. . . This is actually a pretty decent argument to have. Especially since Ruth has been keeping clean vs Billie who has been cheating their deal. . If I am remembering what happened right at the least. It’s been a while.
Their original deal was they would both stop. Then it became a self-destructive pact where they both overindulged and were secretly together. Now Ruth is trying to recover while Billie refuses to acknowledge she has a problem but in doing so is continuously insensitive to Ruth not wanting to drink.
Yup. This has needed to happen for awhile. It’s going to be nasty and it might end their relationship, but it’s been the elephant in the room since Ruth got help.
They can’t go on like this. Something needs to change.
I’ve had a partner one with whom I’ve been though a lot together. It was a horrible relationship. It was a relief when it ended. We were focused on the outer problems, so we didn’t notice our inner problems until we had a moment to breathe-and to realise that we actually were a horrible couple. Our personalities don’t mix very well. We’re still friends. But having endured a lot together doesn’t automatically mean a relationship works in the everyday life.
Ruth? The recovering alcoholic whose parents were killed by a drunk driver and holds deep feelings of resentment for her alcoholism, which fuels her extreme depressive swings, but continues to be pressured by her alcoholic girlfriend into drinking? It’s her fault?
Were Billie *NOT* an alcoholic with severe issues needing treatment, putting the pressure of recovery on a new relationship would be a serious issue. You can’t build a serious new relationship and recover, IMHO. There’s too much pressure and guilt as well as anger through it [family of alcoholics, FYI].
But Billie IS someone who needs off the sauce herself so it’s a bit like saying, “Well if Joyce wasn’t a fundamentalist evangelical as well as the Ding Dong Whiteboard Bandit…”
I said Ruth’s insistence on Billie conforming to her needs would be really shitty if not for the fact Billie needs help with the exact same problem.
Emily
Insisting that your partner not constantly try to undermine your sobriety is hardly an unfair expectation. Like this not be an unreasonable thing to ask of Billie even if she weren’t an alcoholic herself because it’s a shitty thing to do to your partner regardless.
Jo
when someone is trying to get sober, the right thing to do is to support them through that. the shitty thing to do is to try to get then back onto the habit they are trying to heal from… Billy is being a shitty partner by insisting that Ruth gets drunk
Sam
It absolutely would not be. Asking your partner to be RESPECTFUL of your needs and to stop undermining your recovery is not a heavy burden to put on them regardless of whether they have the same problem or not.
Coming from a family of alcoholics, if one of your partners is a social drinker and it is one of their hobbies, it’s a pretty huge change to impose and will destroy the relationship.
Solution: You need to stop having that person in your life.
thejeff
That person can also go out and have social drinks with other friends and without you, not keep booze at home and just generally not throw temptation directly at the alcoholic.
the final pam
The social drinker can still drink?? No one’s saying they need to stop drinking. What they need to do is stop offering drinks to the person saying “I don’t want to drink alcohol.”
This isn’t a riddle, this isn’t something that has multiple layers or anything. If someone says “I don’t want to drink alcohol” regardless of if they’re a recovering alcoholic or just someone that wants to remain sober, you don’t offer them alcohol or try to get them to drink. That’s it.
Ruth isn’t even asking Billie to stop drinking. She’s telling Billie to stop offering her alcohol. She is setting a boundary. This is no different from, say, Joyce telling Billie she doesn’t want to drink. She’s not making Billie conform to her needs, she’s just asking for a little bit of respect.
geno
What you want would only work if Billie wasn’t an asshole. She’s a jerk who won’t want to change until she has no choice. You people keep insisting that it’s all going to be okay, but Billie has made zero effort to change. If Ruth wants to be okay she needs to dump Billie
thejeff
Well, I guess it’s good we’ve come so far from “Ruth is an abusive monster and Billie her victim” that we’re now able to paint Billie as the monster who doesn’t deserve Ruth.
Emily
Ruth has actually made an effort to change and atone for her actions. Billie is not only actively working to regress any positive character development she’s experienced she’s also either intentionally trying to sabotage Ruth’s sobriety because Ruth recovering makes her feel less needed or she’s doing it unintentionally because she’s too self-absorbed to recognize how dangerous alcohol is to Ruth. Billie has kinda sucked a whole lot vis a vis her relationship with Ruth and it’s not unfair demonizing to think that Ruth deserves better than a girlfriend who disavows any meaningful relationship with her and undermines her sobriety even though she literally nearly drank herself to death.
thejeff
Not saying Billie’s perfect or anything, just observing how it seems to be one extreme or the other. Billie’s certainly screwing up right now.
