What was the turning point and why?

[Useruser1212]

I have a very close friend who I've know for almost all of my life. I know almost everything there is to know about her, we confide in eachother about everything. She's had a really terrible childhood and awful teenage years due to abuse from her father (not sexual but horrendous physical and emotional abuse). She has done really well for herself and up until recently (this year) she's never had any issues or been problematic. However, I'm not sure what's going on with her but her drinking has gone from being healthy (or at least healthy-ish - no more than once per week) to very problematic. She drinks at least every second evening now, and she'll have two bottles of wine to herself. That's a lot for anyone but she's really tiny so it makes her blackout. She'll also send really argumentative messages in a tunnel vision mindset at all hours at night, she'll be highly emotional and say things that aren't even necessarily true because she's blind drunk. The next day she'll message me mortified, telling me how much she hates herself and wishes she wasn't alive etc. It's breaking my heart. I don't know what has changed but something has made her extremely dependent on alcohol this year. When I ask her, she says she doesn't know how to explain it to me but that she feels like it helps her to wash away her emotional baggage but once she starts drinking she can't stop. She never used to be like this and she had all the same trauma then so I'm really confused. I want to do whatever I can to help her but I just don't understand whats happening to her. Does anyone have experience in going from healthy drinking to being dependent and quickly ruining your friendships/relationships work etc. I don't want things to get any worse for her than they already are. She's not in denial that she has a problem, she just doesn't know how to 'fix' it either.
Thank you so much if you read all of my post. I really appreciate any advice or insights from your own experiences

I think ‘ can’t stop’ is one of the definitions of alcoholism(if you do the online tests). Time to take a total break and deal with emotional issues without the alcohol. Sounds like you are a good friend so can be there to support her. Could you take her on a yoga retreat or something. Or toTurkey( alcohol expensive and poor quality there since Erdogan changed laws!)? Changing place really helps .
I went form hardly ever drinking and gradually increased due to social encouragement, living in places where drinking was very fun and very common. Then after a trauma I increased, drink and that’s where it became unhealthy. The more your drink the more dopamine levels and depleted and the more anxiety you get when you stop. A year isnt that long though. Still very fixable!

My advice having been where she is is to tell her how much you care and how worried you are about her and how much you want to see her happy and healthy again.

You seem to already realise this but most people who drink too much know that they drink too much. What they often don’t accept is how much people care about them and don’t want them to feel like that.

I felt really defensive whenever anyone criticised how much I was drinking. The conversations that really got through were the ones when people told me how much they cared and wanted to see me better.

Dry January is coming up. Can you do it with her? Dry January is often the way lots of people get started with sobriety. Listen to some Dry January podcasts and discuss them. Do the Bee Sober 30 day experiment together. It may just help her to know she’s not alone in it.