Ubuntu

Hello, I've looked around the forums and sorry in advance if I'm posting on the wrong one. I am a friend of a friends who I've just found out is alcohol dependent, and they are currently in my house having gone through a tough couple of days. I had no idea when they first arrived. I think I saw a friends and family section but I cannot see how to access it, and I'm really wanting some views of people going through what I'm witnessing. I'll quickly post here and apologies if it's in the wrong place.

I've known my friend for years, but hadn't seen him for around 3 years, he's a musician and I made contact recently as had been listening to some old songs and wanted to re connect. I had seen from a few Facebook posts that he'd been v unwell earlier in the year and sent a few messages previously to no avail. Anyway, to cut a long story short, we met up for the day on Friday - we had lunch at my place (small houseboat) and drank tea, he was as bright and friendly as ever and we had great chats. He did touch on that he had got into drinking too heavily and felt it was a problem, but I didn't pick up on it. Anyway, to cut a long story short that was Friday and then he joined me and my sister and her husband for lunch at my local put on the Sunday. He did have a few drinks but I still didn't twig anything. Then on the Monday morning he said could he have a 'hair of the dog' and poured himself a small whiskey and then proceeded to sleep for most of the day. It was only later in that day that I realised the small amount of whiskey I had in my cupboard wasn't there anymore. I only then had half a bottle of pimms and he asked to drink some of that but only small amounts with lots of sleeping in between. By now I was thinking there was a problem here, he was also pretty low and saying that life was hard for him etc, but still 'acting' pretty normally. I am a life coach and part of a great group who all share advice on of whom specialises in alcohol addiction. Due to my work I also know a fair bit about addiction, had seen a friend previously through AA etc. I'm aware that it's important to deal with the physical addiction through rehab before the psychological issues can hope to be addressed. Then on Tuesday he was meant to be attending an old family friend's funeral and said to me could he just stay in bed for the day. I rang his sister who I know and, although she didn't want to say too much as was protective of a brother, she mentioned that he'd been due to go for a rehab assessment this week. She also said he had had a major problem with alcohol over the past few years when I hadn't seen him. My contact who's a life coach dealing with alcoholism, and a pharmacist contact I know, also working with alcoholics said it was imperative that he did not just try and quit alcohol cold. So, on the basis that I thought he would go to rehab the rehab assessment the following day, they both advised to allow him small amounts of alcohol, on basis he'd attend the rehab. Well that was yesterday and he never made contact with the rehab. In between times I've watched him have chronic stomach cramps and what I can only say lots of thrashing around in between drinking small amounts, eating little and a fair amount of sleep. Tonight is now the 4th night (yesterday was the supposed rehab day) and he said he would try and drink a little more for the physical side of things and would def go to rehab today. So sorry for long story. Anyway, I finally spoke again to his sister tonight and got a much fuller picture, that she and the family incl. his two daughters (33) and (27) and ex partner still old friends with had had a very hard time over past 3 years, doing everything from detox and home and having him live with them, to constant visits to hospital where he'd be kept in for 3 days, given detox medicine (Librium? I think she said) etc etc and that they'd finally said enough was enough, they loved him but would no longer support the continued drinking. There last hope was that he'd go to the rehab assessment following latest spell in hospital. Likewise for me today he went out and bought vodka while I was on phone to her having already drunk a bottle across 10 hours and slept a lot. He's now asleep on my sofa and I could really do with some advice on what best to do. The advice I'm hearing so far, and my own judgement, is to wait until the morning now (so hoping that the stomach cramps and broken sleep won't be too bad as I've has so little sleep past few days) and then remind him about the rehab. If he doesn't go, and I fear he won't after his drinking behaviour today, is to say with compassion and no judgement that I have every hope that he can get better, but that I cannot 'collude' in his lies (so many promises in past couple of days just one drink etc and that if he won't go to the rehab (which I'm totally happy to take him to and support him in IF he takes the decision for himself), then he will have to go back to his flat on his own. He has v little money and looks terrified when I suggest he goes home, but i've calmly said this evening that he cannot stay on my houseboat and continue to drink. Finally I spoke to an ex addict AA counsellor tonight who said that he will do anything to get a drink, lies etc, and that only he can decide to go to rehab, I can't force him - (she was also dead against any form of family intervention and said that was not AA's way) and that if he chose not to do something about it, to wave him on his way. I know this is right and I will see how this goes in the morning, but it's a tough call and I could really do with some reassurance from people who have experienced this journey that I'd be doing the right thing.

