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When I tried getting clean and sober, I knew I had to give up the friends that I partied with for years. That didn’t sound so easy. I knew what my friends would say. Some of their comments would be, “you can just have a couple, you don’t have to get drunk” or “you can still hang out with us and you don’t have to drink alcohol, you can drink pop or coffee and you can be our designated driver.” Their ideas aren’t going to work for me and a lot of other alcoholics. Recovering alcoholics are going to have to hang out with people who don’t drink. Hanging out with your friends that drink usually only last a short while. Relapses are quite real. Like in my case, some friends will taunt you and think you’re too good for them. I had a childhood friend that would hoist his bottle to his mouth and drink it right in front of me as close as he could get, then making a gesture to give me his bottle to share. He knew I was in my early stage of sobriety and that I was vulnerable. Needless to say, he is no longer my friend--and I knew him all of my life. Friends and acquaintances will be cruel, so a person must be on his guard. Then there are some real friends that care. I have a friend that drinks but he is not an alcoholic. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him drunk. He drinks responsibly. He knows I stock my refrigerator with a few beers, but he also is considerate enough not to get drunk and obnoxious around me. He usually reclines my offer of a beer. He’ll drink bottled water with me. These are the kind of friends to keep. The beer I keep around the house no longer is a temptation, so I keep it for responsible guests. I was devastated when I made a commitment to myself to stop drinking. I don’t even know myself. What if I don’t like myself? I was scared to death at the thought of getting clean and sober. I wondered how boring my social life would become. I thought of the friends I wouldn’t have any longer. I thought of the fun I wouldn’t have any longer. I dreaded the thought of socializing with sober people. I dreaded the thought of attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and being truthful about myself. I was scared to death of sobriety. I think most alcoholics, early in their recovery, are frightened of the notion to get clean and sober. It was the ultimate culture shock to me. I drank since age 14. I was an alcoholic by age 22. Then I continued drinking until age 50. During all those years of drinking, I probably stopped drinking only three or four times. The longest period of abstinence was only 60 days—-and 30 of them were spent in jail or in an inpatient treatment center. The story of my life, as an alcoholic, is no different than most other alcoholics. We all have a lot in common--some are more severe than others. We are not unique. To put it mildly, we all are short- sighted and we create our own problems. We blame other people and dwell on the past. We hate ourselves as we hate other people. We hate our addiction and do nothing about it. We abuse our health and laugh about it. We complain like there is no tomorrow. Our life sucks, the law stinks, our boss is an idiot and our girlfriend or wife are driving us to an early grave. It wasn’t until age 50--and eleven DUIs later--that I finally looked hard at my life and wondered where I am going. I focused my cloudy lens. It was on the 4th of July, in 2003, that I set out on a solo mission to go camping. I chose a spot by a lake. I always feel serene when there is a lake, a river, a stream, an ocean or mountains nearby. I did my usual habit. I searched and found myself a bar nearby my campground. My rule of thumb, was that there has to be a drinking establishment nearby. I very seldom drank alone. I never quite understood why people would want to drink alone. Getting drunk by myself wasn’t my cup of tea--or booze. As I was drinking my beer at the bar, I noticed there was nobody else but me in the bar. I thought to myself how many times this has happened. It’s a holiday again--another reason to drink. The setting was no different than before--a bartender watching television in
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They are BobbiesMountain.com, dedicated to his late wife, Bobbie, and to cancer research. His other website is sqwearlenterprises.com. He hopes his stories help readers identify the struggles they have encountered in similar events of their lives. Earl is a native and resident of Tacoma, Washington.
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