Changing Friendships
I'm starting to realize that my friendships cannot stay the same and it's making me sad. It's not just people that are my "drinking buddies" because if I lose them, it's not that big of a deal (beyond not ever having any plans, of course, but I'm getting used to being a bit of a hermit these days).
It's some of my girlfriends that I am very close to and really enjoy who aren't able to deal with it very well and so there starts to be a distance between us. Honestly, I think it's because a few of them have drinking problems as well and it's no fun at all to know that I am calling myself an alcoholic when they know that we all have very similar drinking patterns. I started imagining how it would be if even just one of these women realized this was when they wanted to stop as well and we could go through it together.
I just don't know how much to share with my girlfriends that I've told. Several of them seem uncomfortable talking about it or even hearing about it at all. I'm obviously not going to force it on them but that is how the distance starts -- because right now I'm ALL about the sobriety. It's a huge part of my days and nights and all the moments in between. I want and need to talk about it.
Anyway, anyone else having these issues? I found the most beautiful passage about it the other day and I even thought about sharing it with my two close girlfriends because it captures my fear so wonderfully -- that I will somehow lose their friendship. Here's the passage, by the way, from a blog that is incredible (theextraordinary-ordinary.net):
Not long after I quit drinking, maybe a week, I sat with one of my best friends at a coffee shop. She asked what this was like, how I was doing, and I just looked out the window. I said I just can’t explain it, that everything is so different somehow and even though there’s this new peace, it’s just so much. I said that I feel like a new person and that scares me because starting over is hard.
She started to cry with me and she reached for my hand and said, we’re going to be okay. And that was it, exactly what I needed to hear. I was scared that we wouldn’t be…at all. That I had somehow irrevocably changed the we of our friendship by turning my half upside down and inside out in a way that maybe wouldn’t fit the us of so many years.
I don’t think I could walk around in life without knowing she’s out there thinking of me and calling me friend. It’s always been there, this comfort in a kindred replica of me, alive in her person, totally understanding who I am. A soul reflection, a heart monitor.
We’re going to be okay.