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“I am afraid I’d lose my friendship if I stopped drinking.”
It’s a fear that I hear a lot when working with people who are considering leaving their old drinking days behind.
How would changing my drinking affect my relationships? This is a legitimate concern many of us have to navigate when trying to leave alcohol behind, especially when we’re living in a culture where alcohol has so often become a central part of our social lives. It’s hard not to wonder what impact it would have on our relationships when we choose to no longer participate in the drinking culture. Sometimes, people feel like they have to continue to drink, not because they still love it, but because they are afraid of what they may lose if they stop.
How Major Life Changes Often Filter Our Relationships
So, could letting go of alcohol affect your relationships?
I wish I could tell you it was a myth, that changing our relationship with alcohol will never affect our relationships. But that wouldn’t be entirely honest.
The truth is, major life changes often become an inadvertent filter for the relationships in our lives. Whether it is graduating from college, changing jobs, moving cities, or even starting a family, major life changes can reshape our lives. As our priorities shift, some friendships naturally drift apart. The same thing can happen when we choose to leave behind our old drinking days.
Looking back on my own journey, I now see similar loss happening as alcohol first started to take up more space in my life. As drinking-related activities slowly became my preferred way of socializing, distance grew between me and friends who don’t enjoy drinking. I am embarrassed to say that, deep in my love affair with alcohol, I barely noticed the slow drifting apart.
Oftentimes, we worry about what we might lose if we stop drinking, but fail to notice what we may already be losing because of it.
True Connections Often Endure
Realizing that some relationships might fade away may sadden you, but there is a deeper layer of truth: A filter is selective. While it sifts out what no longer fits your current stage of life, it also reveals the relationships that can grow with us through change.
Our relationships are held together by many things. Some are held together by a single thread of commonality: the same ZIP code, the same night classes, the same gym membership, or the same passion for alcohol. Others are held together by something much more durable: shared values, common interests, or love and genuine connection.
While some relationships fade when the single holding thread dissolves, others persevere and deepen through different seasons. From my experience, people with whom we share true connections almost always find ways to remain in our lives even as we grow and change.
How the Stories We Tell Ourselves Keep Us Stuck
Of course, these insights became available to me only after I stepped out of that chapter of my life and looked back. When we are still living it from within, it is only human to focus on what we stand to lose. In doing so, we often lose sight of the fuller picture.
Oftentimes, people mistakenly think that changing one’s relationship with alcohol is all about willpower and discipline. They miss that what keeps pulling a person back to the same drinking pattern is often not alcohol alone, but what alcohol represents or what one may lose if they fully let it go.
In what I term the Invisible Drinking Loop, I call this a limiting narrative. A limiting narrative is a story we tell ourselves that holds us back or keeps us stuck.
When a limiting narrative like “I will lose all my friends if I quit drinking” is left unnamed and unaddressed, it often becomes an invisible force that keeps us stuck in the same drinking pattern. A part of us wants to grow beyond alcohol, yet a part of us wants to hold on to it so that we don’t “lose everyone we care about.”
The first step of upgrading a limiting narrative is to become aware of the story that we tell ourselves.
Beyond Alcohol: Seeing the Fuller Story
Once you are able to tell the fuller story, you might even be surprised to find that sometimes old relationships find their way back into our lives as the seasons shift.
In the months after alcohol slowly faded out of my life, I found myself reconnecting with friendships that I once neglected as I prioritized alcohol. As laughter was exchanged between us over cups of afternoon tea, it was like time had never passed.
While some of your relationships may change shape as you outgrow your old drinking patterns, you may also discover unexpected joy and connection waiting for you at the other end.
If you would like to understand your relationship with alcohol through a more compassionate lens, you can learn more about the Beyond Alcohol Project on my website.
