Claim
Hold something and the question mostly disappears
Most of the friction of not drinking comes from an empty hand, because an empty hand is an open question that someone in the room will feel obliged to solve.
So arrive with a glass and keep it full: soda and lime, a non-alcoholic beer, tonic on its own, coffee. Order it at the bar the same way you would order anything, without the announcement. Men who do this consistently report that nobody asks, and that when they do say they are not drinking, it lands as information rather than as an event, because the room has already stopped tracking it.
Action
Learn three sentences and use the shortest one
Have these ready, because the moment is easier when you are not composing. Not tonight, thanks. I am driving. I do not drink.
All three are complete. None invites a follow-up. The mistake is the long version, because a reason is an opening for negotiation: a man who says he is having a quiet month will be told that one will not hurt. Say the short sentence, then ask them a question about something else, which moves the conversation and is the only technique you need. If someone presses a third time, they have told you something about themselves and you can stop being polite about it.
Claim
Hosting duties, if you serve alcohol at all
Three obligations, and they are not optional if you are the host. Have at least one non-alcoholic option that an adult would actually choose, chilled, visible and offered by name in the same breath as the wine. Fruit juice and warm cola do not count as provision.
Second, never announce that someone is not drinking, and never explain it for them. Third, do not ask why. If they want to tell you, they will. A host who says he is not drinking tonight, we have the good tonic, has done the entire job in one sentence.
Evidence
Why the pressure exists at all
Pressure to drink is rarely about you. Drinking together is a small ritual that signals shared risk and shared looseness, so a man who abstains can read, to someone already drinking, as a man staying in control while they let go, which feels like being watched.
Understanding that changes your response. You are not arguing about alcohol, you are reassuring someone that you are not judging them, and the fastest way to do that is to stay, be good company, and not mention what is in your glass. The men who get the most pressure are usually the ones who talk about not drinking, which is the opposite of what you would expect and is worth knowing.
Example
Dave stopped drinking in March and dreaded his own stag weekend in June, which he had not canceled.
He told two friends in advance, asked one of them to handle it if anyone made it a topic, and drank non-alcoholic beer all weekend from the same bottles as everyone else. One person noticed on the Saturday. The sentence that ended it was: yeah, I stopped, the lager is good though. He describes the weekend as the moment it became normal, and the useful detail is that he did the work beforehand rather than in the room.
Caution
Do not become the man who has stopped
There is a failure mode on the other side. A man stops drinking, finds it genuinely improved his sleep and his mood, and becomes an unpaid advocate at every table, which is the same discourtesy in reverse.
Nobody at a dinner wants a report on your sleep data. The etiquette principle does not change direction because you are on the healthier side of it: your choice is yours, theirs is theirs, and announcing yours as an implicit comparison makes you the problem in the room. Tell people if they ask. Once.
Aside
When the room cannot be managed
Everything above assumes the room is workable with a sentence and a full glass. Some are not: a workplace where the real decisions are made after the fourth round, a family gathering where refusing is treated as an accusation, a friend group whose only activity is drinking.
In those cases the technique runs out, and the honest options are leaving early, going less often, or accepting that some relationships were built on one activity and will thin out without it. That is a genuine loss and it should be named as one rather than waved away. It is also survivable, and the men I know who went through it describe the first six months as the hard part and nothing after that.