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Recent Letter to the ElderWisdomCircle™

FRIENDSHIP: Invitations from friends have dropped to zero
Letter #: 402306
Category: Friendship

Original Letter

Hi! My name is Alex and I have recently been getting more and more sad everytime i think about this thing thats een bothering me since New Years Eve. I was invited to a party with my friends and i blacked out before the clock even struck the new year. I woke up the next day and saw that i had put a whole in my friend's wall at his house! 

At first i thought they were playing a joke on me, but the more i asked the more i came to realize that i had done it. So I go to my friend of whom the house belonged, and told him i would help him repair it or help pay for it to get fixed. He told me to not worry and that it was okay even though i persistsntly insisted thay i wanted to help, 

As these past couple of months have gone by, my invitations to gatherings with my friends have dropped to zero. I dont get invited anymore and when I speak to them a lot of them dont feel the same towards me anymore. Ive tried to deal with it but its hard because i work with a lot of them and cant seem to get past the idea that they dont like me anymore. I love hanging with all of them and who they are I just wish i knew how to regain the same relationship with them again. 

Please, if you ciuld help, i would deeply appeciate some guidance. Thank you very much.

Elder Response

Alexander, if your friends are not bothering with you since New Year's Eve, I would suspect that there could be more to the story of your kicking in the wall then you remember, or that you have noted in your letter.

The biggest problem I see here, however, is that you kicked in this wall and don't remember doing it.  That is called a "blackout", where we do things under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs and have no recollection of them at all.  When people have even one blackout they should suspect that they have a propensity toward alcoholism and/or drug addiction.

I know this is hard to hear but it is true so, my advice to you would be to go to a few AA or Narcotics Anonymous beginners meetings and see if you honestly have other signs associated with the disease of Alcoholism.

The nest step I would take is to invite your friends in a group to have coffee with you and ask them honestly what you did that night and why they seem to be pulling away from you.  If you have given up drinking, you can tell them that and ask that your relationship with them go back the way it was before the New Year's Eve incident.  Honestly, I don't know whether or not this will work but it is worth a try.

The worse scenario would be that your friends can't overlook what you did, in which case I guess you will have to start hanging out with other people, making new friends, etc.  Hopefully you have learned a lesson from your behavior and that you take it forward in your life.  Alcoholism is a disease which can be controlled by totally stopping drinking and going to meetings to develop a new attitude.

I hope you take this advice seriously, Alexander and try what I am suggesting.  If you do, I know your life will be better.

Best of luck, Alexander, and please feel free to write to us anytime.

Best Regards,

Jane


    

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