How Would You Help An Alcoholic Friend?

minimus

We have a dear friend that is an alcoholic. She is a Witness. She is a very sweet person. She has undergone sexual abuse as well as spousal abuse before she got a divorce. She has gotten into counseling. She was recently involved in an accident that got her arrested for drunk driving. She is a mess. She stopped drinking for a few days but as resumed with the attitude that everyone can relapse. We don't know if we can do anything for her. Any suggestions???

TresHappy

Alcoholism is a hard thing for a person to admit. Once they admit it, they have started towards recovery. However many addicts will never admit it and tell you it's everyone's else fault and they're just fine. AA is a wonderful resource for the alcoholic and their family members or friends (www.aa.org). The alcoholic has got to admit the problem. Also, maybe her insurance pays for rehab. My insurance pays 100% for up to a month.

LB

Tres is right, AA is about as good a tool as their is. As a friend you want to try to convince her that she really needs the treatment. If she isn't convinced, then the treatment won't work. My father in law went to treatment several times. But he only did treatment because it was court ordered. So it didn't work. He died at age 57.

She has to want to be helped. Help her to see that.

blondie

I will second TresHappy's advice. AA is a wonderful resource for both the alcoholic and the family and friends (Al-Anon). Even if the alcoholic does not seek help, family and friends can get the help they need too (yes, we all play a role in the alcoholic's life and it affects us adversely if we don't realize it). The alcoholic has to want to get help. And nothing works better than getting help from someone who has been there, done that.

Blondie (whose family member is celebrating 20 years of sobriety soon)

Shakita

My grandfather was an abusive alcoholic. My uncles were alcoholics. My mother was an abusive alcoholic. My brother has a drinking problem, alcoholic?, he would say no. My sister is an alcoholic. As you can see, I know a little bit about living with this problem.

My Mom was an alcoholic for about 30 years. She finally stopped drinking because she was throwing up blood so much she couldn't keep the booze down. She stopped drinking because her body was breaking down. Her ulcers and cancer finally were the reason she stopped.

My sister is currently an alcoholic. Her life is so screwed up at this point that it sounds like a soap opera. She has just left her husband and is living with a man friend. At my parents funeral last year she showed up drunk at the wake. Every excuse is an excuse to drink. This is the alcholics creed.

I drink. I love a glass of wine, or two. But, I am always aware of the alcoholism that runs in my family, so I don't drink to excess.

In your friends case, your friend first has to be aware that she has a problem. If she doesn't think she has a problem, you could talk yourself to death with her and never get anywhere. The first step is to acknowledge that she is an alcoholic.

After she does this, she must enter a program designed especially for alcoholics. Look in you phone book for programs in your own area.

But, beware. I speak from experience here. The recovering alcoholic is always a recovering alcoholic. They will never be able to drink like you and I can ever again.

My sister has been in the hospital more times than I can count for her drinking. She has ruined her health and relationships with her children and siblings. She is 43 but looks like she is at least 10 years older than that. It is a very sad situation. But, is hope all gone? No. I have hope that day she will come out of the hospital that one last time and she will never drink again. Because the alternative is surely death.

Minimus, you are a very good person to want to help your friend out.

So many times there is an enabler who is "helping" the alcoholic. Not in a sense of getting the booze, but someone who is supporting the excuses the alcoholic gives for drinking. I have seen these enablers. They are doing the alcoholic damage by not being tough enough with the alcoholic. Sometimes you need to be blunt. Maybe your friend needs some "tough love." In the end, she is the only one who can stop herself from drinking permanently. Good friends like you to support her along the way, will be her backbone. The alcoholic is afraid. Give her something to hold on to. Tell her you will be with her, and that you don't want her to die from this terrible disease. Because, in the end, that's what will happen. I know.

Your friend will be in my thoughts, take care,

Mrs. Shakita

Eric

minimus,

She has gotten into counseling. She was recently involved in an accident that got her arrested for drunk driving.

Did she get into counselling for alchohol, or for her marriage problems and abuse recovery?

