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Addiction to Alcohol/another fall
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Question
Hello Joe,
I recently asked your advice on my friend who is an alcoholic. As I told you in my previous message he lives far away. I have just received a text that he will be drinking tonight. I tried to call him immediately, but of course, he forwarded my call to his answering machine. What should I do. I know he will now drink until his body screams out for him to stop. Weeks, perhaps longer I expect. Do I continue to talk, email, text him. My heart aches but I do not want him to think I love him any less.
At the same time, I do not want to enable him. As painful as it is, I will gladly stop all communication if it will help him recover.
Please help me
Mary
Greetings again, Mary.
The one thing you might be able to convey to your friend is that he does not have to live that way – drunk, sober, drunk, sober, crazy, drunk – any more, and that you are interested in trying to be helpful to him if/when he might ever get to the point where he would like to permanently recover. And without being “cold” or “clinical”, as such, you might simply share that with him in a quiet (non-emotional) and matter-of-fact kind of way.
Your being friendly is not enabling your friend to drink, and neither is your keeping a safe distance going to drive him to drink. So, whether or not you “continue to talk, email, text him” is not really going to make any real difference either way here ... yet of course, only you know whether or not you can handle any of that at all. With geographical location already on your side, you are wise to “keep your distance” in spite of any personal feelings you might have, and it is important for him to “feel the pain” of that (without you intentionally bringing it on, of course). So then, *talk* to/with him if you feel like doing so, but *share* your feelings with just about anyone other than him. We alcoholics almost always “fight ‘til we lose with undeniable certainly”, and this friend of yours can only get to that necessary all-alone place all by himself.
Please know you are welcomed to write as often and as much as you might like ...
Blessings to you,
Joe
Email: leejosepho@hotmail.com
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Answers by Expert:
Joseph Lee O.
Expertise
Greetings to you! Amidst the insufficiency of all the philosophical, religious and “self-help” approaches to relief from chronic alcoholism, I have personally experienced the content of “Alcoholics Anonymous”, the book. Thus, I can now explain at least the essence of the physical, mental and emotional aspects of an alcoholic's inherent condition and plight, and I can show why a spiritual solution is required and how it works and how to attain one.
Experience
The oldest of four boys, I grew up in a religious, Midwestern-USA family. Unable to decline a friendly offer in a social setting, I had "no effective mental defense against the first drink" ("Alcoholics Anonymous", the book, page 43), and took my very first drink ever at age 24 ... and within minutes I had become obsessed with getting more of the effect that glass of homemade wine had given me. Alcohol had just done something *for* me that nothing else had ever done; it had seemingly "fixed" something inside me I had not even known was broken.
Over the next seven years of my life, I "drank up" just about everything and everyone ever meaning much to me at all, and I eventually abandoned my young family so I could drink and smoke pot at will. For, you see, alcohol was giving me a good-to-go feeling about life and a sense of control I had never before had, and at least in the early days of my drinking it could kill just about any pain that came along.
At age 31, however, circumstances and consequences had piled up all around me in ways that were making it obvious I could not continue on much longer. Life had become too tough, my pains had grown too great and the dangers of continuing to drink had become too undeniable for me to be able to continue believing I might ultimately survive an inescapable drop to the bottom of the pit. I still wanted to be able to drink safely as in days past, but something had seemingly "taken over" my drinking and was dragging me completely out-of-control after just one drink. So, and even while completely overwhelmed by the thought of facing life alcohol-free, I decided to stop drinking altogether ... and I quickly discovered I could not. No matter what I said, thought or did even just "one day at a time", I always ended up drinking once again. Where I wanted to drink safely, I could not, and neither could I remain abstinent for very long at all ... and such is the physical "allergy" (where one drink takes another) coupled with alcoholism’s mental-emotional obsession for the effect of alcohol ...
... but then I met a small group of people who personally understood my deadly dilemma - my complete personal powerlessness - and those same folks were quite able to propose a permanent solution. I accepted, of course, and today it is as if I "could not drink even if [I] would" ("Alcoholics Anonymous", the book, page 57), and for that I now remain unendingly grateful.
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