Sure, but as you said, everyone’s sobriety is different. My sister’s was less than completely voluntary and she doesn’t really accept the alcoholic label (well, maybe today she does - she’s gone back and forth) - because she can comfortably have a glass of wine occasionally for months and months - and then gets drunk, stays drunk for three months, loses her job, gets sober, gets her life in order and the cycle starts over. We’ve come to accept that until SHE takes complete control, this will be it…but WE don’t want to be the “Christmas dinner she has one too many and doesn’t stop.” And I don’t see why anyone WOULD want to be involved in the “fall off the wagon” moment. If she wants to fall off, she’ll do it without my help, encouragement or booze. Even if she gives us her permission.
It is a really important life skill for alcoholics to learn to be around people drinking. Its an advanced important life skill for alcoholics to be around JERKS who are drinking. This sounds to me like more of the second, but maybe I’m reading too much into the word “asshole.”
No, I don’t think it would be craptastic. I think everybody in your scenario is perfectly within their rights to drink and to bring alcohol. I even think the parents of the kids are perfectly within their rights to give the kids some if they are so inclined.
That said, I would myself not bring alcohol this particular time. It’s no loss to me, and at worst neutral for the friend’s husband. The alternative is no particular gain to me and a loss to the friend’s husband (not to mention the friend and/or anybody else affected). Which doesn’t really appeal.
Gee, thanks for the lengthy and thoughtful response! Did it take you a while to compose that?
Sure, in a large group of people, one can’t let a sole person dictate the activities of others. But in a small group of intimate friends? You respect each others’ comfort levels. This is what keeps me from lighting up in the homes of non-smokers. This is what kept me from getting plowed in the presence of a former GF who was in recovery.
Call BS if you want, but your crude opinion is not going to get me to be an insensitive jerk to my friends.
Sure, people should be able to go 24, 48 hours or longer w/o drinking, and shouldn’t feel they need to drink to enjoy camping or just about any other activity.
But IMO there is absolutely nothing wrong with adults drinking responsibly. I sense that people who make comments such as this are confusing someone’s preference to bring some alcohol on a camping trip, with an inability to abstain for that length of time.
Wrong, what stops you from lighting up in their homes is the understanding that it is THEIR home. This would make more sense if you said, “I don’t smoke in the presence of non-smokers because they might feel uncomfortable and I’m concerned with that.” Which would make you a liar.
Smoking in the non-smoker’s home is just impolite. Just like bringing alcohol to a non-drinker’s home, without asking first, is rude.
This situation however fits neither of those. It’s a camping trip. In the woods. In the public.
Wait, are you saying that you have a dependency on alcohol that you need an excuse NOT to drink?
If your friends thought that you were an insenstive jerk because you brought beer with you to a camping trip, then I’d say your friends were a little over-sensitive.
Depending on who this guy is (e.g., the primary trip organizer), I think I would let him know that people intend to drink. Ask if he is comfortable with that. If he’s not, he can opt out of the trip and perhaps go another time when he’s a bit stronger about being sober around drinkers.
I really have no idea if this is appropriate, but would it help the guy if you at least keep the alcohol out of his sight (e.g., keep all bottles stashed away, pour all booze out of sight, drink beer out of sports bottles instead of beer bottles, etc.)?
Dinsdale and DudleyGarrett: I have to say, you guys are coming off as being astonishingly ignorant about alcoholism and recovery. Especially early recovery. We are not talking about a willpower thing or a pulling up by the bootstraps man-up sort of deal. We are talking about a primary, chronic progressive disease.
In early recovery, it really is not about treating the recovering addict or alcoholic as some fragile hothouse flower that needs to be protected from himself, it is about being supportive of a persons efforts to arrest a fatal condition. Granted, I am not sure what someone in early recovery would be doing putting themselves in that sort of a situation, but that may be another topic for another day.
So, given the stakes, why not broach the subject? What is so wrong about that? To be honest, you guys are really coming of as being of the totally outdated and factually wrong school of thought that this is somehow a condition related to bad willpower or poor morals or something.
Liar? Huh? You’ll have to explain that one. But while I might smoke in the presence of non-smokers, I try to be aware of their comfort level with it. I usually ask if it’s OK.
But please explain why you think I’m a liar. Are you somehow asserting that I actually do light up in people’s homes?
Sure, but a campsite is little more than a makeshift home. Why would the absence of walls make any difference? I can see your point if this is a huge campsite covering an acre and with a hundred people in attendance. But in my experience, camping is two to eight close friends gathered around a fire. It’s no different than a living room but with really uncomfortable furniture and poor lighting.
