Wondering about your opinions on this situation. I - and most of my friends - used to drink rather heavily. Those of us who golf would occasionally drink on the course, and always have a few - maybe more than a few - after golf. One of my buddies - Brian - quit 8 years ago. I stopped 2 years ago. We still hit the clubhouse bar afterwards, just drink lemonade, iced tea, or somesuch.
Over the weekend I was golfing with 3 other guys, and afterwards we ended up in the course bar. Long story short, Brian and Tommy shared a pitcher. Ron and I drank lemonade. When I asked Brian when he had started drinking again, he said this was his first in 8 years. I didn’t feel like it was my place to pressure him with questions, but it did sort of surprise me that he appeared to stop an 8-year streak so seemingly casually. If and when I have my next drink, I’d like to think it would not be a spur-of-the-moment decision.
The next day Ron - the 4th guy who was there (who also doesn’t drink) asked me if that really was Brian’s 1st drink in 8 years. I said I guessed so. Ron asked me what I thought about that and I responded, “It’s his decision.”
I don’t think there’s any real concern about Brian becoming a sot. He’s got a business that is doing great, his family and homelife seem better than any time in the 15 or so years that I’ve known him.
But I’m wondering how any of you would have dealt with a similar situation. Would you have said anything then? Would you follow up in any way?
Why did he quit in the first place?
It depends on whether or not he’s an alcoholic. Did he quit for 8 years because he was an alcoholic or did he just quit because he felt like it? If it’s the latter, then there’s probably nothing to worry about. If he’s been in recovery for 8 years, that’s a different story and he should probably call his sponsor or something, but even so, it’s really still his business and there’s nothing much you can do about it.
If you you happen to know that he’s an alcoholic, you might ask him what’s going on and gently suggest that he get back into recovery. You might even consider telling his wife that you saw him drinking. Other than that, you should probably stay out of it.
Yeah, and what manner did he employ to quit? Did he go the AA route or just stop cold-turkey without much fanfare?
If it was a big deal fo rhim to quit and he had to go through a program and get a lot of support to help him quit, I’d say a follow-up wouldn’t be a bad idea.
If he just stopped drinking because he wanted to stop drinking, and now is wanting to drink like a “normal” person (a few brews here and there, a glass of wine with dinner, sharing a pitcher after golf once a week, etc) then I wouldn’t press it.
I’m normally a guy who values his friends’ privacy above almost all else, but I have to agree with Diogenes here. If the guy is known to be a problem drinker, I’d at the very least talk to him about it.
Troy poses the key question. As an almost-sixteen-years-dry former, I’d also like to think that the first drink would require serious thought. My logical mind tells me that there’s nothing worth taking that drink. Used to think that the only possible situation that would warrant a drink would have to be my parents’ deaths. Since they’re both alive, that’s a fear that looms in the innermost recesses.
Imagining your scenario, I think I’d be worried IF the reason he quit was due to alcoholism. If he was just tired of the crap and it had not had many negative effects, or if he was simply avoiding empty calories, no big deal. If he was verging upon ruin and HAD to quit, different story.
Expound, please.
If the guy didn’t take any extravagant measures to quit drinking, don’t make too much of it. I once went 4 years without drinking for no particular reason - when I was out with my wife I was driving, I didn’t drink with the guys from work and had lost touch with my usual mates. One day I discovered a bottle of beer in the fridge left by a friend and it looked like ambrosia. So I sat in the sun and drank it.
After that I started keeping a few drinks on hand.
I would say it’s not really your concern. So he chose to have a beer and you’re surprised because he hadn’t drank in so long…it’s his life and his choice to make. The other thing is, how do you know it was casually? Who’s to say he hadn’t been planning on having a beer after golf and thought it would be nice to have his first drink in 8 years while with friends?
I know this won’t be popular to say, but even if he had been an alcoholic, one drink does not mean that he will be again. It is entirely possible to have had a problem and then be able to induldge occasionally. I’m well aware that AA says this is not so, but I have personally known people for whom it has been true. Absolutes are rarely absolute.
As to how I would respond, I might express some surprise that a non-drinker was having a drink but unless it seemed to be a problem for them, I wouldn’t pursue it further.
He stopped cold turkey, on his own. Same as me.
I would never have characterized him as an alky. (I’m not really interested in debating various definitions of alcoholism - or even whether it is a meaningful term.) He has always been about the hardest working and most responsible of my friends. I assume he went days, weeks without drinking. What bothered him was that on some of the occasions when he would drink, he would drink too much. I believe many/most such situations would occur after golf, playing cards, or at parties or holiday family gatherings. Once the beer/booze started to flow, he would on occasion overindulge.
Never had a DUI, never divorced or other undesirable work/family implications I am aware of.
IIRC, the one incident that led him to quit was after we had been in a golf outing, there was an open bar and we all pounded them down for a while. I guess he and one other guy stayed there and closed down the bar. He realized he was a married man responsible for a family, and had no business closing down a bar on a weeknight making passes at waitresses. So he stopped. Never attended an AA meeting or anything else. Never objected to anyone else drinking in front of him.
