Need Advice: Alcoholic Friend

[jyl]

Guys, I need your advice about an alcoholic friend.

Quick summary: a friend of ours contacted us a couple months ago. He said he'd been in rehab for alcoholism. Lost his apartment and job. Needed a room for a little while. We let him move into our spare room. He got a job at Nordstrom. Seemed to be doing well. Working hard, was successful at sales. Was very open about his struggles. He is a very good guy and was a pleasure to have around. We figured he could stay with us for a few months, until he'd saved some money and found a room to rent. We left for California on Dec 23. He was staying in our house, taking care of our cats. I texted him a couple times, all seemed fine. He said he'd spent Christmas with his ex-partner and their son, cats were fine. We arrived home tonight Jan 2 at midnight. Kitchen was littered with empty wine bottles. He'd been on a bender. He came downstairs, seemed kind of stunned. I got him a glass of water, took him back upstairs to his room. He said he'd been drinking for days. Didn't know how long. Wasn't sure when he'd last been to work. His dog, who had been living with his ex-partner, was here. I told him to go to bed and cleaned up the kitchen. Now I'm trying to figure out what to do.

I'm thinking in the morning he needs to figure out if he still has a job, whether he can go back to rehab. I have to figure out if he can still stay here. I'm fine with helping a recovered alcoholic get back on his feet. I'm not willing to have a non recovered alcoholic living here. I don't, however, want to put him out on the street. I'm not sure he has anywhere else to go. I'm not going to have a dog here, even if it is a nice little pug.

What should I do? What would you do?

[Gogar]

If you still want to help him, that's ok, but you need to put some really strict conditions in place regarding your help.

If he violates the conditions, you need to follow through and not help anymore. Cut and dry. Go/No Go, as we might say here.

Good luck! It's a difficult situation. Kudos to you for trying at all.

[reachme]

Been through this 3x with friends. In the end HE must want to change no matter how much you want it for him. Contact AA to get help but I'd suggest ground rules that
1. He must regularly attend AA
2. He finds a sponsor ( not you-another recovering)
3. He pays you something for room and board and set a time limit
4. Not a drink at all
5. If he violates then HE is making the choice to be kicked out-not you, let him then call his sponsor cause it's bigger than you at that point.

[wdfifteen]

One thing to remember, and I learned this the hard way - is that addicts often turn on those how help them and blame them for their own lack of strength. You could "help" him because he is your friend and end up having him ticked off at you. It's irrational, but it happens.
I have a lot of sympathy for people with the disease of addiction, its victims are the addict and everyone around him. The people around him have to take care of themselves first. I learned this far too late.
Tell him he has to go back to rehab and then a recovery program. (rehab is useless without a follow-up recovery program) He can't stay with you. If he went on a bender in your house you are already in too deep in a problem too complex for a layman to handle. If he's a basically a good guy he'll eventually thank you for not enabling his addiction.

[wdfifteen]

What reachme said it basically a recovery program. It requires a lot of time and input from the people around the addict. It needs to be done with pros in a controlled setting until it becomes a habit. Only then would I allow him into my house.
I went through all this with someone I loved very much. Two rounds of rehab before I realized we couldn't do the recovery ourselves. Then two rounds of rehab&recovery, then she went off and drugged herself to death alone because I was "mean" to her because I would no longer let her do it in my presence.

[DanielDudley]

You are in no position to help your friend. He is a true alcoholic, and until he is driven to his knees and is willing to go to any lengths to achieve sobriety, he will not recover. Letting him stay at your house at this point would be the wrong thing to do, IMO, and would fall under the category of enabling.

There are basically two types of outside activities that can help an alcoholic to get sober. If an alcoholic experiences a major catastrophic event that is tied to alcoholism, that would be one. The other would be collective peer pressure. You need to understand that a to a true alcoholic having even one drink is like setting the cart before the horse. You don't need to learn this, your friend does.

The reason AA works, is because real alcoholics know what it took to get themselves sober, and they know that there are no half measures. A person's chances of getting sober as an alcoholic are about 1 in 8, and those are pretty poor odds. AA teaches alcoholics to see who they are, and to realize that they must not take that first drink. Alcoholics are powerless over even one drink, and they need to surrender to that fact. Non alcoholics often seem to be unaware of this fact.

You need to throw your friend out, and you can do it in a kindly manner, but any other action will be useless to his recovery. Addicts only change when every other option fails for them. Living in your house and drinking was not an option. Not showing up for work was not an option. Excuses and apologies are not an option.