Also, is it possible that the counselling was court ordered upon a conviction or as part of a plea bargain? If you can be certain that she entered alchohol counselling on her own, I believe her chances are much better.

Many, many moons ago, I was ordered by the courts to attend such counselling (the shame, the shame!) and there was a group session once a week of 15 or so people attending. Very few there had an attitude of anything other than resentment. One group of three or four guys passed a bottle around in the parking lot before they went in and again at the "coffee and smoke" break. The sessions were a shambles and the counseller seemed to be just trying to get the whole thing done with. It was very difficult to get anything out of those sessions.

You could try checking out local AA meetings, trying to find a group close by that seem like a group your friend would be comfortable with, and then offer to take her to one meeting just as a "look-see." This could be a hard sell, as most if not all AA sessions in my area are held in church buildings, and that alone could scare off a JW, even if the lack of denominational affiliation is made clear. Worth a try.

Eric

scumrat

I had abused alcohol for years while I was in the borg. When I left, my counselor recomended S.M.A.R.T. RECOVERY as an alternative to A.A. He had good insight cause I had a problem with the "god" thing. I found this has worked very well for me. I know they have a website but I don't have the adress. It's been almost 5 years since I last attended one of their meetings.

acsot

This is really tough; my father was alcoholic and it seems that even when they know something must be done about their situation, the alcohol can rob them of any type of initiative or willpower to make an attempt to recover. The road seems too difficult. There are interventions that can be done, but I don't know too much about that. What helped me as an adult child of an alcoholic were the books and tapes by John Bradshaw (The Family, Healing the Shame that Binds You, Homecoming, etc.). However, the person has to confront some really painful emotions first to even start the recuperative process; alcoholism seems to be multi-generational and from some things I've read there can be a slight genetic pre-disposition to alcoholism for babies born to alcoholic parents, so at times one has to peel back layers and layers of generational/family dysfunction to get to the bottom. It can be done, however, painful though it is.

I would think that another impediment would be the fact that she is a JW, so with their circular reasoning (Im a JW, JWs arent supposed to be alcoholic or have any type of addiction, therefore Im not an alcoholic) it appears likely that shell have a very hard time facing up to the situation. I knew of a sister also who was alcoholic, her husband was a elder; everyone knew about it, talked about it, but according to her she didnt have a problem. The other elders didnt want to go near it with a ten-foot pole, all of them being younger than her and her husband and much less experienced (she was a Gilead graduate from the 40s).

Perhaps shed open up about her parents and the home situation when she was a child and then if there were similar addictions you could perhaps mention something about how its so difficult for children growing up in that situation to overcome those kinds of dysfunction. Since shes a victim of sexual and spousal abuse (which is a very common type of relationship for adult children of alcoholics to get into, they havent had any experience with anything different), then its almost inevitable that her willpower is lacking when it comes to trying to bury the problem. Reading Bradshaws books can be a start, maybe even for yourself so that you have an idea of what kind of dilemma shes in.

Shes fortunate to have friends like you.

Francois

I think you've gotten some good advice already.

However, frankly, I don't think you can do much for an alcoholic but help to enable them to do what needs to be done for themselves. What I'm pretty sure of is that alcoholics pretty much have to hit rock bottom before they are ready to do something about themselves.

It seems that your friend is self-medicating with alcohol to help her deal with the pain of her life. I have done that subsequent to a divorce myself. This was a long time ago. If some of the medications that are now available for depression had been available to me at the time, I feel I might not have turned to alcohol to dull the pain. I'm speaking of such anti-depressants as Effexor, Prozac, Zoloft and others of this type. They are so much better than the old tri-cyclics. And I would advise her getting on one of these as fast as possible. If she doesn't have insurance or money, you might consider paying for them for her if you are able.

Hope this gives you some help of some kind.

Amazing

Help set up or at least particiapte in what is called an "Intervention" ... and continue the process until the friend gets help.

How Would You Help An Alcoholic Friend?

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