Let's talk about social anxiety and how to socialise without alcohol.

I'm not a big fan of labels, but you know what I mean by social anxiety, so I'll use the term. In all my years doing this work and living it myself I've seen that many women really struggle with socialising when they stop drinking, whether that's giving up alcohol completely, stepping back from partying, or just taking a break.

Mostly, this isn't because something is wrong with them. It's because they've simply never socialised any other way.

Why Socialising Without Alcohol Feels So Hard

As a society, we use alcohol as a social lubricant almost without thinking about it. It's there at every celebration, every catch-up, every work event. We drink, we socialise, the two have become so tightly linked that most people never even notice it's happening.

It usually isn't until you stop drinking that you realise just how automatic that connection was.

If you're changing your relationship with alcohol, whether you're...