Sober Social Live - Managing Social Anxiety Without Alcohol

This recording comes from a live Sober Social event, a supportive space for anyone who is sober, sober-curious, taking a break from alcohol, or exploring a different relationship with drinking.
In this conversation, we explore why social anxiety can feel louder when alcohol is no longer there to take the edge off—and what alcohol may have been doing for us in social situations in the first place. You'll learn compassionate ways to work with self-consciousness, discomfort, and the urge to escape without expecting yourself to become completely anxiety-free. The session closes with a guided mindfulness practice to help you feel grounded, connected to yourself, and more able to enter social situations without leaving yourself behind.
Because this was originally recorded live, you may hear occasional references to the live audience and community conversation.

Transcript

I'm really, Really glad that you're here. This space is for anyone who's sober, Sober curious, Taking a break from a substance, Or simply beginning to question the role that alcohol plays in our lives. And so you don't have to have any particular label or have made a lifelong decision in order to be here. So as long as you are just kind of curious, You're welcome to be here. Today, We're talking about something that I think is a really important part of the conversation, And that's social anxiety without alcohol or any other substance. And for a lot of us, Alcohol wasn't just something that we drink because we like the taste of it, But because everybody else maybe was drinking. Sometimes alcohol had a job to play. Sometimes it helped us walk into the room. It helped us to stop thinking quite so much about what everybody else thinks of us. Conversation feel easier. And then if we remove alcohol, Sometimes we discover Ah, There's that anxiety. There's the anxiety that was underneath that and the reason why I've been using that. So, You know, If you feel comfortable and you would like to share in the chat, Maybe a comment about what you tend to use alcohol for or other substances or even other behaviors. You know, So I think we talked about that in our last live, That we very often are using a substance or behavior to help us cope or to help us deal with something particularly uncomfortable. So like I said, If you feel comfortable sharing that, It's always nice to be able to kind of interact with each other in that way. So today we're going to talk about that anxiety that very often is underneath that substance use. And we're not going to talk about it from the perspective of how do you just get rid of it, But more so from their perspective of what was the alcohol or other substance helping me do? And how can I learn to begin doing that myself? And then we'll finish today with a brief mindfulness practice to help you feel a little bit more grounded. As I said, Please stay as long as you'd like to go ahead and take off, You know, If you need to. So I really want to start with that one question. And you don't have to answer in the chat or answer out loud, But if you're comfortable, You can. And so when you think about drinking socially, What did alcohol make easier for you? You know, I know for me, I get some anxiety around, You know, Social time. I am neurodivergent. And so sometimes I can feel a little uncomfortable. And so alcohol can, You know, Help to soothe that or smooth down that anxiety. Anybody else, You know, Recognize what alcohol does for them as a part of that social experience? And so, You know, Maybe it started help make conversations easier to start. It helps to kind of reduce that insecurity. Maybe it quiets that constant awareness, You know, Like I know I have, Am I being weird? Am I talking too much? Do they not like me? Sometimes, Yes, Absolutely, Michelle, It can start as a reward that helps us to kind of unwind. I have a lot of clients who say that like, At the end of the night, This is my reward, This helps me unwind. Definitely around communication, You know, Absolutely. Maybe it gave you something to do, Just something to put your hand on, To hold your hand, You know, Like to even just have that. And I think that it's important to recognize this because sometimes when people stop drinking, We focus on the alcohol, Right? Don't drink, Order something else, Have an exit plan. Those things can be really helpful. But if alcohol is performing a psychological or nervous system function for you, Simply removing it doesn't automatically replace that function or get rid of the need for that function, Right? The ability to relax, The ability to reduce that internal chatter, You know, Absolutely. That doesn't just go away because we've stopped drinking. And so Why is this so much harder than I thought it was? Well, Maybe it was always hard, Right? We just already had something to turn that volume down, You know? And I think that there's a lot of compassion in recognizing that, Right? Like, Absolutely. Like, Didn't really think about that or question it until now. It's really important to kind of do that questioning and have that compassion for ourselves. That alcohol was very likely a strategy. Doesn't mean that it's a strategy that's working for us, Necessarily. Doesn't mean that it's a strategy that we want to continue to use. But understanding what it did for us gives