Friend relapsed on drugs. It happens a lot. Rehab doesn’t work. It’s eating me up. I know they have to make the changes too. I know this doesn’t rest in my hands alone. They need to want to be clean.
Friend relapsed on drugs. It happens a lot. Rehab doesn’t work. It’s eating me up. I know they have to make the changes too. I know this doesn’t rest in my hands alone. They need to want to be clean.
Person who had an alcoholic / addict father here. Speaking from my experience in what I saw in his world growing up. Both him, and in his world of helping / sponsoring others during the last couple of decades of his life whilst sober and recovering.
For some people… an intervention can actually cause them to see the severity of the issue and be the catalyst for a motivation for wanting to change. It is a very small percentage, though, and it sounds like you’ve already tried or are already past that point.
Sadly, for the overwhelming majority, most alcoholics / addicts have to hit a rock-bottom epiphany experience (which will vary person by person) to get them truly into committing to recovery. Nothing that anyone else says to or does for them is going to flip that switch.
They have to flip that switch internally themselves. Once they do, they must also realize that every single day is going to be hard, and they will need to stay motivated.
My dad once told me that even after being sober for almost two decades, he still had somewhere between 3 and a dozen serious cravings a week that he had to work himself away from. It gets easier to talk yourself down over time, but… the brain wiring was changed in addiction, and the temptations themselves never go away. Staying sober is a life of constant vigilance. You have to be committed, forever.
Like for everyone afflicted, I hope your friend reaches that point sooner rather than later and moves into recovery. Best of luck to them.
It’s true. Every day I want to get drunk. Somewhere after the third 9% beer I finally feel like “me”. Or like the best version of myself. But it’s false, just like the false confidence it brings.
I still drink once or twice a week. But every day that I don’t is a struggle whether I was drunk the day before or if I haven’t had a drink in a month.
My friend came over last night and we got drunk. At one point I said something and put my finger in his face. He misheard what I said and told me if I don’t move my finger he’s going to break it. I dared him to try. We ended up crashing over the table into the floor where he used his BJJ training to headlock me unconscious. This may sound terrible but we’ve always fought for fun over the years. What I regret is that my wife saw me go limp and it scared her.
What was the point of that? Today I feel like dogshit and my throat is so bad it hurts to talk. When we finally got around to playing the game we had planned on, my friend was so drunk he couldn’t play.
Yet I want that every day. I almost went out for beer before the snow got too bad but I stopped myself. That’s the best we addicts can hope for. To get to the point where we can stop ourselves.
Sorry a lot of talk about me, but OP you are 100% correct that your friend will never change until they want it for themselves. There is very little you can do to force that. If your friend is using opiates then please get some narcan for them and for yourself. Just be there for support because they’re going to need you once they make that decision. You can also try to make sure they have food to eat, easy stuff, because sometimes addicts neglect that and it just makes everything worse.