Expert: Rebos - 7/15/2008

Question
Hi Rebos. My best friend (just turned 40) of 21+ years is ruining her life and I can't help her. Several of us (very close) were transferred to another state due to a job move with our company. Her drinking seemed to worsen when her mom passed away. She started AA for awhile but never stuck to it. It was so bad at one point, my boss and I had to drive her home from work because she came in totally smashed, she recently fell down her stairs at home causing a pretty bad concussion. She continues to lie to all of us. We stood by her when she almost drank herself to death. Searched her house and found several empty large bottles of Vodka. She ended up in ICU with full blown syrosis. The doctor gave her a 50% chance of coming out of there. She got better for awhile and is heading back down that path. Most recently, she was fired from her job where she has been working for almost 20 years. She tells us she wants help but wont pick up the phone to get it, nor take our advise. Expects us all to do it for her. But even when we do, she never stays with what she promises us. She has been in different facilites on a few occassions but nothing longer than a week. She admits she has the problem but does not seem willing to do anything about it. Yesterday, she made comments that if she knew she wouldn't go to hell, she would take every pill in her house. We have pretty much backed away from her until she gets help on her own. We dont know what else to do. She has no family up here and is not in a relationship. She has only her friends and shes losing that. The doctor told her when she came out of ICU, if she drank again it could kill her. I really dont think she cares anymore. But we do. What else can we do but sit back and watch our friend self-destruct?

Answer
Good morning Tracy and thank you for your question.

Unfortunately, there is little that you can do to get your friend to stop drinking unless she “gets sick and tired of being sick and tired”. Remember… that alcoholism is as terminal a disease as is some cancers. The American Medical Association says that it is! Until your friend hits her “bottom” she can’t stop drinking on her own willpower. It’s disheartening though that a bottom is as low as a person can go… plus six feet!

Your friend must be held responsible for her unacceptable and irresponsible behavior. You have to ask your self, “What are you willing to do to help save her life”? If you answer “anything” then you may be doing her a favor to help raise her “bottom” before she kills herself or someone else while driving drunk. By whatever means, you can tell her that you can’t stand by and watch her kill herself with alcohol, and for her to not contact you unless she has actually taken steps to get well. But what ever you do NEVER MAKE ANY THREAT TO HER THAT YOU ARE NOT WILLING 100% TO FOLLOW THROUGH WITH. If you make a threat to her and you don’t follow through with it, you are in a way giving her permission to continue drinking. She may have a disease, but she can do something about it to stop her downward spiral. That something is to get herself into a detox clinic, then an extended half-way house and then go back to Alcoholics Anonymous faithfully and work their program the AA way… not her way. Rarely has anyone failed to stay sober as long as they are honest about their situation.

An “enabler is the last thing that your friend needs. An enabler is a person who allows an alcoholic to continue drinking, primarily by their acceptance of the alcoholic's actions and not holding them accountable for their unacceptable behavior. An alcoholic can sense the ineptness and weakness of the enabler and they continue on drinking because they know that they will be “forgiven” and if necessary “rescued” time and time again. If you have become an enabler in a backhanded way you are giving your friend “permission” to drink by your continued acceptance her unacceptable behavior and her lack of concern as to how you feel about her drinking. That should be a hint to you that she is faced with a serious drinking problem. What ever you decide to do it should be based upon your head talking and not your heart. Don’t let your actions appear to be allowing her to continue drinking if you do not want her to drink. If you continue on the road that you are on you haven’t seen anything yet. Alcoholism is a progressive disease it only gets worse it never gets better on its own.

After her detoxification and an extended stay at a half-way house, anything short of her going back to AA will prove to you that she is not ready to stop… that she hasn’t hit her bottom yet. She may be so far gone that she needs help to get some distance between her and her last drink. One always has to consider the possibility of what withdrawal from alcohol can do to a person!

Stopping drinking, for an alcoholic, is not a matter of willpower. Drinking alcoholically is a symptom of a deeper underlying problem that must be faced up to in order for your friend to recover. Without your friend learning what that problem is, and then doing something about it… trying to stay away from a drink is known as "white knuckle sobriety", or being on a “dry drunk”. It won’t very long before she must drink again. For an alcoholic there is no such thing as cutting down, drinking only on weekends, changing to beer or wine, or even switching to the near beer with 0.05% alcohol. For an alcoholic nothing will work short of total and complete abstinence from any thing that contains alcohol or mind-altering substances (drugs).

There is so much that I could suggest to you that may help your friend, but it will be up to her when it comes right down to it. I could suggest that you, as a concerned friend, go to Alanon meetings to learn about the disease and what you can do to help yourself and in turn maybe help her. Alanon can be reached by calling: 1-800-344-2666 (United States) or 1-800-443-4525 (Canada). Al-Anon is where YOU will get better. What you need to do is listen to others who are or have been in your similar situation and have found an answer to their problem. I don’t know how involved you have a right to get involved with your friend. Does she have a family that should be contacted? Is she indigent without any medical insurance? Etc.

To be a male alcoholic is bad enough, but to be a female alcoholic brings with it “special problems”. You have to be honest with your friend! Please let me know if there is any further information that I can provide you with. Thank you, Rebos