Well I have read that you should not bargain...but I have made a condition: that my friend comes to the next AA Open Meeting with me that I am able to go to. Which might be this Tuesday evening or might be later in the week or early next week.
She says she is trying a different way this time and can do it alone. I cannot fully believe her whilst she has care of my dog for 12 hours a day...it's not just my dog, who would be fine with her in a drunken stupor, but I cannot control what other dogs she has on the premises...it only needs two of them to get into a fight and mine be in the middle...
The other thing that I feel I want to do - and I read about this very early on and now cannot recall where I found it - is have a discussion with her, her hubby and possibly also her son. I am unwilling to go behind her back and talk to him; I don't remember what this type of meeting is called? but would that maybe be a good idea to instigate?
I know her hubby loves her very much but if I am to carry on being a friend to her I feel I need to work with the family, not separately from them.
Of course I could just walk out. Like so many others have done. I do have that choice, and am very fortunate to have it in fact...and it may yet come to that. But that would be too easy, and just at this point probably wouldn't do her any good even.
Btw my friend agreed readily to coming to the AA meeting with me. She kind of looked at me as if to say, what on earth for?? but she did agree.
If she changes her mind, that will tell me that she really isn't serious about this and really doesn't want to use my support at this moment in time...because the one thing she has always complained about too is that her hubby and son have never gone to any meeting with her and that hubby tried Al-Anon once and said that it "wasn't for him" - yet seems to think she ought to go as many times as there are meetings. And I think she has reached the stage where she is having a kick-back against the "do as I say, not as I do".
At the end of the day I realise I am sooo lucky to have an easy route out of this. I can just walk away.
But I care about my friend and would rather be in there somewhere as some kind of support, rather than not. Even, if it is only to get her back on track to go to AA meetings.