Expert: Rebos - 11/4/2008

Question
I have a friend who is an alcoholic.  She starts drinking at 7:30 in the morning, passes out at lunch, naps, gets up and gets sauced again before passing out for bed.  She works from home so she can mask this and function.  I've known that she drinks too much for years, but the seriousness of this was brought to my attention by a visitor she had.  She says she can't go to rehab and she won't go to AA, and she wants her "visitor" to tell her how much she can continue to drink so he won't leave her.  She shakes if she hasn't had a drink too.  A few years ago she was up to 1-2 bottles of wine a day, now she can polish off 3 in a day, and of course there's her ever present huge plastic cup filled with vodka.  So what can her friends do to help?  She knows she has a problem, but she also doesn't want to quit drinking.  How do we make her want to quit?  And/or what do her friends do while she's doing this to herself?  She's part of our group of friends who go out to nice dinners and order champagne and wines, saki at the sushi restaurants, standard Friday HH, etc.  None of us are going to have a problem doing non-alcohol events instead of boozing it up, so should we should start that now so she can see we're not drinking?  Can we try to make her cut back so she's not wasted all day?  Does that ever work?  I want to be a positive influence and help her realize that she can't continue to do this to herself, it'll ruin her life.  

Your advice is appreciated!

Answer



Good morning Shannon and thank you for your question. You and your friends have to ask yourselves, “What are you willing to do to save your drinking friend’s life”?

You and your friends should not be going to dinner with her at all!!
If she asks, “Why we haven’t been going out”? You can all simply say that unless she does something about her drinking problem that you will no longer want to be in her company. You have to raise her “bottom” before she kills herself with booze. All of you must agree to this tactic! You can tell her that you and your friends refuse to stand by and watch her commit suicide… by the drink! It is important to tell her, and the reason why! She may gravitate to another group but it will no longer be your problem. Stop enabling her with your friendship! Until she remains sober for at least 6 months in a Program like AA you don’t want to hear from her. She needs to be detoxified first.

You have a friend that has a terminal disease. Best regards Rebos