Today I want to explore a topic that guys often ask me about on ROK and Twitter—namely, how the hell is it possible for you to game girls and go out on dates with them without drinking alcohol? The answer is that it is not only possible, but actually beneficial in several ways to do both of these things without drinking a drop. You will save money, retain clarity, remain sharper and more in control of your actions, while also staying in better shape and becoming more confident.
To Drink Or Not To Drink?
First off, I want to put to bed any notion that this article might come from a prescriptive or moralising place. Personally, I couldn’t care less whether anyone drinks alcohol or not—that is entirely up to them. Nor am I suggesting—as some pick-up coaches have done over the years—that game without drink is somehow superior or is likely to yield better results. None of this is the case, and indeed, most guys I know who have success with women drink in a healthy way and it doesn’t affect them in the slightest.
My story, though, is a little different. Because I have a very compulsive, addictive personality, my relationship to alcohol was never a good one and culminated in lots of trouble followed by rehab some fifteen years ago. Through the support of others and some great mentors I have never touched alcohol again since. I don’t miss it at all and have enjoyed a great life without it since.
What this has meant, though, is that I am in the interesting position of having seen out the majority of my pick-up days to date completely stone-cold sober. So from my early days of night game six times a week in Manchester bars and clubs, to parties in London, Vegas and New York, to day game in many cities across the world, I have had to step up to the plate and approach and date without the benefit of drink as a stimulant or a crutch.
Was this good or bad for the success of my game? Impossible to say, since of course there’s no way of running a controlled comparison. What I can say, though, is this—my results certainly got significantly better after I put the cork back in the bottle.
When guys discover that I no longer drink they tend to ask me questions around two distinct areas, namely: how do you approach when you’re sober, and how do you go on dates? Since these are arguably the two most significant peaks that the every pick-up artist must bypass in his journey to the sexual summit, I will deal with each in turn.
Approaching
Would you approach them without a couple of drinks first?
Before giving up alcohol, my strategy for approaching girls was as follows: drink as much as possible in the shortest time possible, summon up that dutch courage, shamble around thew bar or club walking up to girls and hoping for the best. My approach to dating was similar: take the girl out to a bar, get both of us as drunk as possible, and hope that sex happened as a consequence.
Imagine my apprehension, then, when the option of drinking was removed from me and I walked into a raucous nightclub to make advances on pretty young girls with no chemical shield whatsoever.
I won’t lie and say that it was easy. In actual fact, it was hard for a while to get used to these new circumstances. You know what really got me through, though? A vast, unconquerable need to get laid. A young man in his twenties just out of a pretty toxic relationship, at a time when online dating was in its infancy and apps didn’t exist, literally the only route open for me to reach my sex goals was through cold approach, and so somehow or another I simply had to pluck up the courage.
If you would also like to try this there are two very helpful tools I can recommend. The first is what you might call the ‘gun to the head’ method. By that, what I mean is, imagine someone came up to you, put a gun to your head and told you, you have to approach and you have to get laid before the end of this evening otherwise I’ll blow your brains out. Well, you would just get on with it, wouldn’t you? You would have no other choice but to open every girl in the place and try every trick in your arsenal to get laid regardless of approach anxiety, rejections, cockblocks and so on
What that should tell you is something very significant: you have the capability within you to approach and get laid without drink already. If you are not doing so it is only you who is holding you back.
The second tool I can recommend is to reward yourself for actions rather than results. What I mean by that is, don’t set the bar too high. As I have said before, even by just approaching sober you are doing something that 97% of other men are too afraid to do. That in itself is worth of celebration. So do it and feel good about yourself. If you get a bad reaction then so what? At least you are in the game.
Right now I should put in an honourable mention for day game. Of course, the reality is that day gamers all over the world are cold approaching sober every single day. This, however, is a relatively new phenomenon since day game as a discipline was very niche over a decade ago. It should also be recognised that daytime situations are often a lot less intimidating than nighttime ones.
Still, one thing that has really helped my night game in the past has been combining it with day game to achieve an overall halo effect. What I mean by that is, if I’ve done a number of low-pressure daytime approaches before entering a club or bar then my confidence levels and vibe are much higher and it is much easier for me to approach in the drinking environment with gusto.
Dating
I have been on hundreds—thousands—of dates in the last fifteen years and I have been sober for all of them while in almost all cases the girls I have been with have drunk alcohol. Has that impeded my success as all? No. Has it occasionally raised awkward questions? Yes. Are these easy to overcome? Usually, yes.
Here’s what I’ve learned about not drinking on dates. The very best strategy is not to make an issue of your sober status if at all possible until after you have had sex.
I’m not advocating being misleading or even manipulative for the sake of it. However, what I’ve found is that going into a long conversations about the reasons that I don’t drink tends to derail the date, making it more into a kind of therapy session or AA meeting rather than what it should be—a sexy rendezvous.
Now, this might be different if you choose not to drink because you are a health nut, or training for a triathlon, or something of the sort. But even then you risk putting yourself in the ‘square, boring’ box. The fact is that most women—and most men—like to have a drink in a social situation as it relaxes them and makes them more sociable. The last thing you want to do, therefore, is to make your date feel awkward about the fact that she is drinking in front of you, or worse, suspect that you are trying to get her drunk while you remain straight in order to take advantage of her.
My strategy, then, is to order the drinks myself and try to avoid the conversation about what I’m drinking. My usual routine is to take the girl to a cocktail bar and stay for one or two rounds at the most. I will order whatever she wants and a soda and lime for myself. Served in a tall glass this can easily pass for a vodka or gin-based drink and most girls don’t even think to ask. If they do press me on it I will either change the subject or deflect with a joke (‘why do you care—are you trying to get me drunk?’) If she persists then I will tell her that I’m drinking soda water but I’ll then change topics quickly so we don’t get bogged down in the reasons for my choice.
Pluses and Minuses
A non-drinking warrior, yesterday.
I don’t mean to suggest that there are no downsides to not drinking—of course there are. There are certain things that I can’t do—like drink shots by the bar, toast with champagne and so on—that without a doubt help a certain style of player to get his wicked way with many ladies. I also have some difficulty pulling off a line like ‘Let’s go back to my place and polish off a bottle of wine’—although I tend to suggest it anyway and then just drink water myself and there’s never been an issue. But there can be a certain suspicion of non-drinkers from drinkers, especially female drinkers, and so I make an effort not to draw attention to this at least until after we’ve banged. For at that point she will backwards rationalise that everything about you is favourable in order to justify her decision to reward you with sex.
In the main, though, not drinking has not affected my game one jot, and I hope this article has shown you that it is eminently possible to pull off successfully should you wish to forgo booze yourself.
Want to find out more about how to approach and seduce sexy girls every day? Buy Troy’s bestselling book, The Seven Laws of Seduction. Follow Troy on Twitter
Read More: Why You Don’t Deserve That Perfect 10
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