Friendships & the alcoholic life
 

As with being alcoholic for so long, you have designed your life around alcoholics. The friends you have, the places you hang out, the language you use. The dreams you have. Even the food you eat.

It is tough to get sober when your whole life in interweived in to the life of an alcoholic. Not only are you giving up the alcohol, but you're essentially giving up your life and the way it is .
To walk away from the alcohol means to walk away from the friends you have, or try and convert them to AA which definitely means a broken friendship. It also means having to redesign your own life and fill in the void which alcohol so conveniently filled.

A strange person walked into my work today and called himself a yogi. The guy was from India. He sat with me for 3 min and explained my life exactly, he continued to tell me that I was losing certain relationships that I felt were important to me, but weren't. He told me of the fork in the road I was at, and I could freely choose any way to go. One way was certain success and the other wasn't. This guy talked with a few of my co-workers and told them all about themselves and their life.
In the end he did ask for a donation and every one wondered how he knew everything he knew, all I know is, I needed a little push into the path of success and it came. I can't argue with a Yogi.

Yogi's are always right...especially when they bring good news.

I like Yogi bear. :)

I got rid of all my drinking friends, some i'd known as long as 8 years! I made sure i did it in such a way that i would not be welcome back into the circle, it would have been nice to just stay away and keep them as friends but this was not practical for me anyway.

I too found I had to make drastic changes in my life
in order to move forward in recovery.

Some were painful and difficult
Some were not....I regret none ...:no:

I've never met a yogi...that's interesting HW
thanks for sharing your experience....:hug:

I'm not sure exactly what a Yogi is, but it seems as though he was very helpful and that's a good thing. Glad you got that boost you were looking for Hardwired! :)
Wes

Was this him? http://imagecache2.allposters.com/im...ar-Posters.jpg

Seriously....that's pretty cool.

Man, you don't know how hard that is hitting home right now. I've already isolated friends that don't drink. Now I'm in the process of isolating friends that do drink, simply because I lack the willpower to be around them. Pretty soon I'll have no friends...at least not old friends. And you wonder why so many recovering alcoholics become depressed???

It's tough, but I can't hmm and haw about it. I am serious about my sobriety, so I have to do what I have to do.

Sometimes you get guidance when you need it most. For me, it's part of spirituality, but that's me. My situation is different, but it sounds similar to when you divorce someone who is emotionally abusive (and others don't always see it) and you didn't realize you were divorcing all of his family that you considered family for so long.

I guess I'm in the minority here. I didn't really have "drinking buddies" and I haven't had to give up any Friends because of not drinking. If anything those closest to me that know have been immensely supportive and caring towards me about the whole thing. I don't have many Friends but the ones I do have love me enough to want me healthy and happy =)

My friends are supportive as well. The problem is that they are in Oklahoma and South Carolina (I'm in New Hampshire). I wish one of them was here to go to a certain meeting with me tomorrow night. But I am blessed. I can only imagine how hard it must be to have drinking buddies or drinkers in your home.

I will never forget being in a bar in an airport and eavesdropping on what looked to be an ex-biker dude at the bar telling the guy next to him that if you stay sober you will end up losing all your old friends. Sadly, I think that is true. I believe we 'attract what we are'. When we are hard core drinkers, those are the folks we are drawn to and attract. Unless they stop drinking too, the relationship is very tenuous. IMHO.

Other than my husband, family and coworkers, I no longer talk to the same people in my life. They were drinking buddies.. my new life doesn't include drinking, and their lives don't include sobriety. Had to cut out ALL the toxicity out of my life, it's a life change.. abstinence is merely part of it.

I actually designed my life around alcohol, the "friends" were a kind of bonus, came along for the ride. Some of the ""friends I left behind were drinkers some were not. So far it has been worth it. No regrets at this point Hardwired.

thats scary!!!

the friends that i was only friends with through drinking i just havent called or answered their calls because i know theyll be like "LETS DRINK TO DROWN SORROWS" :(

all my other friends still drink, but have been REALLY supportive. they dont drink around me and encourage me, like if i tell them "I REALLY NEED BOOZE" theyre like, "NO! DRINK TEA" or something <3
plus i have a lot of interw3b friends that have been supportive too lol :P

wtf? that guy is a jerk :(

i agree with the attracting what we are. once i began drinking really heavily, i furthered myself from my old friends and became with new drinking buddies. they encouraged me to drink MORE AND MOAR. >:(