I just lost a good friend to alcoholism this week. We were very close for 9 years but for 6 months up until June I had a wonderful friendship. I helped him through rehab and was happy to do it but was finding that by continuing to see him I was being consumed. I never tried to change him, we were just close. He was also seeing someone else and I felt short changed and he always said I was jealous. I really did love the man but I didn't think I could deal with the other woman as well, He said he couldn't see just one person but he was spending a lot of time with her. I decided to detach as much as I could, not emailing, not calling, not seeing him. I wanted him to focus on his recovery and I just felt that if he wanted me eventually it would happen. Well, it didn't and he lost his battle. Did I take detachment to the extreme? I can only hope my physical and emotional detachment did not provide him with a void that made him relapse. He was an alcoholic for 40 years. He did have the other lady to lean on. Just felling a little guilty with his death. It was very difficult to not see him but I knew if I continued to see him I would have continued to be sucked in and it didn't look like the relationshop was really going to go anywhere for one reason or another. he had many reasons. I never enabled, never yelled at him, never criticized him for his illness, just couldn't deal with the other woman. I have never known him to stop drinking for more than a month.