my friend is an alcoholic with two young children

[dazedandconfused]

I knew it was a serious problem and she keeps trying to stop but today she's been round at my house and after going to the bathroom I realised she must have had a bottle hidden in her bag. It was cear she'd been drinking so I said to her that I knew and she broke down sayng that her DH has said it's the last straw and he will take the kids (3 and a baby) away if she can't sort it out. He then rang as I weas getting her into a taxi and asked me if she was okay and I couldn't lie.

I'm so worried about her. She's a great person but is so unhappy and isolated. How can I help?

Don't know what to say, but it must be good for her to have you and her dh looking out for her.

It's so good that this is out in the open and, hopefully, in time for her to get help.

She must get to the GP - could you go with her?
and get a detox referral. It's vital that with two small children to care for that she gets help as soon as possible.

I'm sure others will have good, relevant advice. She is lucky to have you as her friend.

Also, her drinking will keep her unhappy and isolated. You can't exactly go to the toddler groups etc if you've been drinking, you can't invite people round, so you get more and more isolated.

Has she admitted she has a problem? Could you and/or her DH get her to the AA? There are meetings all the time, there is bound to be one tomorrow you could get her to.

Don't make her go cold turkey as this can be very dangerous. If she is going to give up she needs medical advice.

She has to really want to stop. Otherwise nothing you say or do will help her. She can go down the detox or therapy route or try alcholics anonymous. Loads of info on dependent drinkers threads on here if you have a search.

You can help by being there. If she is going to sort it then depending on the severity of the problem she will sleep a lot when she is withdrawing. She'll need a managed programme and lots of sweet drinks and sweets to get her through the early stages.

You can help by looking after the children, or by driving her to meetings while her DH looks after the children. Most of all, be there and don't judge her. She is lucky to have you.

Agree with llareggub, be there for her in any way she needs it and make sure she doesn't feel judged by you. Be there for her even when she seems to not be helping herself.

Poor thing.

I would offer to look after her children for as long as is possible while your friend and her dh seek urgent treatment for:

1. Whatever she is trying to numb out - depression, previous trauma

1. Using the alcohol to self-medicate which has now become an addiction

She may not be willing to seek treatment using the line 'the children will be taken away' or shame/secrecy - this only feeds the problems and the addiction. Tell her the quicker she gets help, the quicker she can get on with living her life. If she still refuses, ask her dh to explore the option of using the mental health act to section her.
There are many treatments including CBT that could help her learn to cope with a difficult past or current situation. It will help her look at problems differently.

I have an alcoholic mother and I wish someone had stepped in sooner. I could have avoided years of hell.
You are a lovely friend for wanting to help

Barking xx

Thanks for all your help. Her GP is aware of the problem - she turned up after drinking to a health visitor appointment recently and has had a referral for alcohol counselling. I know she has also had recent counselling for an abuse situation in the past. I don't know how much it's really helping in the day-to-day though.

She had her licence taken away a couple of months ago as she got arrested for drink driving. Fortunately the kids were not in the car - she usually waits until she knows someone else has responsibility for them then 'lets go'. This week she fell and has bruised her nose and head really badly.

I didn't know the GP could refer to a detox - her DP is talking about private detox which is three weeks (and very expensive, although clearly worth it IMO) but she is scared of failing and doesn't want to be away from the children that long. She has attended AA meetings but hasn't kept it up.

I am so worried that she is going to harmn herself or the children. And just so sad that she is this unhappy.

The AA is brilliant if you really want the help. If she doesn't then it won't work. Has she contacted anyone from the AA for support or did she just go to meetings? The AA never really worked for my DH until he found himself a sponsor and actively sought help.

I'm not sure if she had a sponsor - there was certainly one really nice guy who seemed to take her under his wing, called her and encouraged her to attend meetings. But she didn't like the idea that she was going to have to open up in meetings, and ended up leaving after attending 4 or 5. I know what you mean about needing to want the help - part of the problem is she keeps saying 'I just need to pull myself together, this is ridiculous' (that's her family's response) but it's too serious for that. How long did it go on before your DH sought help?

"but she is scared of failing and doesn't want to be away from the children that long".

This all sounds horribly familiar to me. Tell her to stop anticipating.

Gp can refer her - when I was a yonger you needed 2 doctors signatures, which is not always easy if there is a history and costs involved. Tell her dh to be prepared to stay at home this week and make lots of phonecalls. Private may be better.

x

just bear in mind that detox may not be and probably won't be the 'solution'. It may help get her dry but it almost certainly won't keep her that way. It's a long road sadly.

hope she gets the support she needs

A detox alone will be a waste of money, IMO

It sounds like she needs a period of residential care (which includes a detox) which will involve therapeutic input

They can be expensive but it is worth shopping around (maybe NHS direct might have a list of private places?)

NHS will have a massive wating list and tend to focus on 'harm minimisation' rather than abstinence... and it sounds like your friend has crossed the line in terms of controlling her drinking (ie not able to do this anymore)

My DH hid his problem very well but it all came to a head just after our son was born. With hindsight, there were all sorts of clues but I guess I was too wrapped up in the birth of our PFB that I didn't notice.

There were all sorts of things really. He would hide his drinking in the garage and he made it very difficult for me to go in there by putting physical obstacles in the way. I just thought it was a mess in there and avoided it but he has since admitted that he did it on purpose. Things came to a head because his mother recognised the signs as DH's uncle was also an alcoholic and confronted him. He denied it but later opened up to his best friend when DS was 3 weeks old.

