Inspired by the current similar thread in this forum regarding smoking.
Have you ever talked someone into sobriety?
True story. My friend passed me a bowl of potato chips. He happened to glance at me as I was taking a huge handful and stuffing them in my mouth. He quit drinking the next day.
So yeah. Not intentionally but…
I was talked into not drinking despite zero addiction, zero problems and generally zero issues over about 30 years. Mrs. B. is gobsmacked by a glass of wine and has never come to terms with someone who could drink a moderate amount and not show any real effects - so it’s been an episodic rant about how I need to quit. So every time, I have (basically by finishing or pouring out the drink in my hand), and somewhere around a year later she grumblingly admits that none of the “effects” she thought she was seeing had anything to do with my beer and bourbon tippling. So I’d take up the practice again… and some passage of time later, she has a new and completely overwhelming argument as to why I am drinking way too much… so I stop again.
A year in this time and I don’t plan to restart - not because I have the slightest issue with ethanol. Just tired of the cycle.
(Lest this sound like some sort of generic alcoholic denial, I can add - 100% truthfully - that the biggest impact alcohol has ever made in my life is that I am not available to drive on evenings I drink, which was occasionally a problem when someone had car trouble or the like. That, and perhaps two or three mild hangovers, mostly long ago, when I really indulged.)
“See? I slur my words, wreck my car and shit the bed when I’m not drinking, too!”
Missed the edit - that’s “…mostly long ago, on the rare occasions when I really indulged.” I was never a heavy/regular drinker at any time but there were a few neighborhood parties…
I don’t and never have exhibited any alcoholic, proto-alcoholic, dry-alcoholic or other behaviors. Mrs. B.'s case rests on things like my weight (which tends to rise slowly when I am not drinking), moodiness (which is for many reasons that don’t change with or without a measurable BAC) and her own intolerance, which she believes is universal and those of us who can tolerate a drink or two an hour are just lying about it.
My one attempt failed miserably.
My aunt and uncle always drank rather heavily. My uncle would have a couple of martinis on his lunch hour, and when he came home he and my aunt would have a few more in the course of nearly every evening, usually falling asleep in the chair or on the couch while watching TV. It wasn’t the drunken partying kind of drinking; they rarely went to or hosted parties. It was just their home routine.
When my aunt died unexpectedly just shy of 56 years of age, my uncle began a rapid and pronounced downward spiral. His drinking increased and started to affect his work, which it had never done up to that point. His employer offered to pay to put him in rehab, but he refused the offer. Ultimately, they had no choice but to fire him after 30+ years with the company.
The decline intensified even further after that, of course. I remember a day when I came to visit. He was a great guy and we always had a good relationship, but not generally one based on much in the way of showing true emotions. But I got up the courage that day to tell him that everyone in our small family was very worried about him, and urged him to get some kind of professional help.
He thanked me for my concern and then uttered the classic alcoholic-in-denial phrase: “I don’t think I have a problem.”
Within a year, he was dead. The official story from my cousin, his only child, was that she came to his house and found that he had slipped in the bathtub and bled to death. It’s never been discussed openly by anyone in the family, but a part of me has always wondered if the “accident” explanation is the truth.
See: William Holden. Precisely such a cause of death.
So, this thread was inspired by a post titled “Have You Ever Convinced Someone to Quit Smoking?”.
I wonder how long it will be before we see threads titled:
“Have You Ever Convinced Someone to Quit Taking Amphetamines?”
and
“Have You Ever Convinced Someone to Quit Sniffing Glue?”
Ah, Lloyd Bridges…
An ex-bf.
His drinking was way out of control and I told him if he started drinking around me I was going home. I never told him to stop drinking and for a while I didn’t know he had. All I knew was that he wasn’t drinking around me anymore
I think it only worked though because he knew it was out of control and he was ready to stop anyway. I gave him the final push he needed.
I got him to quit snorting coke as well. We hadn’t been dating long when he got into coke. That time I wasn’t nice, I told him he could have coke or he could have me but he couldn’t have us both. Once again, I think it was the timing. He knew he needed to stop, I gave him the push he needed. He thanked me later.