us so much more useful information than judging ourselves ever will, Right? And so social anxiety can be really interesting because it tends to pull our attention away from what's actually happening and towards monitoring ourselves, Right? So when we're feeling social anxiety instead of having a conversation, Suddenly we're watching ourselves have that conversation. Was that a weird thing to say? Am I talking too much? The story is taking too long. Why did they make that face? And again, Especially if you're neurodivergent, You're very often taking in a lot more information, Right? And so it can be helpful to help soothe that feeling. Once we become self-conscious, We interpret everything through that lens. You know, Someone looks away for a second or they experience, You know, An internal experience of their own and they make a face, We're off and running, Right? All my dad has to do is kind of like shake his head and I tell myself 15 different stories about why he would be doing that. Very often it's that he's disappointed for me and not that he's disappointed in me, Right? But I have to consciously be present with that. We might tell ourselves this person's bored, This is awkward, You know, I just don't know how to socialize. So the goal here is not to convince yourself that no one is judging you. We don't actually know that, Right? So someone might not connect with you. Someone might misunderstand something that you say. A conversation might actually be awkward. But the more useful skill is, Can I tolerate not knowing what everybody thinks of me? Right? One of my favorite lines from RuPaul is, You know, What other people think of me is none of my business. And so can we tolerate that? Can we let there be a pause? Can I say something and resist replaying it for the next several days? Can I allow myself to be a human being being, In a room full of other human beings who are also making their own mistakes, Right? That's very different from trying to eliminate or get rid of this social anxiety. So I want you to really kind of hold those things, Right? Yeah, What other people think of us is none of our business. And so one of the things that I really want you to hear today is that discomfort is not the same thing as danger. And discomfort also is not evidence that you're doing anything wrong, Right? And I think that that's something if we as humans could tolerate discomfort, My job would be a lot less in demand. Predominantly, A lot of what I deal with in my working day are skills that people are using to help them avoid discomfort, Right? And so you can absolutely walk into a party and feel awkward. You can feel anxious meeting new people. You can desperately want to leave for those first 20 minutes and I have absolutely been there, And you can still be okay, Right? We are all, You know, I was just watching Ted Lasso last night, Right? And we're all just space dust floating around on a big rock. You can still be okay. Sometimes we accidentally create another layer of suffering because we think, I shouldn't feel like this, Or I've been sober for six months. Why is this still hard? We look around and we decide that everybody else seems comfortable. Instead of that, What if our response became, Of course, Of course, This feels uncomfortable. I'm learning how to do something differently. So that's a huge difference between I need to learn how to make this feeling stop and making room for the feeling while we decide what to do with it, Right? That's a skill that can be really, Really huge, And it gets stronger with practice. So I think that it can be really interesting to experiment with that. I want to give you just three things that you can experiment with. Not a ton of strategies, And not every strategy is going to work for every person, But I just want to give you a few strategies in order to try to kind of deal with this in a bit of a different way. Um. . . I was just reading, Kind of checking in on the chat here. As always, Karen, You know, Thank you so much for sharing. Yep, Absolutely. Surprisingly, We tend to not miss alcohol when it's gone. Many of my clients say that. Most of the time people want to start with having a healthy relationship with alcohol, And that can be a little challenging because what does that mean? What is a healthy relationship with alcohol? How are we limiting that? We as humans kind of don't like to feel fenced in or caged in. So very often when people do get sober, They actually find that it feels better. We feel healthier. There's less dealing with some of the challenges of drinking. We're not spending the money on it. There's a lot of things, You know, But you know, Everybody's different and that's absolutely okay. So three things I want to give you guys that you can try to experiment with. So number one, First and foremost, Give yourself an anchor. So before you go into a social situation, Decide what you're going to return your attention to when your brain starts monitoring you. It might simply be kind of feeling your feet grounding you on the floor. It might be your breath again in through the nose, Out through the mouth. Thank you, Michelle, For taking notes for us. In through the nose, Out through the mouth helps to keep us grounded and help us feel that fight-or-flight response settle down. Even just feeling, You know, A glass in your hand giving your nervous system