How do you save an alcoholic friend who wont admit they are alcoholic?!
Question: My best friend moved to florida with someone else and I talk to him every day. Every day he tells me how wasted he was last night and how he spent over 250 $ at the bar between him and 3 other people. He wont admit he is an alcoholic because he says he doesnt drink every day, he will go a day every couple weeks without drinking. He lives over 1000 miles from me and I go to aa meetings and meet other alcoholics, (only cuz its court ordered, i dont even drink more than once a month). I still love him as a best friend and I dont want him to be the person when hes older talking to other alcoholics about how he ruined his life and was powerless to alcohol. Is there any way I can save him or do I have to let him ruin his life and let him find it out 20-30 years from now?
By they way, this is in the right catagory, if you dont think so, then you dont know alcoholics and how it is a disease.
Answers: My best friend moved to florida with someone else and I talk to him every day. Every day he tells me how wasted he was last night and how he spent over 250 $ at the bar between him and 3 other people. He wont admit he is an alcoholic because he says he doesnt drink every day, he will go a day every couple weeks without drinking. He lives over 1000 miles from me and I go to aa meetings and meet other alcoholics, (only cuz its court ordered, i dont even drink more than once a month). I still love him as a best friend and I dont want him to be the person when hes older talking to other alcoholics about how he ruined his life and was powerless to alcohol. Is there any way I can save him or do I have to let him ruin his life and let him find it out 20-30 years from now?
By they way, this is in the right catagory, if you dont think so, then you dont know alcoholics and how it is a disease.
I don't care what the additction is, the person has to finally make the choice (not someone else) to stop. That's why it's called a disease.
For a lot of people who are addicted, if someone mentions it, it just makes them do what ever even more. So DON'T mention it. Pretend he is fine. When he brags about drinking, say something like "gee, I wish I had that much to spend on XXXX" the X's are what ever YOU like to do more than anything else. The more you say don't the more he will do.
All you can do is wait.
This will be hard to do because of the distance but I video taped my friend on several occasions when she would get drunk. After I played them all for her she finally admitted she had a problem and got help.
you should have an intervention basically get his family and close friends around him and tell him about the problem. if more then one persons notices it and tells him he would realise that he needs help
I read this a few times....First of all, stop being so self-righteous. I'm thinking from his point of view, sorry.
I know it's hard, because you've come so far yourself and props to ya for that...but if you act like "Oh, I must saaaave yoooou", he's going to bolt. He'll think you are "trying to be better than I am" kind of thing, and he'll rebell. Maybe he's taunting you, in a way--with his "dude, I got sooooo wasted"...like "ha ha, I can drink and youuuu cannnnt" kind of thing--is he a snot like that? He knows you know what he's going through, either he's asking for help and doesnt realize it, or he's just being a jerk and throwing it in your face. For this, I say "tough love" is in order. Cut him off, cut him out and tell him "Until you seek help, I cannot be your friend" and then CLICK, hang up. Dont take his calls. Sometimes people have to hit their own personal rock-bottom before they realize they need a hand up---and hopefully you will be that hand for him...THEN.
Good luck, and thanks for being a caring person--and thanks for not drinking, too.
You know the answer... in your heart... as sad as it is... by you going to AA you have heard them say...time and time again... You can't change someone. They have to want to change themselves.
And.
What is the first step... in the AA 12 steps.
Right.
Now... you have the answer.
I am sorry about your friend. I have been in a situation like that... but it was my own mother, and I was a child. There was just no getting her to understand that abusing alcohol, not to mention smack the crap out of me every day, was okay... but, I lived through it... and moved on. It took a long road of healing.
The other thing is... if you are going to AA ... what is your sponsor telling you... something along the lines of 'it is up to the person how far they want to go down, before they stop'... etc.... because... that is, the way it is.
:-) I am happy to hear you care. I am sorry that you are hurting for your friend... but, prayer is the only thing you can do for him right now.
Even if you went down there and shook him by the shoulders, slapped his drunken face, and cried ... STOP STOP... he wouldn't. He has to be ready to stop, on his own.
He has to admit, that he really has a problem. Maybe when he runs out of cash, friends and booze...but, no one can predict that.
:-) Prayers are with you both.
there isnt a simple answer to that, some people will say have an intervention, but all this does is force someone into treatment when they dont want it, they just have no choice, once in a few million that will work (for alcoholics), theres also the county forced AA meetings when an alcholic gets in trouble, this is a joke, i think in your situation the best thing you could do is tell your friend how you feel, it might not do nothing, it might make him think about what his drinking is doing to him and his life, alcoholics are a 50/50 breed, some will turn from the bottle tomorow and never touch it again, and some will drink to the day they die, no matter how much they lose or how many people they hurt
I make myself available to people. Providing I don't have to finance it and they don't try it on with my wife etc. then I accept people and their right to drink themselves to death. No-one could have ever stopped me drinking. I had to become convinced about it myself. You can spoil someones drinking, plant seeds, but go too far and you can also alienate them and they won't telephone you if and when they are ready.
And the disease defintion is arguable.