In the past few years, he started his own company, which has been doing extremely well. I assume he is feeling that he is in a different place than he was before, and so he was going to see if drinking moderately fit in with his new life.
We talk about everything, so I’ll probably ask him a question or 2 next time we golf together. It would certainly be relevant for me to bring up, because I have been “not-drinking” for the past 2 years. But based on a single episonde, I think it would be odd to make much of a deal out of it now. Certainly wouldn’t approach his wife - not to say anything bad about her, but she and I certainly are not close.
A friend of mine started again after nearly 13 years of sobriety. He went nuts. Completely nuts. Jailed numerous times in one day, ran over his friend’s mailbox, alienated his wife and all his friends. He went back to “ground zero” as if he’d never left.
Another friend of mine resumed drinking after a long recess, but was never what you’d call a bad drunk. More of a health thing I think. No problems there.
I guess it all depends on what kind of drinker the person is.
There’s a lot to be said for maturity, and 8 years can make a big difference. He may be able to start drinking again, only this time with moderation and responsibility. That he saw the problem on his own and successfully stopped drinking on his own says a lot about his self-control and responsibility, two things that most alcoholics don’t have while wet. I would not say anything unless I were to see him start up with the old drinking habits again.
Vlad/Igor
Satanic post #666
I had a guy do some work on my house one time. It was the second time he had worked on my house and we hit it off pretty well the first time. At the end of the day, I offered him a soda or a beer and he took a bottle of beer. After he took is first swig, he commented that he just broke fourteen months of sobriety. I felt like crap. He had confided to me earlier that he was going through a divorce and things were tough in his life at the moment.
Maybe three years later, I needed more work done so I gave him a call. We got to talking and it turned out that he was sober again for a year after a two year binge that started with the beer that I offered him. I don’t offer strangers drinks anymore.
The OP’s friend sounds like a different story but I would be a little concerned and pay attention to him just to be safe.
I quit drinking 11 years ago and, IMHO, if you make a big deal out of your first drink you are on your way to a bad place. I mean, who’s going to sit down and map out a strategy to start drinking again? That’s not good, man. My thought process was more “Yeah, why not? I’m certainly over the physical addiction, and these guys won’t let me go over the deep end since they have to face my wife if I’m wasted… Cripes that sucks! I used to drink this swill? I think I’ll just leave it on the bar and have another Diet Pepsi”
The main question has been asked, and if he wasn’t an alcoholic back then why would he be now? I was probably one when I quit, but I can have a beer or even, sometimes, two without turning into a roaring drunkard again. If he closed out the bar that night, staggered home singing Bob Seger tunes, and vomited on the porch, that’s not so good.
Obviously, I know nothing about this guy, and everyone who has had a drinking problem is different… blah blah… AA… YMMV, etc et al ad nauseum
Jeez, I hope he didn’t try to pin it all on you and make you feel guilty.
Not at all. He made a point of telling me that it wasn’t my fault.
Well good on him. I couldn’t tell from your post. Crazy story.
If the guy was not an alcoholic before, what’s the BFD? Since I turned 21, I have alternated between periods of not drinking at all for several years and periods of drinking socially and having a glass of wine every night after work. It’s not a big deal when I quit, and it’s not a big deal when I start again–it’s just a matter of what I feel like doing or not.
My dad had a problem with alcohol misuse (note: not alcoholism) in his 20s. When he was about 30, he took stock and decided it was time to moderate things. He is like me–alternates between periods of no drinking at all, and some social drinking/beer with pizza/a Scotch and soda on Friday evenings. Again, it’s not some momentous decision when he doesn’t have a drink for awhile–it’s just that he doesn’t feel like it.
All the focus on alcohol abuse in our society has been great for recognizing problems in people who have them, but it seems to create a tendency to see problems where they don’t exist. If your friend wasn’t an alcoholic before, and he isn’t having problems with his drinking now, I don’t see any reason for you to be worried that he made the decision to drink without giving it what you consider to be sufficient, grave thought.
I probably wouldn’t say anything because what he did (having a couple of drinks with friends) is normal behavior for a non-alcoholic adult. If I did ask him why he chose to start drinking again, it would be out of mere curiosity, and not because I had any concern about the issue.
It’s kinda tricky. I probably would have said something but would not dwell on it.
We had a friend who quit drinking about 10-12 years ago. Obviously we were all younger then; different lifestyles. He felt that he was letting alcohol interfere with his life, so he took it out of his life. The friend moved out of state but we kept in touch. My husband recently met him during a business trip, they went out together and the friend had a couple beers. The husband was a bit surprised but made no remark. I have a feeling the friend is fine. He needed to quit when he did, but he is now, in terms of maturity and spirituality, in such a different place; he is able to enjoy a couple drinks rather than 4 or 5.
My grandpa quit cold turkey after beginning one evening in NYC and waking up in Philadelphia. He did not drink for many, many years. The last ten years of his life he had a beer now and then and was fine.