So sorry for long thread - and thank you so much in advance for any help you can give me. Likewise if I can help/support you in any way, please do ask.

This is an amazingly supportive forum and I hope you might be able to give me some tips.

Here's hoping I can get some sleep tonight as I'm almost on my last legs!

All the very best to you

Impurrfect

Ubuntu - Welcome to SR and you did post in the friends & family section Sorry for what has brought you here.

I'm both an RA (recovering addict [and/or alcoholic]) as well as the loved one of A's (addicts/alcoholics).

I will say that it's not advisable for someone who has been drinking heavily to abruptly quit without medical supervision. HOWEVER, only the A can decide that.

Personally, I would hold strong with the boundary that he cannot stay with you and drink, as hard as that is. He got himself into this situation. You didn't cause it, you can't change it, and you can't cure it.

It wasn't until I hit bottom (I had been living on the streets) and my family LET me fall into a deep hole of addiction, then start working my way OUT of that hole, that I found recovery.

The bf I left behind, because he wanted to continue smoking crack (our mutual addiction) died when I had 2-3 years in recovery. I just lost my stepmother to addiction and I live in the same house. I couldn't MAKE either of them want recovery enough.

I hope you keep reading and posting. I would recommend, though, type your posts in smaller paragraphs. It's no big deal, it just makes it easier for some of us (like me with my reading glasses!! to read ).

Hugs and prayers,

Amy

Recovering2

Well, it's easier for him to avoid rehab if he can stay at your place and drink instead. You've only recently reconnected, and he's already got you pulled in. That's what an A will do. They will also lay on all the stories of how bad things are, why they can't do something just yet, etc. Anything to protect their disease.

The best thing you can do as a friend is get out of his way. This is his path, he will get sober when he wants to. You can't force him to go to rehab, but by enabling him, you may help him avoid the very consequence that might cause him to seek recovery.

choublak

You're okay with this guy staying in your house?

Ubuntu

Thank you so much for your replies. I am on the same page completely. He has got up early hours and has been v sick again. I have not given him any more alcohol. I have told him if he wants to drink then not on my houseboat or on my time. If he chooses the rehab assessment I will support him every step. I have painted a vivid picture of what both choices represent. My sister and brother in law are on their way now to take him back to his flat. From then on it is his choice - as you say, I can't make him do anything. I can only set my boundaries, support him in a positive choice - the continuing with alcohol is no choice but he needs to work that out for himself. I can't say it's easy sticking to my guns but I feel v strong and will not change my mind. I have meanwhile put a call into the rehab place who had left messages for him to call them. They do not open until 9am UK time and it's still only 6.45am here now. I will see what they say. I will tell my friend I will be on the end of the phone should he choose to go for his assessment. I rang them as I just want to know there is a place set up for him etc and what they have in mind and because professionals need to take over and deal with the physical side of his addiction before the psychological can be dealt with.

So as I say, I'm on the same page as you, and thank you for underlining my decision. Any further thoughts of what next would be much appreciated.

Many thanks in advance.

Ubuntu

Impurrfect I'm so sorry I only just scrolled up and saw your post since my reply to Choublak and Recovering2 - I thank you so much for your posts, I entirely understand and will follow your advice to the letter. What an inspiration you are and I hope that life is now happier and easier for you.

