There were those days I thought I needed to be friendly, to be everybody’s darling, to please everybody. Yes, there were times when I thought I needed to make a large circle of “friends” on social media. Boy, the times have changed. I always thought it was due to Covid that I had reduced social contact to a lot of people I used to call “friends”.

Covid came, I entered a new level of drinking. In these days, I was convinced that once I would make it all right and I would regulate my drinking, I would expand my friends’ circle again and go to my birth-town much more regularly, having time to spend time with those people and drink a lot of beer in a moderated way.

I had my burnouts, one before and one after Covid, and I drank heavier and heavier, phantasizing that drinking alone was a very great idea, because I thought I could break a loner or have great friendships via social media.

Nope. Didn’t work out. Drinking more, more isolation, even from my family.

Then I quit drinking. I realized now, what the real reason was for not engaging into old friendships again: I don’t want those people anymore in my life, because I couldn’t stand party drinking anymore, all the bullshit talk about what kind of cool party people we were.

When I thought I would get back to “normal” by moderating my alcohol intake, I hadn’t realized that I already laid off these friends. Today, I am happy to have laid off these friendships, because it would only be an echo of the past to go back to these friendships.

That’s the relieving part of the story, that I can let go of friendships that would be toxic for me today.

Another side of the same medal is, however, that other friends have probably realized the same about me: that my alcohol addiction was the only reason to keep up an illusion of partying friendships.

Letting go is painful, at first. But once you realize why you let go or the other people let go of you, you realize that behind this painful truth lies a path of a recovery in which your new friendships, even if they are fewer in quantity than before, the new friendships are chosen more carefully and deeper. And more truthful.

Until next time, keep up the faith in yourself, and take one step at a time.