Drinking Himself to Death

Woke up yesterday morning to see that I had missed a message. My former roommate’s (“FR”) mom wanted to let me know that he’d had a seizure and was rushed to the hospital late last night.

For the record, this is the same person from this thread.

Long story short, I later come to find out that the seizure was caused by his drinking. Despite being told by family and friends numerous times that he needed to stop (or at the very least, cut back), FR got so drunk on Friday morning that his boyfriend (with whom he lives), left for the day, telling FR that he’d be back tomorrow to see if he was sober then.

Of course, this just made the guy sad, and when he’s sad, he drinks. He showed up to work where he serves as a restaurant host, but since he was drunk, they immediately sent him home. Of course, you can only imagine what happened then. The next day, the boyfriend comes back, finds him drunk again, and leaves for another night, where… you get the picture.

(He’s the type of guy to find any reason to be sad, which drives him to the bottle. When he was at his old job, he drank because he didn’t like it. When he quit / was fired, he drank because he was unemployed.)

Luckily, they’d worked things out to a degree that the boyfriend came home, and then on Monday night, the boyfriend tells me he hears a thud in the other room, and rushes in to see FR convulsing on the floor.

So, FR is rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night, and is currently staying there for an undetermined period while the doctors run tests and see if he can get his levels back to “normal.” There’s also a possibility that he has brain damage, but it was too soon to tell. And of course, FR doesn’t have insurance.

He knows what he is doing to himself and his family and friends. He won’t attend AA or anything like that because he’s militantly atheist, and doesn’t like the spiritual aspect of AA. He puts his family and friends through the ringer with his self-destructive tendencies, to the point where most have stopped associating with him or talking to him. When I called two of our friends to let them know, one was dismissive and the other showed what could optimistically be described as “mild concern.”

This is in MPSIMS because frankly, I don’t know what advice there is to receive at this point - he is fully aware that he’s a non-functioning alcoholic (he’s been fired from jobs and missed interviews because of his drinking), he’s talked to a therapist a few times about his issues - drinking, anxiety, etc., and we’ve tried numerous interventions.

I considered putting this in the Pit, because I’m honestly sick of the same old song and dance, but he did come visit me multiple times when I was in the hospital for two weeks, a few months ago, and his mom came by a few times as well (and brought me flowers). And I really hate that she’s going through this with him, considering she’s newly retired and is married to someone who has their own medical / mental issues. She doesn’t need this very-avoidable extra stress.

Honestly, outside of the hospital visits, I hadn’t seen him since I moved to my new place. I will say, life has been far less eventful since we went our separate ways. It’s been nice.

I’m sorry to hear this. Its tough, but it sounds like you are in a healthy place with the whole thing.

What a sad, sucky situation. I feel bad for everyone involved. :frowning:

Thanks.

And for the record, they don’t know if he suffered brain damage as of yet. He was a little slow and unable to process coherent thoughts a few times while I was visiting him, but he’s always been a little spacey, he’d had a very long day, and he was being pumped full of meds. I assume a CT scan or an MRI will be able to determine the extent, if any, of damage.

I know it’s hard to make condolences sound sincere through text, but you have mine. For both what the roommate has done to you and what he’s done to himself.

I have the same take on AA (although I’ve been dropping the militant aspect of my lack of religion lately), but I have to think there were options other than AA if he really wanted help.

Thanks. Honestly, I’ve pretty much divorced myself emotionally from the cycle. When we moved out of our old place, there was definitely a feeling of relief that I didn’t have to bear witness to him doing it to himself anymore. (After the second “intervention” failed, I was emotionally detached from his situation, but since I lived with him, I was subject to him coming home drunk, drinking in his room all day, etc.

I agree about secular rehab programs. His excuse there was that he couldn’t afford it. One Friday evening, I spent hours searching for, and contacting various treatment centers that might be free or have payment programs. Guess who now gets regular spam e-mails from rehab facilities… If someone were to see my spam folder, they’d think I have a problem.

The final straw of trying to help out was the following week. A friend was transferring from one job to another, and he basically pulled a lot of strings to get FR an interview. The interview was at 9:30 in the morning. I heard from the friend later in the day, saying that FR canceled / didn’t show up, but that they would possibly try to reschedule. When I got home from work, I saw FR sitting outside on our stairs, looking disheveled, eating KFC. I asked how the interview went, and he told me that he went, but it didn’t seem to be a good fit. I let him into the apartment, fully aware of the contradiction. Talked to another friend who told me that FR had gone to the bar that morning (we lived near hospitals, so the bars were open very early, to accommodate people that had graveyard shifts), instead of going to the interview.

