Wierd reaction from a friend

I had this one friend that was a drinking buddy. He is not of my community or faith. He lives about a 15 minutes drive away. I would go there once a week usually. We had common interests.

I have no other friends outside of my Orthodox community, so I liked having contact with someone who has a totally different perspective than mine.

I would go there and smoke a small amount of weed or hash, then there would be some drinking. Prior to this friendship, I drank alone always. He had a nice selection of hard and soft liquors, both the high and low end. I tasted French cognac there for the first time.

I guess you could say I am Orthodox Jewish who takes a time out every once in a while. But actually I was drinking alot there and would stagger out and drive home. I was never happy about driving home from there because it is near to a bad neighborhood and I always figured there was cops around, but I handled that part OK.

(It's amazing how the drunk driver never thanks G-d or whatever power he might believe in for getting them home without accident or arrest).

I have heard many an alchoholic now tell of DWI, of totalling car after car, etc.

I guess I should thank my G-d that He did put a red line out there in my drinking to somehow stop before I went over that red line.

Anyway, I told this friend that I had been to my first real AA meeting ( I had been to a kind of general 12 step program that is a mixture of many addictions and is a small group) then I went right to vacation, where I did meet another small informal group at a resort but only for the first couple of days did they meet. Then nothing for a while, not drinking but sort of in limbo, when will I see a meeting already?

Finally I went on a Friday night. Before Shabbos, but just. It started at 7:30pm Shabbos is in about 8:15 candle lighing so I could only stay for part. I drove there so that didn't help. I would have to drive home passing a Shule but I figured most people go to the early Service. At any rate, I loved the first meeting. People saying things that I thought only I felt. People expressing their joy at being sober.

Anonymity is very crucial with AA.

But just get that I felt fantastic about my first meeting.

I emailed my friend that I thought that he would love this meeting also. There is sort of like a Mechitzah there in many respects. It is not about socializing. You go there to get sober. Friends come later.

He is around 50 years old and never married, usually he is alone in what he does. He has few friends. Honestly, I thought for a while that I was doing a kind of Mitzvah by spending so much time with him, that if not for me, he would have no social human contact. So I thought that from that perspective he would want to go.

I also discussed some of the insights into my own sordid behavior that I was getting, that it's not just about being a slovenly drunk, but aspects of one's personality are affected by being an alchohlic. Even when you are not drunk.That is all, nothing too crazy in my email. I thought that I was sharing something amazing with him that he would enjoy.

But he took it very harshly and stopped responding to my phone calls, even ignoring my calls to his office. I thought perhaps he was ill or something like that.

Finally I called his work but not the direct number, and got passed thru to him. He didn't want to discuss anything, was trying to end the conversation. I sent a further email that he ignored so I sent a final email now that I cannot be in this situation anymore and goodbye.

There are some items that he has of mine but they are not overly valuable so at first I said at least can I have these items back, but when he still didn't answer me, I said the heck with them, keep them if you can't stand the site of me.

I am baffled by this lack of openess and anger. All I did was speak positively about AA.

We have been friends for over 2 years, we have done many favors one for the other.

I don't get this, but one of things in AA, is to realize that I am powerless over some things in my life, and just leave it and not let it ruin my sobriety.

I am very happy with my sobriety now.


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