Dear Amy: My best friend and I live together in a house. We are both in our early 20s, but have different lifestyles. I am active, have a full-time job and serve on our local school board. My best friend helps his dad farm and in his spare time just likes to stay home and party. For the most part we make great roommates, but recently he has been drinking a lot.
This past weekend he got so drunk that he was stumbling and tripping everywhere. He also has been inviting “questionable” people over.
I have tried speaking to him about his drinking and he just becomes upset with me. What should I do? — Best Friend
Dear Best Friend: First this: Understand that you may not be able to have a significant impact on your friend’s drinking. However, you have the right to live in a household that is peaceful and safe. Secondly, it will help if you realize that your friend will definitely be upset with any suggestion that his drinking is a problem. Being upset and lashing out at those trying to help are two weak weapons that alcoholics use to deflect the impact of their drinking. So, stop caring if your friend gets upset. Simply expect it.
People are also reading…
The next time he is drunk and crashing around, capture some of his behavior on video. Then, during a sober moment when you think he might be able to pay attention, send or show the video to him and say, “Dude, this is you.”
Best friends tell each other the truth, even when the truth is hard to hear.
Dear Amy: Our 10-year-old daughter has been taking piano lessons since she was 5. She’s quite good, but to say she hates it would be the understatement of the year. She protests every time we ask her to practice, openly tells us she doesn’t want to play anymore and is now beginning to give her piano teacher a hard time.
She has started playing the flute in school and seems to have taken to it . She’s a straight-A student, is on a competitive gymnastics team and is an otherwise near-perfect child.
How long should we make her keep taking piano lessons? — Dad-D-Flat
Dear Dad: I shared your question with Alexandra Scott, a professional musician in New Orleans who teaches piano to children your daughter’s age.
Here’s her reply: “Let her stop. If she’s had five years of piano, she’s developed a solid understanding of the instrument and probably of basic theory that will serve her well in later life. Clearly she likes music, since she wants to play the flute; but forcing her to play an instrument she doesn’t want to play could easily make her turn away from music altogether.”
“My additional advice is that you see your daughter not as ‘near-perfect’ but ‘already-perfect,’ just as she is.”
Dear Amy: “Recovering” is a private person who doesn’t want to explain her skin cancer scar to colleagues.
Not wanting to explain a burn on my chin from a mishap with my hot electric curling iron, I responded to questions from the men I work with using this simple explanation: “I cut myself while shaving.”
We had a laugh and this ended the queries. — Recovered
Dear Recovered: Great answer.
Contact Amy Dickinson via
Email: askamy@tribpub.com Follow her on Twitter @askingamy or like her on Facebook. Amy Dickinson’s memoir, “The Mighty Queens of Freeville: A Mother, a Daughter and the Town that Raised Them” (Hyperion), is available in bookstores.