Later in the week, instead of applying for three jobs that a family member had found for him, he went to Six Flags with a friend.

It was at that point that I realized, if he wasn’t going to try to better his situation, why should any of us?

The answer is you shouldn’t. Sometimes the best help you can give a friend is to let them hit rock bottom and come to the realization they need help themselves.

I had a very, very close friend who was also a coworker for many years. He was one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever known, knowlegeable in a wide variety of subjects. I truly loved him. But he had another side. Heavy drinker, heavy smoker, smoked way too much weed, ate lots of junk food, didn’t take care of himself at all.

After I relocated, we lost touch for a few years . . . then one day I read, online, that he had died “of the effects of alcoholism.” From what I’ve read, a great many people remember him fondly and mourn his passing. Too bad he couldn’t/wouldn’t get the help he needed.

He lived to be only 50.

You can’t regulate anyone else’s intake of, well, Anything. It just doesn’t work.
They can, if/when they choose to but its on them.

PS- trying to be ‘That Guy’ who always wants to look over shoulders, checking, has never helped anyone in the history of time either.

Trust me, I learned that one the hard way.

Scans can identify bleeds and areas in organs that have hardened or hollowed. Some scans can show dark spots where there should be activity. But there’s also damage that doesn’t show up on a scan.

Sorry that you’re having to watch this.

I’m sorry you’re going through this; it’s not fun. I know b/c I’ve done it to people myself. There is an organization called LifeRing ( http://lifering.org/ ). It’s a lot like AA, but it’s utterly secular. (I had a counselor who had been sober for twenty years and was an athiest and that’s where he went. )

Also, insurance or not, the hospital will probably put him in touch with a social worker (happened to me). Maybe the stay will scare him enough to get help.

Alcoholism is a mental illness. You can’t really hold it against the guy in the hospital.

Treat it like you would any other illness, be it epilepsy, or cancer, or something else chronic. If he’s going to live, he needs firm help and love, not judgement.

The people who are saying “he’s doing it to himself” are wrong. No one wakes up one morning and thinks this is a great plan for the future. Alcoholics’ brains are simply physically different.

“He’s doing it to himself” is what you say when you don’t want to do the heavy lifting involved in helping a friend. It’s easier to blame the patient and walk away.

Imagine writing off someone with a different mental illness in this manner. Would be monstrous.

You have no idea everything I’ve done to try to help him. He refuses to go to rehab, due to above-mentioned reasons, and won’t go to therapy either. Staying the course has led to obvious & predictable results.

He refuses to change his behavior for more than a week or two at a time, and outside of constantly monitoring him (which was impossible even when we did live together), he’s going to find a way to drink. When I moved out, I found numerous 1.75 L (empty) bottles of vodka hidden away in various places - closets, under furniture, etc., and when I went to see him at the hospital, his boyfriend told me that in the past month since they moved in together, he’s found bottles in his car, in his luggage, underneath his pet’s furniture…

So, while it may be easy to stand off to the side and say, “You should be doing more to help him,” at what point does he claim accountability for his actions?

No.

If one is a diabetic and refuses to check blood levels and eats poorly, are we still supposed to clean up their mess?

I’m all for helping people, but they have to take the first step. It sounds like this guy has had plenty of helping hands and has done nothing but spit on them.

Nope, he has to be willing to help himself. Just like anyone with a mental illness - if they don’t take steps to make themselves better, they don’t get endless support.

And I have severe depression and anxiety. But I absolutely take my meds every day, go to the therapist - even though I think its sort of useless, make sure to get enough sleep, and set goals for myself (my garden looks darn good this year) to keep me from wallowing.

And I have a sister in recovery.

Should my sister ever backslide - should I ever kill myself - our friends and relatives don’t need the guilt. Those are our choices driven by our health. It isn’t because of lack of support that we’ve each had our demons - its in spite of support.

Never put more effort into someone else’s recovery than they themselves are willing to put into it.

And if it still bugs you, consider going to Al-Anon.

Treat it like any other severe and contagious illness: give firm help and love except where it is a danger to your own health (mental and / or physical).

And “judgement” is absolutely necessary. Why shouldn’t people use judgement? Sure, avoid knee-jerk condemnation, but sometimes caring, compassionate and yet rational judgement is what’s called for.

I didn’t mean judgement as in “careful consideration of the facts.” I meant judgement as in “I see what you’re doing and I disapprove.”

We wouldn’t harshly judge someone with Schizophrenia. Treat Alcoholism the same way.

You’re welcome to disagree with me, but it is the new way of thinking about addictions, becoming more common every day. “He’s doing it to himself” is going to be harder and harder to use as an excuse for inaction.