For me, one of the most frustrating aspects of addiction is how hard it can be for other people to help. I’ve been on both sides of the equation, as the person trying to get sober and the person trying to help others get sober, and each side is tricky in its own way.
When I first quit drinking, nine and a half years ago, the hard part was asking other people to help. I felt as if by reaching out to other people, I’d end up being a burden on them. I also feared that I’d end up relapsing, which would let those people down and leave me embarrassed.
Another difficulty that I faced was taking help with humility and gratitude. To put it more plainly, I rolled my eyes at a lot of the advice I was given. I shrugged off a ton of great suggestions because I thought that they wouldn’t work for me, or because I couldn’t relate to the person giving advice.
Sometimes, when other people tried to help me, it even made me want to go back to drinking more. Normally, when someone shared stories about their addiction, I could relate, but occasionally, I’d hear from someone so different from me that it left me questioning whether I was even an alcoholic. Their well-meaning attempts to get me to see the severity of my addiction ended up having exactly the opposite effect.
As I spent more time sober, I found myself less often on the side of receiving help and more often on the side of giving it. It’s been an interesting shift, and it’s especially enlightening to see those same problems arise from the other side.
One of the first big difficulties is that most people who are struggling with addiction don’t want to ask for help. That leaves the rest of us in an awkward and tricky situation. There have been times over the past decade when I’ve suspected, or even been nearly sure, that friends of mine are having trouble with their drinking, but I’ve felt reluctant to be the one to broach the subject.
If they don’t ask me for help, is it appropriate for me to offer? It’s one thing when someone’s life is clearly falling apart, but what about when they just seem to drink every day? I can safely assume that the drinking is affecting other parts of their life, but it still would feel rude for me to just say something out of the blue.
My solution to this—and I’m honestly not sure whether it’s the best solution or not—has been to focus on being open about my own sobriety. Just about everyone in my life knows that I’m sober. It’s not always the first thing someone learns about me, but I never keep it a secret, and it tends to eventually come up.
During my first few years being sober, I was very embarrassed about it. I’d either keep it a secret entirely or downplay my reasons for quitting drinking. These days, when it comes up, I tell people I don’t drink, and when asked why, I feel comfortable explaining that I used to drink too much. The level of detail I go into is generally dependent on the curiosity of the person I’m talking to. If they ask a lot of questions, I’m happy to answer. Far more often, they don’t, and I don’t go into detail.
However, if I suspect a friend might have a drinking problem, I tend to talk about my sobriety a little bit more. I try hard not to come off as preachy, but I want to make it clear to them that I’m someone who has overcome addiction and is happy to talk about it. There have been a couple of times when this has led to them at least thinking about quitting drinking.
Something that I’ve never done, and I don’t think I ever will, is to directly tell someone that I think they are drinking too much. I know that some addiction professionals support that style of intervention, but I just can’t imagine it working in my friendships. If a friend of mine had ever said something like that to me when I was a drinker, I would have simply gotten defensive and resented them.
The other main way that I’ve tried to help people get sober over the years is by writing about recovery, both in a blog and a newsletter. When I first quit drinking (and even when I first started thinking about quitting), I spent a massive amount of time reading sobriety blogs, forum posts, and essays. I can’t say that the time was always well spent, but in general, it helped me a lot.
Reading about sobriety taught me a few tips and tricks, but even more importantly, it helped me feel less alone. It got me over the problem of feeling like there was nobody I could relate to, because there were simply so many people writing about sobriety that I found a few that I clicked with. (I had the most success on a subreddit called “/r/stopdrinking,” but I also found a lot to connect with in AA’s “Big Book.”)
A couple of years after I quit drinking, I decided to start writing about my experiences. I know, because people have told me, that my writing has helped quite a few people get sober. It’s not that I have anything revolutionary to say. It’s just that there are a lot of people out there with similar personalities who are going through the same addiction struggles that I went through. More than anything, I think it simply helps for me to be able to honestly say that I had a miserable time getting sober, but finally was able to stick with it.
Although it can often feel like there’s nothing we can do to help addicts recover, the reality is that a little help can go a long way. When someone has recently quit drinking and is struggling to get through the day, sometimes the key difference comes from giving a few kind words, sharing our stories, or lending a sympathetic ear.
Very interesting. I have no doubt that your writing has helped many people become (or at least consider becoming) sober. 🤗