Gonnachange

Thanks for your good wishes. With the exception of his parents kicking him out of their house the family members have individually and collectively done everything we can think of to help him. Unfortunately, as I wrote earlier, we have not been effective. It's very sad because he's a really nice guy who is smart, social, funny, and before the drinking became problematic in fine shape and a very good athlete. Sometimes there are glimmers or short periods where those traits show up, but more and more often they are now hidden and what we see is an angry middle aged man who continues to make poor decisions. His story has many parallels to others stories I've read on SR. Ironically, I'm currently having a Facebook message exchange with him and a few minutes ago he apologized to me for drinking too much yesterday. Based on what transpired I should be pretty darn low on the list of people he needs to make amends to for his behavior yesterday; not sure who else he has reached out to and I'm not going to ask anyone other than my wife when she gets home. Like you wrote, sad.

One could make a reasonable argument that I did myself a disservice on a number of levels yesterday because nothing bad happened. I agree, but am not buying into the thesis that I "proved" I can drink normally. So, I'm at Day 1 again because of two beers and will move on.

As everyone who reads here knows I haven't strung together a meaningful number of sober days, but I can slowly discern changes that are moving me away from the habit of drinking alone during the week. IOW, the association between settling down in the evening and having a cocktail is becoming untethered and while I often have to consciously think about avoidance, hopefully in the not too distant future it will just be automatic.