This is Annie Grace and you're listening to this naked mind podcast where without judgment,

pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture.

Hi friends, this is Annie Grace and I am answering readers questions and today I have a question from Liz.

She says, my question Annie is about social drinking. When I'm out with friends for a drinking session, how do I muster the willpower not to drink?

I think there's some important things here. You know, you can go through so much minds that change about alcohol,

reading books, watching videos, engaging with other people who have stopped drinking, you know, really getting kind of an alternate perspective,

which is beautiful, but nothing is more powerful than your own experiences.

And so somehow you need to get a few of your own experiences under your belt. And I remember very early in my days of not drinking,

this was one of the things that was somewhat terrifying because you didn't know what to expect.

How am I going to sit there with all my friends and you know, order the iced tea or order the tonic and lime and what's that going to feel like?

But what I did is I did a few things before I would go, I would just take a few minutes to just imagine how it would go both the good and the bad and kind of bring it all up.

Like, okay, what if they all make fun of me? What if they all pressure me? What if they all are supportive? What if I have a great time? What if I'm sitting there laughing?

What if it doesn't feel any different and just kind of run through every scenario I could think of just so that I was somewhat prepared for when it happened.

And then the second thing I would do is I would make myself a firm commitment and not necessarily a forever commitment, but a tonight commitment.

Tonight doing this, going out with my friends, I am not going to drink. And I would look at it as a bit of an experiment, I would say, no matter what, no matter how badly this night goes or how brilliantly this night goes,

I am committed to not drinking because I want to see how it goes. I want this experience. And if this experience is miserable and horrible and teaches me that, man, life really isn't that great without alcohol. So be it. I'm open to that.

But if this experience is amazing, I'm open to that too. But I know I won't have experience unless I go out and actually do it. And there's so much freedom in that decision, that night decision of like, okay, tonight, I'm not going to be on the fence about this tonight.

Tonight, I'm not going to drink no matter what I've made that decision for myself. There's nothing anybody can do. I've run through the scenarios in my mind. I've made this choice.

And then when you go out, it does become somewhat of an experiment. You're sitting there and you're saying, okay, I want to separate fact from fiction.

What are my fears and anxieties about not drinking and what really happens because our own experience more than anything else,

cement in our mind, the mindset shift that happens around alcohol and it's cement in our mind, it's so much more powerful than any book you could read, any video you could watch, your own experience.

And so when you're out, then you want to just become really aware of your feelings during the night, like, what exactly do you feel you're missing out on if you feel you're missing out? Or, you know, are you actually having more fun than you expected?

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