Sober in a drinking culture: getting through the holidays and parties

“Go on, have one, it is not a holiday without it.”

Everyone in Slovenia who does not drink hears that sentence. At Christmas lunch, at a wedding, at a thirtieth birthday, at the neighbour’s barbecue, at the office New Year party. They hear it from people who wish them no harm — on the contrary, who think they are being hospitable. And that is exactly what makes it hard: it is not an enemy in front of you, it is the aunt who used to buy you ice cream.

Some of the people I work with do not drink because they are addicted. Others do not drink because of medication, because they are pregnant, because they sleep badly, because they worked out that it does not agree with them, or simply because they do not want to. For all of them the same thing holds: in a culture where drinking is the default setting, a sober decision is not a private matter. It becomes a topic at the table.

Why a sober person is suspect here

In a setting where alcohol is woven into nearly every ritual — a birth, a death, a deal closed, the end of a season — your refusal does not look like a choice. It looks like a comment. Someone who is drinking thinks briefly about themselves, and that uncomfortable flicker often comes back at you as pressure.

This is why the questions are so persistent. “What is wrong with you?” is not curiosity, it is an attempt to restore order. Once you see that, a lot loosens: you are not the one who has to explain, you have accidentally set something off in someone else. It is not your job to fix it.

It also helps to know that drinking here has long stood for hospitality and for proof that you are a relaxed person. Within that logic, someone who does not drink reads not as healthy but as guarded, moralising, or ill. None of it is true, but expect that someone will hear one of those three meanings in your refusal. Talking them out of it is not your task.

What actually happens when you are pushed

The body responds faster than the head. The heart speeds up, the chest tightens, and the thought runs to defence: what do I say so there is no scene. If you are in recovery, something else often happens in that moment — the memory of how pleasant it was appears in idealised form, without the next morning attached.

That is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign that your nervous system has a shortcut well stored. You cannot delete the shortcut, but you can arrange things so that you are not deciding in that moment. The decision has to be made earlier.

What is interesting is that craving almost never lasts as long as it seems to while it lasts. The wave rises, holds for a few minutes and subsides — even if you do nothing. People who experience that once, consciously, gain something valuable: proof that the wave passes on its own and that giving in is not what ends it. Next time they are less frightened by the feeling itself.

Prepare your answer beforehand, not on the spot

The most useful thing you can do is something extremely simple: two sentences you know by heart. Not an explanation, not a defence — two sentences.

The first is short and does not open the topic: “Not today, thanks.” The second is for the person who will not let it go: “I have decided not to drink. Water would be lovely, though.” Notice that neither contains a reason. A reason is an invitation to negotiate, because any reason can be argued down. A decision cannot.

People often ask me whether they are allowed to lie — to say they are on antibiotics, that they are driving. They are. You owe nobody your medical history. Still, I notice that people who use excuses get worn down by them over time, because the story has to be maintained. If you can, it is shorter and more relaxed simply to say that you do not drink. I have written about why the word no is so hard, and how it can be practised, in a piece on setting boundaries.

A plan for one evening

Relapse-prevention research keeps showing the same thing: people do better when they have a concrete response prepared for risky situations, rather than general resolve. Resolve is no longer available at eleven at night. A plan is.

The plan has three parts and all three are dull. First: how you arrive and how you leave. If someone drives you, you depend on their mood at the time; your own transport, or one booked in advance, is half the story. Second: when you leave. An hour fixed beforehand works better than a sense of “when I have had enough”, because that sense shifts late in the evening. Third: who your person is. Someone in the room or on the phone who knows what is going on with you, and to whom you can send three words.

Triggers are not where you expect them

Most people prepare for being offered a drink. Fewer prepare for boredom, for an awkward conversation with someone they have not seen in years, for their brother bringing up that story again, or for the hour when the party loosens and everyone turns soft and confiding.

Elation deserves its own mention. People expect to be tempted when things are bad, and are surprised to find themselves tempted on a day when everything went well — after a contract is signed, after an exam passed, after making peace with a partner. For many, celebration was tied to alcohol just as firmly as sorrow was. This trigger is treacherous because nobody expects it and because everyone around encourages it.

