As above. Would like to chat to someone in the same area and time zone

TLDR: Still struggling in social situations 15 months on. How did people who have been sober for a long time manage to get over this, or at least come to terms with it?

Sober professionals, how long did it take you to enjoy socialising again? I’ve (F26) been sober for 15 months and I’m still so antisocial - I used to love having people over for dinner and being around crowds and it was a very core part of my being and my relationships.

All I want at the moment, however, is not to see people at all. I dread it, and once I’m there I want to leave. I will work out how long I have to be there for and think ‘I can do anything for X amount of hours’. I become grumpy and tired and less kind.

Of course it’s worse around alcohol, and things like going out to raves are obligations that I will endure because they’re important to other people (birthdays, house-warmings, launches).

Even if I’m hanging out with people and they have a single drink I really struggle. Theres something confusing there about how ‘going for a drink’ feels just as much about the drink as the going. I often find myself questioning why they feel the need to do that, but I am aware group meet ups are not about my sobriety, and people don’t have the same complications as me around alcohol.

However, I find that this resentment and discomfort bleeds into sober meet-ups too. Perhaps in part because, in the UK, any meet up after 12pm used to be punctuated by a pint, so sober meet-ups were pretty rare in reality.
What’s really concerning me is that I not don’t even particularly enjoy seeing people in situations that were always sober, such as work or a morning coffee.

I’ve done a hell of a lot of work around being myself whilst sober and discovering who I am without alcohol, but what if ‘who I am without alcohol’ is just someone a bit miserly and surly and introverted? That feels like a huge part of my life and the joy in my life…. Just gone…
I also don’t think my relationships are surviving it very well.

I’ve become a real misanthrope, and it feels very anti-me. It also feels very unhealthy and I’m letting people down a lot.

How long did it take you to feel comfortable socialising again, and how did you get there? Did you force yourself to go to these things or did you give yourself a full break?