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Hello everyone. I am new to this board and just read over some of the postings. You all seem like a pleasant and knowlegable group so I am hoping you will give me some much needed advice.
My problem is quite different from the ones I am reading here. It regards a friend, not a family member. My friend is in her early 60's. Some months ago she became very depressed and began abusing alcohol to feel better. The abuse has escalated to the point that she is on work disability. She stopped eating and has lost so much weight she looks like a concentration camp survivor...and please believe me, that is not an exaguration She's 5;7" tall and weighs less than 100 lbs. She lives alone and does nothing all day except drink and cry. She has stretched the strength and rescources of her grown children and 87 year old mother to the breaking point. She is seeing a counseler (a requirement for being on work disability) but she has not stopped drinking nor let go of her pity party. I suggested she go to AA and she said she didn't need to because she is "in recovery"!
Early this week her kids got her into a hospital because she had fallen. They are releasing her tonight. She called me a little while ago and asked if I would stop by tomorrow and help her unpack and settled in. Do I go? Do I say anything...like "Stop Killing Yourself". Do I just help her do a few things and leave?
The problem is, she can't walk because she's so weak. I asked her how she was going to manage the bathroom (she has none of the 1st floor) and she told me she'd use a trash can!...And this was said while sober (she was calling from the hospital).
I'm really afraid because I can't imagine that she will live much longer unless she stops this distructive behaviour. She already been hospitalized for severe pancriatitus (sp?) and now for this fall.
Any advice you all can give me would be very much appreciated.
Aloha Lea!! You are definitely in the right place with the right people for the right reason at the right time. Don't want to sound trite but I believe it's true. We don't give advise and we have lots of suggestions most of which were what was given to us and we tried. For many of us it has worked and worked like a miracle!!
I can suggest that you also get to a face to face Al Anon meeting very soon. Sit, listen and learn. Then get to as many meetings as you can over the next 90 days before you decide if Al-Anon is for you.
Your discription of your friend leads me to believe that she is in late stage of alcoholism the definition of which says that the alcoholic either gets sober or goes insane and/or dies. This disease takes alot of non-drinkers with it and we get just as sick as the alcoholic and worse because we don't have the anesthesia of alcohol to block out reality. We go thru the insanity wide awake.
In order to be a valued help to your very sick friend you need to be around a lot of Al Anons who can share what it was like for them, what they learned and what they do now.
In the mean time keep coming back here often and ask for help. I don't think anyone will refuse you. They never did me and my life, although alcoholism still abounds, is well worth living.
Jerry, you are absolutely correct about her either stopping or dieing. It's so strange because no one had any idea she was an alcoholic until this past fall.
Thank you for the suggestion on Al anon...but anyone have any ideas on how I should treet her today? She called again last night. It seems when her kids called the ambulance due to her fall, she had fallen 12 hours before they found her...and she had been unable to get up!
Last night her kids brought her home but refused to give her any assistance. They told her if she was well enough to be home she was well enough to take care of herself. I explained to her that they loved her very much and were using "tough love" to help her get her life back. I also explained that her hospitalization gave them some much need relief. As long as she was in the hospital they knew she was safe and not drinking. She wanted me to go over her house last night and get her some bedding for the couch. I ignored the request.
Now I'm wondering if I should go over there at all. Am I becoming an enabler by helping her?
What can be done for her? She is now too weak to attend AA meetings (even if she should decide she needs to go). I know that there is nothing I can do to really help her or change things...I know it has to come from her...BUT, I don't want to say or do anything that will make the situation worse. Can anyone give me some suggestions? Spending months attending Al Anon is not going to help me now...and frankly, I doubt if she will live more than a few weeks or months at the rate this is progressing.
Welcome to this site!! So glad you found us, to give you experience, strength and hope!
One of the things I learned was that you CANNOT talk rationally to an alcoholic/addict, no matter how hard you try. Going to the bathroom in a trash can really may seem reasonable to her. Remember...her mind is just as sick as her body. One thing we have in common with each other, Lea, is that I didn't know my husband was an alcoholic until his arrest for DUI. And the second arrest for DUI 6 months later led me to take him to a treatment center, where the nurse there said he was "cachexic", where his body was eating away at itself due to malnutrition and excessive drinking. And I just thought he was skinny due to high metabolism and a job that required extreme physical exertion! The nurse said he could possibly be on his way to dying an alcoholic death. What a shocker to me, although his family knew of his problem and told me he didn't drink (he told me that as well!). He did choose to stay there for treatment and has been sober for 21 months this month! Praise God!
Anyway, we try not to give advice, just give our experience with our alcoholics. I have learned in alanon that I didn't cause it, I can't control it, and I can't cure it...the three "C's". The alcoholic has to want it bad enough to quit. Until then, you will have to just sit back and take care of YOURSELF. That won't make it any easier on you, but you will be able to keep your sanity through this. I do understand where you are coming from, watching the one you love succomb to this dreaded disease. You can love and care for her, but ultimately the decision will be hers. Please, please, please get to alanon meetings to find out how you can love and care for yourself! You will be ever so thankful that you did. I certainly agree with what Jerry said above about being in the right place at the right time. You are definitely here for a reason. Find your Higher Power and give it all to Him.
You will learn in alanon to "detach with love". I've heard people in alanon describe that as "instead of putting them to bed when they are 'fall-down' drunk or passed out, just cover them up and let them sleep where they are." That's all you can do - detach with love, not try to take over caring for them and enabling them. It's up to THEM.
As stated try not to give advice. I do know that at times by doing things for my A that either she could have done herself or somehow are the consequences of her alcoholism, that I enabled her. Sometimes I still screw up and do them but I'm doing it less. I'm trying to let her have her disease and suffer it's consequences. When I take care of her or her mess, there is absolutely no good reason for her to get better. This enables them and their disease to continue.
The other day she asked me to pick up a prescription around 5PM. I did. I realized later that this might not have been a good decision. The reason she couldn't pick up her own prescription is because she now drinks earlier and earlier each day.
Not sure if that helps you at all.
Bob
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You are a perfect child of God and God and I love you just the way you are! (added by me...in that special alanon way)