He spent November and December in lots of AA meetings and appeared to do very well. He relapsed over christmas because his family and my family refused to accept he was an alcoholic and convinced him that he could now be a social drinker. This approach, BTW, was the one used by the place his GP referred him to. They encouraged him to manage his drinking rather than stop.

The AA on the other hand caught him when he fell and he with their help he has now been sober for over a year. He is a much better person for it. Not different, or nicer, but better. He is almost spiritual and believes strongly in the power of the mind. Sounds odd, and it is hard to explain. We came very close to putting him into some sort of rehab but couldn't find anyone to point us in the right direction. Luckily, AA worked for him and continues to work for him and he goes to meetings every week. In fact, he is there right now, chairing his own meeting and helping others through the first difficult stages.

Not necessarily notnowbernard. It will depend what her local NHS services are like. I manage the beds and waiting list for an NHS drug and alcohol in patient unit, I can get someone in the day after they are referred to us sometimes. And we offer both alcohol and drug detoxes.

I would encourage your friend to try and attend AA meetings again... get a sponsor if possible

There is an organisation called Al-Anon which is for friends/families of alcoholics, which work on the same princples of AA. Could be worth mentioning to your friend's DH?

Surfermum - agree it depends on local services

But I don't believe a detox alone is ever enough

(Have worked in both NHS and private sector drug and alcohol services)

Anyone being admitted to us has to have some form of aftercare lined up for when they leave - either the NHS day programme or one of the other local services. We don't do detoxes in isolation, they're part of a package of care.

I have to say the local drug and alcohol service were shite in our case. The counsellor kept cancelling appointments. There was a real sense of DH having to fit in with what they offered rather than designing a programme around his particular needs. It really was a one size fits all approach and it wasn't helpful.

I completely understand her fear for not wanting to open up at meeting, as the underlying problem of abuse (if I have understood correctly) means that the AA isn't the place to discuss this. She sounds like she needs a counsellor that specializes in abuse.

With the other situations you have mentioned, It sounds like she is on 'self-destruct' she is seeking oblivion. Alcohol is an 'intoxicant' - it is 'toxic', poison. I have had 3 very good friends lose their parents over drink and they have never got over it.

Her family telling her to pull herself together is a typically british response, its just another way of not dealing with it and not wanting to. Sounds like she is not allowed to have any feelings. Do you know if the abuse was linked to the family? Do they know?

As long as she doesn't like the idea of opening up, the longer she lives with the pain inside, the longer she drinks to soften the pain. The longer the pain she passes onto the next generation and so on.

There is a lovely book called The Prophet by Kahil Gibran, and there is a line in the book which goes: "Tell me about pain" and the reply is "Your pain is the braking of the shell that encloses your own understanding". If she is allowed to have feelings including the bad ones then she might have the oppotunity to look at other choices and other coping mechanisms. Treatment may be able to teach her new coping strategies.

Four children that's a lot of sadness to carry on little shoulders
The rot has to stop. Phone her dh tonight and see if you can both start things moving now.

Our local alcohol services now only advocate abstinence in dealing with a dependence and have meds available - antabuse, campral - to assist with the maintenance of sobriety. It's a day unit, which I think prepares patients for going back into 'the real world', because inpatient rehab can often real the addict feelign institutionalised and unable to cope when they're discharged. Our alcohol services also encourages patients to attend AA or the local counselling service because they realise that getting aober is the easy part, it's satying sober that presents the greatest challenges.

I would say that any of these methods only work when the drinker really wants to make those changes, otherwise it's frustrating for all concerned. If you're friend has expressed an interest in rehab, then it's more likely to work than if she thinks she can just pull herself together. Many drinkers need several attempts at 'getting sober' before it actually sticks so I'd say that no effort is completely pointless. She is very lucky to have such a good friend thoug, and well done for sticking by her. I'd say that in the mean-time, give AlAnon a call as you may find it quite a strain on you. They are a fantastic fellowship, and can really support you and her DH through this too.

I wish you all wish.

god, mumset is so brilliant - thanks for all your advice. I have spoken to my friend a couple of times today and she has two counselling appointments this week - one for abuse and one psychotherapy. She's feeling a bit better today she says. They have also doubled her anti-depressants (not sure how great this will be?). The good news is that she felt able to open up more to her DH this morning and tell him that his silence is making things so much harder for her. I am going to suggest that she enquires about detox through NHS tho I guess here in Glasgow the waiting lists will be endless.

I feel that there are problems from past abuse, but also she's from a big family used to having loads of people around and now she's living in a city flat and is mostly alone with the kids to her DP working away a lot. But when she's sober she is defiantly independent and a coper - it's hard to offer help because she's so proud.

If you are in Glasgow they could try here:

www.priorygroup.com/facilitySearch/viewFacility.asp?facid=18

I work in health information in Edinburgh and they recently sent us stuff and I am pretty sure they do half and half NHS and private and I think do assessments for anyone. Might be worth a shot.

Good luck and well done for being such a great friend.

The Priory in Glasgow isn't that great, TBH. It's horrendously expensive too - £500 a day or thereabouts for not much more than your NHS service. Fair enough it's inpatient and has decent meals but isn't really worth that amount of money. See what the local NHS addictions can provide in the meantime, or the council funded alcohol counselling services. They usually offer one to one appointments, which may be better if your friend is apprehensive in groups.