A Friend Asks for Help

Hey, guys. Chris Edrington here. Today at the gym, a friend of mine asked me about his friend who's struggling with booze. The story was very typical. His wife called him. All kinds of consequences going on, all kinds of typical alcoholic stuff. We could get into that. What I would like to keep this particular thread about is, how do you be helpful for someone like that if you're not a professional and you don't get people into treatment every day or advise people in their recovery all the time?

The number one thing you can do for your friends is to say, I will always be here when you want to get help. So if you're ready to get help, I got you. I'll drive you. I'll buy you a plane ticket. I'll help with whatever I can. I'll find you someone like me or someone who's professional in the business, who can help you get into treatment or get the right help you need, because some of those things can get complicated. It's really important to recognize something, and this was very true for me. Addicts and alcoholics want to stop.

They want to stop all the time. But it's like a window that opens up, usually in the morning or different times, and you're like, my God, I got to change. I got to get out of here. I got to stop doing this. You know, that hangover regret is a little bit cliche, but that window closes quickly as the day goes on or the moment goes on. So for me, I would wake up. The withdrawal symptoms from, you know, going into withdrawal from opioid abuse didn't really start right away. I had a little time there, get sicker and sicker as the day goes on.

I always made phone calls. I need help. I need help. I want to quit in the morning. And that window would slam shut by noon, and I was off to the races. What helped me was that I had somebody who had said, whenever you're ready, make the call, I'm here. And I did. I called this guy that I had met in Connecticut. He had offered to fly me anywhere I needed to go if I was ready. And one day I was ready, and he did buy me that plane ticket, and I hardly knew the guy. And it just stuck with me that you can get really quickly involved in their lives of someone who's using and spin your wheels trying to help them, trying to appeal to them, trying to come up with ideas, driving them here, driving them that.

And pretty soon you realize you're just on the train of crazy. You're on the crazy train and if you constantly remind them that you have one thing to offer, and that is this ride goes one place and it goes to help, I will always take you that way. I will not help you do anything that goes that way, like money or enabling that. You hear a lot of people say, and I think it's really important to put that out there to your friends who are using and drinking or asking for help, that you are available when that willingness pops up and you never know, you might get that call.

And that's the moment and that's the hour, and that's the day that they go. And I mean, there are millions of people's stories like that they just one day had enough. You know, you hear about it like sick and tired of being sick and tired or, you know, the consequences got hard enough, or, you know, I hit a low enough bottom. You can actually raise somebody's bottom by always reminding them that that option is there. It's sort of an ejection lever. When you're ready to bail, call me, I'll come get you.

That way you stay in as useful and helpful, but you don't get enmeshed in the crazy. You only are available for one thing, and that is for going towards help, whatever that looks like. It makes the friends feel useful and not helpless. It's super great for the addicts and alcoholics because they don't really want you to call them every day and try to tell them what to do. They just want to know that you're there if they're ready. So we'll call it the ejection lever friend. It's helpful. It's one thing you can do that really actually is helpful.

Next time we'll talk a little bit more about what to do when they do say yes. Take care.