Expert: Rebos - 11/3/2006

Question
Hi.... my question/problem is this: My best friend is an alcoholic. My situation seems to be different than most I have read because she is not my spouse, or my parent or my child. We do not live together either. We have been very good friends for almost 4 years now. Her 19 year old son was murdered about 10 years ago. Her father apparently was an abusive alcoholic. Her husband (who she divorced a year ago) was apparently verbally abusive as well. She has never gotten any professional help for any of these problems. Since we have been friends, she would have bouts where she would be extremely happy for a while and then go into some sort of depression, she would become agitated, especially with me, start to have a pity party for herself, and get very mean. This would last for a day or so, and then she would sort of snap out of it and apologize. I started to think she may be bi-polar. I finally started to notice that these bouts usually involved alcohol and got a lot worse the more she drank. I started noticing during the day when we would get together, she would smell of alcohol. The drinking has gotten worse, the bouts of self pity have gotten worse, the lies have gotten worse and her verbal abuse has gotten worse when she is drinking. She seems to take it out on me more than anyone else. The last bout, which was a few weeks ago, lasted almost 5 days. As far as I know, she was drinking/drunk the whole time. She was very mean to me during that time, threatened to kill herself, told me what a lousy friend I am and she wants me out of her life, blah blah blah. A few days later, when she was sober, she apologized, said she will never drink again and wants to get help. I agreed to help her and we attended an AA meeting together the other night. I thought it was great... she said she is not like "those" people. She said she is going to see a counselor, one on one instead of AA. I do not live with her so I will never know how much she is drinking and I am getting to the point where I don't care if she is drinking. I am not her spouse, I am not her child or parent. I am getting tired of her being mean to me on the phone when we talk... when she is probably drinking...taking everything I say the wrong way... and then becoming nasty. In my heart, I want to help her... but my mind is telling me to walk away and get on with my life. The thought of walking away from her, and giving up on helping her makes me feel terrible.... and like I really AM a terrible friend if I desert her when she needs help... or a friend to stand by her. BUT I also feel like I am her punching bag when she is drinking and I do not deserve to be treated like this from a friend. I went to an al-anon meeting the other night. I think it may help me if I choose to stick around and deal with this... but do I WANT to stick around and deal with this? I am torn between standing by a friend and helping as much as I can... or keeping my sanity while I still have it and getting out NOW! Thank You for taking the time to read this.  

Answer
Good Afternoon Shar:

Thank you for your question, and even though you are not “blood related” my answer to you will be just about the same as though you are. I can tell by your question that you are concerned for your friend and that you would do anything within reason to help her. If my assumption is correct then the following is my answer to you:

If you are planning on continuing your friendship with her under any conditions (drinking or not)…your first option is to continue going to Al-Anon regularly to help you understand what effect your friend’s alcoholism is having on you. You will learn to not become an “enabler”! At the Al-Anon meeting you did go to you must have heard that term used. If not… an enabler is a person who allows an alcoholic to continue drinking, primarily by their acceptance of an alcoholic’s actions and not holding them accountable for their unacceptable behavior. An alcoholic can spot the weakness of an enabler and they continue on drinking because they know that they will be forgiven time and time again. If you become an enabler in a backhanded way you will be giving your friend “permission” to drink by your continued acceptance of her unacceptable behavior and her lack of concern as to how you feel about her drinking. 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 and you haven’t seen anything yet. Alcoholism never gets better on its own… it always gets worse. You will start to hate “your best friend” instead of hating the disease.

Your second option is to tell her friend to friend… that you are concerned over her drinking, and that alcohol will only compound her problems. She can’t drink her problems away. Explain that alcohol is a depressant and the more she drinks the more she will have to drink, because she will become more and more depressed. It’s like putting gasoline on a fire. I would try to get your friend to continue with Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and not go with her. Tell her she does not have to be an alcoholic to go to AA meetings, just a desire to stop drinking. Whatever you do, do not tell her that she is an alcoholic! For it to have any effect; she has to realize that she is an alcoholic, and that she is sick and tired of being sick and tired. Tell her that you want to continue your friendship, but you will not standby and watch her kill herself with alcohol. And that if she doesn’t go back to AA and make a daily commitment to get help with her drinking that you don’t want to hear from her until she does get help, and stays in AA’s program of recovery. If she chooses to continue drinking, or stops going to AA meetings walk away from her, and keep walking. If she doesn’t want to stop on her own you have to understand that you are powerless over her addiction to alcohol. Never make any threat to her that you are not 100% sure of following thru with it.   

There is nothing wrong with her going to a counselor, but if he/she is worth his/her salt he/she will tell her to also go to AA while he/she is seeing her. She does have other issues that a counselor may help her with.

If I had the problem that you have I would opt for the second option. You shouldn’t feel guilty about a situation that you have no control over. Your breaking up with her may help her to hit her bottom before she kills herself or someone else. I know that you must feel terrible about what you should do, but you may help to save her life by refusing to accept her unacceptable behavior. If I can be of more help to you please send a follow up question. Thank you, Rebos