Expert: Rebos - 3/23/2007

Question
QUESTION: Hello and thank you for the many great answers and posts. Has been very helpful to my current situation. My best friend is a "functioning alcoholic" or at least an abuser. He has a great job, shows up on time, is an athlete, and is capable of just having one drink at dinner or even none at all.

However, he will occasionally go on these binges which involve mainly alcohol and occasionally drugs. He has had a DUI once several years ago, and I know he drives drunk again (although he doesn't binge when I'm around, I know he gets behind the wheel of a car when he shouldn't). He has flaked out on me several times because of the drinking and seems to base some of his decisions on where the "Party" will be with his group of "friends" who are also heavy drinkers. He keeps me separate from them. We are both competitive athletes and train together, but come the evening, he is not to be seen.

I have had enough - it is tearing me up to see him like this. I'm going to attend Al-Anon, and I've written him a letter which my therapist said is compassionate. I plan to read it in front of him and it will be one of the hardest things I will ever do - I'm saying either get treatment, or our friendship is over. A threat I am prepared to follow through with as painful as it is - we spend more time with each other than anyone else.

My question is this - if miraculously he agrees to get treatment, what would be a good way to feel that he really is serious or is just telling me what I want to hear ? Going to therapy for him probably would be a start, but I know in my heart it is not enough.  I obviously can't police him, but at the same time don't want to set him up to fail. Help please !!
ANSWER: Good morning Stephen:

Thank you for your question.

You are correct that you should not be your friend’s policeman, but you can still be his friend! I believe that your plan is a good one except that if your friend fails, it will be him that fails and not you. However, you must follow through with any threat that you make to him, including not taking any of his telephone calls or bailing him out of jail the next time he gets caught for drunken driving! The fact is that you can draw his attention to the way that you feel, but if he doesn’t want to do it for himself then he “is destined” to fail. He has to be sick and tired of being sick and tired. The fact is that if he is still young enough and as you say “an athlete”, he may delay his bottom somewhat. But when he does hit his bottom it will be personally crushing to him to wake up some morning and not recognize the once strapping guy who is looking back at him from his mirror. If you read some of my other answers you will see that I write that stopping drinking is not a matter of willpower. Alcoholism is a disease; the AMA says it is. 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, trying to stay away from a drink is known as "white knuckle sobriety", or being on a “dry drunk”. It isn’t very long before an alcoholic 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).

Addiction is a very powerful adversary, and as you know many a person has given up everything for it, (friends, families, jobs, children, wives, husbands, God and even themselves) to satisfy their addiction of alcohol and drugs.

If your friend starts to drink after you read your letter to him, you have no alternative but to cut-off your relationship with him. If he says that he will get help and either doesn’t or starts to drink again you will know… he will probably start to drift away from your friendship, not call you for days on end, or even call you at strange hours of the day or night (which is what they call “telephonitis”), or continually call you and repeat himself over and over again.

You may suggest that he goes to a detox clinic and get some distance between himself and his last drink. At a minimum you should suggest that he starts to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and that you will if he wants to… go with him at his first few meetings. Remember that there is no shame in being an alcoholic… the shame is in doing nothing about it! Also I agree with you that you should start to attend Al-Anon meetings.

Recovery from addiction is not a one shot deal, it is a lifetime proposition… but it is done “one day at a time”. Don’t ever let him con you into thinking that he is cured and doesn’t have to go to meetings any more. Binge drinkers will sometimes think that they are cured because their binges get spread out more than usual. I hope that I have helped you with my answer. Feel free to send me a follow-up question if I have raised any subject that I can expand upon. Thank you, Rebos


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Rebos - thanks again for the great answer. A quick follow up question. Again, say he decides for himself to go to treatment and AA meetings. Let's say he goes diligently, but "slips-up" somewhere along the line (relapse). If he doesn't go back to treatment, AA meetings, I will obviously have no choice to cut him off. But what if he acknowledges the slip up and still goes to meetings and works at it - what's the guidelines for relapses ?  

Answer
Thank you for your follow-up question Stephen.

Alcoholics Anonymous is also for people who may be still drinking… and continue to drink and keep going to meetings. Drunk or sober all are welcome at meetings (although non-alcoholics are not allowed at AA Closed Meetings). The only requirement for AA membership is “a desire to stop drinking”! Without the desire to stop drinking AA can still work for those who want to work at it. Attending meetings sober (as you can imagine) is better, because one may learn something if they are sober and not drinking. However, most newcomers to AA first have to “learn how to listen and then they are capable of listening to learn”. The great majority of those who attend AA meetings are sober for varying lengths of time. Fortunately, AA will always work for those who want it, but rarely will it work for those who need it, and are not willing to work towards getting sober and staying sober for the long haul. As I wrote earlier, A.A.ers stay sober just “one day at a time”, and are never cured of their alcoholism. An old saying is that; “once you turn a cucumber into a pickle, you can never change it back to a cucumber again”. Eternal vigilance is the name of the game when it comes to staying sober. Those who want AA to work for them are those who go to meetings every day (for at least ninety days), get active and join an AA group, before too much time passes ask someone, at one of the meetings he goes to, to be his AA Sponsor (usually an AA “old timer” with many years of sobriety), call that sponsor every day, ask for help to stay away from that first drink. You see, (it’s the first drink that gets you drunk… not that it makes you drunk… but it the first drink that eventually gets you drunk).

Yes, it may take your friend a number of tries at getting sober (the AA way) but it will only be because he refuses to take the suggestions from those who have been where he is now, if so it is an indication that he has not yet hit his bottom. Unfortunately, a bottom may be as low as a drunk can get … plus six feet! If your friend goes to enough meetings and still “slips” AA will eventually spoil his drinking, because as much as he may try to deny his alcoholism he will remember what his life could have been like if he stayed with AA. If your friend can be honest enough to grab onto the fleeting moment of truth about himself he will make it the first time around. If he doesn’t get sober and stay sober his first time at bat, as long as HE IS REALLY GOING TO MEETINGS and not just saying that he is, then he will be OK. As long as he continues to go to meetings he will be able to compare his drinking life with those who used to be like him, and are no longer.

In the meantime as, I suggested earlier, you should be going to Al-Anon meetings for yourself. Thank you again, Rebos