I’m really in a spot where I want to have a drink. I want to be able to have one and stop, but I don’t know if I can do that. I’m worried that I’ll get trashed and go back to self harming like before.
I’m just feeling down because I don’t go to any of my friends parties anymore, and my best friend is leaving for a new job far away,and I’m worried about not being able to go to his going away party. I know it’d be a bad idea to go, because if I’m feeling this low in self control towards drinking, I’d probably drink.
The problem is I’m not sad. Things are going decent right now, and this is my danger point. I feel secure enough to venture, and maybe I have a drink and I’m fine. Then I’ll push the envelope and be fine for a while, maybe even get drunk a couple of times. The problem is that I’ll crash eventually and hit a low spot, and if I’m drinking when that happens I know it will be my own personal armageddon. It would likely cost me my sanity, like it almost did October of 2018 when I decided to quit.
I really don’t want to miss my friend’s going away party. Perhaps I’ll do something special with him before he goes and explain I just can’t go to the party. He would support me in that, but I’d still feel bad, as he is the kind of person where it means a lot if you show up to important things. He is always down when I refuse to go to parties he is hosting, and this one is an important one.
I don’t know if I need advice, but I guess I just needed to type it out. I know the answer, I’m just a little bit bitter about it.
You’re not going to want to hear this, but your old friends and their drinking lifestyle are an explicit danger to you. You’re probably going to have to let them go. A truly good friend would arrange for a dry going away celebration with you. If he or she is more concerned with having a righteous good par-tay, then… Seeya.
The problem with cutting my best friend out is that I did that for a year, when I quit drinking initially, until the next October and it sucked. We’ve been best friends since we were 5, we’re 28 now, and we are closer to being brothers than we are friends.
I don’t want to make him out to be a bad guy, and I hope that I didn’t give the impression that he cares more about his party. He has supported me more than most people, be it staying up until 4 or 5 in the morning to talk me down from whatever bad spot that I’m in, or doing only dry activities with me. He has done more for me than I had any right to ask.
He has never once encouraged me to drink since I started talking to him again, and when I bring up wanting to drink he encourages me not to. Its our other friend who is the problem. He still drinks heavy, and he doesn’t seem to respect my decision to stay sober.
I won’t go to the party, but I’ll do something special with him before he leaves.
At age 25, I was living in Hartford with my parents. I was terribly lonely.
A friend from Pennsylvania said he was driving to Boston to see two black women, and I ought to go with him. He would stop by on his way and pick me up.
I said no fearing I would drink, and I lost the friendship. It is very kewl to be sober . . . But that was a valuable friendship.
I’m sorry you lost his friendship. That must have felt awful, if you don’t mind me asking did it get easier over time? I know the obvious answer is that if a friend puts drinking over you then they aren’t a friend, but the feelings after losing a friend due to sobriety aren’t so obvious.
I started a fencing class a couple of weeks ago. Its once a week and at the end of the night they get pizza and its BYOB. I haven’t hung out for the pizza, because I’m worried that it could lead to being offered a drink, and me not telling them I don’t drink.
One of the first things that becomes easier in sobriety is learning how to say no to a drink.
When someone pressures me to drink, I say, “Not now, maybe later,” which of course is perfectly true.
When someone is asking me why I don’t want a drink, I say, “When I drink, I puke on your shoes.” That backs off a lot of folks.
Alternately, when asked why I’m not drinking, I say, “I’m driving,” or, “When I drink I hit trees on the wrong side of the road.” All those wrecked vehicles in my past!
If you do go toa BYOB party, definitely bring your own drink. I like sparking water in a bottle. If one was a drinker, then one is used to socializing with a drink in hand. Therefore, get your ginger ale or coca cola and protect your drink! Walk around with it as if if your fall down a step, you still won’t spill a drop.
Well, AA has a philosophy that I’ve heard various alcoholics mention when they get up to speak.
If you are a true alcoholic and you can’t control your drinking, and you have that first drink, then you will probably lose everything you got anyways.
So you can stay sober and cut out your drinking friends and stay away from people who drink and places where people drink.
OR, you can tempt fate and go to parties and bars and hang out with people who drink and have them chip away your resolve to stay sober, and then one day you pick up that drink and probably lose your job or friends, or your sanity or your housing or anything else that’s good in your life.
