Has my friend hit rock bottom?

Question

My friend Ed who is 35 and whom I have known since 1992 has changed dramatically to the point I dont even talk to him anymore. He has a major drinking problem as he is at the bar at least 5 out 7 days a week. He has major health problems and gout. He also doesnt have a good relationship with his family as both parents are dead. He has been getting involved with this 22 year old trailor trash crack whore stripper who is a drug user and has spent time in jail. She treats him as her sugar daddy but he cant leave he as he has no self confidence to find Has my friend hit rock bottom?another woman. Now he says she had a baby and he says it could be his. The baby is 2 months old and he hasnt got a DNA test. Now, is Ed lying to me about the baby being his? He said she was having sex with 3 other guys regularly besides him. Wouldnt he have gotten the test by now? Is he starving for attention? Is he seeking my help? I just got married and

Answer 1

If Ed is in that much muck, the best thing you can do is suggest AA or NA, and then hit Al-Anon yourself so you can learn how to deal with Ed. I had a friend who was a true slush-head. That dear girl was intoxicated just popping the top off a beer can. It affected every aspect of her life, and I do mean EVERY. I finally realized that my loving her was no help at all unless I loved her enough to want her to be her best... and that started with sober. I haven't seen her drunk in years. That's not to say she HASN'T been drunk, but if she drinks, she knows to keep it away from me. I wouldn't sit around and watch her cut her wrists, and she is going to die with the alcohol just the same. I won't sit around and watch her do it. When she is sober, and giving life her best try, I am all there for her.. always will be. But not if she isn't doing her part! And it sounds as if Ed isn't doing his part AT ALL. Distance yourself!

Answer 2

If he is a alcoholic than alot of what hes says could be attributed to the liquor. However you cant make an alcoholic stop drinking. They have to want to. I dont think he realizes why is life is so bad. Hes coping because hes drinking. It a giant cycle. He needs someones help or hes going to drink himself to death. As for the girl.... Until hes ready to change shes going to be around. Once he wants a new life she will be history on her own. And the baby... I wouldn't worry about that. If it is his and she starts wanting money the court will order DNA then hell know for sure.

Answer 3

Hello, I'm bob, and I'm an alcoholic.. If I forget what I am, I'll forget who I am. That being said, let me answer your question from the AA book itself.
(taken from ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS page xxvi The Doctors Opinion and page 23, 24,& 25 There's a solution)

Men and women drink essentially because they like the effects produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable, and dicontented unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks -- drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have subcumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develoups they pass through the well-known stages of a spree emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again.

This is repeated over and over and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of recovery.

On the other hand, and strange as this may sound to those who do not understand once a psychic change has occurred, the very same person who seemed doomed who had so many problems he despaired of ever solving them, suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol.

Once in a while he may tell the truth. And the
truth, strange to say, is usually that he has no more
idea why he took that first drink than you have. Some
drinkers have excuses with which they are satisfied
part of the time. But in their hearts they really do not
know why they do it. Once this malady has a real
hold, they are a baffled lot. There is the obsession that
somehow, someday, they will beat the game. But they
often suspect they are down for the count.
How true this is, few realize. In a vague way their
families and friends sense that these drinkers are ab-
normal, but everybody hopefully awaits the day when
the sufferer will rouse himself from his lethargy and
assert his power of will.
The tragic truth is that if the man be a real alco-
holic, the happy day may not arrive. He has lost
control. At a certain point in the drinking of every
alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most power-
ful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail.
This tragic situation has already arrived in practically
every case long before it is suspected.

The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet ob-
scure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-
called will power becomes practically nonexistent.
We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our con-
sciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suf-
fering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago.
We are without defense against the first drink.

The almost certain consequences that follow taking
even a glass of beer do not crowd into the mind to
deter us. If these thoughts occur, they are hazy and
readily supplanted with the old threadbare idea that
this time we shall handle ourselves like other people.
There is a complete failure of the kind of defense that
keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove.
The alcoholic may say to himself in the most casual
way, "It won't burn me this time, so here's how!" Or
perhaps he doesn't think at all. How often have some
of us begun to drink in this nonchalant way, and after
the third or fourth, pounded on the bar and said to
ourselves, "For God's sake, how did I ever get started
again?" Only to have that thought supplanted by
"Well, I'll stop with the sixth drink." Or "What's the
use anyhow?"

When this sort of thinking is fully established in an
individual with alcoholic tendencies, he has probably
placed himself beyond human aid, and unless locked
up, may die or to permanently insane. These stark
and ugly facts have been confirmed by legions of alco-
holics throughout history. But for the grace of God,
there would have been thousands more convincing
demonstrations. So many want to stop but cannot.
(ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, pages 23,24 & 25)

As for hitting bottom, the general rule of thumb on this thought is that we must loose very thing important to us a humans. That's to say friendships, homes, cars, and families. Some of us have made our way to treatment centers at the insistance of family interventions but unless the person wants the help "For themselves" it's not going to work. Often times I've heard people say I've been to countless centers, and it wasn't untill I wanted it for me and surrendered to the concept of the program did I find recovery.

I to was one of those who said this years ago. Today I still attend meetings and do the foot work and it's only by the Grace of a Power Greater than ME that I no longer have the desire to drink - just for today. All the will power in the world didn't do me any good.. because drinking was only a symptom of my troubles. One of the cliches I often use is: If you sober up a drunken horse thief what do you have .. a horse theif. Simply saying that we don't rid ourselves of the problems, just the symptom that compounded them.

Bottom Line:.. YOU CAN'T FIX HIM.... he has to want it for himself and only for himself more than anything in his life today.

As a friend you can offer to take him to an AA meeting where others like him can help him see a better way of life. But you can not force him into doing it.

Answer 4

If you were his friend you would stand by him through this.

He may not be living his life the way you deem appropriate, but in his defense, "When it rains, it pours."


And who are you to judge the stripper? If there weren't a$$hole, horndog men, there wouldn't be such places for girls to "dance."

I think you are coming off as a bit too high and mighty.

Reality will slap your uppity butt in the face one day....

Hopefully, others are around when it happens, so that they can judge you as well.

Answer 5

he know right from wrong and it sounds to me that he know what he is doing so leave him alone, you get on with your life and let him get on with his.

Answer 6

that is not a friend, that is an albatross around your neck, cut him loose.

Answer 7

Thats not good!!! i dont think you can help him. sorry to say.