It's possible that I'm remembering things wrong, but I seem to remember being able to keep Eric in check without ever even bothering with the pills. His influence over Anne would be close to max but you could keep his influence over Alice and Lisa to practically nothing if you played it right. I think he needed to have some combination of influence over more than 1 of them for it to be off to military school for Max. I certainly wouldn't mind an alternate option to cockblock him when it comes to Anne as well but she's mostly a lost cause anyway until you get rid of him completely and I didn't mind the scenes with Anne anyway. He's her boyfriend so that should be expected whether Max likes it or not. It's the other girls that I found it more reasonable to want to block him completely with.The original game needed the pills, to keep Eric's influence over Ann, in check. If not, it was off to the army, and game over. I hope Aleksey, will come up with a better way, to do this. About Lisa's lessons, in this version you can completely block Eric from Lisa, and only Max will teach her. This will depend on the player. If your friends, Eric will teach her, and Max will see it.