somewhere to come home to. Because when social anxiety says, Everybody's looking at me, Your anger says, We're right here, Right? Like I said. So for me personally, It's typically coming back to the breath or observing the room around me. I'm kind of grounding ourselves in that. Absolutely. All right, You ready, Michelle? Number two, Move your attention from performance to curiosity. And this is a very common thread that comes back in the work that I do, Is being more curious with ourselves, Moving away from judgment, And not focusing so much on performance, Perfection, Those kinds of things. So this is one of my absolute favorite shifts. Social anxiety often turns socializing into performance, Right? So am I interesting enough? Am I saying the right thing? Okay. So trying to change that assignment from performing. And instead of saying, How am I coming across? How are other people viewing me? Maybe try, Who is this person? Who is this person in front of me? I want to see kind of like a show of hands so you can just say like, Yes, In the chat. How many of you spend a lot of your socializing time thinking about how the other person is experiencing you, Or what they're thinking of you, Or what you should say next, All of that sort of thing? I'm kind of curious. Gratitude hearts often tell me that I'm on the right track, Or you can share in the chat that like, Yep, Very often we're thinking about ourselves, Performing, How we're doing, And we're not really thinking about the person across from us all that much if we're feeling that social anxiety, Right? Way too much self-criticism. And so remembering that as well, That the other person in the social situation may very well be in their own mind being, You know, Kind of judgmental about themselves or about their performance. They probably aren't thinking about you and your performance in the social aspect at all, Right? And if they did, They probably thought about it for like two seconds. You know, Even if they thought, Huh, That was a weird thing to say, The chances of them replaying that over and over and over, Talking with their friends about it, Telling their therapist about it, Unless you said something really hurtful. Chances are they might notice it for two seconds and then they're going to move on. So getting curious about the person that we're across from or the situation that we're in, Learning more about other people. People love to talk about themselves. Ask some questions. You know, You might even want to go in with some curious questions kind of in your pocket, So to speak. So get curious. Listen. Ask a question because you really want to know the answer, Not because you're listening for your own kind of like next conversational point. Connection becomes a whole lot easier when we stop to manufacture a version of ourselves that other people will potentially approve of, Right, Or think is good enough. Number three, And again, This is I think a pretty powerful one. Is give yourself permission to leave. It sounds really simple, But it can be incredibly powerful. Sometimes we can tolerate discomfort much more easily when we know that we're not trapped, Right? Unless you got on a boat or a plane or, You know, Something like that, You can turn around and walk out the door just about any time you want to. And I know that there's work situations where maybe that's not quite the case. But if we're just talking about a fun, General, You know, Kind of socializing experience, Yeah, You can turn around and you can walk out if that's what you need to do. Someone once told me that and it really kind of blew my mind. What do you mean I can just get up and leave if people aren't respecting my boundaries or if I feel overwhelmed? And maybe getting up and leaving might just mean going to the restroom and taking a few minutes. See if you can kind of settle your nervous system. Maybe getting up and leaving means going outside. You know, I was out with my aunt and uncle and cousin and I noticed at some point that my uncle had disappeared. I, You know, Took a bit of a breather, You know, And I'm not certain why he did that, But I just thought to myself, You know, Good for him. I'm glad that he took the space that he needed in order to kind of come back. He's a very social person and really is really lovely in that way. And so maybe he just needed a little space and that's okay. Right. So you can tell yourself, I'm going to stay for an hour and then I'll check in with myself. Not I have to stay for an hour. I have to stay the whole thing, But just, You know, I'll check in with myself after an hour. Maybe you stay, Maybe you realize that you've hit your capacity and it's time to go home. Leaving doesn't mean that you've failed. And staying doesn't mean that you succeeded. The question is, Am I making this decision for connection with myself? Right? You are the most important person in that room. You are the one who's going to go home and think about what you said, What you experienced, What you did. So for you to put yourself first is to have that connection with yourself and to ask yourself, It's been an hour. Do I feel, You know, Would staying here benefit me? Right? And so kind of thinking about that can be really, Really helpful. So before we move into our mindfulness practice, I want to give you a question to just sit with. I want you to think about a social