Back to the camping trip, if I may—
to me, the difference between this and a night at someone’s house or a restaurant or someplace else where he might be exposed to alcohol is the expected duration of the trip. If he goes to a party at someone’s house and realizes that he is uncomfortable with others drinking, well, then he just leaves. But if he’s on a camping trip, he can’t just up and leave as easily, and not without possibly ruining the trip for his family.
[QUOTE=Hakuna Matata]
I think you are reading more into this then is intended. I believe what he is saying is that he doesn’t go out with his buddies by himself. If he goes out his wife goes out with him. So if he was going to drink he does it while she is with him and thus having a partner who drinks is an important element in his choice of partner–a very reasonable stance. I believe this was in response to your comment about in your situation you would go drinking with your buddies.
But I am sure he will be back to clarify his position soon enough 
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Yes, that was exactly what I was saying. Thanks.
[QUOTE=tdn]
Why did you all caps “wife”?
[/quote]
You were talking about “girlfriends.” The point of my capitalizing “wife” was I wanted to get through to you that my significant other truly is the love of my life, and her overall well-being is my highest priority in every situation. You seemed to question that a bit, and frankly, it’s complete garbage. It was a very indirect way of telling you to knock that off.
Because you implied that you’d only drink with “your buds on nights you didn’t see her.” I was trying to show you that there aren’t nights I don’t see my wife. If I’m going to be drinking, it’s with her.
[QUOTE=Dinsdale]
Well, these questions get to those details that are so tough to flesh out in a message board. Different people drink different amounts in different situations. And I agree, good friends and family generally should agree to inconvenience themselves to help one another. So a lot has to do with this particular group’s dynamics and history.
One of my buddies is having a big rib cookout down by the lake this weekend for like the 15th year in a row. Every year they have had a keg, and every year folks who chose to smoke pot did so (tho generally discretely as more and more folks began bringing kids.) No reason for me to expect these folks to change their practices, simply because I changed my habits.
Similarly, I know another group who goes on a yearly camping/rafting trip. As I understand it, they get pretty ripped. If one member chooses to stop indulging, I see his best options are pretty much to deal with it or not go.
Re: the “societal obligation” and default assumption, I think the obligation is personal between the individuals or among the small group/society. And I generally feel the greater obligation lies with the individual who made the change such that he is acting differnetly than the group historically has. If I decide to become vegetarian or Jewish, it would take a lot of nerve for me to show up at this weekend’s ribfest and start complaining that they didn’t have anything I could eat.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, sure, but this case we have eight adults and three kids - probably not the annual “lets go out in the woods and get lit” campout. Bailey’s family is “bringing along” a friend - which I’m taking to mean that the friend insisting on the alcohol is more a tag along rather than part of the core group of campers. There isn’t anything about this particular campout that’s making me think that its an event that has alcohol as a core component - the other six adults don’t seem to think its a big deal one way or the other - or that Bailey’s friend is in a position to demand that alcohol is a core component.
My bookclub gets together and drinks wine. If I decide to stop drinking I probably would excuse myself from bookclub for a while. I’d be pleased with my friends if they said “we don’t need the wine, we’d rather have you” but it wouldn’t be something I’d insist on. And if one of our other members had a drinking problem, I’d suggest we switch to tea. But most of us have been part of the group for over ten years. If someone new to the group (or periphrial to the group) showed up at the next meeting and insisted we not drink, I’d have a problem with that. Likewise, if we dropped the wine for someone and someone new came along and insisted we drink, I’d have a problem with that too.
I think what gets me is Bailey’s friends’s sense of entitlement - or the sense of entitlement I read. She has every right to drink, but she really shouldn’t be insisting on changing the dynamics of the group - any more than the guy in recovery should. And if the way the group works needs to change, it should either change to the person with the greatest need (in this case the alcoholic) or the person more central to the group (which I’m reading to be someone other than her).
Once in a while we get a newbie on this board who makes a big post in the pit about how we should all change. Naw, we shouldn’t - we like the way we are. Not for some guy who showed up yesterday. Once in a while we get a member of the community who needs a little extra TLC in how we treat them - and - not all of us - but most of us adapt. We don’t poke so hard, we give a little extra consideration.
OK, I can see what you’re saying. I didn’t mean to imply that you don’t love your wife. But it looks like drinking with your buds is a part of your life that you don’t want to give up, and you want your wife to be there, so it’s important that she shares in that.
For my part, I like drinking with my friends, but I don’t place a huge importance on it. If I have to go stag, I’ll do so. But I’m perfectly fine being with a woman who doesn’t want me to drink around her. It’s a compromise I can live with.
[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
Once in a while we get a newbie on this board who makes a big post in the pit about how we should all change.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, where is Little Miss Bodhisattva? [/snark]
ETA: Last sighting three months ago, in a “things you dislike about the Dope” thread. :rolleyes:
[QUOTE=twickster]
Yeah, where is Little Miss Bodhisattva? [/snark]
ETA: Last sighting three months ago, in a “things you dislike about the Dope” thread. :rolleyes:
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I wasn’t even thinking about anyone in particular, there have been so MANY over the years. But it was nice snark.
(“I don’t like this place, you are all so MEEEAAAAN!”)
[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
I wasn’t even thinking about anyone in particular, there have been so MANY over the years.
