Dear Abby: How do I deal with alcoholic friends?

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: End these calls by being honest with your friend about the effect they have 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’ll 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.