ajnaT

I have been associating with a woman for 6 years. I didn't know she had such an enormous drinking problem when we first met because I was the same and it didn't matter. We met through work. She has schizophrenia and I have PTSD. Our friendship was, and still is, based on lengthy phone chats (up to three hours) and the only time we see each other is in the street and we talk in passing only. I used to enjoy her company as both of us would drink while chatting and I found her to be intelligent and entertaining as well as understanding.

There has been one new development. I stopped my days-long binge-drinking lifestyle 8 months ago. Even at her 50th birthday party, which really was just another weekend gathering of toxic drunks, I had two small bottles of pre-mixed and followed that with water for the rest of the evening. I met her friends and I don't like them. They persisted in offering me alk drinks and offering to pay for my drinks if I kicked on to the pub with them after the 'party'. I politely excused myself saying I had a date elsewhere afterwards. I was the only sober person in the house by then and I was glad for the exit strategy which intuitively, I had organised beforehand.

In eight months I have gone off anti-ds, lost 13 kg (10 to go), have travelled a little, found part-time work in a field I love and best of all, have discovered a drug for PCOS. I have been told by a liver-specialist to not bother with Hep C treatment, given my sobriety and other lifestyle changes as well as the fact that after being a carrier for 27 years, I have no liver damage at all. My looks have changed for the better, not that I was unnattractive before. I just looked ******-up.

Now my friend is getting nasty. Our phone calls are tedious and I return only every third screened call. I can't believe the rudeness that has overcome her. She barrages me with repeat questions which I don't get a chance to fully answer. She constantly interrupts me so she can talk about herself. I was stupid enough to say that the rewards that come with sobriety are enormous and she HAS TO KNOW WHAT REWARDS. Now! She is forceful in her questions and wants to know Who What Where Why When. It doesn't matter how trivial the subject is. I recently had a BC scare which I kept from everyone until I knew the results, a bit like a pregnancy in that one keeps it a secret until it's all OK. Anyway, I told her about it and she was upset with me for keeping it so secret, yet going on with my life as usual. Had I confided it to her, she would have made it worse for me than it already was.

She doesn't just talk anymore. She slurringly roars at me. I found her Jane Austen-loving man-hating feminism eccentricly endearing to begin with as well as her deliberate stance to look neglected and androgynous but now it turns me off big time. She has said that her friends were quite taken by me and want to include me in their activities (booze fuelled). I didn't like them 20 years ago when I was a drunken injecting user and I certainly do not like them now. They haven't changed and I have. I told her that I prefer to keep away from drinking situations due to the temptation but really it is because I not only dislike them, I have a suspicion that they will set me up to get hurt. These women seem nasty to 'girly-women' and wouldn't be averse to drugging a lady, shaving all the hair off her head and face, kick her teeth out and then have her sexually assaulted. I can smell it.

She keeps asking me out and I keep saying no. I expected resistance and slight resentment from her but not this obsessive, morbid anger and I suspect jealousy as well. This bitch has an inexplicable power over me which I cannot ignore.

ajnaT

Oh yeah, she said she wants to leave her estate to me in her Will. Compliment? No, yuck!

Windmills

Why don't you just stop returning her calls?

Ann

When we change, often our choice of friends do too, especially when our old friends are toxic or threaten our own peace of mind.

I would rather be alone than around friends who tried to talk me into something I didn't want.

Find a hobby and join a club, take a class, try hiking or photography to get you outdoors, or begin researching and collecting...there are lots of fun things to do that do not involve drinking or hanging out with people who are drunk.

My guess is you are already considering healthier options, yes?

Hugs

Windmills

I should really learn about trying to post and stop my child from destroying the house at the same time
This should have said
'What would happen if you stopped returning her calls?'

Kindeyes

There is simply no room in my life for toxic relationships. Toxic relationships drain my energy and are vexations to my spirit. A toxic relationship can also cause damage to my healthy relationships. This isn't mean or judgemental.....it is what I need to do to take care of me. It doesn't mean that I don't still LOVE that person. I love my son with all my heart but he is toxic. I love him from a distance.

What is stopping you from severing ties with her?

gentle hugs
ke

Taking5

When I sobered up I found that many of my "friends" from the bars and pubs weren't really friends at all. Based on what I have heard here and in the rooms of AA, this is not uncommon.

laurie6781

It is your right to CHOOSE the friends you will associate with today in recovery.

You can go NO CONTACT. Do NOT return her calls, and do NOT answer them if you are by the phone. If you are on Facebook or a like web site and she is a 'friend', unfriend her. Take her off your email contact list and send her emails to 'junk' or 'spam' and do not read them.

As said above, find a new hobby, join a book club or some type of club, make some new sober friends.

Sounds like she is a real 'abuser' and that is toxic. You do not need or want to have 'toxic' people in your life now.

J M H O

Please continue to post and let us know how you are doing as we do care very much.

Love and hugs,

outtolunch

Keep picking up on every third call, and the drama and chaos will continue to escalate, or

Block her phone number and be done with this.

Life is way too short for toxic relationships with anyone.

ajnaT

I know she is not a friend at all. Not even before I quit. I was just another source of misery for her to feed off. After two months of sobriety I noticed she was getting clingy and starting to do my head in with her behaviour. As for contact, I will get her number blocked. As for online social media, she thinks people who use it are SCUM. Only because she has never switched on a computer in her life. When I did have a FB account she told me it was stupid to make contact with old friends but the real reason is because she would have liked to do the same, just to see how many people were as screwed up as she is now. The old friends were people who grew up in the same area as we did and even then she had to know everything I knew about them now. She didn't fit in well back then and spent a lot of time in the psych ward as well.

I feel exhausted just typing this. She's a bottom feeder and it makes my skin crawl to know she told me she loved me.

Even my alcoholic (albeit functioning) brother is proud of me and will not bring booze into my house, out of respect for my new way of life. He wants to join me and set a good example for his kids. We were both exposed to unhealthy living on every level as children and it taught us all the wrong things. Now that is a person whom I do have time for, relative or not.

You know, it has been easier to end a friendship with toxic men over my lifetime than it ever has been with this harridan. (Sorry, nasty word).

I have renewed my interests in different things and one of them has led me to the PT job I have now. I've also joined a community garden group and have found a mental health recovery organisation who want to help me get work in the field I have always loved. I want a job where I can make people happy and if it their happiness is in retail therapy then so be it.

There is so much positive stuff going on in my life now which I haven't told this woman about. One person told me to stop making my life out to be so rosy to her and consider her feelings. Humbug! I thought it would encourage her to get on the wagon but she is so self-limited and comfortable in her anger and wretchedness that she doesn't want to change.

I'm calling the phone company straight away. I can do this. I'm not scared of her. She is scared of herself.

wicked

I hope the two of you can get together, go to meetings, and find peace with your past.
I, too, had an alcoholic father, I wish I had one of my siblings to acknowledge and talk about the crummy way we grew up.


BEth

ajnaT

Thanks to everyone for your words of encouragement. I had my phone number changed today and deleted her number. It will be a while before I can stop thinking about how disgusting she is and I have yet to run into her in person in our small city. Luckily, she is easy to recognize and even easier to ignore. (alright I will retract my claws).