how to address problem of alcohol with friend?

[kiritekanawa]

Friend has a long & troubled history of childhood issues, controlling arse of a (now ex-)husband, birth trauma, episodes of alcohol-related trauma, suicide watch, etc. She is a marvellous mother to 2 lovely kids, and has got her life on track very well in the last few years. She knows the score both re: alcohol and re: getting help and the sorts of help required and available. She is also very likely to be aware that any alcohol-related issues like drunk driving or being over the driving limit at work would lose her her job.

When under stress she returns to alcohol. Her ex-husband behaves like a loon with the kids if he suspects she as been drinking - shouting, screaming, frightening the kids, "rescuing" them and whisking them away to his house where he talks about how useless Mummy is. I can see why he is angry and frightened, but he's really not helping the situation, particularly as frequently she hasn't actually been drinking when he decides she has - or she has only had a very small amount. Once he's whisked the children off to safety she then feels dreadful and gets properly drunk by herself.

I think this happened yesterday - I saw her last night and she was trying too hard to be socially animated, as she does when she's sad. She also had alcohol on her breath.

How can I address this with her? What can I say?

She has told me elements of her story, but doesn't open up to me particularly. I think she has friends she may talk to more, but I don't know them. I know most of the details from a mutual friend, who used to be this woman's rock, but they have stepped back a bit from each other in recent years.

Because she's stable and open in all ways except around alcohol

But you're still not getting it. With an alcoholic, that's the only way that counts.

There's a real risk that what you saw on Sunday is just the merest hint of what her children experience. Even if she's entirely sober in front of them 99 days out of 100, that 100th day is enough to put the fear of God up you. The fear of God.

And the uncertainty. The never knowing what you might wake up to. Don't under-estimate that for one moment.

I am genuinely worried that a drinking alcoholic has 50:50 care of her children. Please be clear - I'm not saying that an alcoholic can't be a great parent - I'm saying s/he can't be a great parent while s/he is still drinking.

My father fell off the wagon after 15 years' sobriety when he had a health scare. Thankfully he pulled himself back on and, as far as I know, has been dry ever since. It happens. It happens all the time.

And there's a chance that the children's anxiety would improve if she stopped drinking. That their father would stop shouting if she stopped drinking.

Have you ever considered that his bitterness and cynicism that people can change might have been caused by his experience with her, rather than her suffering from its manifestation now?

Cinnabar - I think I expressed myself poorly - I completely agree with you that, unfortunately, the alcohol is what counts here. I also agree that it's incompatible with parenting - even if it's invisible to the kids (which it may not be) because it puts too much responsibility and worry on to them, one way or another.

From what I know of the ex (having known him through uni and work for quite some time), he's bitter and cynical and hypervigilant because of what he's been through in recent years. However, he's always been a self-centred, controlling/ controlled mummy's boy, damningly perfectionistic and intolerant, and actively not giving a shit about others unless they're useful to him or his mother thinks they're useful. Without giving too many (more) identifying details here, this is what led to the breakdown in his relationship in the first place.

I think that the significance of this is not simply to moan about him behind his back, but to note that because this is down to a lack of insight, he is probably not ever going to change, and that this is the other half of the alcohol problem. His wife has put significant work into dealing with her demons, dealing with her past traumas, and pulling herself together, even if that work is currently apparently in some jeopardy. He has yet to see that any part of his behaviour is less than perfect.

Interestingly, Kiri, my friend has an identical ex-husband, right down to the loathing her and not trusting her one iota.

I do actually blame the alcoholism for it, and not him. My friend's dd is older. 15. And old enough to express her opinions. While according to my friend her ex is the problem, the dd actively wants to go and live with him. She sees him for two weeks a year, currently, as they live a 5hr flight apart. She actively wants to move out of her mother's home (who has also pulled herself together since her 'worst' - a messy divorce, rehab, and has new jobs, a life etc).