I have worked with alcoholics for years. People have called me up years after the fact to thank me for firing them, or for refusing to enable them. You want to get him in a program, fine, but you need to get him out of your house.

True story. My dead Ex is dead. Her whole family is dead. Her next husband was an enabler. Her brother's girlfriend bought him the motorcycle on which he killed took his fatal final drunken ride. They were a large family. I shan't go on. If your friend was at a meeting instead of taking ''just one sip'', this might never have happened. But sometimes people just haven't experienced enough pain, suffering and loss to figure out where the problem lies.

I was in way over my head with other people's drinking. You are in way over your head. Everything you need to know or do will be counter intuitive to you. He can still be your friend, but that doesn't mean you should give him a warm place to live while you help him to kill himself.

The more clear the negatives of his situation, the more likely your friend will heed them. He is the one who needs to find that there are only two doors left, Life or Death.

I have seen this a hundred times. How many other people on this board can say that ? Kind actions won't bring the dead back to life for me, but tough love could be what your friend needs to get his life together. I wish it were easier. Do you want to feel good, or do you want to do the one thing that might make an impression ?

[Rick V]

Originally Posted by reachme

In the end HE must want to change

And there is the one thing you must understand.

I am not going into it but I can tell you from his point of view, I was there and by all accounts I have no reason to be alive. I lost everything from drinking, I found rock bottom, and I know where your friend is and trust me he has not hit the bottom yet or he would never go back to the bottle.
AA might be the answer but it wasn't for me, so I can't say it would be a good thing, but I can't say it would hurt either. We each find the support we need in our own time and that works for us, if we want to find it, your friend has to find what he needs. If he was sober while you were there, and went back to the bottle when you were gone then your friend simply needs to be accountable for his actions every single second of the day, he can not be left alone. If you decide to let your friend stay make it perfectly clear, one drink and he is gone, and be prepared to follow through with it, get it in writing, if you simply hold his hand you are enabling his actions, you do not need to be behind him, not in front of him, you need to be next to him, if you want to help. I can't say that hitting the bottle is normal, or if he will do it again but if he drank that much I would expect he will do it again.
Tough call, my opinion, the dog goes, he gets one more chance with stipulations, and that is all, make sure he knows you will not tolerate him being there drinking. You may lose a friend over this but if that is the case it will just be one more step closer to rock bottom for him and like I said I don't think he has found it yet, but he is going to need to.
PM me if you want, this is a very broad subject and there is no easy one size fits all answer.
Your a good man to even care at all. Your friend is lucky but he may not realize it

[Rick V]

Just as an idea of how bad things were in my life and what it took for me to hit the bottom to make me stop drinking.
July 10th 2004 11pm, there was 6 Albemarle county officers, my front yard, a lot of high powered weapons, most of which were mine, and my little daughter was the one who called the police. I can see her on the porch holding the phone like it is a picture. She had short hair dyed jet black, a black wife beater shirt and a short plaid mini skirt with black shoes on. I will never forget the look in her eyes as she yelled at me. My wife was in the yard close to her and my son was the object of my rage. I wasn't arrested because I had composed myself, turned the weapons over to my wife and I knew a couple of the cops, but I was removed from the house and taken to a hotel 25 miles away. I walked back home that night and I have no idea where I found the strength to do it, but somehow I did. Along that walk I had a lot of time to reflect as I was sobering up, or as close to it as I ever got during those days, and two things were certain. 1 I had to make a change, and that was no more drinking. 2 I had to make it home. I knew if I failed in that long walk I would also fail in my decision to get sober. I collapsed in the front yard. July 11 2004 was the first day of my journey and I have not had a single drop since then. I did not attend AA, I did not have any help other then support from my family, I didn't need it, I have that image of my daughter on my porch, I have the bruises from hitting the bottom and I knew what I had to do. My Dr. took my license for a week and I was in her office every day having blood drawn, she was afraid my body was going to shut down. I had already collapsed two days after I stopped drinking. Believe me when I tell you, your friend is not going to have an easy road and by falling off the wagon he is weak, and if that sounds cold too bad, I have no sympathy for someone who has gotten sober but has not learned a damn thing from the experience and refuses to stay that way. A true alcoholic can not have a single drink, not even a cold beer on a hot day after cutting the grass, none.

[M.D. Holloway]

Sad case. My heart goes out to both you and your lady as well as him. I have no clue what I would do mainly because I have never been in the situation. I have had friends who were / are drunks. I'm not a good enough person to get close to them and help.

Good luck, lots of good advice here...

