Sober Friends: How Recovering Alcoholics Can Create Healthy Social Networks

Loneliness is a scary thing for recovering alcoholics. For some, drinking was always fueled by an underlying loneliness. For others, loneliness emerges as recovery disrupts your normal social life and weakens the social connections that you fortified through alcohol. Not only can loneliness be a profoundly painful emotional experience in its own right, it is also considered one of the primary causes of relapse, as addicts seek to quell feelings of despair or return to familiar patterns of behavior in search of social connection. As such, having a sober social network in early recovery is critical for safeguarding your psychological well-being and your sobriety. But creating that network can often seem like a daunting task; where do you begin building a new social world for yourself? Here are some tips on how to find friendship, connection, and belonging both inside and outside the recovery community.

12-step groups are often an integral part of recovery and can be a wonderful place to form meaningful social connections with others who understand your recovery journey. To facilitate that process, Anna Deeds, a therapist specializing in addiction issues, suggests, “Get involved in the meetings by going early to help set up and staying late to clean up. Get involved in other meeting activities like recovery picnics or anniversaries.” If you feel a connection with someone from the group, ask them out for coffee, have them over for dinner, or invite them on an outing. Don’t be afraid to forge friendships with people from different walks of life; many find that the common experience of recovery creates opportunities to connect with people you may otherwise never have encountered, and some of the closest friendships develop not out of common surface interests, but from shared values, struggles, and commitment to recovery.

While recovering alcoholics have sought each other out through chat rooms and forums since the earliest days of the Internet, a number of specialized social networking sites and apps are now available to help you connect. Through services like In The Rooms, Sober Grid, and the Clean Fun Network, you can meet other sober people, develop virtual and in-person friendships, and find local sober events, meet-ups, and recovery community centers. These communities are available to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, ensuring that there is always someone to talk to.

Recovery is the start of a new life and an opportunity to find new interests, hobbies, and passions as well as reconnect with old ones. If there is something you’ve always wanted to learn, take a class. Join a book club, a professional networking group, a gym. Take a cooking workshop, a mountain climbing course, or horseback riding lessons. Not only can these activities be fun and fulfilling, they can also provide opportunities for you to form friendships with people who share your passions in ways that don’t revolve around alcohol. Remember that many people are searching for connection, and there is a community of people out there looking for friendship.

While recovery may change the dynamic between you and your old friends, it doesn’t have to mean the end of your friendships. Just as you are trying to figure out how to live as a sober person, they’re also figuring out how to relate to your new sobriety, and you may have to lead the way. Talk to them about your needs and how you can maintain your friendship. As Sacha Scoblic, an author and recovering alcoholic, writes, “These aren’t state secrets; these are comfort zones. And everything is more comfortable when it’s out in the open instead of festering inside.” Plan social activities that don’t involve drinking, invite your friends to meet up in a coffee shop instead of a bar, or organize a great party without alcohol or drugs.

Two months into Emily’s recovery she planned a sober camping trip with a small group of friends. “We had an incredible time,” she says, “I think sometimes people, even people without alcohol addiction, get so caught up in their old habits that they forget that they can socialize without drinking. They need to be reminded.” You may even find that your friendships deepen and become richer as you connect and share without alcohol as a mediator. “The friends I have now are the ones who really know and love me, not the drunk disguise.”