Ruth hit bottom before she started to her her shit together. Billie hasn’t done that yet.
Charlotte
Again, insisting that your partner not constantly bug you to drink alcohol is not an unreasonable request in any relationship.
Yep. Billie is probably not good for Ruth’s recovery so if things don’t change I hope the relationship ends and Ruth stays strong. Her life > college girlfriend.
But I’m rooting for Billie to come through even though I think it might take some unrealisticly fast character growth to make that happen.
Schpoonman
I’m only worried that Ruth realizing how bad Billie is for her will cause her to regress, given the loss of “support”.
Fun story: About five years ago I started taking anti-depressants. After about two weeks I really started to feel their effect, I was really looking up. Then I got stood up on a date. Turns out meds can also operate on momentum and they stopped doing shit after that.
I want Ruth and Billie broken up. Billie just sucks as a person; I’ve dealt with enough people who “cared” but treated me like shit regardless to know that big vague intentions don’t mean a fucking thing if every moment-to-moment interaction with someone is still damaging.
I’m proud of Ruth. I find it really hard to break bad habits, and *I* mostly just struggle with not biting my nails. This is a way bigger deal and I’m proud of her for starting this argument because it needs to be had.
This is a long time coming, unfortunately. Ruth and Billie both have their points, in that relationships do take work every day. And that they’ve been through hell and high water and so they can continue to sail forward. But just going through some deep shit together doesn’t mean they don’t have to do any work.
And Billie’s been avoiding needing to work. She’s been avoiding the psychologist, avoiding kicking her alcoholism, and avoiding letting her new dorm people realize she loves Ruth. And seeing how just that morning she tried to get Ruth to go drinking along with complaining about her not wanting to go out… Billie, babe, if you want this to work, you really have to start putting in the work.
Billie puts in work for Ruth’s wellbeing in some aspects (reminding Ruth to take medication, comforting her that she won’t be forgotten, will fight anyone who upsets her) but does not in other major aspects (refuses to work on herself, insensitive to Ruth’s attempt to recover from alcoholism in part due to refusal to acknowledge it is a problem for herself).
Discussion (213) - “Bones”
Ana Chronistic
“Trying is hard! Let’s go get smashed”
“uh, we’ve been through this, and it kinda sucked, remember?”
“Remembering is hard! Let’s go get smashed”
“…”
Clif
So what are you drinking for Valentine’s day?
Needfuldoer
“Yes.”
-Billie, probably
AnvilPro
Hell yeah Ruth!
AutobotDen
Agreed! but my gut tells me Billie will react poorly.
Doctor_Who
My gut tells me that now is the perfect time for Lucy to jump out of that bush with a tray of Jello shots.
Clif
I like your gut. But I wouldn’t want to live there.
butts
’tis a silly place
Needfuldoer
It’s only a model.
Tualha
Shh!
(Someone had to do it.)
Roborat
Well, if you hadn’t, I would have.
foamy
Preach, sister.
keithcurtis
Yeah, it’s about time. Go, Ruth.
shadowcell
Dumbing of Age Book 9: We Can Just Keep Letting Alcohol Do All the Heavy Lifting
Clif
DOA9: Well, Whatever, You Get the Idea
Keulen
DoA Book 9: I Worry, Every Other Day
Dean
DoA9: You Have To Keep Trying Every Day, Forever.
HeySo
@Keulen Now put it to song. 😛
Enkrod
How was I able to live without that?
William Leonard Reese Jr.
. . . This is actually a pretty decent argument to have. Especially since Ruth has been keeping clean vs Billie who has been cheating their deal. . If I am remembering what happened right at the least. It’s been a while.
Cephalo the Pod
I’m lretty sure they never renewed the deal after Billie broke it.
BBCC
I don’t think Billie’s ever tried to quit this entire comic.
Sam
Their original deal was they would both stop. Then it became a self-destructive pact where they both overindulged and were secretly together. Now Ruth is trying to recover while Billie refuses to acknowledge she has a problem but in doing so is continuously insensitive to Ruth not wanting to drink.
thejeff
Yup. This has needed to happen for awhile. It’s going to be nasty and it might end their relationship, but it’s been the elephant in the room since Ruth got help.
