9 days sober! I went over the edge 10 days ago. I drank over 20+ shots of vodka this nightand was day drinking on my day off, said horrible things to my wife and kids and my best friend. My son found me passed out outside after everyone looking for me for about an hour and a half. All this prompted me to begin recovery again. I was sober for 7 years until about 3 years ago. My wife and kids accepted my apologies and are exceptionally supportive. It’s my best friend who doesn’t “want to hear you were drunk again”, “it’s a piss poor excuse”. She is right, because I did it to myself. She really let me have it. I very heartfelt apologized to her, and asked her to forgive me. We work together and told her I’d be out back having a cigarette when she came in if she would like to see me and talk. I waited 10 minutes into her shift. Nothing. As I stood up to walk back in, I saw her look at me from quite a distance and as we made eye contact she turned away. How do I get her to understand that it was drunk me and not sober me? Her and I were always called the dream team at work due to our exceptional performance. Now she won’t even look at me.
You can show her through your actions. It’s going to take time though and hopefully she’ll come around when she sees how serious you are about sobriety.
I remember back in day when my dad ad mum fight over achocol and when was drunk nummours of times u said bad things to my family and friends and ex gf s my family and my friends forgive and now supportive of me being sober now
I know there’s no magic wand to heal friendships. I waited too long the last time with my then best friend, and I now haven’t spoken to her in over 20 years. I’m hoping I can prove myself and we can be civil at minimum. I just don’t want to wait too long.
I think she’s given up on you.
I have done this before with people in my life, you can try and help them so much and care so deeply to try and assist them away from addiction… It never works, the addict had to want it and work for it themselves.
I’m sad to say I gave up on others after years of trying everything and they just continued to drink.
The next thing you can do for the friendship is focus on yourself, focus everything into your sobriety. Once you have that you may be in a position to offer an apology and work on rebuilding the friendship.
Put sobriety first and the rest might follow. I geuss she needs to heal as well, she has also feelings to deal with. In a sense it means she cares about you, but also has to take care of herself. I as an addict hurt my former fiancée a lot. Since a few weeks I’m having email conversations with her, but now get the feeling sometimes it’s yet to early. It interferes with my recovery, which should be on the first place. It feels like we are on different trains right now…
Do you think she doesn’t know that? But unfortunately it doesn’t work like, hey I was drunk could you please forgive me. It might work a couple of times, but at the end friends might bail. Take care of yourself!
Takes time. Have patience-your friends and family need to see the change in you especially if this isn’t your first rodeo. Unfortunately, words mean nothing at this point. Best of luck and hold strong
Give her some time… she’s probably hurt and pushing her cá make things worse. Work on yourself, on your sobriety. The time to make amends will come. Don’t beat yourself up either. It won’t do you any good.
After a while she may see you have changed and accept your apologies.
Wishing you all the best 
First off this isn’t going to be the most popular response Just so you guys know I love everybody but I’m not into making excuses! So if you don’t like this response please don’t respond with another excuse because excuses don’t keep us sober! Reality does!I have a question here everybody says sobriety first and I agree that he needs to say stay sober! But no one’s getting the point that he was passed out drunk and had a child there! he didn’t even or wasn’t even responsible enough to take his child to a sitter or to his mother to his best friend’s house he did this in front of the child!! What is he had burned the house down druñk, anything could have happened could have been an electrical fire! What if someone came and seen him passed out and then they called social services. They would of taken his kids?? clearly has no sense of responsibility! and is lying to his self! You know I’m the one who always wants to tell the truth! I hear the congratulating here making excuses for drinking! Everybody’s piddle puddling around reality here. he was sober for 6 years! 6 years is a long time!!! So are you congratulating her for 6 years down the tub away are you telling him it’s okay that he lost 6 years there never coming back, then maybe the next time there will be no next time. That’s what I want to know are you telling him it’s okay he can start over what are we congratulating him on here for basically that’s what we’re doing we’re telling him it’s okay he can start over. Which is good he can start over but don’t lie to him about what he did it wasn’t good. He threw 6 years away for a shot glass full of money full of waste full of 6 years for his son, for his life, and he’s making excuses! he’s blaming it on alcohol! let’s have a party let’s celebrate this congratulations. He’s upset because her friend is upset and disappointed. I would be mad I’d be jumping up and down screaming I’d be in his face. Listen I have 5 years here in a couple days I’ve worked hard for that 5 years. I’ve struggled I have nowhere to go to a meeting. I can’t do zoom meetings. I don’t have a sponsor. there’s plenty of days here in this house I’m by myself all the time. I want to drink but I don’t. I pray, I meditate, I practice all kinds of things mindfulness, I don’t get in the car and go to the liquor store, I just don’t do it! I hit the floor on my knees and I pray… there’s no need for us to drink.
