Sometimes we have to make a choice between our social life and our good Kamma because the Buddha is recorded to have said that being with wise friends and suitable conversation is very good for our practice but being with the opposite is detrimental to our practice because it encourages us to behave in unbeneficial ways. Through the wish to belong in some way, we will often take on these unbeneficial actions in order to feel part of a group.
Sometimes yes, this feeling of aloneness can be difficult when we start to let go of drinking alcohol and doing these other things, but it's a bit like a freeway and it's really easy to drive on that freeway, right? We just go around and around and around and around and after a while, we realize we just are just going around and around in a circle, not getting anywhere. Then we decide to get off that freeway and go out in the country. Because it's a two way road, we have to put in a bit more effort, and there are not as many cars. Then we can't see the countryside so well, so we get of that two-way road onto a mountain track. And we get of the car and we start to walk up a mountain.
Now how many people will you see climbing up a mountain? Probably not many people. But if you start to reflect on how many through the centuries have left the freeway and wanted to climb the same mountain and if they were all with us right there on that mountain. It would be kind of crowded. So it's a matter of letting go of this concept of being alone, to reflect on the Sangha, a real true Sangha, then we don't feel so alone and we feel more connected.
When you sit down, and you are meditating, you might feel alone, but when you are doing Compassion/Lovingkindness are you so alone or are you connecting yourself with other living beings in the world and feeling closer than a lot of people who are surrounded by their so called friends at the pub? So many people go to places like pubs because they feel alone and many of them don't get that deeper satisfaction that perhaps you could get by sitting down and connecting with all these living beings in an unselfish way, or if you decide to reflect on the Sangha, your truth refuge. They may not be physically with us, but they may be sitting down in meditation right at that moment and reflecting on that helps us not feel so alone. Other people do value what we value. Other people are trying to develop themselves just like we are.
So, okay, social life. Perhaps we don't do so many of those things, perhaps you can find friends who don't care that you don't drink. Normally when I go to a family event, I will get sparkling water or something, put some lemon in it, and I sort of disappear, I have a glass, so it's "okay". If you aren't friendly, if you don't join in with the conversation or anything, than perhaps they think you are a kind of strange. I try to be friendly. Some of them accept me more than others, but they are okay, but there came a time once when I was with my sister and her husband, he turned to Steve and said, "What can I do to get you to drink a beerwith me?" My sister said, "And why would he have to do that? You know it's not what they do." On that occasion, my sister helped Steve, "It's just not what he does".