[groovy2shoes]

I think this is it. I was an alcoholic for a couple of years after I graduated from university, and in that time period as well as the time period leading up to that (frequent casual alcohol consumption, but not quite alcoholism), I made a good deal of friends who were heavy drinkers. Since December, I've had one beer and one glass of bubbly. I've started turning down my friends who offer me a drink. At first, they were confused.

"Are you okay?" they'd ask. "Yeah, I just don't feel like drinking." Of course, I let them know that it doesn't bother me if they go ahead and have a few. Surprisingly (to me, anyway), after the first couple refusals, I've had several of them tell me that they were envious, and that they'd like to cut back on alcohol, too. I told them to just do it -- it's not hard, and once you get past the first couple of weeks (month tops), you don't even have that urge to drink anymore. This was fairly recent, so only time will tell if they actually follow through.

The main thing for me is that they clearly respect my decision not to drink, a few of them seem to even respect me more for turning them down. I think that'd be very different if I were to make them feel judged or inferior for their own choice to imbibe, however. People in that situation tend to get dismissive and start to mentally justify their own behavior. It can really make someone grumpy ;)