My oldest friend and I go back nearly 30 years, since school. We’ve been in each other’s lives throughout, and supported each other through a lot: kids, my divorce, her serious illness, job crises etc. We know one another inside out and will always be there for one another.
In the past couple of years I have almost stopped drinking alcohol. I’m not teetotal, I will have an occasional drink in social settings. But maybe once a month. I rarely have more than one unit of alcohol and never get drunk. This is mainly for health reasons: menopause has trashed my tolerance and alcohol makes me feel slow and stupid and critically wrecks my sleep schedule. At the moment sleep is hugely important to me, I have a mental job and I really need to be well rested.
Friend and I used to drink fairly heavily when we went out: up to a couple of bottles a night. It was a lot of fun and obviously it oiled the wheels of conversation so it was very much a part of our relationship.
Now I drink almost nothing she seems to interpret it as a sleight and an attempt to create distance in the relationship. I have talked to her about my reasons for it and she will give me a quizzical look and say I am overthinking or being neurotic.
Its got to a point where she will often ambush me into drinking more than I am comfortable with: ordering an extra bottle when I am in the toilet fpr example and pouring me a glass saying we need to finish it. She bought me a load of booze for Christmas. There’s a kind of “I know you better than you know yourself” edge to it which I find really irritating.
I don’t really know how to handle it. If I tell her I am serious and want her to respect my boundaries on it she just ignores it. I genuinely love her, don’t want to lose her, but I want us to be able to be friends without booze being the main character all the time.
Has anyone ever been through similar? Any advice?