situation where you might have normally reached for alcohol or any other substance and ask yourself, What was I hoping that alcohol could do for me in that moment? What could it give me in that moment? The answers might be something like confidence, Relief, Permission to be loose, Or just notice what comes up when you think about that. When I reach for alcohol in a social situation, What am I hoping it will give me? I'll just give you guys a moment to think about that. Number three was permission to leave. Right? So if you need to leave, If you need to take care of yourself, You can always do that. So take just a moment and think about what it would mean to potentially leave and what it would mean if you reached for alcohol. Connection with other drinkers, That's a really good point, Sandy, Absolutely. If you leave, That it won't cause rejoicing and the party to really get going. Thank goodness Jeff is gone, Absolutely. Yep, 100%. So absolutely. Sometimes people drink to fit in or because they're lonely or uncomfortable and some emotions are arising. And absolutely, Alcohol helps us to avoid those 100%. So that's something to think about. I did share my donation page. You are welcome to make a donation. It's always appreciated, But never expected. So if you'd like, You can also just close that little box out. We're going to move into a bit of meditation space, A little bit of a reflection before we wrap up today's, You know, Kind of the content that I had to share today and we'll move more to to some conversation together, So 100%. So get yourself settled in, Whatever that means for you. We're going to do just a little bit of a mindfulness practice, And you can be moving, You can take off if mindfulness practice doesn't resonate with you, But if you are seated and would like to sort of settle in, We're going to walk through a practice about five minutes long or so. So please feel free to get yourselves comfortable, Whatever that means. So we're just going to take a few moments together before we finish today. If it's comfortable, Just allow your body to settle in wherever you are. You can close your eyes or soften your gaze, Whatever feels comfortable for you. You might simply just look down at the floor. Nothing special at all that you need to do. Just notice that you're here and just take a moment to recognize that you are here with 52 other people who are all here to learn about the same thing you are, Because maybe they struggle with some of the same things. Take a slow breath in through the nose. And a nice long exhale out through the mouth. That helps to settle your nervous system. Again, Deep breath in. And a nice long exhale out. Just let it be easy. Continue breathing at whatever pace feels good for you. Doesn't have to be anything in particular. Notice where your body is supported right now. Maybe your feet are resting on the floor. Or your body is sitting in the chair. You don't have to make yourself relax. Just notice what's holding you right now. You I'd like you to imagine arriving in a social situation. Nothing particularly dramatic or overwhelming. Maybe you're just walking into a small gathering. You notice people talking. You hear their voices. Maybe you notice that familiar tightening in your body. I know I just did. I felt my chest tighten just a little bit. That part of you that wonders, How do I do this right? Where do I stand? Who do I talk to? Do I belong here? I want you to just notice that part without trying to get rid of it. Maybe you even gently acknowledge, I know. This can be hard for us. Take a breath. Feel your feet. Notice that you don't have to be perfect or solve the problem. You only have to be here for this moment. Imagine allowing yourself to look around the room. Without immediately asking. What does everybody else think of me? Instead, As you look around the room, You might ask yourself, What do I notice? Maybe there's someone in the room who looks kind. Maybe there's a conversation that you're curious about. Maybe you simply need a minute before doing anything at all. There's no performance required here. So just focus on being curious as you look around this room in your mind. And take another deep, Slow breath in and out. Quietly remind yourself. I don't have to be completely comfortable to be okay. I don't have to impress anyone to belong. I can stay connected to myself while I connect with other people. If anxiety comes with you, It can come. It doesn't get to make every decision. Feel your feet again. Notice your breath. Notice your body. And imagine carrying this sense of yourself with you as you move through the room. Not perfectly confident. And not completely anxiety-free. Just present. Curious. And still with yourself. Take one more slow breath in. And let it go. Whenever you're ready. Bring your attention back to the weight of your body and its seat if you're seated. The sounds around you. And bring your attention back to the room. How's everyone feeling? Did that bring up a sense of anxiety or nervousness, Performance, Perfection? What did you notice when you kind of walked into that mental room? Imagine that social space happening around you. What did everybody notice? And thank you so much, Polly, For your donation. Performance. