HopeandFaith1

Oh here I go again, sorry y’all, it’s just that my chest if feeling really heavy again lately so here I am, writing a novel for you, again!
I stopped drinking on June 14, 2016. I guess before then, I always thought I had a lot of friends. When I first quit drinking I realized a couple of those “friends” were really just drinking buddies, and obviously I’ve no longer been able to spend much time with those people.

That made me a little sad, but while I can handle a little sadness, I can’t handle drinking.

So now I am in a different place friendship-wise, where I am starting to wake up and realize I might possible be a living, breathing human being with actual emotional needs – it might sound weird but I didn’t know that for a long time because I thought I was getting all my needs met by drinking. So now of my remaining friendships I am realizing that a few that are/were very important to me were really lopsided – it may be true that while actively drinking we are a more selfish version of our true selves, however I can also say many times over the years I was still capable of being a good friend, and I have always been a good listener, tipsy or not. I’ve got a couple people I thought I was close to that I’ve spent hours, maybe even years, listening to, and offering support and advice and everything else that goes along with being friends with someone who needs a lot of support/advice/reassurance.

So I have this friend at work, and we’ve been friends, or so I thought, for about four years now. She is a single mom of two teenage daughters and I always admired her dedication to her kids and just her ability to juggle work, finances and personal life in such a competent manner, especially since I've been such a big old mess for the majority of these years.

She is also someone who has a lot of crises’ both in and outside of work, and I’ve spent a lot of time listening to what’s been going on in her life. We don’t talk a lot about me at all, because let’s face it, there wasn’t a lot to talk about for a long time, and I was embarrassed to share anything worth talking about. Plus, she simply never asked. I did tell her that I’d stopped drinking, she sounded surprised but I don’t think she realized what a huge decision that was for me, and to be honest I don’t think she much cared anyway.

So I was having a rough time a couple weeks ago, just really sad and not feeling well, a lot on my mind, etc. My friend at work had all kinds of things going on with herself, of course, that I got to hear all about. Except for one day, a few weeks ago, it just hit me that I was very, very emotionally tired. So because I was just worn out, and for once felt it would be nice to have her listen, I decided I would wait to see how long it would take her to say hi to me, and ask me how I was doing for a change.

Well, that was two weeks ago and I haven’t heard a peep out of her. I am sure she is outraged feeling like I just ghosted on her or whatever, when she has all these problems (she always does), but the truth is that I’ve just been sitting her patiently waiting for her to say hi to me. That’s it. Instead she has apparently decided to not make any kind of effort to check in on me, or ask me if I’m ok, or if I’m mad at her, or anything – I’ve sat her fully prepared to just tell her the truth “Errr, I was waiting for you to say hi and ask me how I’m doing” for once, but nope, not a peep out of her whatsoever. I guess I was useful to her as long as she needed to vent or whatever but not important enough to make an effort to check up on, I guess she’s not the least bit concerned that after all these years, maybe something could be wrong with me, or maybe I am going through a hard time myself, it’s as if she doesn’t care enough to ask…well so be it, I have other friends…right?

Right? I have another friend at work, a male friend I used to drink a lot with. We’ve known each other for over ten years now. He often has referred to me as his “best friend”. He also made it clear over the years that it could certainly be more, if I wanted it to! But I knew that would be a huge mistake – he’s married, and so am I, for starters, and while some might consider the nature of our friendship to be bordering on an emotional affair, and inappropriate, I did for many years enjoy his company, and his insight on various things. He helped me with a lot of stuff at work and has been a really good advocate, but I guess now that I have quit drinking and he knows that there’s no chance of anything more ever developing between us, I think while I was drinking a lot he thought there might have been a chance, but now…he told me I was boring since I quit drinking. So I don’t hear much from him anymore, at all.

Well, that’s ok, that is probably a friendship I am better off without, anyway. But still, over ten years you know, it does hurt a little.

I have another friend I’ve known for about 15 years and we have been through a lot together! I truly love her dearly. She has announced she’s too depressed to keep up any kind of conversation and she can’t be a good friend to me. I still try to text her/call her/invite her over but I rarely get any kind of response whatsoever. But then of course will see her on Facebook happily chatting away with her other friends and posting pictures of herself at certain outings, not seeming all that depressed at all…just too depressed to be friends with me, I guess.

(I’m really thinking about deleting Facebook)

I have another friend I’ve known for almost twenty years. I was in her first two weddings. I declined to be in the third. She is now getting married a fourth time, to a man she has been dating since Christmas. If don’t normally care what two consenting adults do, but she has five kids at home who I care deeply about and I am sure it must be very confusing for them to have so many different father figures. She last guy she married had more than one arrest for sexual misconduct and I begged her not to marry him, but she did it anyway. Even though I showed her the actual court documents that detailed the arrests (all of them involved young teenage girls, she said the court clerks and the police were all lying).

