Freshstart1111

I have a close friend who seems to be a high functioning alcoholic or at a minimum a heavy drinker. His social life revolves solely around drinking, he binges, forgot things that happened, seems to self medicate during stressful times, and constantly jokes about drinking.

I’ve expressed my concerns for him a couple of time. He has backed off the friendship somewhat in the past 6 months after the last time I expressed my concerns but still contacts me every couple of weeks. There is a connection between us but he has stepped back knowing that he knows he has issues and doesn’t want to hurt me.

My question is: last week In text he mentioned going on a boys weekend with big joking emojis after it. I know It would be a drink fest. I couldn’t and didn’t even respond. 5 mins later he texted a very nice good night. And I didn’t respond to that either.

I had no desire to respond. I wasn’t about to joke about the upcoming boys weekend. The first thing that came to my head was “isn’t every weekend boys weekend?” But I knew I shouldn’t say that.

We no longer talk about things related to alcohol. If it come up peripherally and subtly, like this did, he makes a joke.

How do you respond to the elephant in the room? And the jokes to try to play it off? I can ignore them. Or just say “have a good time”. I won’t respond with anything snarky. And I’m not there to remind him of my concerns. I feel bad that I completely didn’t respond. I just couldn’t. I just can’t go along with him making light of it anymore.