THE BORE
General => The Superdeep Borehole => Topic started by: Himu on July 07, 2012, 02:43:05 AM
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Childhood friends from Elementary school. We grew up together. Another childhood friend sent me a message on FB to ask me to call him and check up on him because he sent her a meltdown message on her phone. I said I could beat that and that I'd go visit him myself after work. His mother died a few months ago, and he's been struggling with a whole lot, having crappy facebook meltdowns, turning away from EVERYONE he knows.
I went to his place around 7pm. His dad answered the door, let me in, and showed me upstairs. I went inside his room and found him flat out drunk on his bed. He had at least a dozen beers sitting on his nightstand, with some vodka bottles nearby for good measure. and said he had been drinking ALL DAY. I tried to get him to go with me to Jack in the Box to eat some food so we could talk but he said his stomach wasn't up to it so I indulged myself by picking up his room of beer bottles and put them in the trash. So we decided to take a walk, and he was hobbling the entire time. He was slightly incoherent, and would repeat stuff I said. He was drunk off his balls. During our walk, I tried to tell him that he was killing himself but he kept on smoking. He smoked at least 6-7 cigs during our walk in his drunken stupor.
I noticed his teeth and they were really stained yellow-ish brown seemed smaller than the last time I saw him. I've never seen such colored teeth before besides one other person in my lifetime. I'm not sure if it's from hard drugs or from the alcohol abuse, but it's really gross. I know he dabbled in coke before...but I'm not sure if he's back on it.
Anyways, during our walk I tried to see if there was anyone there for him to help him get out of his rut, and he said his sister doesn't want to talk to him, I asked why, and he would avoid the answer. I said I need to talk to his dad about this and he said I didn't need to, that he was scared - scared of what? I don't know - but I somehow managed to convince him we both need to talk with his dad.
Talking with his father was both sad and revealing. He said that he has been to rehab twice this year already, and has been in rehab every year for the past SIX years and that he's tired, and he's trying to do all he can. He said his sister doesn't want to talk to him because he verbally abused her online. He said his son refuses to take his medicines, go to therapy and receive any type of help and just wants to lay around getting drunk all day. I told him before we talked to his dad that I was disappointed in him, and that he is not the same guy I grew up with, but I wanted to help him in any way I could, starting with his father. That convinced him to have a dialogue between me, him, and his dad. I told my friend that we should handle this just like we handled it outside - one step at a time, and that I will be texting him personally every day to make sure he takes his medicines.
He starting to dryheave, I noticed the time - I was with him for about two hours at that point - and I left.
Suffice to say, my buddy is fucking killing himself and there's nothing I can do about it.
I feel so powerless. I have lost so many friends to drugs, substance abuse, and hard drug use. I don't want to lose another one. Can I do something, anything to help him?
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I'm sorry you're going through this.
The short answer is no. He has to have some small desire to help himself and from what you've described, I don't think that's very likely. The best you can do is try not to enable him.
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I'm curious to know how he has the cash to even buy these beers.
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serious talk: "Suffice to say, my buddy is fucking killing himself and there's nothing I can do about it."
you know what the deal is. the only thing you can do is support him while he does it. sorry about your friend. losing a good friend is hard, and it's worse when you can see it coming: the cumulative pain of anticipation and then somehow the shock and the emptiness when they go and they're gone and they won't be coming back.
note: supporting him does not mean enabling him. however, if his family chooses to enable him there isn't much you can do about that.
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I'm curious to know how he has the cash to even buy these beers.
Somebody somewhere is enabling him, or he's stealing money/valuables to support his habit.
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I think it's his father who may be enabling but it's really hard to be down on him after our talk.
Now I'm feeling guilty because when asked I don't censor my views, and he has been going on and on about religion lately, and I tell him straight up what I think, and I think I'm killing his coping mechanisms that he was probably taught through AA. I try to reinforce that human will and desire will help him through this, not prayer. Now I feel awful.
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Everyone in this thread.
If he wants to change help him by going with him to a few meetings at the start so he isnt alone and such. Be there, be supportive but don't enable.
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My lady friend and I said we're gonna try to talk to someone else, and we're going to try to get his dad to get him a job and find a way to cut him off from booze. That's a step.
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one of my closest friends passed away earlier this spring of a motorcycle accident. we used to argue all the time about the questionable safety of buying and riding shitty motorcycles, and being blaise about his blood alcohol while doing it, but he loved it, and for this and other reasons we had gradually grown apart over the past couple of years. it wasn't something i was happy about, but our arguments were getting malicious, and we were both busy people.
so, one night, i was sent a link to a news article; they'd identified a motorcyclist who'd passed away. i made some calls and broke down. i will admit that it took me about three days to start crying, but once i started, i couldn't stop. i don't remember most of the rest of that week.
my view from the other side is to treasure the people who are and will be left after he's gone. this is his decision to make, and it is not within your control to make him make the opposite decision. it's not your responsibility, because it's not within your control, and vice versa. but it's probably not just the two of you, and not everyone the two of you know will make the same decisions he's making or will agree with them. supporting these other people is just as important as supporting him and yourself.
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Is this Jonathan? Dude has seemed unstable on Facebook for a while. And it definitely got worse after his mom died. :(
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Sigh. Yeah.
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Ibogaine would help this dude out. It caused me to quit cocaine. I got real bad off on it there for awhile. 8-ball of uncut flake every day for breakfast kind of problem. A couple Ibogaine tabs and 24 hours of spiritual journey and clarity later, I no longer felt the need for coke.
It is not legal in the US, but NOBODY has any idea what the fuck this stuff really is stateside either. They use it in Europe and Canada to get people to quit heroin and nicotine (two most addictive substances on planet earth), to pretty good success.
It is sometimes NOT pleasant, however. It is very introspective and retrospective. It can be downright hellacious if you have lived a shitty life. I know it was both the best AND worst 24 hours of my life. But if I hadn't, I wouldn't be posting here now. I'd be dead.
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I'm not going to try "cure" my friend of alcoholism and hard drugs with another hard drug.
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Psychedelics are NOT hard drugs. The US government really has brainwashed everyone to a degree to even a great tool like Iboga (which has been used by African natives for hundreds of years to refresh and rebuild the mind) is referred to by the same terms as Methamphetamine and Heroin.
Bleh. It helped me quit a coke habit that would have (and has at that level) killed a lot of people. It might help your friend. You will not know either way simply because you refuse to open your mind and stop listening to what untrustworthy idiots in suits tell you what you should and should not put in your body. Flouride is more neurotoxic than anything schedule 1 and the government puts that shit in our drinking water. That should tell you something.
I've said my piece.
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Drink all his booze
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My lady friend and I said we're gonna try to talk to someone else, and we're going to try to get his dad to get him a job and find a way to cut him off from booze. That's a step.
If he gets a job, he'll be able to afford more alcohol. Unless he's living with his father and his father bans all alcohol in the house, but it can be hard to get him to go along with that.