Have a Sudden Death. . .On Me!

She was speaking with considerable feeling and emotion about her relatives' insistence on her taking a drink with them, since she had "dried up" on the Alcoholics Anonymous program, and was no longer a drunkard. She had tried to parry their insistence with explanations that she could not drink, ever, again. They laughed at her. Obviously, said they, she had demonstrated that she could stop drinking to excess, so why shouldn't she become a social drinker? Her exasperation was real, her dilemma not a joke. She asked for help, an idea. And up popped one from me that made her face pale a little, but finally she said, "I think I'll try just that, and maybe they will understand."