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I noticed that kind of tightness in my chest of, You know, What's everyone thinking of me, You know, That kind of a feeling. And again, You know, Imagine that you're standing in a room. And someone walks in. You might check them out for two seconds. Make some sort of mental thought, Judgment, Because that's what we do, Then you move on, Right? Thank you, Karen. I'm glad that this resonates with you today. Absolutely. Yeah, Michelle, Pulled by perfectionism and performance. Absolutely. So just noticing that and noticing what that feels like and recognizing that we can actually stay connected with ourself and be curious about the space around us instead of curious about what others are observing about us, Right? Probably most people in the room are busy thinking about themselves too. So thank you so much for spending this time with me here today. If there's one thing that I hope that you take from this Sober Social Live, It's that learning to socialize without alcohol doesn't mean that you have to become someone who never feels socially anxious. That's not what we're aiming for. This practice may just be learning that you can feel anxiety and still be present. You can feel awkward and still connect. You can belong without having to leave yourself behind to do it. So please be gentle with yourself. Effort matters. Try this practice. I hope that you'll have the chance to maybe attend a small social event. And even if it means that you're going to drink kind of later in the event, Maybe just try, Maybe try the first five or 10 minutes. And I know that's very often the time where we feel the most anxious, But maybe you can give it a try to approach that feeling of anxiety at a social event without needing to use a substance to help settle that. I often encourage my clients literally just spend 30 seconds. You know, You feel anxious. Again, One of the places where a lot of the unhelpful coping patterns come from is trying to help us avoid discomfort. Our brain's number one job is keeping us safe. Number two is helping us avoid discomfort. So if we can tolerate discomfort, If we can learn to tolerate that, Suddenly all of those coping skills that we created to deal with that can settle down. We can allow self to be present, To be calm and confident, Curious, Compassionate, Connected, And not need to do something in order to avoid that discomfort, Right? So you can be with that discomfort, I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself. Thank you so much, Karen. Always our queen of quotes. Thank you for sharing that. So if you need to take off, I'll be scheduling our next Sober Social Live in about a month. So probably, I think it'll be like the 28th of October. So be on the lookout for that. If you don't already follow me, That's one of the kindest things that you can do for us teachers here on Insight Timer is give us a follow. It also means that you can get notified anytime I post new content or share new live events. I focus a lot on the neurodivergent experience, On sobriety and addiction, As well as on parts work and kind of being that curious version of ourselves. So please feel free to give me a follow. Thank you so much, Melissa and Michelle, For your kind donations. And like I said, If you need to take off, Feel free to do so. If you're able to hang out and you have any questions or anything like that, I'm happy to have the conversation. Although it may seem that alcohol brings closer to others, We may be sitting up side apart. Let me try again, Karen. Although it may seem that alcohol brings us closer to others, We may be setting aside parts of ourselves that merit being seen by others and ourselves. You know, Absolutely. I think that that's an important thing to remember, Right, Is that if we are kind of hiding those parts, We're still in the process of masking or we're not allowing people to see us fully. So that's that's a really lovely point. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Karen, For your donation as well. Michelle, Melissa, You guys are fantastic. I just love getting to be a part of this community. It's my favorite thing about being here on Insight Timer. So I'm not seeing any other kind of thoughts come through. Maybe that's it for today. I know it's a weekday, Kind of in the evening, Depending on where you are. I'm in California, So it's about 4. 30, Just wrapping up my workday here. And you guys really made my day. This is truly the highlight of my day. It's such an honor to get to be a part of this experience with you. I hope that you'll check out you know, Some of my other videos and meditations. And please feel free to share comments and that sort of thing. I read every single one and do try to respond to everyone as well. Sometimes I wind up, You know, On the homepage or that sort of thing and I get sort of a flood of comments, But I do read all of them. Oh, Thank you, Karen. That's lovely just to hear. Thank you, Polly. Absolutely. So I hope that you all take really good care of yourselves this evening or today, You know, Kind of depending on where you are. And thank you again so much for spending this time together. 400 gratitude hearts, You guys, You know how to make my day. So take very good care, Be on the lookout. I'll post another live event coming up, I believe on the 28th of October, And I look forward to hopefully seeing and hearing from all of you guys there. Take care, Everybody, And thanks so much for coming in.