I had this exact same feeling for years. There’s a ton of pressure to drink through society and marketing. Drink to celebrate. Drink when you’re commiserating.

I had this exact same feeling for years. There’s a ton of pressure to drink through society and marketing. Drink to celebrate. Drink when you’re commiserating. When you step back you realise that actually it isn’t needed. When you stop a couple of things happen. The first is that you have a bunch more time from not drinking itself but also not having to recover. The second thing is realising quite how dependent society is on alcohol. Can you imagine any event without it? So you go through a phase of adjusting to a society that is dependent. Like you I tried and failed to give up when that was my goal. What worked in the end was taking a break from it with no end and so removing the pressure of giving up. The break in itself is better than no break só celebrate that. If it lasts even better. It’s been more than 10 years since I drank and I can’t imagine going back. I don’t see any of the benefits. It just feels like something we’re indoctrinated into and when you look in from outside you realise how bizarre it is that so much of society is based around it. People are so indoctrinated that they get upset when you don’t drink with them, or think you’re strange because you don’t. Never trust a man that doesn’t drink is something you’ve probably heard. The alcohol industry has a very strong interest in you and everyone else drinking and coercing each other. That’s what all the adverts of happiness around alcohol are about. Reinforcement. Life is so much better without. Dancing when you’re sober is quite hard though.