I never did look at her the same after she went ahead and did that, actually I was enraged the whole time they were married. She divorced him just shy of two years married, and now she is getting married, again.

She wants a bachlorette party, shower, and wedding with attendants. I told her I would attend the wedding dinner and that’s it. I am also not buying her a wedding present. Not trying to be mean or anything, but she’s reached her quota of wedding gifts. Most people have the courtesy to elope the fourth time out.

So that’s another “friendship” that you could say is strained at the moment – of course she is mad about my lack of enthusiasm for her upcoming nupituals, of course I am a bad friend for not wanting to be in the wedding, etc. etc. Truthfully the friendship was pretty much over when she went ahead and married the sex offender, however I have tried to stay on the periphery just to try to keep up with how the kids are doing.

I could say more but my posts are always too long, so I won’t. I guess I’m trying to accept the fact that on top of everything else, I have to learn how to make friends again too. I do have one good friend who does not drink and does not like drinking, who actually knows how to have more than a one-sided conversation. She is also brutally honest which I like, and sometimes, don’t like so much, but she really is a good friend. For her I am grateful.

If you’ve read this far, THANK YOU! And thank God there’s still dogs, and books, and SR. And also my husband, my brother who I am also close to, and as always, I thank God for all of you here at SR. I hope if you’re reading this, that you’re having a good day today.

HTown

You wrote a good post. Lots of things there and I hear what you are saying. There are givers and takers in this world. Sounds like you are a giver. Most of your friends sound like takers. Problem is, takers will drain you as a giver. With nothing to fill you back up, you become empty.

I don't have any great suggestions, but I can tell you true friends are rare.

HopeandFaith1

Sometimes it just helps to be heard HTown and I thank you. I spend a lot of time in sobriety going over my own shortcomings, and yes, I have a few! But now I'm starting to see that it wasn't and isn't all me you know? I'm a little freaked out to realize that I actually have needs, and sometimes just want to talk, these things are new to me. I have to really re-evaluate who I associate with and how they fit in to this strange and wonderful new world...and it's daunting really, but also good I suppose. I really appreciate that you took the time to comment and offer a little validation for these feelings.

HTown

I want you to know I picked up the phone and called a friend after your post. I called her just to listen Thank you

Poppy79

Hi hopeandfaith, I have experienced similar to you. It's eye opening to realise who your true friends really are when you have clarity and a clear head.
I'm all about quality, not quantity
I also deactivated FB when I quit drinking over 3 months ago. I dont want to reactivate it either. FB is fake with people showing you what they think you want to see. Perfect lives, having a grand ol time when in reality everyone has their own crap. They just don't advertise that on a social platform.
It's never too late to make new buddies, good buddies I culled a few 'friends' who sapped my energy and mental emotion. It is a wee bit sad but WOW such a relief.

rascalwhiteoak

I love this

I'm a listener/giver too, and I think there's a newfound sense of self-worth with sobering up. It makes you reevaluate some of your acquaintances.

heartcore

Remember too that whether addicts or alcoholics or struggling single moms or drama queens or shy ones or ones who don't feel beautiful or prestige obsessed ones or frightened ones...or...or....

People often do not know how to be good friends.
Many, many people are lonely.
Many of those lonely people have no idea how to create or sustain or honor a friendship. If we do not see it modeled in our original families, or are not embraced with easy friendship in school, many of us clumsily & haphazardly try & fail to connect.

It doesn't mean that almost every human don't yearn after true, loyal, reciprocal friendship. It means they cannot even find the words to define that longing & truly have no idea in the world how to manifest it.

We can lead in friendship! We can choose. Invite. Model loyalty. Say loving words. Send vulnerable texts. Ask our awkward work-mate to go to salsa class with us.

Many friendships implode. Many stumble and lose energy and never even become in the first place.

But if we approach our desire for true friends with the assumption that the majority of humans have the same desire & are astoundingly unskilled in developing it, well, somebody has to lead!!

Or we'll all just be huddled, alone, and monopolizing dinner conversations with too-long stories that make people uncomfortable!

I only need a handful (or maybe two handful) of excellent friends. To accumulate the two - ten true friends necessary to my life happiness is an adventure which can take decades and hundreds of clumsy & false starts.

Don't give up. We are the shapers of our world, and we are no more terrified & awkward than most! And we get to choose where we want to invest our friendship energy!

PhoenixJ

milly4me

Yeah there is definitely something about what you are saying.

When I first started tapering off alcohol a few months back, I also started to really re-evaluate some friendships.

Some friendships were just too much about drinking. Like we'd never get together unless we were uncorking and supposedly unwinding over something, or celebrating with a toast. I've been working really hard at trying to steer some of those (one in particular) to a "having coffee" sort of relationship.

