Looking back I feel sorry for my close drinking buddies! Every so often I would disappear for months on end or announce...again...that I was abstaining from alcohol for once and for all only to cave in at some point...again!
Most of these guys I had met through drinking and socialising and most of the socialising had been done around drinking from that point onwards. So a big part of our social life together involved drinking. It must have sucked when looking at it from there point of view where they have made a solid drinking buddy as a friend and then off I go and try to completely try and change the whole dynamic of the relationship and expect them to change with me.
Of course at the time I didn't see this and blamed them every time I went back to drinking and honestly believed if we were friends they would be more than happy with me drinking sober whilst we continued doing our usual social stuff together. I would also ask them not to talk about drinking as I gad stopped.
Of course when I finally got into recovery I made new friends who didn't drink either.