How do I help my alcoholic friend

I watched two friends go through this.  Both had good jobs, one guy had a huge garage with a 1968 Mustang fastback 428 that hasn't been out in almost 20 years.  Not to mention the 12 motorcycles.  Almost lost his job four times, beat it by running to the Union and Rehab.  An early retirement was offered and he took it, but with not having to wake up early for work he had no reason to ever stop drinking.

Talking to them is just warm air passing by the face.  Both of these guys ended up in a hospital hooked up to hoses talking to a priest.  The guy with the Mustang is a bit better, has a beer now and then, but he no longer gets boxes of car stuff on the porch he doesn't remember buying.  (like a flat track Sportster!).  The 2nd  guy was put into an induced coma until his sister could come and sign papers.  He didn't last after the unplugging.

I wish I had a magic pill your friend could take, but I've not heard of one yet.  Best of luck to your friend, Gabless. 

Duke said:

I'll let others with more direct experience speak more, but from my observations, AA is very much religious.  The whole thing is built around surrendering to the "higher power".

 

"A", not "The".  Nature is on the list of higher powers mentioned by leaders at AA and Al-Anon meetings I've attended.

Courts have repeatedly ruled that 12 step programs are considered religious activity, including the US Supreme Court. Every meeting I've been to as support for someone was very Christian based, including beginning and ending prayers. I can understand why some addicts say "not for me"

My wife and I briefly discussed this thread over breakfast this morning.  We both were more than a little incredulous that to some at least, the biggest obstacle to a recommendation of AA was the erroneous belief that it might be "religious."  Sounds a bit like a phobia.

Anyways, it ain't so:  https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/literature/AA%20and%20Spirituality%20Press%20Release%20-%20EN_0.pdf

1988RedT2 said:

My wife and I briefly discussed this thread over breakfast this morning.  We both were more than a little incredulous that to some at least, the biggest obstacle to a recommendation of AA was the erroneous belief that it might be "religious."  Sounds a bit like a phobia.

Anyways, it ain't so:  https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/literature/AA%20and%20Spirituality%20Press%20Release%20-%20EN_0.pdf

Its not a phobia so much as an approach that doesn't work for non-religious people.  It doesn't matter if you replace God with any spiritual being of your choice/nature, this approach is very much targeted to someone that believe in that type of thing.
 

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

AA teaches you that you are weak and not in control. 

IMO that's a recipe for a self fulfilling prophecy 

He has got to wanna do it.

Alcoholics/Addicts play the "Triangle Game"  Victim, Persecutor, Rescuer.  Once you jump on the Triangle you play all the positions.

Best way to avoid this is not jump on the triangle and use verbal judo to steer conversations back to "you gotta wanna do it".   

The hardest lesson to learn is you  have no control over what is happening around you.  You only have control over how to respond to it.  

1988RedT2 said:

My wife and I briefly discussed this thread over breakfast this morning.  We both were more than a little incredulous that to some at least, the biggest obstacle to a recommendation of AA was the erroneous belief that it might be "religious."  Sounds a bit like a phobia.

Anyways, it ain't so:  https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/literature/AA%20and%20Spirituality%20Press%20Release%20-%20EN_0.pdf

AA can say it all they want, ever been to a meeting?

I've been to 10 or so, in different States, over the last 20 years.

All were held in a church, all started and ended with prayer, all mentioned "a higher power". It is recognized by US Courts as a religious organization.

It looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, AA is telling you it's not a duck, what do you believe?

OK the argument of whether or not AA is a religious organization can go on for as long as we have electricity, and it doesn't help the OP help his friend. Individuals have spoken from their personal experiences which, OMG big shock, vary from place to place and group to group. Let's move on.

also, because I don't believe we actually will move on, IBTL. berkeley.

Also keep in mind that religion, or religious activity is viewed differently in the two countries. FWIW,  I've been to many AA meetings, and a handful Alanon meetings and never noticed anything religious - and I would have noticed if it was there, it would have prevented me from returning.

I wrote a thing about this a while back, I wish I could find it.

