Worried about friend

[Emergent, RN]

I'm worried about a good friend of mine who is a retired nurse. For most of our friendship she was a sober, recovering alcoholic she told me. She had gone to AA years ago, and didn't drink it all. Our friendship mostly consists of taking walks then going out to eat lunch.

I am a moderate drinker, only beer and wine, usually before dinner at home. I don't drink every day. My friend quit drinking because before she got married in her late 30s she used to party a lot and had quite a habit. Then she settled down and decided to get sober.

My friend retired early from nursing to take care of her aging parents. She was going back-and-forth often to the city where they live, arranging care, coordinating everything etc. About a year and a half ago her mother died. Immediately after that she decided that she was going to just start drinking wine and she was really enjoying it.

Now it seems like she's always drinking wine. We don't get together as often, but when she does get together with me for lunch she always wants to have wine with her lunch, maybe two glasses. Personally, I'm not into drinking in the middle of the day because it kind of makes you tired and too relaxed to do anything else. We went to a local music festival together and she just wanted to keep drinking glass after glass. She's also getting together a lot with her old nursing buddies from another place where she worked and used to party with them all the time.

I haven't said anything, it's not like I am an uptight teetotaler by any means, but I'm a little worried. What do you all think about that?

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

I think you're a really good friend and live in the space where you could open a conversations with her about it.

[noctanol]

I'm sorry, I miss the point. Is this about you? Are you "the friend?" If she retired early, and drinks wine ALOT or daily then what is the issue? Is she not supposed to drink? Is she impaired and cant functioafter drinking? If she's not driving or breaking the law then unfortunately she's an adult and is entitled to drink. If it's a case of abuse then help he but if not I don't think there's anything you can do. I worked in a warehouse with functional drunks before becoming a nurse. They drunk everynight after work and we're the 1st people to clock in. Some peoplecan handle drinking and some people cant.

[Davey Do]

A rule of thumb, Emergent: If one's habit, or whatever you want to call it, doesn't affect their life (health, work, relationships) in any negative way, then there's probably not a problem.

And like meanmaryjean said, you could always open a conversation about it. You have enough sense about people, Emergent, to read what written between the lines.

There are people out there who are highly functional controlled drinkers.