But there is another couple (or three) friendships that feel almost . . . I don't know . . . "emeshed" . . . "enabling" . . . ?? Like I was too available to listen to their problems or work to fix something for them . . . because??? . . . maybe because I felt like if I was fixing them, then I wasn't the person who needed fixing myself. Something like that.

It wasn't healthy.

One relationship in particular was really kind of draining on me. I can't really fault her though 'cause I never required or expected any real back-and-forth commitment/concern from her. So I've been actively disengaging, and she's been pushing me a bit to reengage. She's been reaching out to mutual friends to try to get me to respond to her. Typically for her, however, she hasn't done much actual sincere reaching out to ME. So it still feels unhealthy.

For now, I'm not going to overthink it. When I'm ready, maybe I'll reengage with her. . . maybe I won't.

But I do know what you mean.

It's certainly an interesting topic. Thanks for bringing it up.

HopeandFaith1

Thank you HTown, makes me feel good to hear something good come out of this.

HopeandFaith1

Would it be fair to say that while we were actively drinking , maybe we sought out people who we didn't have to fear getting too close, too interested in us? I had lots of secrets as a drinker that I didn't necessarily want revealed, so maybe back then it was easier to be a listener than listened to.

And maybe, as you described your friend, they are merely acting as they always have, we just didn't care so much before.

Maybe I'll follow your lead and just chill out a bit. I also don't necessarily fault some of them, but that doesn't mean we might not be healthier without them.

Thanks so much for weighing in, it is all food for thought.

HopeandFaith1

This is beautifully stated Heartcore. Thank you for shining light on the human aspect of it all...I think maybe I've erred in giving these lonely people an overabundance of time, thought, attention while not wanting too much in return. Now at 250ish days into this, I want one of them to hug me, tell me they're proud of me for quitting, maybe take me out for coffee to talk about it...it just stings that as I pass each milestone most of them will never understand what this all has meant to me. But how could they really, when they don't truly know or understand. I think with more time I will be able to venture out, initiate more, and engage people.

For some reason I just feel like licking my wounds right now. I feel like I need to have several good cries, but I'm gonna read your response a couple more times while I'm doing it.

HopeandFaith1

Yes it does! This whole self worth thing is freaking me out. While actively drinking I didn't feel I deserved attention or concern, and it was so much easier to bury myself in everyone else's problems. Maybe sometimes I still feel the same way, but I'm changing too...while everyone around me is more or less the same. It's kind of scary sometimes. I hope I like who I become a lot better than I liked who I was.

heartcore

I moved to New Orleans about a year and a half ago, relapsed here, & my whole first "set" of attempted friendships were drinkers (some quite self-absorbed & non-reciprocal in friendship). I have made some new friends now (not yet enough, but a good start), but my favorite & most reciprocal, sensitive, fun, & kind female friend in my life right now is a woman I met at AA.

She's a great person - interesting, creative, eccentric - but more than that - she is an excellent friend. She shares & receives, listens & speaks equally, thinks to reach out when something is challenging for me, thinks up an equal amount of fun adventures to share. I am deeply grateful to have found her. AA is a place to consider in the quest to find a giving friend. I met hundreds of people at meetings, but she turned out to be the treasure. A best friend. I wouldn't have guessed it that first day I met her in a meeting.

Maybe some places to seek a true friend might have a good statistic possibility when the people in those places are trying to build new, connected & meaningful lives also!

HopeandFaith1

Yes quality over quantity us an excellent way of putting it! I think I'm going to deactivate FB too. I did good about staying off of it when I first quit but it's creeped into my life again and I kick myself for it.

HopeandFaith1

I've never been to New Orleans but I've always read a lot about it, and it strikes me as a very mysterious, edgy place where anything can, and often does, happen. From what I know, I think it would be a super tough place to quit drinking. What a blessing that you've been able to meet a nice person also committed to sobriety. I'm sure it makes all the difference. Maybe I'll visit someday. I'd love to go visit the Villalobos rescue and some big, spooky cemeteries.

HopeandFaith1

Leshar

Helpful post for me. Thanks. I've lost friends since sobriety. It's lonely. Attempts to make new friends at my age, late 50s, female, single, have gone no where. Frustrating.

Frank14

I would certainly go with your gut and get off Fakebook. I deactivated my account and it was the best thing. Not only is it a total time-suck, but I think it's psychologically harmful. Almost all these people are not your "friends." They're simply people you've run into in your life. I'll tell you we have lost more friends than we gained by being on FB. Someone posts a picture of a party and you end up getting pissed off because you weren't invited. People bragging about their spouses or how great their friends are. No thanks!

Poppy79

Couldn't agree more Frank. It feels quite liberating to be free of FB and when people ask why I'm not on it, I am proud to tell them I much prefer interacting with my friends in person instead of via a billionaires computer program.