My Dad was an alcoholic. He was successful and hard working - when he wasn't drinking, and all through his life he left a trail of miserable and frustrated people. His coworkers, business partners and friends couldn't make him stop. My Mom and later his girlfriends, no matter how hard they tried, couldn't get him to stop drinking, and he never did. At some point, probably in my late twenties, or early thirties I realized that it was probably going to kill him and I had to be prepared for that. But at no time did I think it was any of my business to try and make him stop drinking. He was drinking because he wanted to. It was his choice, and if I thought it was my business to try and make him stop I would have ended up like everybody else who did, angry, and frustrated. He made it to 75 which, all things considered, was a pretty good run. I accepted that he would be good sometimes, and drunk and flaky other times. That's who he was and that's who he was going to continue to be. I can thank Alanon for that attitude, for when I went to those meetings, recommended by my Mom, I saw a lot of what looked like sad pathetic people asking, why is he doing this to me? And I realized, he wasn't, it had nothing to do with me.

You don't. As bad as it hurts to watch someone you care about suffer, unless friend wants help you or anyone else can't help them. It's maddening and frustrating and stressful to attempt to provide assistance that someone doesn't want or think they need.

I work in the Alcohol industry, and I will say that AA is not the only player in the game... but it'll cost him a bit.  If he has a good job and insurance, there are countless non-AA outpatient rehab facilities to help.  In my experience, the best thing you can do is offer as many beneficial resource options as possible.  Eventually they'll either run out of excuses or you'll be comforted knowing you did the absolute best you could...  

This is a really hard situation to be in.  It's important to know that you're doing great just by offering a shoulder to help... But as others have pointed out- you can only do so muc to help someone who isn't fully committed to helping themselves first.   Good luck to all involved.

The alcoholic in my life reached what seemed like the 'bottom' and nearly died. There were a few days in the hospital, some recommendations for counseling and promises, then a slow slide back into it. A couple years later after an arrest and a night in jail there was still an attempt to 'manage it' that failed. Court, thousands of dollars in costs and fines, community service, blowing in the tube to start the car  ...denial. Through years, AA was of no interest, but a 'recovery' group at a church I attended helped me to get through it and understand addiction. Eventually I think it was a combination of humiliation [being humbled by repeated failure to the point of realizing there was *no* way to control it other than completely avoiding alcohol] combined with a very good addiction counselor who did one on one counseling. As a witness and bystander there wasn't much I could do except talk with others who had been through it and pray.

ShawnG said:

In reply to Duke :

"A" higher power. Don't read too much into it.

ANY "higher power" than the individual is problematic.  That indicates the individual does not and cannot have control over their own fate.  Something else is in charge, and if something else is in charge, what can the individual ultimately do?  Nothing.

I will leave it at that.

Good luck to you, and good luck to your friend.

My take.  I drink to much and I struggle with it daily.  I went to a few AA meetings in the past (not related to my drinking at the time, related to a friend who needed my support).  None of what I'm about to say is advice or professional anything.  Just my experience.

AA (although becoming less religious) is still based on a higher authority, and that you are less-than able to do anything without help or intervention from a superior power.  Highly effective for some, incredibly traumatizing and counter-productive for others.  It was not for me.  Hardcore.  I was surrounded by people locked in a terrible disease that completely surrendered their self-worth in order to ask something bigger to take the metaphorical wheel.  For some, it worked, but for most, it doesn't help.  It removes culpability.  It is a disease, and possibly not their fault, but it IS their responsibility.  Some people find comfort (and therefore healing) in surrendering, others do not and view it as a caustic guilt trip, and the numbers show that a majority of AA members are not helped.  I am NOT saying AA sucks.  It's an incredible lifeline that has saved untold numbers of lives, I'm just saying that it was a sucky experience for me.  Trust me, if I were dying of some disease and someone said "try this, there is a 45% chance it will work,"  I'm going to try it.

You likely won't convince your friend anything.  They (and I know this because I do it, too) rationalize, ignore signs, and lie to themselves about the truth.  If it were I, I would confront the hard truths with them in a manner that you think they will accept without feeling attacked, and just let them come to the realization themselves.

I have lost two very special friends to alcohol.  They literally drank themselves to death.  "Multiple organ failure" is the term they use.  I watched their lives fall apart, their health turn to E36 M3, and no amount of help I offered did a darned thing for them.  But for some, they might hear it echo in their heads before it's too late.

There's a guy on another forum that upended his life with alcoholism and after some period of recovery founded this. https://www.alcoholisnt.org/

It might prove useful to OP as a resource. 

Both sets of my grandparents and an uncle had major problems with alcoholism, 5+ drinks a night and we aren't talking beer/wine. 