That is why it is worth writing your own list before the holidays. Not a general one, yours. Which three moments in December wear you down every year? What would you do differently for each? The exercise takes ten minutes and is worth more than a promise to be strong.

Something in your hand is a small but useful thing

People with something in their hand get asked less. Water with lemon, juice, an alcohol-free beer — anything that looks like a drink. It sounds banal, but in practice it removes half the questions, because you are visually part of the scene.

One caveat: alcohol-free beers and cocktails are unproblematic for some people in recovery and far too close for others — the taste, the smell and the ritual set off craving. Nobody can judge that for you, and it is sensible to test it carefully, not on the hardest evening of the year.

Who to tell and who not to

You do not have to tell everyone. Often one or two people at the event who know is enough. Their job is not to protect you — it is that you are not alone in the room with your own truth.

The choice of that person matters. The best one is not the most compassionate but the one who will not dramatise and will not pass it on. With someone visibly moved by your disclosure, who spends the evening checking how you are, you will within half an hour want to prove you are fine — the exact opposite of what you need.

Where family is concerned, people fear that disclosure will set off an avalanche of questions. Sometimes it does. So it makes sense to tell one person you choose, not the whole table at once. Men often tell me this step is the hardest of all; I have written about why they seek help later and what holds them back in a piece on men and therapy.

The holidays are a marathon, not one evening

December is not decided on New Year’s Eve. It is decided by three hundred small contacts: work lunches, visits, shopping, expectations, a broken routine, less sleep. When routine falls away, so does the support it was quietly providing.

So in this period I recommend the reverse of what people do by themselves. Instead of cutting back on what holds you up — sleep, movement, group meetings, therapy — keep it precisely when there is least time. The holidays are when it is easiest to say that everything will go back to normal in January, and it is in that gap that most happens.

It also helps to have at least one event that is not about alcohol. A walk, the cinema, lunch in the morning. Not in order to avoid anything, but so that the season is not exclusively a test.

If you slip

A slip is not proof that nothing counts. Relapse-prevention models describe a well-known phenomenon called the abstinence violation effect: after a first lapse the person concludes that everything has collapsed, and it is that thought — not the substance — that often drives the continuation. So what is decisive is not the slip but the meaning you give it.

The useful question is what happened in the hour before, not what is wrong with you. The first gives you data for next time. The second only feeds the inner critic. People who can meet themselves after a slip with self-compassion return to their previous track faster in the research — not because they are lenient, but because leniency preserves the ability to think.

And once more, because it matters: if you are considering stopping abruptly on your own after a long period of use, talk to a doctor first. Withdrawal from alcohol and sedatives can be physically dangerous and needs supervision.

Where this advice does not reach

Everything above assumes the event is worth attending. Often it is not. Some of the people I meet spend enormous energy on survival techniques for parties they do not actually care about. The honest option, rarely said out loud, is simply not to go.

Second: in the first months of recovery no technique is enough for many people. If every event costs you three days, that is not a lack of will — it is information that it is too early. Withdrawing is not defeat, it is allocating your strength.

Third: there are families and workplaces where refusing costs you something. Needling, exclusion from the circle, a quiet demotion. It would be silly to claim that two prepared sentences solve this. Sometimes the real question is what such a circle costs you and whether you want to keep it — and that question lasts longer than one December.

What to remember

The decision is made beforehand, not at the table. Two sentences by heart are worth more than a long explanation.

A reason is an invitation to negotiate. A decision is not.

Your plan should cover transport, a leaving time and one person who knows.

Triggers are often boredom, tiredness and the late hour, not an offered glass.

The holidays are a marathon. That is exactly when to keep whatever normally holds you up.

A slip does not cancel what you have done. What matters is the meaning you give it.

Stopping alcohol or sedatives abruptly without medical supervision can be dangerous.

And if you catch yourself wondering whether you are even allowed not to drink: you are. It needs no reason that anyone else has to approve. That you have moved forward in something often shows up first exactly here — in no longer having to convince anybody.