Expert: Jan Edward Williams - 7/20/2009

Question
Hello:

My best friend and i have been social drinkers for 10 years. A few months ago we had a particularly bad night with the drinking that resulted her being taken to the hospital with alcohol poisoning. I wandered off and found my way home, however, i threw up all over myself and fell, broke my glasses and bruised my face. That incident scared me and i decided that i wanted to stop drinking for awhile and start an exercise program. I have lost 20 pounds, and have joined a gym to continue on my promise to myself to change. We went on vacation last week. She announced to me that she has decided to go to AA once we got back from vacation and that she perceived this vacation as the time for her last binge. I however, told her i was using the vacation time to jack up my work out and fitness level. I have started drinking a few nights a week and keeping it to like 2 glasses of wine when i do. I feel like i have turned it around for myself. So here we were on vacation with two completely different agendas. By the 4the day she had consumed 2 liters of tequila and i had barely touched a quarter of one bottle. We got into a disagreement which then escalated into a full fledged fight over her drinking.

I think it was really wrong of her to pick our vacation to do her last binge. I called her out on it but she is in denial and keeps projecting her issues onto me. The resulting argument has lead to the end of our friendship.

I guess my question is this, do alcoholics usually do their last binge in private or do they push it onto friends, family and lovers to deal with? I am really pissed and hurt because she expected me to be ok with her binge. She was so rude, mean and nasty to me in the heat of the drunken argument that its hard for me to even be in her presence. I'm curious about last binges and how i should handle/process this.

thank you


Answer
Hello Nicole,
You certainly are entitled to your pain and anger at your friend's behavior. I often say that the only general rule in regard to alcoholism is that there is no general rule. In my experience, alcoholics arrive at their last drink in disparate ways, with no general pattern in regard to setting, persons involved, etc. As you have experienced, those closest to the alcoholic are invariably hurt emotionally, if not physically. The disease of alcohol addiction is more powerful than loyalty to friendship, love for a significant other, even love for children. The alcoholic is often very self-centered, selfish, immature and childish, and full of excuses and external reasons for her behavior. Not a very pretty picture, but a realistic one. I guess it remains to be seen if your friend's last binge is truly that. As a ray of hope, I would offer that if she does stop drinking and becomes involved in AA, over time she will come to understand how her alcoholic behaviors have hurt people she cares about. With a good recovery she will become less self-centered and perhaps more capable of an intimate relationship.

By the way, if you are able to continue to drink just one or two, with no negatives over, say, six months or so, you will have gone a long way to proving to yourself that you do not have a problem.
Good luck to you.
Jan Edward Williams, MS, JD, LCADC
www.alcoholdrugsos.com
jwilliams@alcoholdrugsos.com