Steve: In this episode you’ll hear about what changes we have experienced in our friendship since getting sober.

Once we take alcohol out of the equation, we begin to see that some friendships fall by the wayside while others really begin to thrive.

We talk about making new friends, about accepting the loss of old friends and we talk about how we’ve become more kind and present in our friendships. Throughout the discussion, we prove that sobriety is the pathway to authentic friendships.

Julie: Before we get into the episode, if you enjoy the content here, we just ask that you take a minute to rate us or leave a review on your favorite podcast platform because it really does make a big difference in how many people get to hear the episode.

We are here tonight with our friends.

Debs, Ben and Brian, I’m gonna have you guys all introduce yourselves first really quick. Debs, do you want to go first?

Debs: Yeah. Hi listeners, I’m Debs, I am, I’ve just turned 60 last week, I am in Melbourne, Australia and I have been sober for 22 a half months, so January will be two years. My background was in sort of sales and management and I think we can all agree it was kind of stressful in a very high drinking environment. I think I’ll just leave it at that for now.

Julie: That would be a hard one to break out of a happy birthday too by the way.

Debs: Thank you.

Steve: Happy birthday

Debs: We’ve done the singing.

Julie: Um so next we’ll have Ben introduced yourself.

Ben: My name is Ben, I’m 44 years old and I live in New Hampshire, I’m currently at 403 days sober and got a wife a couple of boys and uh yeah, that’s it

Julie: awesome, thank you for being here.

Steve: Thanks for being here, Ben

Julie:And then Brian Who’s back for the 4th time I believe.

Brian: Fine, yes, thanks for having me back. My name is Brian, I am 131 days sober, This is my fourth time trying to get sober. I’ve been on this journey since 2015 I live in Northern New Jersey. I have two young daughters and I’ll keep it short and sweet too.

Julie: Awesome. Cool, Thanks for being back. It’s really nice to see you all. for a topic tonight, as we move further along in our recovery, we see the skills we learn begin to filter out into our relationships. Sometimes this affects our relationships in a positive way and sometimes it makes them more difficult to navigate. Tonight we’re going to focus on friendships. How have your friendships changed throughout your recovery? What are some of the benefits and what are some of the difficulties that you’ve experienced?

Debs: Oh, I can start with this one. And the reason I can is for your listeners, you guys know that the listeners don’t, I relocated from America back to Australia and I’ve been in America 20 odd years. And even though I traveled back and forth, my friends have never experienced me drinking.I mean sorry, they’ve experienced me drinking a lot. I mean sober! I got drinking on the brain because we’re talking about it, but they’ve never seen me sober in my entire life and I thought this is going to be interesting.

It’s been varied. My closest friends to me have been extremely supportive. In fact, one my very best friend, her son went up to her and said, hey mum, has Auntie Debbie changed? and it’s really interesting that their perspective of you because my first thought when I was going to give up drinking was oh God, I’m gonna be so boring, what am I going to do?

You know? It was like, I needed the drink because I thought that that made me vivacious and upbeat and social and all the things that we think alcohol does and it just completely lies to us and she said, no, she’s exactly the same. She’s just a better version, which was really nice because she’s known me since she was 14.

My other girlfriend turned around and said that I’m not a people pleaser anymore. Just out of the blue the first time she had seen me and that was, that was really interesting that you picked that up. And I had another girlfriend who I saw when I first arrived back home who she sort of on the outer circle of my friendships, but she was always someone that I would sit, drink, do long lunches and talk with and basically drink a lot with. I went to lunch with her and when I was telling her about doing podcasts and you know, all the things that we do with Zooms and everything, she said to me to get a life, Which was really interesting and she cut the lunch. I think she lasted an hour and 10 minutes and normally we would be there four hours.

So you know, it’s very, but the ones that mattered to me that were closest, we’re definitely so supportive and said good on you. And as a result my best friend’s husband is now 80 days sober. He rang me and said I have an issue, can you help me? So you never know right? It’s been a mixed bag. But hey, I’ll take it.

Julie: That is really cool. Especially about her husband. That’s just really neat. That’s really inspiring. You never know who needs to hear your story. It’s so cool.

