleep disturbance, headache, long-term liver damage, and an increased risk of cancer, and it’s clear that there are healthier ways to manage anxiety in social situations.

“A huge part of sobriety for a lot of people is [navigating] that social piece,” said Chris Marshall, a former substance use counselor and now-owner of Sans Bar, an alcohol-free bar that serves mocktails in Austin, Texas. He started the bar to give people an opportunity to change their habits around socialization. “You’ve got to learn how to reprogram yourself,” he said.

For some people, of course, alcohol use is a deeper problem. If a dry month is a real struggle, Witkiewitz says, that may be a sign that you need more support. For many people with problematic alcohol use, she says, “Dry January gives them a chance to check in on whether they do have control over this behavior and whether they may need support or tools.”

Those tools may range from working with a psychologist with experience in addiction to a 12-step  program such as Alcoholics Anonymous to rehab programs for those who may need medical help to get through withdrawal.

“Not everyone is a candidate for moderation,” White says. “Not everyone is able to.”

One step toward a new relationship with alcohol is to pay attention to your habits and feelings around alcohol, White said. Often, people reach for a drink to mark a moment: the end of a workday, the beginning of the weekend. Replacing this sensory cue with some other reward, like a fun mocktail in a fancy glass, a relaxing walk, or any ritual that signals the transition, can help break that cycle. 

Keeping notes of triggers, on paper or in an app geared toward tracking dry months, can also help create a more mindful approach to drinking, Witkiewitz said. “Instead of focusing on drinking, focus on what need that alcohol is meeting,” she said.

Shifting socialization away from bars and happy hours and toward other non-alcohol-focused activities can also reduce some of the internal pressure. Hobbies tend to “get in the way” of drinking, Witkiewitz said. And participating in a hobby that takes concentration might be one way to get around feelings of social anxiety. Research shows that socially anxious people get caught in a loop of monitoring themselves too closely during social interactionsopens in new window, fixating on their own behavior and whether others find it odd; this makes social interactions more difficult. “In the anxious moment, our attention turns inward,” said Ellen Hendriksen, PhD, a clinical psychologist at Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, the author of How to Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists and How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety.

Another way to get out of your own head in social situations without alcohol is to soften your own inner critic. People often have unrealistically high expectations of their own behavior, Hendriksen said. “If we think, ‘Well, I can’t be awkward,’ or ‘I have to sound confident,’ or ‘I need to seem smart,’ what happens then is everything we say becomes a referendum on whether or not we followed the rule,” she said. Cultivating self-forgiveness can help break that cycle: “If we allow ourselves a non-zero number of mistakes or weird silences or jokes that fall flat, that makes all the difference.”

In situations that feel challenging, like a networking event where you’d like to go alcohol-free, self-compassion can also go a long way, Hendriksen said. This might mean calming yourself with a simple mantra like “You’re okay,” or “calm,” or any other self-talk that feels like something a supportive friend might say. It can also mean being gentle with yourself in other ways, Hendriksen said. Wear your comfiest shoes, buy the overpriced fun mocktail, and otherwise look for ways to lean into the positive aspects of the occasion.

And remind yourself of the positives of cultivating these skills, White added. Without alcohol fuzzing your judgment, it can be easier to tell if you’re really connecting with a date, for example—and you are always sober enough to know to leave a situation that’s truly uncomfortable. Not only that, but the emotional coping skills cultivated without alcohol are available anytime, anywhere.

“A lot of social anxiety can be worked on through repetition and practice,” White said. “I like helping people realize they have more power than they think.”