Thank you too for the point about paragraphs - in my effort to get everything down quickly I just typed as fast as I could! Any further thoughts you have since my posting my last reply would be gratefully received.

Thank you so much once again.

OnawaMiniya

Hi and welcome

I'm glad you did what you did, because he would have laid there drinking and sleeping indefinitely - and maybe worse, you never know what people will resort to when they are desperate and not of clear mind - if it were up to him.

I was very glad to see you had assistance removing him from your place as well. Before I had gotten down to that part of the thread I was going to suggest that. Same reason - you never know what people will resort to when desperate and not of clear mind. Even if you've known him for years, it can be surprising at the least and frightening at worst to see another side of an alcoholic...

I think it was good that you told him you'd be there for him IF he makes healthy decisions*...just remember to make sure you stick to that because once things settle back into your normal, everyday routine it can be easy to forget why you put that distance between you and them to begin with, when you want to give them the benefit of the doubt/want to help/etc. (*just please remember to listen to your instincts. If at any point your instincts tell you to no longer be involved, listen. Someone who acts like that immediately after coming back into your life, IMHO, has some real issues and if I were you I wouldn't GIVE them my trust, it would need to be EARNED. Alcoholics can have a real Jekyll/Hyde thing going on...they may try the sweet, "humble" approach at first, but will progress to being abusive out of desperation, quite possibly.)

I dated my husband when we were teenagers, and I had always remembered him as being sweet, shy, and above all else, gentle! We got back in touch almost 20 years later, and...well...let's just say at first I was in utter shock at who he'd become. He can be a monster. He has lost empathy. He is selfish. He is a liar. He is cruel. He pities himself. He blames anyone and everyone for any problems he has. He painted a picture of himself that was a lie - he exaggerated the good, omitted/downplayed/denied the bad. He displays little remorse for anything, and I honestly question the remorse he DOES display. Because he's a liar, and will say what he thinks you want to hear if he thinks it will benefit him to do so.

I was really taken aback once the facade began to crumble...and it didn't take long. You know, I had this nagging little feeling that he wasn't adding up. But, regretfully, I did not give that feeling the credit it deserved. And it is going to take me a long time to get out of this hole.

I know you aren't married or dating. My point is just to deal with him cautiously, protective of yourself, and remember that he has to save himself.

Just wondering, do the two of you have a past romantic history?

Wishing you luck and please continue to post here! Lots of nice people here

Peace.

Ubuntu

Dear Onawa apologies for this late reply to your kind post - it helped me massively in the past couple of days and thank you very much for taking the trouble to respond. I understand and connect entirely with where you're coming from and appreciate you sharing your wisdom and for your care. It is indeed a thin line and balancing act to gauge what is 'true' at times and what is my 'instinct'. Like you, I've not always followed that instinct and will definitely be doing so in this case. I do wish you strength for your own situation, and hope that, in time, things will get better for you too. You are obviously an extremely caring and intuitive person, and if I can help you in any way, please do say. (In answer to your question about a romantic involvement with my friend, no that's not the case, albeit we were very close friends and did share an plutonic attraction many years ago.)

I had actually sent a long reply to your post not long after you posted yours on Thurs - only to discover later that it had not posted properly. I had been typing on my iPhone and, not being used to posting, had somehow lost it. Then life really did take over again.

To briefly say where things are now at (it's incredibly helpful just to 'talk' here to people who understand isn't it?) after my sister and brother in law had come to take my friend out of my houseboat early Thurs morning (dreadful time, but we all remained firm) I subsequently spoke to the rehab place that I was waiting to open at 9am that morning. Well, what I don't think I'd previously explained properly in my earlier posting is that during the long night prior when my friend was being violently sick this had actually been black in colour 3 times. As soon as I mentioned this to the rehab people they said that was very likely to be internal bleeding, which of course caused big alarm bells to go off in me. The counsellor said he was now going to look back at the notes for my friend's original referral and contact the community alcohol support people who had set the original train for rehab in motion. He subsequently called me back and said that the community guy would be ringing my friend directly, but that their policy is not to go the house, just to call and that if they couldn't get hold of my friend then they thought eventually he would probably follow his pattern of calling for an ambulance and thus would eventually get to hospital.

