Helping a friend before its too late

I need help with a friend. I let him move in with me and another roommate recently, hoping that we could help curb his alcohol abuse. However, it is just getting worse. In the last year, he has hit a pedestrain while leaving a bar (not arrested, fled the scene, returned hours later, but the cop let him go b/c they could not find the victim), he woke up in a hospital after drinking, he constantly vomits in his sleep, and drives drunk every night. He drinks 7 days a week. He drinks about 4-5 beers a night that we see, but he slips out to bars as well. We estimate that he has about 40 drinks a week

We have tried everything - talking in groups, 1 on 1, talking, yelling, bribing, treating him as an adult, as a child. Nothing works. He always says that he knows what he is doing, and he's always telling everyone that he is so much smarter than us anyway, so we don't need to tell him whats good and bad.

My roommate and I used to be great friends with him. However, he blames us for turing our back on him. I graduated college, and my roommate is starting back to college. The friend thinks we are traitiors, giving into "the system". Everytime we try to help him move out of his depression, he goes off on us, and goes drinking.

Everything makes him drink- work is easy, work was stressful, its Friday, its Monday, it's early, its late. You name it, and he makes it a reason to drink. Whenever he does one small task (like only drinks 3 beers one night), he celebrates his "accomplishment" by getting drunk the next night.

He wears all of his drinking probelms as a badge of courage. On slow nights, he says that shows he in control, which then leads him to drink more. Its really say - when he does drink less, it actually moves him into a deeper lever of drinking because he now thinks he's in control (which is so far off on - his delusion is amazing). When he woke up in the hospital, he not only bragged about it, he actually uses it as a measuring stick to see if he can push that limit.

We have tried to curb his drinking. We went as far as to call the bar and warn them. He just found a new bar. When he drinks at home, he drinks himself to a stupor. When he goes out, he gets plastered and drives. Everytime we get involved, he just runs to friends who will drink with him. He only tolerates us when we let him do what he wants. Whenever we try to help, he drinks to spite us.

What should we do about him? We are concerned, but he absolutely refuses to listen. We have gathered all his friends to talk to him, but he just storms out and finds a new bar or old friends who will drink with him. Our biggest concern is we are the only ones who want to help, all his other friends only want to drink too.

He is really no longer our friend, as that person was destroyed a long time ago. However, we do not want to just throw him out.
We are out of options, though. If we talk, he runs away. If he stays, he just gets worse. I am worried, as he likes to keep a loaded gun in his room, and I am scared of what might happen, either accidentally, or intentionally.

We need an extreme answer to this. It would be easy to just turn our backs on him. However, that wont help him, only us. If he stays, he drains us, and constantly holds us back. What should we do? Should we just wash our hands of this? If we continue trying to help, what can we do to get through?

Thanks for reading this. I hope that someone can help us decide what to do, as it is a bad situation, and I can not see anything but bad coming out of this. I look forward to hearing your stratigies.

Good people like yourself drive me crazy. “What should we do? We want to help him, but he doesn’t want it.” USCGrad2005… you said it all when you said, “Everything makes him drink” Ain’t that the truth!

You can’t fix him! Allow me to repeat myself, You can’t fix him! Period!

You can put up with his crap as long as you can stand it, and you can try to clean up his messes for him. But you are only dragging out the inevitable. He needs to have the full consequences of his actions fall squarely on his shoulders alone.

Pain! Deep and abiding physic (read spiritual) pain are the touchstones of change. Without that form of utter demoralization, he will not even consider stopping drinking. He has to want to stop more than he wants to drink. And to get to that place, he needs to suffer. I wish there was another way, but for drunks like us, that is what it took.

Kick his ass out. Boot his drunken ass to the curb if you want to help him. Covering for him is the last thing he needs. He needs things to go badly in order to become willing to change.

Plus, do you really need to be living with all the things he brings into your home? Do yourself and him a favor.

But, you are good people, and my advice is so heartless. Do whatever you think best, just remember, You can’t fix what’s wrong with him. None of us possess that kind of power

Richard