I don't call it "selfish". I call it setting healthy boundary's. I consider wet places and wet faces OUTSIDE of my boundary's because they will drag me back to my old ways.
:DA

I had similar situations.

Back then it was upsetting - now I look back and see our relationship was based on drinking together...it makes more sense why people reacted the way they did.

I'm sure my drinking buddies get on fine without me :)

D

I lost drinking/using buddies, not friends. My real friends stick by me and support me. I didn't have many, but they are still around and close.

Hi Autan- I agree that you have done the right thing and that your 'friend' is probably threatened by your decision in as much as it may make him think about his own drinking. Stick with your wife and family.

I would also say I can imagine this as in the UK drinking culture is everywhere- to not drink, I think, is quite rare, especially if you are youngish/ healthy etc- I am only on day 10 but believe me when I tell my family about my decision, and don't drink over Christmas I will, without question, be grilled by my family in South Wales- some will be uncomfortable with it, some will no doubt put bets on how long it will last in order to say 'I told you so'.
Last year, at Christmas I didn't drink on boxing day and was told I had 'offended' the hostess of a party we went to, who had gone out and bought wine 'especially for me because they knew I was coming'...undertones of me being 'ungrateful'...and I caved in to the pressure. But NOT this year!

My husband is a singer and plays guitar. He usto play in various bars. After he came back from rehab he stated how lonley he felt because all those people who were his friends were still doing their thing at the bar. He still says hi and stuff but he realizes he cannot be in that environment. It is hard.

I am sorry. Be patient, you will form relationships that are true instead of being based on where the next party will be as that is what it sounds like he was concerned with.

Good Luck and Congrats on your sobriety!

Autan, my sister lives in a different state than the state my parents and my family live in. I see her maybe 1-2 times a year, but we are very close ~ we speak almost every day, sometimes several times a day. This summer she and her family were coming to visit our state and they were staying with my parents. My mother had recently gotten embarrassingly drunk in public, in front of my children (she had actually arrived to the event drunk and continued to drink while clearly already intoxicated) and my husband and I told my parents that we know longer wanted alcohol to be part of our family events, in front of the children. My mother and father (who always complain that the family doesn't get together enough, that the cousins don't see each other enough, etc. etc.) basically made me feel unwelcome to come and stay with them, because my sister's family was on "vacation" and they didn't want any uncomfortable situations concerning alcohol. In short, their fun with alcohol was all of the sudden, much more important than the family getting together. It felt like a knife going through my heart that my own parents would pick alcohol over me and their grandchildren, but that is the nature of this horrible addiction!

I think it is awesome how you were so honest and a class act with the way they responded. That is really inspiring to me.