@DBPardes
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 3:32

My Friend’s An Alcoholic. It’s Killing Me. But it’s not about me. OR IS IT?

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So when you call somebody an alcoholic, I'm wondering if it sounds like a judgment. And I'm asking this because I want to start this swell by saying, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my friends. An alcoholic. Its killing phrase alcoholic. It has this incredible judgment on it. It's meant to just frame a situation

This is a familiar story. I know. 😟💔

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@JLMcMillan
Jessica McMillan
@JLMcMillan · 3:28

Resources

But yeah, it's really important to keep her away from this moralizing stigmas of the fact that you have no control over alcohol and things like that. And of course, it is a highly addictive substance. And I think once people who are addicted realize that it's not their fault that they're addicted, they can start moving on. But anyway, I read some really great books specifically focused on women in recovery because it's a lot different for women. And there's a lot more at play
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@lavidus
LL Walton
@lavidus · 2:38

Shadow Love…

Hi, Deborah, it's Lavidus. Just want to just chime in just a little bit on your situation. I agree with the term alcoholic. I grew up with an alcoholic stepfather mother in my home as a child, so I have a little bit of a perspective on what that is like on day to day
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@PKBriggs
Sontaia Briggs
@PKBriggs · 2:43

@DBPardes this is a very tough one

Hey, good morning, Deborah. This is this is a hard one. This is a very hard one. I agree with all you said, right? Your friend, your sister and you care. You love, you can see what's on the horizon. And then also, this is a fully realized human being, an adult who has the right to move through the world and self heal
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@Phil
phil spade
@Phil · 4:00

Just had this conversation. It's not easy

Deb, you are absolutely not the only one struggling with this decision and to have a conversation or not. I'm seeing this all over with different friend groups. And just this week, this week alone, I had the exact conversation that we're talking about right now with alcohol with a friend of mine. And I wanted to share that experience
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@Swell
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15

Welcome to Swell!

@DBPardes
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 0:38
Hey, Jessica, Lavidia Suntaya, Phil, it's a great flow here. And I'm just so appreciative of it really, from the heart, from the head, from the full, full life experience that we all have. And I hope this ripples out. So thank you all very much. And hopefully this just continues organically, and I be listening. And this is super swell. Thank you. Pun intended
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@Enfinit
Enfinit Evolushun
@Enfinit · 4:56
Man, I like beer, but beer gives me the bubbles. But that alcoholism thing. I'm sorry. That friendship thing is hard. We often try to project our lifestyle on friends, and I don't think we should do that. I think we should respond with love and loving someone is not changing their lifestyle. Loving someone is just suggesting solutions somehow, in some angle that is fitting. And we have to be very clever about it. And that's what love is
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@AverageJoe
Average Joe
@AverageJoe · 4:33
But the point of what I'm saying is we've somehow turned this wine and women thing into, like, this ultimately permissible conduct to just constantly be engaged in. And I don't know what that is. That's just kind of weird to me. That's all. That's my side tangent. As far as dealing with a friend like this, I've had drug addict friends. I know people that are alcoholics
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@Darshini
Darshini Kumar
@Darshini · 2:15
But the ultimate decision, the ultimately recognizing that they have a problem is in their own hands, and that's all I could say. I just wish people dealing with alcoholism, I just wish them power to recovery, the power to realize that it's taking away their power. And I just wish them the power of healing and recovery. And I wish you loads of strength, too. It has completely nothing to do with you
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@meelee
Camille Smith
@meelee · 3:02

??? Just be supportive in the change process

I don't really have the answer, but I'm glad that it's being talked about because it's definitely in my prayers for a lot of folks I know who are, quote, unquote, functional alcoholics or sometimes call themselves winos instead of using the word alcoholic. Yeah, but that's what's on my mind about it
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@Suedinner
Susie Dinner
@Suedinner · 5:00
So I wish there was more we could do. The other thing I wanted to say is that for anybody who is struggling to learn the facts about alcoholism and to just understand the nature of the disease is definitely worthwhile to understand how it works, the mental, spiritual, emotional, spiritual malady of what happens and why people do things as a trauma response. And often it's not because of a will. It's a trauma response
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@aaiou1
Timothy Harrington
@aaiou1 · 0:34

Words matter.

Yeah, I just want to say something about the stigma piece. Words matter. Words are important. Somebody said once, if you want to care for something, you call it a flower. If you want to kill something, you call it a weed. And that's Don cohes if you want to look him up, he created something called, Wellbriety, which I think is a really cool concept. But I Anyway, have a great night, everybody
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