Well, I realise that might well be the route that is taken from a purely 'addiction' perspective, but I knew the state my friend was in and wasn't prepared to wait from the 'medical' perspective. And more importantly, I knew my friend never has his phone off vibrate or answers it so there was no way the alc community guy would have made contact.

So, I got hold of my friend's doctor's surgery (as luck would have it he was due an app whilst staying with me and I'd remembered the surgery). After having to chase them up 2 hours later and losing precious time, I finally got hold of a doctor there (not his but one on call) who said I was to get over to his flat and call an ambulance immediately. This is what I then did (and in fact was writing you my update in the back of the taxi hence probably in my hurry hit the wrong button.) I had no idea how I was going to get in, but again luckily his neighbour in the flat above let me in the main door and then my friend's door was off the latch and I was able to gain entry. My sister and her husband had bought electricity for him, left some provisions and left him asleep on the sofa, where he still was when I found him in, what I can only describe as, agony, great deal of pain and not really with it, not speaking etc. I saw immediately he'd already been out to get more vodka in a bottle next to him, but only half bottle and not much drunk.

So, I rang the ambulance immediately and, as the hospital is literally just on the corner of his road, they were there in minutes. He went without much fuss. To cut a long story short we were then in Accident and Emergency for the next 8-9 hours - and, as the medical staff and nurses said, "we are chucking the pharmacy at him" to stabilise. All kinds of drips, pain relief and withdrawal meds etc. The big message I want to say here is that the staff were incredible, from the ambulance men to the nurses, to the doctors, to the consultant, there was ZERO judgement, only kindness, real care and professionalism. One of the nurses had remembered my friend from another hospital visit a couple of weeks ago and she was incredibly empathic but very firm that he had a real chance now and she did not want to see him back in there. Once able to stand, she even took him round the corner to show him a man who had just been admitted for chronic alcohol problems and said to my friend (that is who you will be if you don't stop this now). That was a v salutary visual for my friend to see, and I'm sure the nurse went against policy in doing it, but it's an image he won't forget in a while (albeit I know it in no way means he'll now miraculously be out of the woods).

The other important thing I want to mention is how much I've now realised how the 'system' here works and how the line between 'medical' intervention can so easily get blurred with the 'leave the person to it, addiction side'. Both the doctor who signed him into the hospital and another senior nurse asked me separately why I had not brought him straight to hospital in the early hours when I'd first seen the black vomit. They were not at all accusatory, but the point was made that in those instances that is the correct course to take - of course I had no idea ref internal bleeding until I spoke to rehab people. Their whole inference was that the medical side must be stabilised and then the addiction side after when it gets to that point. I share this in the hope this will help someone else here in a similar position.

Anyway, luckily my sister and brother in law were eventually able to join me for support at the hospital and, once stabilised, we sat with him until they were able to move him to a bed. We then went home planning to come back in the morning, but were only allowed to visit at 2pm, which would make it 24hours since his admission. Apparently, in the past when he's gone to hospital before, they kept him in for 3 days, but when we arrived to visit he was sitting up in bed, having been free from pain since early hours, showered and much more comfortable and saying they were actually going to discharge him. The hospital alc support person had visited him and agreed to send him home with the alc withdrawal medication (librium not antiabuse) and my friend said the doc had given him the medical all clear.

I was v sceptical as you can imagine and insisted on hearing this from the doctor's mouth. She was able to ask me more about the vomiting, which he'd not been able to describe in detail to her. Without going into too much detail she explained that because I was able to confirm that the first vomiting was normal and only the subsequent ones were black that was a good sign and therefore explained that would more likely be due to a tear in his GI tract. The chronic pain he was in was due to massive inflamation of his stomach lining and they of course had stabilised all that through the 24hours hospital stay.

