Anyone else struggle with drinking less due to socialising?

[DictionarySnowman]

I live alone, but I've got a great social life. It's got to the point though that I'm drinking most nights. I don't want to say no to the invitations because I like going out and I enjoy my friends' company and I don't want to just sit in the house alone, but I absolutely cannot go on drinking the amount that I am.

I know there's the option of going and not drinking, but I can't be bothered with the questions of why I'm not, and often I meet friends one on one and I wouldn't like it if I invited someone out for a drink then got told they weren't drinking.

I see lots of threads about cutting down but it tends to be people who are drinking in the house. I don't touch a drop if I'm in the house, wouldn't occur to me to have a glass of wine with my tea or anything, it's purely the social drinking that's too much.

Anyone else struggling to maintain a social life but cut down on drinking?

Me
I find that not drinking is actually easier than having "a couple" when we're out.
I've got round it by a number of means. My number one is driving, or having to drive later on.
I've recently been promoted and my new job has the potential to cause great damage to a person if I make the wrong decision. Therefore I don't drink on a night where I have work the next day. In reality I could have a couple if I was on a later start but I've now got it fixed in my head that this is how it will be.
Lastly I've discovered a whole new range of alcohol free beers. Things have come on in leaps and bounds from the dark days of Kaliber, even DH has grudgingly admitted that he can't tell the difference between some of them.

Yes, Large, I cannot just have a couple. If people are going out for just one drink I wouldn't bother having one at all. At least once, sometimes twice, a week after work meetings we go to the pub and if I had a soft drink they'd all make such a big thing of it it's easier to get wine. Then I regularly get texts asking if I want to go to the pub for a bottle of wine, and I do want to go and I enjoy it, but I cannot seem to grasp moderation. I hate going home early after a drink to an empty house, so I stay out till midnight and drink too much.

Well done on not drinking on work days! Do you feel better for it?

Unfortunately yes, I truly hoped I wouldn't and I could just shrug my shoulders and say that drinking didn't have that much of an effect on me.
Even worse I've found that periods of complete abstinence make me feel on top of the world