I love my friend to bits, but I know for a fact that I do not see the full story. Out of all of them, I worry about the dd most. Her father doesn't want her to live with him (he is playing happy families with a new wife and child, and I assume only sees his dad twice a year because of the historical parenting link. He has no desire to take responsibility for her, but actively hates her mother).

I posted on here before Christmas as I was worried that she was going to be rejected by both parents, and I was terrified for her.

Good luck with talking to your friend, but you do need to read about distancing techniques. Please don't immerse yourself in this so that you need help yourself. I was so very close, and I am worried for you, more than your alcoholic friend. She needs help, but she needs to access it herself - staging an intervention is a dangerous game as you may only make things worse. She may hide things more from you as a result. It is so hard - as I say, no words of advice, except to make sure YOU are robust enough and can keep your distance.

I'm not disputing that he's self-centred, controlling, intolerant. I don't know him.

I do think that your expectations of how he should have behaved towards her in the past would have been all but impossible for a saint, let alone a normal, flawed human being.

You say his attitude is "is the other half of the alcohol problem". It really isn't. For a start, it's not THE alcohol problem; it's HER alcohol problem. Until she owns the problem she isn't in a position to control it.

And he didn't cause her alcoholism, no matter how he's behaved in the past. He didn't cause it, he couldn't control it, and he couldn't cure it.

The facts, from your posts, are these:

• he took on sole responsibility for their tiny children when she was hospitalised and afterwards: he held the children's family together at a time when she literally couldn't be there;
• he continues to look after his children 50:50
• he takes active steps to protect them from her drinking when he thinks it's necessary (I know you think he's overly-sensitive but as she's still actively drinking to get drunk I think he's got some cause).

His actions are those of a father doing his best for his children.

I truly hope you have never lived through anything close to what he will have lived through while still with your friend (and it is 100% certain that he will have lived through horrors - every single alcoholic has their own horrors to tell, and the majority don't get to hospitalisation and suicide watches to hit their own rock bottom), and I hope you never will.

MadWomanBackIntheAttic and CinnabarRed, thanks for putting me straight so that I see this from the other side.

(As an aside, I have regularly seen similar kinds of horrors both as a child and as an adult, though not ones reached through addiction - and have been the worried child watching the adults in situations where the healthy adult abused the unhealthy one - which is perhaps some explanation for why I might be being too sympathetic here. I now recognise that this is different, and that sympathy from me is of limited use here)

Dinner next week - hopefully we will get to discuss it and this will achieve something.

I think like everyone has said, you have to stop seeing yourself as an answer or a rescuer or even as someone to encourage her towards sobriety. You are just not positioned to be able to do this with an alcoholic and my own experiences is that they shut down, deny, get cross at you and people around you, blame others (her account is that the father gets very angry and removes the children when she hasn't even hardly been drinking- can you not hear the self-justification, the denial?)

I had a friend like this, she was very indignant when her partner expressed concerns, when her friend felt so strongly she intervened etc. She saw it as a conspiracy and her drinking as not that bad although in lucid moments she did know she had a problem. We were all fairly powerless to help her til she decided to help herself, and no nice chats over dinner, or even more drastic concern/interventions made any difference, if anything she felt defensive.

You mean well, but you must see other friends have distanced themselves for a reason. The best thing you can do is like your friend for who she is, alcohol and all, and do friendship type things with her even though you are concerned about her drinking. If she asks for your help, then offer it, but don't go around trying to get the conversation onto her drinking unless she does. It is not for you to save her, or show her the way out of her drinking. She knows the way out, she has engaged with services before, it's up to her to go back there and ask for help again, with your support if you choose to do that.

People experiencing domestic abuse, or toxic relationships, very often do become addicts of one kind or another. But it is usually an underlying, perhaps dormant, addiction - in order to address the addiction, the difficulty that caused the addict to swing into full addiction needs to be addressed as a separate issue re it is essential for recovery that the addict takes full responsiblity for the addiction, regardless what 'caused' it.

I'm sorry for what you've been through in the past, kiri. I wish I could protect the child you were and that the world could be a kinder place.

I do wish you, and your friend, every strength and happiness for the future.