To say it short, its made me be very vigilant of my relationship with alcohol. I am doing really well about only 1-2 drinks on an occasion when I will drink, but when it gets to more than 2-3 nights a week I make myself throttle back and step away for awhile.  Not everyone can do that. 

I also want to mirror what others have said, you cant really help those who are unwilling to help themselves or recognize a problem. In the end you fight the slippery slope of enabling and its extremely slippery. 

To all the folks who say "you can't help someone who doesn't want to help themselves", I empathize, but I also challenge. 

Isn't that the major sticking point of mental health problems in general? I.e. "I'm sorry you want to commit suicide, that sucks. Until you can change that I can't help you." Imagine having the ER doc say "I'm sorry your leg is broken, that sucks. Until you can change that I can't help you."

My opinion is that this is precisely why mental health is so hard. Hard to define, hard to treat, hard to measure, etc. 

But I also don't think "it's hard" should be used as a reason to give up, as the common phrase insinuates. 

OP, I have no advice other than don't give up. Try. Fail. Try something else. Read. Try again. I can't guarantee the outcome we all hope for but I know you can try. 

I'll try to offer something slightly different.

I've noticed since the covid pandemic that my drinking can turn into a downward spiral.  During the pandemic, I was bored and stuck in the house all day so I started in on my stash of beers.

I was slower getting up the next day and didn't really do anything because I had those beers the night before.  And since I was inside again, bored all day and not really motivated to do anything else, I would open the fridge and started grabbing beers.

Rinse, repeat. 

Just before the lockdowns ended here I pulled myself out of the cycle by forcing my butt to go out to the garage at 4am.  Luckily Mrs. Hungary isn't one to put up with my crap so when my alarm when off and I didn't get up, she smacked me upside the head and kicked me out of the bedroom for disturbing her at such a stupid hour.  All I did that morning was stare at my mess of a workbench, and try to clear the fog in my head.  I think I might have put a tool or two away...

But I did it again the next day, and the next, and pretty soon I wasn't sitting around the house all day doing nothin but drinking.

So I was going to ask:  "can you distract him a bit?"

Can you take him out and do something.  It doesn't have to be anything big, or regular, it could just be something casual.  Get him out of the house for that endorphin hit, and maybe it'll lessen the desire to drink?

Or maybe it will just lessen the time he has available to drink.

A simple "No.  We're go-carting right now.  You can have your beer when you get home or somethin', but right now I'm kickin your ass on the track and I want you sober for it so you can take notes"

I'll say this.  I still drink (and don't plan to ever stop completely).  But hitting that downward spiral was a huge shock to me, and I can 100% see how people get stuck in it.  Getting out of it was damn tough.  I'm not usually prone to depression, and I didn't like experiencing it one bit.  Now that I've been in the thick of it, I can see the warning signs a long ways off (read:  before they become a problem) and I steer FAR clear.  Even if he doesn't 100% sober up, there's nothin sayin he wont be a million times better off because you got him out of the house and doing something.

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

I think the difference can hinge on if the person is in denial and your help is being leveraged to continue that denial and make things worse. Yes, there are holes in it, but you do have to acknowledge that mental health contains challenges in the area of enablement. 

It's like if someone has a broken leg, but they insist its not broken. If they are asking for you to overlook signs of infection and just bring them food and pain medication so they can stay on the couch instead of addressing the problem and be able to work to pay their bills...  "dude you need to go to the hospital or you might die and are gonna lose your home if you keep doing it this way." "I'm around to drive you to the hospital, but I'm not doing that other stuff unless you get that taken care of." "There's a hospital over there, an urgent care over there, and here are programs that can help with the cost of getting your leg fixed"

Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

To all the folks who say "you can't help someone who doesn't want to help themselves", I empathize, but I also challenge. 

OK, I will re phrase it.  You can not help someone that does not think they have a problem. Telling them they have a problem will only get you frustrated when they don't see it. I have an alcoholic Brother that is homeless, he does not see that as an issue,  he will tell you with a straight face " maybe I like being a bum".

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

I'll try to offer something slightly different.

I've noticed since the covid pandemic that my drinking can turn into a downward spiral.  During the pandemic, I was bored and stuck in the house all day so I started in on my stash of beers.

I was slower getting up the next day and didn't really do anything because I had those beers the night before.  And since I was inside again, bored all day and not really motivated to do anything else, I would open the fridge and started grabbing beers.

Rinse, repeat. 