My friend had also taken the initiative to discuss what next with the hops alc support guy and had then phoned the original community one again and fixed to go to see him today after agreeing a plan of action. He was to come home with me for Friday night and then go to his family on the Sat. Then they agreed the guy would see him at the alc support community centre today, Monday app 2pm and again tomorrow. He would then stay Xmas through NY with his family. All of whom have been dealing with this for past 3 years as I subsequently found out bit by bit.

I was naturally nervous having him back with me on my houseboat, but it all went okay, very quiet, calm evening my my fire and he slept approx 11 hours and said it was the most peaceful sleep he could remember in a long time. I then took him to his family (I'm also friends with them although not seen since the past 3 years and the alcohol addiction worsening). They were enormously grateful that I and my sister and bro in law were now on board and had supported their bro, father, ex partner (he's close friends with the mother of his two daughters (33) and (27), who live on an estate in London next to each other. They had already started to set much firmer boundaries, but of course realised not firm enough.

Anyway, if you've managed to read this far (for which I'm v grateful) we are now all on the same page. As I explained previously, there is no money for residential rehab which would obviously be the best choice. So the next best thing is that he goes to alc support today and tomorrow and then IF he can stay clean for 2 weeks (until 2 Jan) the original rehab place will assess him and he'll be eligible for a 5 day course on an outpatient basis. I spent the rest of Sat with him and his family (it was his daughter's bday) and then we all met again yesterday. My friend was doing okay, a little anxious, but taking the meds etc and said he felt better when moving i.e. getting out and about with us. I then spent yesterday evening with them and he spent a lot of time with his kids, playing cards and having a 'normal' (for want of a better word) time. When he walked me to the station late last night, he said he was looking forward to the appointment today at 2pm and would call me after. He had also seen a recovering alc friend of his for a quick coffee before meeting me and he said this had helped a lot as obviously his friend has/is going through what he is. Finally, he's also spoken to another friend who is going to take him to AA meetings and support him.

Phew, so that's where we are at at the minute. All his family know that 1. he must not be left on his own 2. must not return to his flat 3 there must be no alc anywhere OR drinking in his presence, and 4. to keep him as occupied as poss. in as relaxed a way as possible, i.e. taking his mind off things (albeit we know he will likely be thinking of nothing else). Of course, we all know if he's going to drink then we can't stop that and then he will have to ask him to leave again and go to his flat. None of us are naive to that thought at all so rest assured, but I've also been heavily advised now by other alcohol experts that at this point the timing is crucial and support is important as long as he's moving towards the rehab etc.

Finally, we all know that even though the 'medical' side is now sorted (the hospital doctor even confirmed yes, damaged liver, but not irreparable and if no more, drinking would heal etc), there is still a long way to go on helping him become mentally sorted - mentally healthy, strong and believing again in a compelling future, if you like. And it's this area that I don't think he's fully grasped albeit IS making all the right noises. And I suppose, if anyone has managed to read this far, I would welcome any advice, tips and ideas on how to play things the next couple of weeks up until 5 day rehab course and beyond.

I do hope I have not broken any forum rules by posting such a long post. And I'm aware it's the holiday period and not an easy one for many, but if any ideas were forthcoming, I'd be enormously grateful.

In the meantime, I wish all of you who responded to my post (and others participating in this incredibly kind, and valuable forum) the happiest of Christmases. Please do let me know if there is anything at all I can do for you - I am a life coach and specialise a lot in building new lives and relationships etc, hence knowing a fair bit about addiction as part of that, so do please contact me if I can be of any help. I also hope in writing my words might assist other family and friends with their loved ones who might be experiencing a similar situation.

My warmest regards and good wishes to you all - and of course, the SoberRecovery team as well, what an amazing forum and support team you are.