Debs: Yeah. And when you get to the stage where you own it, there is no shame in this game because you become such a better version of yourself, I know that I am a better friend, they can trust me more. Even my sister, you know, there was a point where I’ve said it before, where she wouldn’t have allowed her young children to get in the car with me. Now that’s not an issue.

And the greatest thing as I said has come out of sobriety is I can trust myself as well. You know, and after a while you don’t miss it because you don’t want to go back to feeling all the negatives, the anxiety. Especially the anxiety that alcohol brought into my life in addition to work, it was almost debilitating, you know, but I know now that I am a better listener than I was before and I’m a lot of different in some aspects, but I really realized I’m not as extrovert as I thought I was, you know, I’m quite happy to sit back and then there are certain people, I’ve been to a lot of social functions lately where I sit back and just go, oh my God, you’re full of shit and I think to myself how hypocritical because I think that used to be you, you see a lot of what you used to be like in others and they’re not attractive traits, they’re just not,

Steve: it’s interesting, isn’t it, when you see that and you’re like, oh crap, that was me and then and then you realize how unattractive it actually is too. You’re just like whoa, you see all of the habits and all of the same mannerisms and the same… you could pack that all in one night and you’re like, wow, that was that was me, you know, five years ago and you can see it unfold. You could literally see it unfold the whole the attitude change, the repetition, the, you know, it’s just makes you glad that you’re not there anymore,

Debs: you know, and there’s a pretense around it too, you know, people have said, I feel like we passed the syndrome, I never did, I just thought it was just, especially here in Australia, it was just part of growing up, but I didn’t need the enhancement, that’s the whole thing that just put me into the kind of revolting stage, to be honest with you and there are no with people that are drinking now and if you’re in denial that’s fine, you know, some people I know will never wake up. A lot of people have defended themselves and said, well I don’t have a problem straight away and I haven’t even said anything except that I’m not drinking. But some people still think they can moderate when I think we can all look at some of our friends and say you can’t, but that’s not up to me to tell you. You know, I can actually see now where exactly all my friends are in their, in their level of drinking and the majority of them do have an issue, but as like with myself took me a long time to actually get to the point of saying, you know what enough’s enough. I’m tired of being sick and tired.

Julie: I think you went, you talked about worrying about if you were going to be fun or what that would be like when you quit and I know for me I used it to be more outgoing and to be more fun and all of those things that I felt like I needed to be and I’ve just started realizing I don’t have as much fun with some people now because the fun was me being drunk and being the entertainment. And now that I don’t do that, it’s just not as much fun to spend time with some of those people and at first I thought that meant I’m really actually not very much fun without alcohol, but then I realized a bunch of us sober folks met up in Moab and I was fun.

I had a blast. Everybody had a blast. I feel like I was a fun person to be around. I actually verified that with a couple of people because I’m so self conscious about it, but it turns out, I am kind of fun to be around, I just have to be around the right friends. I have to be around real friends that that I can actually interact with and I thought that was really interesting. I’m not as boring as I thought I was

Brian: First of all, you’re, you’re very much an extrovert, so I don’t know what you were talking about there, I don’t care what you say, but I will.

Uh yeah, uh, maybe you were more so when you were anyway, um I’ll go, so I uh everyone that I’ve told, I’m not, I’m not like come out and announced it to the world like on social media or anything like that, that, you know, it being that I’m sober, but I’m also not being shy about telling people, especially if it comes up organically.

So, so I live in Northern New Jersey, but I work, my employer is based in the Washington Dc area in northern Virginia and I travel back there periodically and I lived there for like 14 years after college, so a lot of friends down there still, and when I go back, there’s certainly opportunity of people while you’re back in town and inevitably it’s like, let’s, you know, we get a drink or happy hour or you know, even going out for dinner, but there’s drinks involved.

So when that comes up, I’ll certainly say, you know, I mean if it’s dinner, that’s one, depending on what what it is, I’ll say either, I’m sure, but you know, I’m not going to drink and you know, that will come up or I’ll just say no thanks if it’s a happy hour or something, I just don’t want to put myself in that position. Everyone’s been very supportive.