[/QUOTE]
God yes. I found her particularly annoying, though. [/ot]
[QUOTE=nonymouse]
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
[/QUOTE]
My father was an alcoholic as is my brother. Both are (were) in AA. I understand completely. The point is that this isn’t a support group. It isn’t close family or even spouses. It’s a camping party. If the newly sober can’t handle drinking in public, he should avoid those situations so everyone else can enjoy normal camping activities.
[QUOTE=Don’t fight the hypothetical]
My father was an alcoholic as is my brother. Both are (were) in AA. I understand completely. The point is that this isn’t a support group. It isn’t close family or even spouses. It’s a camping party. If the newly sober can’t handle drinking in public, he should avoid those situations so everyone else can enjoy normal camping activities.
[/QUOTE]
The issue I see is that we don’t know if drinking is a normal camping activity for these people. I’ve been camping with groups of people for whom it is, and groups of people for whom it isn’t.
If this is the annual “lets go into the woods and get lit” campout, the expectation that alcohol will be there is reasonable and the guy in recovery has to decide if he should go or not.
If this is “hey, lets take our families camping” I would assume (in my group of friends) that no one would bother to bring any beer. Since most of those things happen in State Parks (I don’t go, I don’t like to camp), alcohol isn’t even permitted, so I’m finding the “drinking is a normal part of camping” mystifying.
[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
The issue I see is that we don’t know if drinking is a normal camping activity for these people. I’ve been camping with groups of people for whom it is, and groups of people for whom it isn’t.
If this is the annual “lets go into the woods and get lit” campout, the expectation that alcohol will be there is reasonable and the guy in recovery has to decide if he should go or not.
If this is “hey, lets take our families camping” I would assume (in my group of friends) that no one would bother to bring any beer. Since most of those things happen in State Parks (I don’t go, I don’t like to camp), alcohol isn’t even permitted, so I’m finding the “drinking is a normal part of camping” mystifying.
[/QUOTE]
I think if that unknown was known, this thread would probably be 60 posts smaller.
[QUOTE=DudleyGarrett]
I think if that unknown was known, this thread would probably be 60 posts smaller.
[/QUOTE]
Indeed. We just don’t know enough about the situation.
There is an astonishing amount of hostility in this thread.
Who has the right to drink? When do they have the right to drink? How dare you expect me to not drink!
This all started as a question about a couple of families going camping. My assumption, and I admit it is just an assumption, is that this is a group of pretty good friends. Friends watch out for each other - at least in my world they do. That’s why I still think that having booze on this trip might be a bad idea. But it was really great that someone found out what the newly sober guy felt about it.
People get sober in different ways. People relapse in different ways. In AA, (I think) you’re supposed to stick with your social support and (I know) stay away from the places where you drank. Kind of hard to balance with a family if you drank at home, I imagine.
Unlike other folks here, I don’t see any of this as treating the guy like he’s a weak little butterfly, or whatever the phrase was. I see it as respecting him and the positive choices he’s made in his life.
It doesn’t mean that he’s controlling everyone else’s behavior, or that everyone has to tiptoe around this part of his life. It’s something that people need to get used to. It will change over time. He might say it’s ok to have booze there, and then relapse because of it. OK, then he and booze and camping don’t mix, adjust as needed. Or it may be fine and five years later nobody even thinks about it when they whip out the bourbon.
And if this isn’t the way someone else needed to be treated when they stopped drinking, fine. All it means is that friends care. Nothing to get mad about.
I care about this a lot right now because I’ve lost someone I really loved to addiction. I’ve been through the whole no drinking, can’t go see live music, can’t eat in certain restaurants, etc. thing. Now it’s at the point where if I see him or if he tries to contact me I’ll call the police. It’s horrible and heartbreaking. And my heart is broken. And that’s what a junkie does.
I agree with herownself = this is about a guy who is going camping with friends and he is 90 days sober. Good for him! Ask him if he is comfortable if you bring some beer, and be done with it. Jeez! Heck I’ve been sober several years now, and I get squirrely sometimes and you know what I do? I act like a grown man and get out of the situation or make the situation bearable. You know what I would have done if I wasn’t sober and got into a dicely situation. Drank.
That’s no longer an option.
Look folks that can drink normally are in abundance. And I applaud you, if you don’t have a problem I do not expect you to understand someone who does. Unless you have studied or cared about someone who does and took the time to understand. But please, for the love of OG don’t think you understand every drunk as being the same because let me assure you we are not. I wasn’t an asshole before I got sober, and I wasn’t one after. Many of us aren’t. We go on to live long happy lives after sobriety, I love it and wouldn;t give it up for anything.
[QUOTE=Phlosphr]
I wasn’t an asshole before I got sober, and I wasn’t one after.
[/QUOTE]
Well, I didn’t know you before, but …
Let us make sure that this thread remains on the IMHO side of the Pit line, please.
[QUOTE=Frank]
Let us make sure that this thread remains on the IMHO side of the Pit line, please.
[/QUOTE]
Sorry , man.
I assumed he knew I was kidding.
Shoulda tossed in a wink or a smile.
If I were going on such a camping trip, I’d leave the alcohol at home, just as I would leave the sweets at home if someone were newly diagnosed as diabetic, or I’d leave the cookies behind if someone were newly diagnosed with Celiac sprue, or I’d leave the slot machine behind if someone was trying to stop gambling.
There isn’t anything intrinsic in camping that makes alcohol necessary. It isn’t like saying, “I’m allergic to leaves. Let’s go camping!”