They can’t go on like this. Something needs to change.
I hope they find a way through it.
Nono
Oh hey, here’s the start of the impending Valentine’s Day crash.
Yumi
It is not a sexy fight!
Chris Phoenix
Yet.
Schol-R-LEA
Hopefully not the sort of crash that Ruth had in Roomies…
Cephalo the Pod
Nine.
Schpoonman
Oh I like you.
Cheshrin
Billie: “We’ve been through too much, our relationship is too strong to break!”
Billie’s alcoholism, navigating her foot directly towards her mouth at lightship speeds: “Hold your beer.”
Plasma Mongoose
Billie will hold your beer just long enough to drink it.
Alanari
I’ve had a partner one with whom I’ve been though a lot together. It was a horrible relationship. It was a relief when it ended. We were focused on the outer problems, so we didn’t notice our inner problems until we had a moment to breathe-and to realise that we actually were a horrible couple. Our personalities don’t mix very well. We’re still friends. But having endured a lot together doesn’t automatically mean a relationship works in the everyday life.
Diner Kinetic
Hahahahahaha glorious
Diner Kinetic
I mean to the awesome joke, not the serious life drama. I’m glad you worked that stuff out tho!
m-m
Nice going, Ruth!!
Tilt
Ruth? The recovering alcoholic whose parents were killed by a drunk driver and holds deep feelings of resentment for her alcoholism, which fuels her extreme depressive swings, but continues to be pressured by her alcoholic girlfriend into drinking? It’s her fault?
BBCC
I believe that was meant as an encouraging ‘nice going’ rather than a sarcastic one.
C.T Phipps
Were Billie *NOT* an alcoholic with severe issues needing treatment, putting the pressure of recovery on a new relationship would be a serious issue. You can’t build a serious new relationship and recover, IMHO. There’s too much pressure and guilt as well as anger through it [family of alcoholics, FYI].
But Billie IS someone who needs off the sauce herself so it’s a bit like saying, “Well if Joyce wasn’t a fundamentalist evangelical as well as the Ding Dong Whiteboard Bandit…”
Meagan
I cannot follow your comment. What?
C.T Phipps
I said Ruth’s insistence on Billie conforming to her needs would be really shitty if not for the fact Billie needs help with the exact same problem.
Emily
Insisting that your partner not constantly try to undermine your sobriety is hardly an unfair expectation. Like this not be an unreasonable thing to ask of Billie even if she weren’t an alcoholic herself because it’s a shitty thing to do to your partner regardless.
Jo
when someone is trying to get sober, the right thing to do is to support them through that. the shitty thing to do is to try to get then back onto the habit they are trying to heal from… Billy is being a shitty partner by insisting that Ruth gets drunk
Sam
It absolutely would not be. Asking your partner to be RESPECTFUL of your needs and to stop undermining your recovery is not a heavy burden to put on them regardless of whether they have the same problem or not.
C.T Phipps
Coming from a family of alcoholics, if one of your partners is a social drinker and it is one of their hobbies, it’s a pretty huge change to impose and will destroy the relationship.
Solution: You need to stop having that person in your life.
thejeff
That person can also go out and have social drinks with other friends and without you, not keep booze at home and just generally not throw temptation directly at the alcoholic.
the final pam
The social drinker can still drink?? No one’s saying they need to stop drinking. What they need to do is stop offering drinks to the person saying “I don’t want to drink alcohol.”
This isn’t a riddle, this isn’t something that has multiple layers or anything. If someone says “I don’t want to drink alcohol” regardless of if they’re a recovering alcoholic or just someone that wants to remain sober, you don’t offer them alcohol or try to get them to drink. That’s it.
Ruth isn’t even asking Billie to stop drinking. She’s telling Billie to stop offering her alcohol. She is setting a boundary. This is no different from, say, Joyce telling Billie she doesn’t want to drink. She’s not making Billie conform to her needs, she’s just asking for a little bit of respect.
geno
What you want would only work if Billie wasn’t an asshole. She’s a jerk who won’t want to change until she has no choice. You people keep insisting that it’s all going to be okay, but Billie has made zero effort to change. If Ruth wants to be okay she needs to dump Billie
thejeff
Well, I guess it’s good we’ve come so far from “Ruth is an abusive monster and Billie her victim” that we’re now able to paint Billie as the monster who doesn’t deserve Ruth.