Hi Liza, just to clarify a few things here -
Eric is a man.
He was at home with his wife, his best friend and his son.
He was not home alone with his son.
Other responsible adults were there also.
Not condoning his behaviour but stating facts that are CORRECT.
Eric never threw away 6 years of sobriety.
He was sober for 7 years.
He still owns those 7 years.
He deserves to still be proud of those 7 years.
Eric relapsed. He is human. Shit happens.
He is reaching out for support. Taking responsibility. Admitting he has a problem.
Get off your moral high horse.
We leave judgement at the door when we enter through the doors of the TS Forum.
Please show some compassion.
And get your facts straight.
**sidenote congratulations being at almost 5 years sober! That’s an absolutely fantastic achievement!
Can I just suggest though that maybe you would like to look into working a recovery program? I just noticed you mentioned that you still struggle and want to drink. You also appear extremely angry, judgemental and not at peace at all which I find sad…
There are many alternatives to AA and if you can’t access zoom for online meetings, there is always the SMART program. You can order the workbook and program in paper form and complete it at home in your own time if that suits you better. It’s a really helpful program and tool for alcohol recovery that’s worth giving a try.
Liza, The OP was asking for advice about his friendship, not his relapse. I think your post is way out of line. Are you really expecting us to comment on that relapse? Who are we to judge? I didn’t see any congratulating posts either. We gave what was asked and nothing more.
No it’s a post on his friend judging him I’m not wanting to be hurt ever again because that friend is hurt is heartbroke! I’m assuming his family is also because my family has been there. and Yes they want to forgive him but look they’re thinking he went all these years and did this Darn that’s a lot of time They were going to go through this again and another 4,6,7,8 years. Not wanting to forgive him for something he did is a natural response after being hurt this bad.we all have lived this many many times…How our families judge us and get tired of believing in us and trusting us in us. How we always disappointing them because we cannot do what we’re supposed to do as addicts. But yet everybody forgives us over and over and over and over again, but we always disappoint them And we as addicts forget this and want the same forgiveness over and over… But I don’t see anybody pointing that out in this post. How we can not be trusted. With the love of and hearts of our friends and family. Because we are deceitful, liars because we are and have addictions our family and friends can never trust us and this is just a proven point of this post. Until we learn to tell the truth and be truthful with ourselves and others be truthful with us they cannot trust us… cuz we cannot trust ourselves nor our peers can trust us to tell us the truth. Because we are all addicts with the disease of addiction.
Hi Eric7, thanks for sharing.
The way I see it, your friend is doing a good thing by not letting you off the hook so easily. I’d imagine your wife and kid also share those feelings but didn’t know how or don’t feel comfortable sharing it with you. Dude, you kind of deserve it right? You know this. If you’re willing to put in the time, work and patience with your sobriety then you should be able to do the same with your friendship ( assuming that she wants it that is ). Your friend does have a decision in this after all and you need to respect that. Actions speak louder than words and she seems to be the only one holding you accountable. A friend indeed.
Hang in there man. Time heals all wounds.
Jeez. Lisa. You’re pretty generous on the condemnation. 
Don’t personally see how this is helping anyone but you to sit on such a high horse but to each their own I guess.
@Eric7 how it is going with your sobriety nowadays? I hope you check in again. I hope you’re adding a few things to your toolbox. It seems that what you did before to stay sober ceased to be enough at some point. Your family and your friend surely want the best for you and doing back out for a significant time must be scary and disappointing for them. Often our loved ones want better for us than we can want for ourselves. Hope you get back to that spot where you know you are WORTH a sober life. All the best!
All that he can do is apologize.
But it sounds like the friendship is over.
A lot of times in forums like this we like to say that everything can be repaired. But addicts are destructive and some things cannot be fixed.
Before I became and addict I had two close friends who were alcoholic. They brought such chaos into my life, I had to end all communication with them.
Had they apologized that would have been nice. But I would not have let them come back into my life.
The past cannot be changed—but we can change our futures.