So I guess that’s you know, long, long winded way of saying that to a person, everyone’s been very cool.

No one’s I I know there are stories out there about pressure to start, you know what, I’m going to get the old, you know someone so back or whatever.

I haven’t experienced that yet and hopefully I don’t.

So so that’s that’s very cool.

I’ve always had a very small circle of friends though. I don’t, I’ve never been a super social person, so I’m maybe not as exposed and in terms of those situations coming up because I just, I don’t, I don’t I don’t have a big group of friends. But I do agree with what you just said Julie, even though my group of friends might be small when, when I go back to Virginia, I find there there are certain people that I just don’t, I could connect with and hang out with when I’m down there for a week or whatever and I don’t and there are people appear in New Jersey that I really haven’t even gotten to try to know and it’s because whereas in the past I would have, but I guess what I’m going with, this is a lot of and this feels kind of cliche to say um I feel like um but a lot of the people that I hung out with, you know, if it wasn’t all about drinking, drinking was certainly very prominent, you know, part of the relationship and probably something that was always there, whether we were getting together just to drink or whether we were getting together to, you know, watch, watch the football game or or play soft, but whatever, but there was alcohol was always, I mean almost always involved.

So I think that’s very much what you said Julie, like I find like I need to find a new at 46 years old, a new group of friends, they weren’t bad friends before, but just that one big prominent commonality was drinking and now without that it is a little awkward and so yeah, I think, I think finding a new group of friends is kind of where I’m at right now and I am, it’s very much virtual, but I am finding it, I’m finding it online and with, with the sober community connections that I’ve been making.

Julie: It’s like impossible though at our age to just go out and find new friends.

Like I’m so envious of people like Debs who have that long standing friendship or, or in your case, like a circle of friends that you’ve had since you were teenagers, you guys have been through everything together and Steve and I have talked about that too, I moved around a lot during those teenage formative years, so those friendships just never really hung on and then, I mean since then I’ve moved a few more times and it is really hard just to make friends. Where do most people find friends?

I mean these days at our age, most people find friends like at the bar, which just isn’t an option. There’s not like play groups for 40 year olds, which is a shame because I feel like that could be a lot of fun, but um there’s just no way to, to meet people. It’s a really hard part of this, especially when you start, I guess finding your true self and figuring out what kind of friends you really need. You can’t just like go out and pick some up.

It’s, it’s really hard to do.

Steve: Yeah, there’s a lot of putting yourself out there and just seeing what kind of sticks when you’re kind of in our situation where, you know, you’ve traveled around a fair amount so have I, like you said in the teens in formative years where bounced around enough that insecure enough to, where actually making that authentic friendship that hang that, that hangs around.

I know what you’re saying Brian about, you know, the friendships that essentially alcohol based and as soon as the alcohol disappears, so does the friendship, they almost went hand in hand and then the connection,

Brian: it’s just, it’s sad, like I’ll be quick, but the one of the guys that I was best friends with in Virginia, like what he came to my wedding, I went to his wedding, I worked, we worked together and he left my company in June 2015 was his last day and it was at his happy hour that I got so drunk and had that, that it was his going away party, that that was like the, you know, the catalyst for me, you know what I did, there was the catalyst for me getting sober the first time I’ve not seen, that’s not true. I saw him once at a, in a professional setting, but I’ve not seen that guy and I mean, I really felt like we were good, like, I mean, I think we were good friends, but it’s just like, and I had opportunities and I still do when I go back, I could reach out to him, but it’s like he would be, he would be, I mean, I think he knows I’m sober and it would be fun. I don’t know, it’s just, it’s just like, damn, this is what I have, you know, this this relationship is based was based on drinking and I don’t know.

So it’s it’s a shame I guess, but

Steve: it’s a shame.

