Normie Friends Update

I wrote back in April about our new Normie friends, and how excited I was to make friends beyond our 12 step circle. You can read about it HERE.

You have to understand a bit of our (me and my husband's) backgrounds to really appreciate this strange excitement about making Normie friends! We both had such a hard time getting sober that we have been totally immersed in the AA fellowship - way beyond meetings! We have gone to all the special events, dances, picnics, celebrations, bonfires, countdowns, sober-thons and conventions! Not to mention that we met in AA! So basically all the people that we socialize with are in the program, or sober. So, really, having friends outside of that circle is like stepping into the wild unknown! LOL!

Well, things could not be better with our new friends! We have seen each other a lot lately, our kids have been hanging out at the pool together and taking turns coming over for play dates. We have many things in common, our daughters were both born in September, our husbands have the same first name, which at times can be quite confusing (LOL), and both of us moms are not native to the USA. Last weekend they even invited us over for a cookout! Things are just grand!

My husband and I decided that we were going to tell them that we were in recovery, just to make sure of course that they were not going to push a drink our way. As we entered the backyard area, the husband offered my husband a beer, to which he plainly said - No thank you, and I added - We don’t drink! - you know just in case, but the conversation quickly went to the list of all other beverages they had to offer. Huh!? No pushing it on us, not trying to convince us to have one? Cool!

Then we sat around the kitchen table after chatting up in the backyard. I looked around the area and noticed that they had a lot of alcohol around their house - well they had a “standard” liquor cabinet, a full wine rack, and a random bottle of vodka on the kitchen counter - for cooking? Hmmm. Of course I always notice these things! LOL! All that really got me thinking… Is that a lot? Maybe they are alcoholics? Oh shoot, and they are not in recovery so that’s a bad place for us to be. But maybe that’s not really a lot, maybe that is how much Normies ordinarily have? Then out of the blue, I had that moment, oh, they are party people? Then, I actually imagined that if we were drinking all together, we would be having so much fun! OMG. Are you kidding me!? Did my mind really go there? Sheesh! I know the ending to that story, and I am not going there!

Anyway, back to those alcohol amounts! After pondering for a while if that was normal, it hit me like a lightning bolt! I never had alcohol around my house in those amounts! WHY? Because it never stood the chance to sit on my shelves, or in the wine rack or in the liquor cabinet, - kitchen counter? - hell no!! If it was there I drank it! Yep, I drank it! I had to buy alcohol every day, I didn’t collect alcohol – if someone brought me a bottle of wine as a gift I drank it that night!

So there you go, I am still an alcoholic, I still have some odd thoughts that I know separate me from the Normie -- contrary to my thinking, there was no crazy party, and no one got drunk! We all had iced tea and grilled chicken, and we carried on and laughed like old buddies. So once again, I am reminded that yes, when it comes to alcohol, I am different! But I am glad that I can now laugh about it all, and be OK with it, because there was a time when I though that I was never going to have any friends in sobriety!