A
female
age
51-59,
anonymous
writes:Hi everybody. This is a touchy subject. My close friend of nearly 40 years is an alcoholic. I met her through my husband at the age of 17, his best friend was dating her. We went out as a four some regularly, she was my bridesmaid and vice versa, my husband was his best mate and he the same for my husband. We had two children and they had four. My two girls were the same ages as there two oldest girls and were best friends. Every year until my eldest turned 15 we went on holiday together. We stopped due to things getting bad. A little history of how she ended up in this situation. She has always been deeply in love with her husband and he has always treated her as if she's not good enough. He's never hurt he, he just puts her efforts down and constantly be littles her in front of the children. Now all four of their children do exactly the same, treat her as if she's their slave and everything she does for them could be better. She works full time as a nurse, comes home and cooks for them all after a 13 hour shift, cleans the house, walks the dogs, does the school run. Her eldest being 21 and the youngest of the four being 10. Not one of them helps her out and they live like pigs, they won't lift a finger. If they all eat they will leave the mess and the dishes for her. She was very close to her father, back in 2004 he was rushed into hospital and died three days later. He had pancreatic cancer that had spread to numerous organs and then suffered a fatal stroke. She was devastated and ended up comforting her mother and her sister who has Down syndrome. In 2007 her mother went in for an operation that went horribly wrong, leaving her mother severely disabled. She became her mother and sisters carer's until her sister left an electrical appliance on and set the family home on fire. She had to arrange placements for them both before her mother eventually passed away with dementia in 2012. Life has never been easy for her. I noticed on our last family holiday together that she was very depressed. (After her father dying and her mothers operation) I tried to discuss maybe seeing her GP with her after a meal and a few glasses of wine. She admitted she was stuck in a rut and needed help. Her husband over heard and went mad. Declaring he was not being married to a loony mad women and she would not admitt she had a possible illness related to mental health. He ordered her and the children back in to the car and we didn't speak properly after that. She became more and more depressed, started drinking more, her husband and the children started picking on her for her drinking, which led to her feeling even more disliked and drinking more. Back in August her husband started an affair with a younger women (same age as his daughter 21) and openly admitted he would buy her boxes of wine so she got so drunk she wouldn't notice he would go out. Finally she was totally dependant, drinking first thing in the morning, three car crashes later (into bushes etc, police never called) and children hating her. He announced he was leaving her Christmas Eve and had already purchased a new house. She was devastated. Finally a month ago she crashed her car into someone, was taking to court as she was four times over the drink driving limit. She was banned from driving for two years and suspended from her nursing career for 5 months. Her daughter has confiscated her card in a bid to stop her buying alcohol, last weekend she was caught shop lifting alcohol from our village shop. As they know her and her problems they band her from the shop but did not call the police. She is currently one big alcoholic mess. She won't visit me anymore as she knows I won't drink with her. I don't know what to do. I see her staggering in the street, covered in bruises and half dressed. She has admitted she has a problem, but won't stop drinking. She's stopped her AA meetings and is happily drinking herself into deeper depression. Her children and her husband have all left her. I'm worried she's going to end up dead. What can I do?
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
male
reader, Mark1978 +, writes (22 June 2014):
 Cary Grant is spot on, you cannot help her, she has to help herself. She has to WANT to help herself. Its only by hitting rock bottom that Alcoholics can start, hopefully, to rebuild their life. But with her family and history I have to sadly say that I don't think she will get the support she needs to do that.
Her issues right now are the result of BOTH other peoples bad treatment and the way she has allowed herself to be treated. Her issues are a combination of a family who are insensitive, nasty and obnoxious and her own inability to stand up to them. She allowed herself to be treaded like a slave, waited on people hand and foot until she was downtrodden so much that she couldn't cope. Obviously she has bad breaks with her bereavements and so on, but she needs to take some of the responsibility for her situation. If her family wouldn't lift a finger and she was willing to do it all then that was not helping the situation. She should have stood her ground, forced her hand and not waited on her family hand and foot. Obviously there are other things beyond her control and I accept that, and its easy for me to say what she should have done, but some of the situations are, if not of her own making, certainly things she could have effected for the better.
Personally I despise drinking and driving. If someone I knew would stop so low as to endanger innocent peoples lives by drunk driving then, for me personally, that would be the end of my involvement with them. She could easily of inflicted a similar amount of pain and heartbreak onto the family of an innocent person with her selfish behaviour.
You are a good friend, a caring person and its hurting you so much to see her like this. But im afraid she has to be the one who helps herself. Others may disagree but by you trying, and failing to help her, could make things worse. This is a very upsetting situation and on you want to take charge of and you clearly want to save her, and others on here with more experience than I can probably offer better advice, but even if she accepts your help, which is unlikely, it could take years for her to recover sufficiently to even lead a vaguely normal life and the slightest set back could have her tumbling down again.
If she is in trouble with the police, stopped attending AA and her family have disowned her then she is close to rock bottom. Sadly there is no simple solution or magic fix, I wish there were.
Mark
A
male
reader, C. Grant  +, writes (22 June 2014):
 A good place to start would be to chat with these folks:
http://www.al-anonuk.org.uk/
You have to understand, though, that you can't save her. As they say, she has to hit rock bottom, recognize it, and open her mind to alternatives. And for some people that doesn't happen soon enough. You're a good friend to be concerned -- perhaps Al Anon can help you to understand what's happening.
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