I think there’s you have the winds and you have the losses and what’s gonna serve you is gonna stick and what isn’t is gonna fall away and then new shows up, I’ve always found new has shown up somewhere or someone old has come out because I’m now talking about what I’m going through and there’s, there’s there was friendships where I never had a connection at all and then someone reached out to me because I’m fairly loud about my sobriety and that’s made someone feel comfortable enough because they know my story and I don’t know theirs and it’s given them the courage to say, hey, because I had a friend do this and it wasn’t, it was more of an acquaintance than anything else, but just say, hey, I have a problem too and kind of like what you were saying, Debs. His isn’t the same as ours, but it doesn’t really matter.

I’ve had someone come out and send me a message and say I have mental health problems and your podcast is is great. Just even for that, it’s not even just for you know, people with that are dealing with an addiction, it’s just great to hear this conversation. So I mean you never know, you never do,

Debs: you don’t ever know.

And the reason I say that is um you know, I moved around a lot to Julie, but I moved around like when I was in primary school and high school was when I, when I say my close friendships, I have to, that is extremely close to me. I don’t have a lot of immediate close friends, but I know a lot of people around the world because I’ve traveled a lot and when I was in San Diego and I’d lived there, When I came out on Facebook and just said I was 20 months sober. I had my old boss that I worked out of a magazine with in San Diego contact me and a girl that I worked with at the magazine and they are both sober now and they only reached out to me and say oh my God, are you sober?

And my best friend’s husband, he turned around and said if you can do it, I can do it and that tells you something, Do you know what I mean? Because I was the party girl, I was the instigator, I was the one organizing everything always turned up with bottles in her hand, always a lunch queen and that’s what I was to this other girl who looked at me and thought my God, who are you? They, I think they think that we’re going to change, but what they don’t understand unless they spend time with this is we’re changing for the better, we’re more present.

We have better conversations, you know, we know that the end of the day we’re going to be able to remember the time we spent with you. You know, you can ring us and count on us at any given time.

So yeah, I mean And I do hold those close to me and dear to me. One of my girlfriends drinks a hell of a lot, but I’m not going to get rid of her just because of that, I couldn’t, she’s like a sister to me, I’ve known since I was 13 And it’s good. I mean she gave me a birthday card for my 60^th with a champagne bottle on it and I thought, well, good for you because she’s not treating me any different and I don’t want that. I don’t want to be treated any different because this is who I am now.

Just roll with it, you know, and I’m not really any different anyway. I don’t think just a better version, like I said.

Steve: Hey Ben, you’ve got some pretty incredible stories about you and some friends.

Ben: Yeah, I guess the main thing that I would, I guess that I’ve shared with you all is that I I’ve been fairly vocal and open this go around. I think, you know, I was just listening to one year podcast when you said, this is your first time quitting or trying to quit, right? I think you said or saying your fourth, you know, it’s like, I don’t even know what this is for me, Like I would say 100th.

I just keep saying hundredth. But the first time that I’ve just really been open and in telling anybody that’s worthy of me telling, you know, so, you know, listen to everything that you all just said, I think Julie you said that you’re you feel like it’s hard to make friends and this day and age and but like how much time do we have? You know, like I don’t have time for a lot of friends and quite honestly, I mean that’s when we, when people say like I’m a lucky alcoholic or whatever the terms are like this setting right here and in these zoom rooms and IAS and all this stuff.

I mean I’ve made more friends than I quite honestly even need just organically in a year. You know, it’s wild. So I feel lucky that like my friends, I don’t have a friend at this stage in my life where I feel like alcohol is the only reason that we’re friends, that we don’t have anything deeper. But like Brian said, I mean everything that we did had drinking, you know, so the decisions that I’ve made. You know, we have the annual ski trip. I skipped that last year and then we’ve got the, the, an ice fishing trip. I skipped that last year and then we had a camping trip. Dads with kids. I skipped that this year.

And truth be told, I have a hard time getting. I can’t take endless time off of work anyway. But I made the decision to tell most of my friends, especially like the ice fishing trip was the big one for me where I said, you know, I could call and I could blame it on Covid, I could blame it on the kids. I could blame it on my work, but quite honestly, this is what I’m up to. I’m not drinking anymore and going and hanging out with all of you up there ice fishing for three days sounds awful, like there’s nothing I’d rather do less than to just sit there and watch people drink and throw a hook in a circle of ice, you know?