Emily
Ruth has actually made an effort to change and atone for her actions. Billie is not only actively working to regress any positive character development she’s experienced she’s also either intentionally trying to sabotage Ruth’s sobriety because Ruth recovering makes her feel less needed or she’s doing it unintentionally because she’s too self-absorbed to recognize how dangerous alcohol is to Ruth. Billie has kinda sucked a whole lot vis a vis her relationship with Ruth and it’s not unfair demonizing to think that Ruth deserves better than a girlfriend who disavows any meaningful relationship with her and undermines her sobriety even though she literally nearly drank herself to death.
thejeff
Not saying Billie’s perfect or anything, just observing how it seems to be one extreme or the other. Billie’s certainly screwing up right now.
Ruth hit bottom before she started to her her shit together. Billie hasn’t done that yet.
Charlotte
Again, insisting that your partner not constantly bug you to drink alcohol is not an unreasonable request in any relationship.
Osopescado
“But you’re so cute with those little bubbles drawn around your face!”
BBCC
This is gonna be rough but it needs to happen.
And yeah, that was the exact wrong thing to say. I suspect that any shippers here are gonna need a hug so I am leaving this basket of them here.
Doctor_Who
You mean a basket of hugs, right? Because if I end up with another basket of shippers on my doorstep, I’m gonna develop a drinking problem of my own.
BBCC
I mean a basket of hugs yes.
Ninjabuttocks
Thanks, I’m really worried about what’s gonna happen.
Emily
I ship Ruth with recovery more than I do with Billie so if Billie is going to continue to be a stubborn roadblock to that recovery she gotta go.
Red Comet
Yep. Billie is probably not good for Ruth’s recovery so if things don’t change I hope the relationship ends and Ruth stays strong. Her life > college girlfriend.
But I’m rooting for Billie to come through even though I think it might take some unrealisticly fast character growth to make that happen.
Schpoonman
I’m only worried that Ruth realizing how bad Billie is for her will cause her to regress, given the loss of “support”.
Fun story: About five years ago I started taking anti-depressants. After about two weeks I really started to feel their effect, I was really looking up. Then I got stood up on a date. Turns out meds can also operate on momentum and they stopped doing shit after that.
I want Ruth and Billie broken up. Billie just sucks as a person; I’ve dealt with enough people who “cared” but treated me like shit regardless to know that big vague intentions don’t mean a fucking thing if every moment-to-moment interaction with someone is still damaging.
Stephen Bierce
*plays “Broken Wings” on the hacked P.A. speaker*
ValdVin
Can’t we rig up a pair of country songs, a drinking one for Billie and a “I’m sorry and I’m on the wagon” ballad for Ruth?
MatthewTheLucky
Oh, right, Valentines.
BBCC
Looks like Willis is getting a head’s start.
NOBODY ASKED FOR THAT, WILLIS.
JBento
I feel called out.
ValdVin
I love New Danny, but it’s not the right avatar for your spot-on comment. There must be a grumpy Sarah here somewhere.
lilyliv
I’m proud of Ruth. I find it really hard to break bad habits, and *I* mostly just struggle with not biting my nails. This is a way bigger deal and I’m proud of her for starting this argument because it needs to be had.
lilyliv
Well, a *conversation* needs to be had, but it might need to be an argument to get Billie to realize how serious it is, so…
Doopyboop
This is a long time coming, unfortunately. Ruth and Billie both have their points, in that relationships do take work every day. And that they’ve been through hell and high water and so they can continue to sail forward. But just going through some deep shit together doesn’t mean they don’t have to do any work.
And Billie’s been avoiding needing to work. She’s been avoiding the psychologist, avoiding kicking her alcoholism, and avoiding letting her new dorm people realize she loves Ruth. And seeing how just that morning she tried to get Ruth to go drinking along with complaining about her not wanting to go out… Billie, babe, if you want this to work, you really have to start putting in the work.
Sam
Billie puts in work for Ruth’s wellbeing in some aspects (reminding Ruth to take medication, comforting her that she won’t be forgotten, will fight anyone who upsets her) but does not in other major aspects (refuses to work on herself, insensitive to Ruth’s attempt to recover from alcoholism in part due to refusal to acknowledge it is a problem for herself).
Doopyboop