How to be Sober and Keep Your Friends by Flic Everett

Author:Flic Everett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Quadrille Publishing Ltd
Published: 2019-07-22T16:00:00+00:00

Don’t preach

Yes, you may well feel better, you may have seen the light, banished evil booze from your life and feel certain that if only your loved ones would do the same, you could all skip through rainbows down the yellow brick road to Paradise City.

This may be the case – but nobody likes an evangelist, and if they have chosen to drink, that’s their ‘journey’ and it’s up to them if or when they stop.

I asked my partner a few months in whether I’d changed since I gave up drinking. I was expecting ‘Wow, yes, you’re even more amazing’, but he thought for a bit and said, ‘You’re a bit more… judge-y.’

Crushed and chastened, I realised he was right. I had turned into a booze-nag, forever pursing my lips when he poured another and murmuring, ‘Are you sure you want to finish the bottle?’ after dinner. I had mistaken my personal desire to stop drinking for a universal one.

Of course, if your partner has problems with alcohol, wants to stop but can’t or becomes unpleasant when drunk, that’s not about nagging – you have to decide whether to stick around and be supportive, or get the hell out.

And yes, it’s annoying when your loved one is merrily making their way down a bottle of something on a Tuesday night, getting irritatingly tipsy, while you’re stone-cold sober; again, you have the option of going to bed, reading a good book or just chatting back, marvelling like an anthropologist at how alcohol impacts the human brain.

The bottom line is, it’s not your brain, it’s theirs – and if they want to drink, they can. Don’t ruin your good work by turning drinking into a good versus bad situation. It’s a ‘better for you at the moment’ versus ‘someone else’s choice’ situation – no matter how close you are.

However, that doesn’t mean you can’t tell them how great you feel without it.

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