ajnaT

I am new to this forum and this is my first post. I decided to put a lid on my drinking in July 2011. I haven't been sober every day since then, but I do not get drunk every day like I used to. I am always discovering new priorities in place of drinking and my progress is terrific. My stbx drinking buddy on the other hand is hitting the booze more heavily than usual, and she has always been a huge drinker. She also has schizophrenia.

Most of our friendship is played out on the phone and we talk for hours a week. I see her sitting at a bar I walk past to catch a bus and sometimes I will pop in for a glass of water and say hello. When I attended her fiftieth birthday party, the same old crowd from 30 years ago were there and they were wretched. Few people recognised me as I had moved on from this crowd a long time ago.

Lately our phone convos have been based around her negativity towards the world at large and her disdain for girly women. I, on the other hand, have rediscovered my femininity and I am celebrating it by spoiling myself materially. Admittedly she is very androgynous in appearance and she sometimes resents it. She drinks while we are chatting and gets more pissed as we speak and gets angrier. She opposes my future plans with 'what ifs' (I believe in 'so what if?'). She frequently wants to talk about the past and it was a murky past, by my recollection. She forever asks the same questions, in different ways, to get me to talk about things I would prefer to forget.

In our many years of friendship we have exchanged so many secrets that one would take to the grave. This woman knows me too well and I am now cautious with that thought. I am starting to feel like we do not have much in common any more and I feel wound up after our phone calls.

We promised to be recovery buddies but I wonder if it is worth expending my own energy on someone who is obviously not ready to recover. I don't have any other close friends as I have been doing a lot of head miles and I have needed to be alone.