Huh? No. That’s not what I’m saying.
On many occasions we’d go to a party or restaurant, and I’d have the opportunity to have a beer or glass of wine. I abstained because I didn’t want to make the woman I loved uncomfortable. Is that really so wrong in your book?
I thought what I said was clear. I wouldn’t light up in a non-smoker’s home and I wouldn’t open a beer in a non-drinker’s home, just like I wouldn’t walk into someone’s bedroom and take a nap. THAT behavior is rude and imposing, because you must respect others’ homes.
What if someone quit smoking and went to a camping trip to which you were invited? Would you leave your cigarettes at home?
I said that if you were concerned with every non-smoker, regardless of venue, around when you lit up, you’d be a liar.
But it’s not THEIR living room. It’s a public space. Everyone going to the campsite should understand this as being fundamental.
Actually, it is. If someone felt uncomfortable in my presence because I had a beer or a glass of wine, then I’d choose not to be with that person.
That is a false analogy. Presumably if you are a smoker you are physically addicted to tobacco just as the ex smoker was. In the case of alcohol specifically, presumably you are not psychically addicted to it and it would cost you nothing to be supportive of someone who is one of the minority of users that become so addicted.
No, my having a beer or two or a glass of wine or two makes absolutely no difference to you, other than your having weird control issues. If I enjoy it in moderation and I’m an adult, why would you care?
You’re really confusing this concept of “must have” with “enjoy.”
And yet you suggested that I have a drinking problem?
The fact was, it was more important to me to make the love of my life comfortable than to have a beer. That was my choice and I stand by it. I wasn’t going to break up with her merely so I could have a beer.
I don’t think that you read my post much past the part where you saw that I was disagreeing with you and that you wanted to take a sarcastic swipe at me. But on the off chance that I was somehow not clear, allow me to expand on the point that I was making.
You posit a case of a smoker refraining from smoking around someone who is trying to quit and then compare this to a normal drinker abstaining around an alcoholic. This is very much an apple and orange situation. Here is why.
The smoker is still pyisically addicted to tobacco. The normal drinker, presumably, is not addicted to alcohol. In other words, it would cost the smoker discomfort to refrain from smoking around the “recovering” ex-smoker whereas it would cost the normal drinker (who presumably can take it or leave it) nothing.
Also, I am not sure where you read that I didn’t know that people can get pyisically addicted to alcohol. I am a freaking alcoholic and have experienced this first hand.
Cool. All I know about is my experience stopping drinking. And you have absolutely no info as to this guy’s previous drinking practices, and why he chose to quit.
I guess this sorta goes to my reasons for thinking the term “alcoholism” and many aspects of 12-step programs are of limited utility. For me, it was entirely “a willpower thing.”
Of course, you might wish to re-read the first sentence of my first post in this thread. #14.
To be respectful I think Bailey should ask. Similarly, to be respectful I think the dry guy shouldn’t expect his choices to inconvenience his friends.
But what I’m getting at is the love of MY life doesn’t concern herself with trivial things. If she did, she wouldn’t be the love of my life. Hint: these are potential deeper problems like those of which you speak.
Now, would I get completely shitfaced around her? Well, usually not. But we did go to a wine tasting a couple weekends ago… and she had her fair share as well. We walked. We enjoyed ourselves just as much as we did the night before in our quiet living room reading Karl Popper and discussing the falsifiability of science.
If she said, “Hey, let’s go, but let’s not get too hammered, ok?” My response would be, “No problem. We’ll have one or two, if that.” She’s never said that, though, because usually there are factors that dictate this on their own such as whether or not I’m driving, the dynamics of the social situation, the duration of the get-together, the time of day, etc.
So physical addiction makes it OK to inconvenience those trying to quit or have quit? Physical addiction trumps others’ comfort levels?
I’m trying to understand why you’re asserting that some reasons are OK while others aren’t.
What if I was an alcoholic, who was physically addicted to booze, and I was invited to said camping trip? Would it then be perfectly fine for me to show up with my booze?
I talked to my old neighbor lady and her old grandson is currently trying to not drink, because his just about dead from it. Her daughter can’t drive now, because she finally got caught driving drunk and she has to stay sober. Both these people would be drinking the moment it was near them. I happened to read the local police calls for last Friday I think. There were five woman that were arrested at bars for drinking, which was a violation of their probation. They couldn’t resist drinking to avoid their prison term. Call them weak willed, it doesn’t matter that you think their pussies, they can’t stop drinking if it’s available. I’m curious if this friend that wants to drink is a last minute addition.