It’s time to “detach with love” from my alcoholic friend
The time has come. Perhaps it already did, but I’m just catching up now.
You are still alive…technically. But it feels like no one is there anymore.
You’ve been spiraling for a while now. Almost exactly one year ago was when you told me just how bad it was getting for you.
“If I quit I would die,” you said as you told me that you are waking up with the shakes.
Every day.
You reached the point where you either need to 1) not stop drinking or 2) get medically supervised to stop drinking.
I don’t think you are ready yet. How much stumbling along the edge of the cliff can you do before you fall over?
I’ve stood by your side for over a year as things have gotten really bad for you. I’ve been a good friend to you, but now it’s time for me to be a better friend to myself.
The amount of fucked up shit you’re doing to the people closest to you is foreign to me.
I’ve seen you start with little lies. Things like bailing on your friend who just got out of rehab and wanted to get Pho. This was a lunch date but you were already too drunk to drive. You told him that you got in a fight with your mom. Then you sent me a voice message right after telling me all this, saying that you made that fight up and felt bad.
You told me you were too poor to go camping two hours away but then you turn around and send me an invite to go boating. Later that weekend I somehow get two (but I could have sworn it was three) Lyft rider tracking notification texts. It was for a 40-mile ride across town and back.
I hope this is the extent of you disrespecting me as a friend.
The tipping point for me was when you shared how you made a pass at your best friend’s girlfriend.
Why?
“She was just giving me those eyes! I couldn’t help it.”
They have a daughter. And you just found out that his brain cyst is actually a tumor.
It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of “it’s the disease” doing these things. Nothing else could explain how someone would be so insensitive.
When I saw you at your 4th of July party a couple weeks ago, you didn’t seem there. It was like interacting with a disoriented zombie. You were walking and talking but weren’t saying or doing much.
You’re showing me that alcohol (at its very worst in some people) might be a demon. Giving truth to the name “spirits.” My mom doesn’t like the term “demon,” but it resonates with me. This reframing makes so much sense from my perspective. These demons are inhabiting your body, using you as a puppet to feed themselves.
I didn’t give you an ultimatum because I know that you aren’t thinking clearly. These demons are wrapped around every nerve down your arm, grabbing bottles and filling cups to fuel themselves more.
“I cannot control this,” and you’re right. Because no friend would step in between her best friend and his girlfriend AND their kindergarten-aged daughter.
I don’t think I can be the friend that tolerates this in my own life.
I love you so fucking much, but you aren’t here anymore. There is a ghost of you, at best. Or a demon, at worst.
I’m stepping back because I can’t spiral down with you. I can’t help you; you don’t want help. You only want to be intoxicated.
I sent you a pretty long text message the other night, laying everything out clear and direct. I told you how much I care about you, how concerned I’ve gotten over time, how helpless I feel, and how I want you to be happy again. I told you that I needed to get this off my chest so I didn’t regret the opportunity to do so when I had the chance.
It’s getting to that point.
I don’t expect any of that to sink in yet. Hopefully, it will one day before it’s too late.
You’re 31 but look like you’re 45. Your hair is falling out. Your face and neck are bloated. You don’t shower often. You reek, not just like you came back from a camping trip, but like you just walked out from a Hell dumpster.
You once used to lead me all around music festivals, but now you’re proportions look like Humpty Dumpty.
You are so sick. It’s happened in a span of a couple years.
Sending you that text message feels like a breakup. I feel some sort of relief and closure because I’m realizing that I can’t help you. Our friendship isn’t worth anything to you right now except a false sense of normalcy.
You asked me a few months to drop you off at detox. I put it in my calendar but it never happened.
“But there’s a family reunion coming up…I just got back from Costa Rica and I’m too poor to take off work…I’m trying to get a promotion in a few months and I can’t take off of work.”
Lol, you told me you already got approved to take leave for a medical detox.
I’m still new to this my-loved-one-is-a-alcoholic thing, so I’m forgiving myself for getting my hopes up. And for falling for your lies.
So. Many. Lies.
The littlest of lie was “I need to go get chapstick from my car” while we were getting Thai food, only to come back smelling like whiskey.
I’m not sure what the biggest lie is.
Watching these demons use your body is too heartbreaking for me now. I’m only an object that the disease can use to serve you. I tense thinking about how long this has been happening before I realized it.
You’ve sparked the importance of boundaries in my life. I’m learning that boundaries are actions that I take in my own life, not standards I enact on another person.
My boundaries with you are still fresh, but my working first draft includes:
- I accept that you are gone and will be for a long time.
- I can’t hang out with you. Not because I don’t love and miss you, but because “you” don’t exist right now. It’s not enjoyable to hang out with a very sick alcoholic.
- I can’t talk to you either. Most of your communication is drunk, whiney, self-centered babbling.
- I will check out AlAnon meetings near me.
- I will engage with you only in ways that support your sobriety, such as driving you to detox.
As long as I think the demons are speaking on your behalf, I can’t interact with you.
Friend, I care about you deeply.
But I can’t let you make “I love you to death” literal for me.