You know, it’s crazy, right?

I mean, I was just the guy that brought the guitar and fed the fire. Like I’d, I’d have fun doing that. But then when they come in, like, you know, like you said, Debs, it’s conversation that I just don’t want to have at that point, you know, and I feel like I’m sure this is like forever improving something I just forever improve on. But I feel like sobriety has given me the ability to listen to people and just be kind like to be present and be kind, but then just shut it down.

You know? Like, I just don’t, I just don’t want to have those worthless conversations. I don’t want to be rude to anybody. I just don’t want to like entertain it and have it go on forever. So like going out to bars. It’s just to me sounds horrible and not even like tempted to drink horrible.

I just don’t want to be there. I just don’t want to be there.

Steve: It’s empty.

Ben: It is, it’s, it’s empty and I think that If I was at a different age, you know, I’m trying to put myself in like my 25 year old self, trying to do the same thing. I have such different anxiety over the fear of missing out of anything out out there going on in life, but I don’t have that right now, so like I have plenty of friends and I just think that the couple outside of these zooms and stuff that I’ve made in real life have just been like the real friendships that I want to have and then you come right out of the gates, like I’ve been playing music with a guy now, which has been fantastic and like right out of the gates, first time you said you want to be like, no, I don’t drink. It was totally fine, you know, so it’s their step one still wanted to hang out and alright, cool.

Now he knows I don’t drink.

Julie: So yeah, I think the conversations is a big one for me. My standards of conversation have changed dramatically and I never, I used to be really bothered by gossip now, I just won’t stand for it. I can’t stand it. I will, it just, it grates on me and I’ve spent enough time having very real conversations about very real things with some of the people that I’ve met in the recovery community and it makes me realize how much that’s the kind of conversation I crave.

I don’t love just sitting around listening to people talk for the sake of filling the silence and it seems like a lot of times, that’s what you get when you’re socializing is just everybody. You know, I think the big thing for me is the gossip. Just like, tell me your story, tell me what happened last week with your dog. I want to hear that more than what you think about he said, she said about so and so’s wife or whatever and maybe that’s a small town thing because I do live in a really small town, but it seems like 90% of the conversations, you know, if you get together for girls night or whatever, they’ll all be drinking, which is fine. But then also just talking about everybody else and it’s not generally good stuff and I just can’t even stand it anymore.

I don’t even want to go hang out anymore. I just I expect better of myself now and so I expect better of the people that I spend my time with too.

Steve: Yes. The conversation where you’re too worried about what everybody else is doing doesn’t get you anywhere. There’s no benefit to it.

I mean, you can only talk about the weather in politics for so long that gets you nowhere. It’s just the value in the vulnerability of a conversation.

Julie: It’s the vulnerability.

Yeah. You can talk about the weather and politics and all of that stuff forever and that keeps it away from you and it keeps all the vulnerability out of the conversation, which means that you also have no chance of actually connecting if that’s all you want to talk about.

Debs: and it’s that small talk that everybody hates, right? It’s small talk. That’s why we start drinking in the first place. I can’t stand small talk. It’s like, just just, you know, but then you get after a few drinks, you get involved in that rubbish where you just go along with it and you seem to have more tolerance and you get that sense of belonging. Isn’t this great?

But you’re seeing it through such foggy glasses if you’re an observer, like we are now when you watch those people and it’s like they said watch people go for 1,2 and then into the third hour and that’s the time to hit the door and get out of there because man, oh man, that’s the way some people just go on and on about themselves too. It’s just like, and I’ve experienced it lately. I thought, I don’t understand how one person could go on about themselves for three hours, which is what happened around a table at a party I was at and I just had to remove myself and go somewhere else. It was like the one person show and I’ve always tried to be inclusive of everybody. But I was that people pleaser, or I was the one that made sure everyone was having a good time, You know, make sure you are you okay?

