Best friend Alcoholic with BPD

[Depression = 72% of members]

My best friend of 16 years has BPD; over the last couple years  she has become an alcoholic. For personal reasons I just can’t with the alcohol. I love her soo much, she is family even if she isn’t blood and I want to be there for her, to be a constant she doesn’t have to worry will abandon her. I don’t know how to be these things and not enable her drinking. I’ve told her that I won’t be answering her calls and messages if she’s drinking and I always check on her the next day but I don’t know if I am doing the right things. I want to be supportive but I don’t want to enable and I feel lost trying to navigate it. Any advice? And yes she is seeing a therapist already if that matters.

[MillieCat]

My best friend of 16 years has BPD; over the last couple years  she has become an alcoholic. For personal reasons I just can’t with the alcohol. I love her soo much, she is family even if she isn’t blood and I want to be there for her, to be a constant she doesn’t have to worry will abandon her. I don’t know how to be these things and not enable her drinking. I’ve told her that I won’t be answering her calls and messages if she’s drinking and I always check on her the next day but I don’t know if I am doing the right things. I want to be supportive but I don’t want to enable and I feel lost trying to navigate it. Any advice? And yes she is seeing a therapist already if that matters.

[Methuen]

Hi Millicat,

I am sorry for what brought you here, but hopefully you find comfort and support for finding this community.

I I don’t know how to be these things and not enable her drinking.

My situation is very different as is it is my mother who is uBPD.  I'm not a T, and don't feel qualified to make suggestions.  But I feel for you. 

Something that helped me was reading "walking on Eggshells", and especially, "Loving someone with Borderline Personality Disorder" (by Shari Manning).  The latter made the biggest difference for me, and is applicable to all relationships with BPD, not just family or romantic partner.  I would really recommend it, as it offers strategies.

[Notwendy]

Perhaps the best advice I could give you would be to attend Al Anon meetings to learn more about alcohol addiction. Even with BPD the dynamics are similar.

The AA story is an interesting one. The original AA Blue Book was written in 1939 and is still used today and the language reflects the era. The men are the alcoholics married to "supportive wives". However in current times we know that these relationships can be of many kinds and alcoholism affects both men and women. Still, the dynamics between the alcoholic and the people who care about them are similar.

What they discovered at the time was that while the wives appeared to be supportive, they were actually making their husbands worse, and having a negative impact on their recovery. It was then that they looked at the idea of "being supportive" and saw the impact of enabling. They then wrote a chapter about it to "the wives" and the idea of a group for the support people was developed.

I think the goal of these groups is to learn how to be of support without enabling. I think this would help you with the questions you have.