163. Friendship - a story

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Hello darling heart and welcome to this episode of the Drink Less, Live Better podcast.

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This is the podcast that helps you to see that drinking less doesn't need to be stressful, lonely, or boring.

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I'm your host, Sarah Williamson, and I decided to have a year alcohol free as a little life experiment and haven't looked back.

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I'm a best selling author, expert speaker, and life coach.

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I'm here to champion you with your alcohol free or drink less adventures.

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Give me a follow on Instagram at drink less, live better, and head to the website, drink less, live better.com, where you'll

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be able to sign up to the 5 day drink less experiment, find blog posts, and you can choose to join the email club where I

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share resources, wisdom, insights, and glimmers of hope and joy. I hope you enjoy this episode. Let's get straight to it. Friendships. Friendships and friendship wobbles.

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I've got various different small groups of friends and various different individual friends.

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And I've also got 5 friends that I've known for 28 years, and these are my university friends.

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We go away for a weekend together, the same weekend, every single year, and we have done for over 20 years ever since we were

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in our twenties and we're now all in our mid forties. It's a trip we love. We plan it. We talk about it.

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We look forward to it from 1 year to the next.

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Because the date is always the same date every year, we never have to have that conversation about who is free, which particular weekend.

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We always know when we're going away together. It is a joy.

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These weekends looked somewhat different in our twenties, and they looked somewhat different in our thirties, and they look different again now.

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They used to be really seriously drunken weekends that involved massive amounts of alcohol, dancing, laughing, hilarity, hangovers, all of the stuff. And over time, things changed. Energy levels changed.

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Babies came along, small children, and financial situations changed things as well. But on we went.

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This particular event is marked in all of our calendars every year.

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I chose to stop drinking four and a half years ago, and that first weekend that we did together where I wasn't drinking was

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a little bit tricky in places for me, but still fabulous because, of course, guess what mattered? It was the company.

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It was the love we shared for each other, and what was in my glass was increasingly mattering less and less to me.

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And I did that weekend without a drink.

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I think I was probably about maybe 6 or 7 months into my sobriety by then, and I really just still had the loveliest time.

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Even though everyone else was drinking, it didn't matter to me. 1 of my friends from this group questioned me a lot over the following year about my choice.

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I was always honest with her and never shut down the chat.

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After all, you know, I love her, and 28 years of friendship was behind us.

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The following year, we did our usual, or should I say, our new usual.

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Everyone else drank, I didn't, and we all had a good time, or so I thought.

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I felt secure in my sobriety by then and assumed all of our relationships were based on so much more than the alcohol we used to drink together.

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I'm changing names of people for the next bit of the story. After that weekend, we all left. Well, we nearly all left.

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We all said goodbye to each other and 1 by 1 drove off waving, shouting see you soon. I love you.

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But my friend Katie and I stood still finishing a conversation about something or another and then we said, oh, we don't actually have to leave yet.

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Let's grab a coffee before we go. Let's just finish this conversation.

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And so we did and we were talking about life, kids, whatever was on our minds that day.

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We were sitting just enjoying each other's company.

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Katie's phone rang and the number that flashed up on her phone was the other friend, was Lucy.

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Oh, we both said, maybe she's forgotten something. Katie answered the phone on loudspeaker. Hi, she said.

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Before she could say anything like, Sarah and I are just having a coffee together, or we haven't left yet, or are you okay, or did you forget something? Lucy launched into.

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I'm so upset about Sarah not drinking anymore.

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I'm driving away feeling really cross about it and I feel like it's ruined our weekends together forever.

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I know she's not changing my mind and I'm really really upset about it.

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Katie and I looked at each other in horror.

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It felt like it was too late to say I was right there listening. I thought about leaving the room.

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In hindsight, maybe I should have done.

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Why is Sarah so extreme in everything she does?

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First of all being a bloody vegetarian. Now this. What's next? What's she gonna cut out next?

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I mean, she's right if she thinks being vegetarian is extreme.

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I made that choice 15 years ago.

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I happen not to think it's that radical, but there you have it.

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She went on to say how she didn't think I had a problem with alcohol, was no worse than anyone else, and was annoyed I chose something and stuck to it.

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I could tell you the rest of what I listened to, but I won't.

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I know that she carried on in that vein with Katie offering in loving and also defensive interjections. Who knows?

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Maybe if I hadn't been there, Katie might have agreed with her, but I don't actually think so.

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My friend was really unhappy in that moment.

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I appreciate that although this conversation sounded like it was about me, it wasn't really, and that's okay.

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Parts of this friendship dynamic have changed.

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They have changed since then, so that's however, many few years on.

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And I recognize that she still isn't quite comfortable with my not drinking, but I consider that to be about her and not about me.

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What's happening in your life at the moment that feels like it's about you, but it might not actually be? I'd love to know. I always answer my emails.

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You can get hold of me at sarah at drinklesslivebetter.com.

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Thank you for listening in today. And PS, I believe in you.

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Oh, by the way, check out the show notes today and find out about the ways we could work together.

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Let's get you some forward focus on this next bit of your life, whether it involves something that feels like a someone else problem or a you problem. I'm happy to listen to it.