Dear Abby: I have been friends with a couple for 30 years. Both are alcoholics. They work, they work at farmers markets, they are social, they have a home and they pay their bills. However, at least once, maybe twice a month, they get completely wasted and the wife calls me and rambles on incoherently. I suspect they get drunk even more often, but luckily I don’t get a phone call every time I’m high.

I’ve been in terrible relationships where I drank too much to numb myself. Fortunately, I have been free of such toxicity for years. But I’m having more and more difficulty dealing with these drunken phone calls. I guess I’m the only person my friend calls because she knows few others would understand her slurred speech. I’m tired of these calls. How do I deflect them?

— Tired ear in Arizona

Dear Tired Ear: Put an end to these calls by being honest with your friend about the effect they are having on you. Do this while he’s awake. Tell her you don’t want her to call you after she’s been drinking because her speech is so slurred you can’t understand what she’s saying. Say if it happens again you will hang up and if it does, move on. Let her calls go to voicemail. If you want to maintain any kind of relationship with this couple, only see them socially when they are (reasonably) awake.

Dear Abby: When I was a teenager, my immigrant grandparents brought back hand-knitted sweaters from Ireland, the country of their birth, for everyone in our family. I treasure mine and take care of it, even though I’ve outgrown it.

Years later, a close friend asked to borrow this sweater for her neighbor’s child who needed “something Irish” for a school play event. The children were asked to bring in items that had to do with Ireland. When I refused to borrow my heirloom sweater, my friend told me that she had already promised her neighbor that she could borrow it. He got very angry, accused me of being selfish and didn’t talk to me for several months.

We live in the same city so I meet her sometimes. She is cordial but distant and obviously still angry with me. Keep in mind that I hardly know my friend’s neighbor—the one who wanted to borrow my sweater for her baby. But even if I did, I wouldn’t lend this legacy to anyone. was i wrong

“Sentimental in Michigan.”

Dear Sentimental: You were neither selfish nor wrong! Your “friend” was beside the point. She should not have promised anyone the use of property that was not hers. And for her to freeze you now because she refused to give it to her and risk something so precious to you being damaged is pretty nerve wracking. My advice is to follow his example. Be cordial but distant and don’t let her make you the bad guy for saying no.

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or POBox 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.

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