Mattie: What comes to my mind is this and it is passed onto you from someone who said it to me last week when I was uncertain of what I'd said to my son: "In the context of the disease, what we say is like throwing pebbles at a giant..." (Paraphrased a bit and edited.)

The next thing that comes to my mind is Jerry's saying he had to get away from anything alcohol.

And finally, Paula's repeated message: "To thine own self be true.

You are a wise and down to earth woman. I suspect you know what to say and what to do? If its any help, I think it's okay to consider yourself and your needs and wants first.

I had a friend who was in her late 70s. I noticed that if we talked after 7 at night, she sounded as if she was slurring her words. Because she was older, I wasn't sure if she took some kind of medication before going to bed that made her drowsy. Then, she started showing up places with bruises on her head or her arms. Since she lived alone, I knew what I knew. I stopped calling her in the evenings but continued our friendship. One day, I said that I loved her and that I also knew she had a drinking problem which, of course, she denied. I told her I loved her too much to deny what we both knew was true - that she had a drinking problem. I suggested she attend AA meetings and let it go. I would no longer let her drive us anywhere and had to do the hard work of asking her to withdraw from a program we both worked together in because her untreated illness was a danger to the people we worked among. We stayed friends right up to and during her death. I did what I needed to do and said what I needed to say because it was thoughtful, honest, important, necessary and kind. (THINK) I didn't see that I would do either of us any favor if I kept what I knew to myself or if I helped her lie to herself and to me.

She did stop drinking after falling and breaking her hip. She lay by herself on a kitchen floor for hours until a neighbor noticed her drapes weren't open in the morning and called my friend's handyman who had a key to her house. She asked him to call me which he did. When I arrived, she was seated, in terrible pain, and refusing to call for help. I sat with her for another two hours allowing her the space to make her own choices and suffer her own pain for as long as I could do that in good conscience.  I chose to respect her right to choose until her body began to shake. I knew she was going into shock then. So, I gave her a choice - she called for help or I did. She did. After surgery and recovery, she was placed in a residential living arrangement and could no longer drink there.

I learned that the best policy was honesty in relationship to my friend - and many other alcoholics who have entered my life. Some have entered treatment - others like my friend - were forced into being dry without a program. I also learned that I can't allow people into my life who are okay with calling me drunk or stoned. I am honest with them, too, and always suggest they get help - once. Beyond that, I decide what boundaries I can utilize and what people I am going to need to ask to stop calling me.

I don't know if any of my story helps, but since you did ask for e/s/h - there it is for what it is worth.

-- Edited by grateful2be on Friday 2nd of May 2014 10:53:33 PM

-- Edited by grateful2be on Friday 2nd of May 2014 10:57:18 PM

-- Edited by grateful2be on Friday 2nd of May 2014 11:03:13 PM

-- Edited by grateful2be on Friday 2nd of May 2014 11:04:33 PM

Can you arrange to meet him somewhere so you can leave on your terms? 

((Mattie)) Take a few deep breaths. You received great support from others and you have choices to draw boundaries that keep you safe and serene. You can mix and match the choices depending on how things do or don't unfold and offer your friend options from a loving (but firm) place in your heart. Honesty and brevity are helpful to both parties involved. I like the idea of meeting at a public place. If he seems drunk when he contacts you or when you meet, you can let him know that this makes you uncomfortable and look forward to being in touch another time when circumstances are different.

I'd arrange to maybe meet in public for coffee. He'd be less likely to be drunk there. If he was, then leave. That's pretty much the way to set up any meeting that could go wrong.

Thank you all for your great wisdom.  Grateful2be, I am in awe of how you maintained a loving friendship with your friend even though she wasn't in recovery.  That is so inspiring.

I am clearer now on what I can do to protect myself, and I guess I'm going to have to say some things that will be hard for me in the short term, though much better for both of us in the long term.  Doing the short-term hard things (instead of the things that make life easier in the moment but lead to problems down the line) is something I'm still working on generally.  But it is so much easier with the Al-Anon family backing me up.

Another thing that is hard about this: it's like I considered that I had (say) ten reliable friends and two alcoholics.  Now I'm pretty sure I have nine reliable friends and three alcoholics.  I'd love to make my life one where it was the reliable friends that were increasing in number.

So many thanks to you all.

It might already be too late, but I was going to echo what others suggested about meeting somewhere, where it'd be easy and public, so that you could have an 'out' with minimal drama, if he did show up drunk.