[recycled sixtie]

Chuck him out. Point him to AA. He betrayed your trust. You have done enough.
Guy

[Dennis90]

If he's forgivable once more (from your stand point), just give him one more chance.
However, in order to help him, you must be strict. You should set some constraints that require him to conform to. And you tell him clearly that if he one more violates those conditions and restrictions that you set, no more helping from you.

[jyl]

Thank you all for your help.

He told me his rehab was at De Paul, which is a local substance abuse residential center. He said he hasn't been seeing anyone from there since his stay there. I don't think he was in any sort of organized program for his recovery, although I could be wrong. I wonder if he needs to go back to that program, or another one. Are there places for alcoholics to stay, for their recovery?

Or, I guess I should ask, should I actually be looking into these things? Or should it be entirely up to him to figure out what to do, and do it, even if he potentially becomes homeless? Is that the only way it can work?

[Rick V]

The choice has to be his, you can help but until he decided to do it, you are pissing in the wind

[pavulon]

Until he realizes that the life he is living is unsustainable (it will most likely kill him if it continues) for himself and anyone around him, that being sober is the only and much better alternative, that nobody can do it for him and that doing it alone is massively unlikely to be successful, there is nothing you can do and staying in the mix will continue to take a real toll on you and the people around you.

He needs AA (arguably another addiction and/or cult but better than the one he has) and you are now a candidate for al-anon. Lastly and sadly, the odds are stacked firmly against his sobriety.

[M.D. Holloway]

There is a reason the flight attendants tell you to put your mask on first then help out someone with theirs.

I gotta hand it to ya, you have a great heart. Do you realize that your efforts have a very high percentage of failing?

No one wants to turn their back on someone in need but there has to be a practicality to it all. Are you in the emotional, physical, financial position to do what needs to be done? Does your existing relationship with your lady allow for the shyt storm that will come - and trust me, when you deal with those of addiction you get dragged into all sorts of things you have no experience with.

There are organizations, churches and institutes designed to help him far better then you. I know want to help but and that's huge but are you sure?

He needs professional help and most of all it has to come from him.

Your a really good guy.

[LWJ]

Listen to Rick V. He speaks the truth. I have a number of alcoholic friends / people in my life. The best recovery was from the fellow who had it worst. His parents - now deceased drew a line on his drinking. He was homeless and begged them to stay in his house. They declined as he wasn't sober. He slept in his MGB in their driveway in Wintertime. He finally found bottom and has been sober for about a decade. I think Rick V hits the nail on the head that something so traumatic has to happen that it keeps them sober.

Best of luck. This is a horrible and difficult situation. My hat is off to you for your generosity. I don't know if I would do this.

Larry

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by jyl

He told me his rehab was at De Paul, which is a local substance abuse residential center. He said he hasn't been seeing anyone from there since his stay there. I don't think he was in any sort of organized program for his recovery, although I could be wrong. I wonder if he needs to go back to that program, or another one. Are there places for alcoholics to stay, for their recovery?

Yes there are. Most are about a month residency, with integration back into society. Anything less than that is probably a waste of money. There is a lot of behavior re-learning to do.
A caveat. A lot of alcohol and drug convictions include court-ordered rehab&recovery. Taking advantage of court ordered participation has become a big industry and there are lots of places that just run their program in order to rake in $$$ from these forced, unmotivated "patients." Look for one with low or no population of court ordered patients. Helping him find a GOOD recovery program is probably the best thing you could do for your friend.
Do an internet search and whatever you do stay away from BAY RECOVERY CENTER in San Diego.
My son is an addiction doctor and researcher at BUH. He says the drug Chantix has shown promise in helping motivated addicts get over their impulse phase of their craving. I don't know if that is an approved use yet, but it looks like it's coming.

[flatbutt]

jyl... if you choose to continue to help him then bless you but you must realize one thing, he will never be recovered...he will always be recovering. I know this from personal experience. He may well get and stay sober but it will be a continual process.

[techweenie]

Rick V: good on you.

jyl: it's a fine line between being a concerned friend and an enabler. Listen to Daniel and Rick. I lost a friend a couple years ago despite the 'tough love' approach... because he found other people to lean on. As has been said: he not only has to hit 'rock bottom,' but also has to clearly see that he has hit rock bottom. Not a lot we can do externally, as the struggle is internal.

[RANDY P]

that is one monkey most don't shake on their own- the average person isn't strong enough to just end it. It takes professional help, and judging by the way this guy is, it's in the final stages- he's technically homeless.

You keep him there your life will be hell. They all do that- binge- clean up - relapse, rinse, repeat.

He's all done unless he gets pro help and even that has low odds of success..

rjp