Friend hospitalized for alcohol related organ failure invites himself to bar trivia
Help I need some insight here. A good friend of mine is struggling with his drinking as he has been for a long time. It's ruined his life many times over and he's never really committed to professional help. He's been hospitalized twice this year for organ failure once for over a week and they basically told him he has to stop drinking or he's going to die. He told me that was the last straw and he was going to stop drinking, but a week later he responded to a big group chat about bar trivia. He told me he was just going to drink THC seltzers but of course he didn't, he had a good 6+ beers. I don't think anyone in the group knew about his hospitalizations and I didn't call him out in front of the group but it was obviously stressful knowing it might literally kill him.
The next day I told him to please not drink around me (I've tried so many times to try to help him to quit, I feel like I can't even ask him to stop at this point, so the least I can think to do is ask him not to actively kill himself around me) and naturally he was defensive and all but eventually he said okay. Now of course he hasn't wanted to hang out since then, so I assume he's just been drinking like normal with other people, but I suppose I don't know this. I haven't seen him in about a month.
Today he texted the group chat again today and said he's going to come to the bar tonight for trivia. I don't know what to do. Do I text him and ask him if he's going to drink? Do I tell him not to come? Do I skip it myself tonight and let him do what he wants? Do I text the group (with/without him in it) and tell them he shouldn't be drinking? I just have no idea how to handle this situation.
(Also plz understand this is in the context of years and years of trying to help and support and love him. I'm really just asking about this specific situation because it's so stressful and frustrating I just have no idea how to handle the situation. OBVIOUSLY I want to help him help himself and I'm not going into the hours and hours and hours and hours and hours here that I and many of our friends have tried to do just that. He's never really gotten to the acceptance point -which I at first thought his hospital stays were- and so he's really hard to talk to about his drinking.)
Posted Jul 8, 2025, 4:49 PM UTC