Can I get you anything? And now I can’t stand fussing. I cannot stand it, it drives me crazy and I think now that we say what we mean and we mean what we say and our tolerance for anything less is just so much narrower than what mine used to be. I mean I wasn’t patient anyway, I have patience in a different way. It’s like Benji said, you know, you can be kind and you can be present and you can be there for somebody but people get a different vibe office now they really know we’re there and we’re really choosing to spend time with those people and they’ll tell you how proud they are of you and vice versa, you know, even if somebody’s not got nothing to do with sobriety but they’re doing something else.

That’s the sort of friendships that you want, that people are truly saying something that’s valid and they mean it not just wood smoke up your ass basically

Julie: you said something, you said something there too about that feeling of fitting in and I think we all did so much of that, that was what our friendships were based on was just feeling like we fit in with things so we fit in with the conversation, we fit in with the drinking. I feel like for me, a lot of the friendships that I had was just they were just filling that need to feel like I fit in somewhere. And I guess once you start letting go of that and looking for places that you actually belong, you kind of, some of those friendships start falling away. Steve’s nodding because I feel like I’m pretty much quoting Brene Brown here, which I do in almost every episode, but there is there’s a big difference between fitting in and belonging and I think that a lot of us did a lot of things and had a lot of friendships just to feel like we fit in.

A lot of us struggle with self esteem issues and self worth issues and fixed it that way.

Steve: I drank to fit in, I got sober to belong.

Julie: Yeah.

Debs: And how often we hear, how often do we hear that guys, but everybody that comes into the rooms and when we talk in a grander scale, I hear it all the time.

So everybody was doing what we were doing that with the drinkers too,

Ben: what you just said, like the tolerance that we had for the conversation, I guess a couple of things I wrote down introvert, extrovert, I mean, I’ve been all over that and researching that and Susan Cain is a good one to see some of her writings, but it’s such a misunderstood deal, you know, I’ve been in sales and been in… and I’m still in a position now in my work where I’m in front of people all day long and I genuinely don’t mind the conversation.

I am so through the roof introverted. Um, and I can feel it now, you know, like I think that I needed, like I needed that juice to jump into the social setting for sure. And then you take that along with, now I’m realizing like I’ve never, I’ve always enjoyed even back in college, I’m picturing being in a fraternity, everybody’s going down to the bars or whatever and, and if even one other person wanted to sit on the couch and just chat, I’d still be doing all the same stuff and drinking just as much, but I just wanted to have a good conversation.

That’s all that I wanted to have. So it’s curious. I wonder how many hours of my life have I just drank to tolerate meaningless conversation, you know, like that would be a dreadful, I don’t want to know, I don’t want, but it is, it’s just like, it’s intolerable.

Yeah, it’s pretty wild. You know, I think, I, I think taking ourselves, I’m sitting here and thinking though like taking ourselves out of who we are in the age bracket that we are and you know, I think this is a real problem, especially again, going back and picturing like in my twenties, if you’re too shameful or whatever or you’re not cool enough to admit the truth of that you have a problem and you have no one to talk to and you feel like your friendships require this, you know, it’s, that’s a different animal.

I feel lucky right now to be sitting right where I am and I went through all those years of struggle and unwillingness to tell anybody, but I just feel lucky and I guess what helps, I guess one – couple of things that helped me continue to tell people and I don’t like go out of my way and but just when it organically appears, I just have no problem saying it is.

I think what you said Brian is you’ve only had positives, right, right. ‘ve only had extremely positive responses so that just continues to to get me to just tell people exactly where I’m at, you know?

And I think that however, I’m delivering it now, it’s just different. So I’ve only had a couple of friends that be like ah you can have one, you know, I’ve only had that maybe twice in a year, so I’m clearly saying things differently. I’m not just like, oh I’m quitting for health, then they’d be all over me. So it’s almost like you got to just practice it, you know?

Should we have role plays?

Should we do some role plays?

I’m kidding.

