Alcoholic Frustration

I have noticed a theme lately. Myself and a few of my other friends have become FED UP with Alcoholics, and people with drink-drug problems in general. (I'm not linking Cannibus with the "drug" problem, it's an herb). I do have a drink every now and then, and sometimes I get drunk, it's true. I do not ask to be bought drinks, or ask people for a drink unless they brought some to my house. That's a big sign of a problem if they do. I am faced with someone who seems ok with behaving this way all the time. It hurts me.

Part of my problem with the whole thing started with my first stepfather. He was alcoholic and abused my mother. I remember watching one of those situations when I was only 5. She divorced him when I was 8 and married my second step-father. He was also an alcoholic. I left the house when I was 13 and didn't come back until I was 16 and that only lasted a year. Since then I have had an alcoholic boyfriend (long gone) and 3 alcoholic roommates. I get anxiety around a certain type of drunk now. It makes me feel crazed, uncomfortable and unbearable on edge when they are drunk and I am not. I don't like drinking that often, maybe a few times a month, so when they are drinking every night or even just a few times a week it doesn't work. They come around me and want to talk to me and I just can't stand it.

I am SO DONE with caring about them, I have to be, for my own mental health. Same goes for other drug addicts, and people who need anger management. If they aren't really trying, neither am I. For a long time I have cared too much, a diseased part of my brain I picked up from my childhood. I thought I could "fix it" or "make it work" because they "really did love me". That was bullshit, and they weren't going to change for me, they would only change for themselves, and why should they change when they had me helping them? They won't change until they finally want to, and they usually won't want to until they have to.

I feel that the only thing I can do is warn them, then, when they don't heed my warning, tell them the truth, how they or the situation appears from my outside perspective. There is power in the truth, and sometimes people don't want to hear it. Those are often the times it is most important to tell it to them. At that point I can walk away, having told them what needed to be said. Unfortunately, they are usually so lost in their path that they have left rationality behind. The hope is that the words can bring rationality back, if even for a second, or to plant a seed in their head. If they wake up and take care of business, I can resume friendship if I wish to. I just can no longer concern myself with them and their life. It is theirs to lead how they wish.

I hope the best for those people. I hope they turn their life around and get back onto a more productive, happy, and healthy life. We all deserve that much, but it's up to us as individuals to pick ourselves up by the boot-strings and make it happen. I am responsible for my own happiness, and so are you.

~Foxy