Beating My Addictions - The Friends I've lost Along The Way

One of the most surprising aspects of my journey into sobriety was the way a lot of my friends reacted during the different stages of the process. As I've mentioned before, despite being more or less addicted to alcohol for the last two decades of my live, I've always had a rather large group of good and often times even close friends. I'm not sure why that always has been the case to be honest, I consider myself to be more of an introvert, but for some reason a lot of people seem to like and also trust me.

When I started to realize that I didn't want to drink alcohol ever again, I kept that to myself for quite some time. Not that I expected any pushback or negative reaction to it, but I needed the time to really understand what I wanted to do myself and I also wanted to be sure that I really was going to see through with my decision. When I finally decided to start speaking about it to other people, I really expected a lot of positive reactions to it. Well, as it turns out, that was pretty far from what I would actually get.

Initially, there were mostly two distinct reactions. One group told me that I'd never see through with it and that I would eventually start to drink again, no matter what I would tell them right now. The other group was mostly compromised of the people that weren't aware of how much I was actually drinking during my average week. These people mostly told me, that I shouldn't make things too hard for me, that I wasn't drinking too much anyway, and that I just needed to find a good relation with alcohol.

Frankly, I couldn't blame them at that stage. I mean I've kept my alcoholism a secret from a lot of my friends and the ones that were aware of it were either the ones that knew me for the longest time or the ones I've only connected with through the consumption of alcohol in the first place. I mean if somebody that I knew had been drinking for 20 years came up to me and told me that he stopped drinking cold turkey and would never do it again, I wouldn't believe it either.

So actually, I took these responses as a sort of motivation. I would prove not only to me but also to all these people, that I was very well able and willing to stop drinking alcohol for good. And that's exactly what I did. Even during the most tempting of events, birthday parties, sports events, and so on, I didn't drink alcohol again. Oddly enough, even though I considered this to be a major win for myself, the reactions I got didn't get any better. Actually, if anything, they got worse over time.

Especially the people I had been drinking with reacted more and more rejecting to me. In many instances, I've been told that I was more fun when I was still drinking alcohol, that I'm getting boring and annoying for not having a drink with them, and so on. This was really odd to me, because I've never said a word about their own consumption of alcohol. While I had made the decision for myself, I was still perfectly fine with other people around me enjoying alcohol and having a, seemingly, good time.

But eventually, I had become the odd person in these events. Seems like it's simply not fun for drinkers to gather for a drink after work and have one person simply refuse to drink alcohol with them. Over time, some of my friends simply stopped asking if I wanted to come along for certain events while others actively tried to encourage me to have a drink with them again. It's crazy, but with alcohol, it's the only drug out there that you have to justify not taking.

Again, it's not I'm not getting it at all. Of course these guys knew me as a drinker ever since they met me. Of course this was a radical change to how I would operate, but it was still me down below. In that regard, I've came to the conclusion that some people really don't want to see you succeed, they don't want you to rise above what you are and they just want to keep you at your low. Maybe because it's easier for them to handle, maybe it's because it's more fun to them, and maybe they don't feel like they have to face their demons themselves if everybody is behaving the way they do.

Either way, eventually I realized that these friends weren't real friends and that I had to move away from them in order to keep improving. Among that group were some of my very closest friends and with these, I had long and some times frustrating discussions. In the end, only 2 guys from this group really accepted that I wasn't ever going to drink again and decided that we could and should still be friends. All the rest though is gone and while this is sad, it also was the right decision. Sometimes, you have to make room for new friends, people that are a better fit for your new life, and that's what I did there.

But there's also the group of friends that I haven't been drinking with, the ones that didn't really know about my drinking habit. Surely at least they would appreciate what I was doing over time. Some of them indeed did. Some did encourage me to keep pushing, celebrated my victories with me and generally, I'm closer friends with them than I probably have ever been with anybody since I was a child. These are the friends that really do care for me as a person more than for anything I do or don't do.

Still, there are also a lot of negative reactions from that side as well. Oddly enough, mostly from my female friends. Since I've quit alcohol I've lost about 6 kg, my abdominal circumference has gone down almost 10 cm now, I've gained muscle, I'm healthier than I've been in a long time. But most of what I hear from that group is how I'm just in my midlife crisis, how I'm over compensating, and how I'll be back to where I come from faster than I would know.

I mean yes, maybe it's a midlife crisis, maybe I am over compensating for what I did wrong the last 20 years. But really, what is wrong with it? What's wrong with getting in shape, with getting your life back under control? Mind you, among these people are very dear friends that I've had great relations with for many years. As with my "drinking friends", I'm not exactly sure what's the issue for them. At the same time, it's way harder for me to let go of them. I've tried to discuss it with some of them, but it usually gets laughed away, telling me they are only taunting me a bit.

Overall, sadly, my friends, or the people I considered to be my friends, reacted a lot more negative than I would have ever imagined. Even after 18 months of being sober, instead of being happy for me, a lot of them will only react negatively to the changes. I did however start to build new friendships, friendships built on actually shared interests instead of alcohol or lies. So who knows, I might lose more of the old friends I still have left, but I'm also going to find new ones and I'm confident that I'll keep at least some of my old friends. The ones that are actually friends at least.