Brian: Do you guys, Um I mean you’ve all pretty much answered this already, but I wanted to ask it anyway, just like explicitly put it out there again, I’m not super social, I’m I feel like I’m I’m very much introverted as well, Ben, so it’s not like I’m turning down opportunities left and right, but I will, I will not go to certain, even even during my longest sober stint when I got, you know, quote unquote comfortable with it, I’ll still not put myself in certain situations just because not because of the intolerable conversation, although I like, I don’t know, I never, I like I’m gonna think about that now as well, but more just just because I don’t want to put my put myself at at risk and I’m sure Debs, I actually remember the very first time I met you, you show up and you tell people at the beginning, hey, I’m here if I disappear within, you know, any number of minutes I’m gone, you know, I’m not gonna say goodbye when it’s time for me to go, I’m out, you know, I’m here to be happy that I’m here, but I’m not sticking around forever, like, so I like that.

But yeah, I don’t know, I’m just kind of trying to ask a question that’s just not coming out. Does anyone feel like you just your your social interaction, you know, you’re you’re not as willing to just go do because because like you said Julie, what else is there to do? Besides go hang out at the bar and go drink.

Steve: So I’ve definitely picked and chosen where I’m gonna go and and why. If I don’t feel like I’m gonna enjoy myself, then there’s a good chance, like Ben said, you know, the ice fishing or whatever it is, like it’s just an alcohol based event. No, I don’t need to go there. Is that, that’s not a social interaction that I’m going to enjoy myself at regardless of whether there’s alcohol there or not, it’s just like that is a place I’m not gonna enjoy. I enjoyed it for the sole purpose of me getting hammered.

That was it. Right after that. The people there were great when I was drinking but it was still alcohol based so like I don’t need to be there. It took me a little bit to be like, do I want to or is it something I should do? Am I required to be there? No. Do I want to really? You know what, maybe this time I’m gonna go and give it a try, I’m going to go and test those waters and then when I go and test those waters and be like, no, I ain’t doing that again.

Right,

Debs: This is a good point.

You bring up steve because you said very, very classy. Do I want to do I want to go or do I need to go now? You are all facing thanksgiving tomorrow.

Right? And I talked about this in a zoom on Tuesday, is it something that you want to do or is it something that you’re all obligated to do because you’re going to mix with people there and it’s again, alcohol based in a lot of households.

Steve: Yeah, I think that’s where it comes to, okay if it feels like it feels like it’s an obligation come prepared to test the waters out and then, you know, have your exit plan or whatever that may be right, just like you said, you, if you need to do the irish exit, you do the irish exit, right? That’s just you know, and I mean everyone’s gonna have their own version of whatever that looks like.

Julie: I think that we have to get really honest with ourselves and decide if it’s something we think is a good place for us to be, if it’s a place we really want to be and if the answer is no, we need to honor that and honor ourselves and just say not today or not this time and be okay with that too. I don’t think we should feel guilty for it either. We don’t even have to explain why if it’s too much drinking, if it’s just not the kind of people we want to hang out with right now, whatever it is, there’s no point in forcing ourselves to do things we don’t have to do just because we feel obligated and really most of the time we’re not going to be missed as much as we think we’re going to be missed.

I think that’s the other thing, like people will invite you and they’re like please come, we’re going to miss you if you’re not there and you know, then you start feeling like, oh my gosh, I need to be there. And then you realize it’ll be just fine and they’re going to have a wonderful time while I sit at home in my jammies with my tea and my dog and that’s okay. And I think we have to give ourselves permission to do that. That’s just honoring ourselves.

Steve: Ben, Debs, Brian, thank you for being here and having this conversation about friendships.

They’ve obviously changed. I think really that they’re going to continue to change. Sobriety I think is the pathway to authentic friendship. When we’re drinking, we rob ourselves and everybody else of who we really are.

And it’s not fair to anyone. We’ve given ourselves the opportunity to listen, be kind show compassion in a completely different way. And those friends that are still there and the friends from the past, they get to have that benefit of us being present. The value of conversation with vulnerability and maybe not having the tolerance for surface conversation anymore.

I wanna thank you guys so much for being here tonight and sharing your thoughts. Really appreciate you guys.

Julie: We appreciate you.

Ben: Thank you.

Debs: Yeah, good to be here.

Steve: We’d also like to thank our listeners for sharing space with us.

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We’ll see you next time as we continue to explore life on the other side of alcohol.