Just before the lockdowns ended here I pulled myself out of the cycle by forcing my butt to go out to the garage at 4am.  Luckily Mrs. Hungary isn't one to put up with my crap so when my alarm when off and I didn't get up, she smacked me upside the head and kicked me out of the bedroom for disturbing her at such a stupid hour.  All I did that morning was stare at my mess of a workbench, and try to clear the fog in my head.  I think I might have put a tool or two away...

But I did it again the next day, and the next, and pretty soon I wasn't sitting around the house all day doing nothin but drinking.

So I was going to ask:  "can you distract him a bit?"

Can you take him out and do something.  It doesn't have to be anything big, or regular, it could just be something casual.  Get him out of the house for that endorphin hit, and maybe it'll lessen the desire to drink?

Or maybe it will just lessen the time he has available to drink.

A simple "No.  We're go-carting right now.  You can have your beer when you get home or somethin', but right now I'm kickin your ass on the track and I want you sober for it so you can take notes"

I'll say this.  I still drink (and don't plan to ever stop completely).  But hitting that downward spiral was a huge shock to me, and I can 100% see how people get stuck in it.  Getting out of it was damn tough.  I'm not usually prone to depression, and I didn't like experiencing it one bit.  Now that I've been in the thick of it, I can see the warning signs a long ways off (read:  before they become a problem) and I steer FAR clear.  Even if he doesn't 100% sober up, there's nothin sayin he wont be a million times better off because you got him out of the house and doing something.

I think this is really well said.  The only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.  I think it's important to focus on baby-steps, because coming from experience, fixating on a monumental-feeling end-goal can be overwhelming and would make it that much more difficult to start/try.

I really really like this approach.  Well said Bill. 

Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

Imagine having the ER doc say "I'm sorry your leg is broken, that sucks."

ER Doc:  Your leg is broken.  We need to --
Patient:  No it isn't
ER Doc:  Yeah.  It is.  Until you are willing to accept that, we can't really help you.

I am/was your friend.  I went to inpatient rehab twice, one was very much like a country club and I was drinking within 72 hours of my release.  The second was in Cleveland Ohio and very much AA based.  I am pretty anti religion and could never buy into the whole religious premise.  I don't think you have to to be successful.  The whole idea of the higher power is that there are some things you can't control, so you will need to let a higher power handle it.  The real power of AA is your fellow drunks.  You are going to find people you dont like, but there are enough meetings to find a a group you like.  Get a sponsor work the steps and help another alcoholic.   If you do those three things you have a decent chance at succeeding.  Much of the point is to remember where you were when you are at your lowest and not want to go back there.

Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

To all the folks who say "you can't help someone who doesn't want to help themselves", I empathize, but I also challenge. 

Isn't that the major sticking point of mental health problems in general? I.e. "I'm sorry you want to commit suicide, that sucks. Until you can change that I can't help you." Imagine having the ER doc say "I'm sorry your leg is broken, that sucks. Until you can change that I can't help you."

My opinion is that this is precisely why mental health is so hard. Hard to define, hard to treat, hard to measure, etc. 

But I also don't think "it's hard" should be used as a reason to give up, as the common phrase insinuates. 

OP, I have no advice other than don't give up. Try. Fail. Try something else. Read. Try again. I can't guarantee the outcome we all hope for but I know you can try. 

You're not wrong at all.  I never thought about it in that framing.

I'm not sure if the OP can overcome the stigma of decades of a mental health vacuum, but your words are super true.  I remember the liberation I felt when I finally said "enough" and started talking openly about my drinking with my doctor and therapist.  I tried to hide it because I was ashamed and afraid to be labeled "the A word."  Living in a society where that word is stigmatized in the same way as other mental health issues is a serious block to progress.

This is all really interesting. Thanks for all the suggestions and experiences. If there is a positive outcome I will follow up. 

So you know, I'm sober (both drugs and alcohol) for 32 years and gratefully so. There was a time when I couldn't imagine my life without. Now, the opposite is true.

This I can tell you for sure. The desire to change needs to originate from within. I have friends with consumption issues and the best I can muster is to remind them a better person resides within. Others can help with uncovering and encouraging of that person, but it's in large part up to an individual to make the decision to modify behavior.

Deep down I knew I had to change, but it took me at least 5 years to embrace recovery. There are many phrases and sayings around 12 step programs and recovery. I'll repeat one here that, in retrospect, is particularly relevant  to me.  " Nothing changes in sobriety...everything does".

FWIW, I honestly believe, at 68, I'm the happiest I've ever been.