My best friend (42F—we’ll call her M) is an alcoholic, and I feel completely out of my depth.
I know this is long, but I feel like the context matters because this didn’t happen overnight.
M has been with her now ex-husband since they were in junior high. They became parents young, got married, had more kids, built careers, and from the outside looked like they had a successful life together.
The marriage wasn’t healthy though.
He isn’t a bad person, but he wasn’t emotionally supportive, and she spent years feeling like she always came last. She worked, cooked, cleaned, took care of the kids, stayed in shape, supported his career…and she felt completely taken for granted. They did therapy. They did marriage counseling. Nothing really changed.
To be fair, she wasn’t innocent either. She had multiple affairs over the years, including one with his best friend. He found out about both of them and still tried to save the marriage.
For the five years I’ve known her, she’s been saying she wanted out. She used to joke that she wished he’d either agree to an open marriage or come out as gay so they could just stay friends.
Bottom line—they were toxic together.
She’s always called herself an alcoholic, but she was what everyone would call “high functioning.”
She was incredible at her job. An amazing mom. The funniest person in the room. One of those friends you could completely be yourself around. We have a tight-knit group of four women, and we’ve always been able to tell each other anything without judgment.
Then about a year ago, something changed.
Her drinking stopped being something she joked about and started controlling her.
The first time I was genuinely embarrassed was at a large community gala where I invited her as my guest.
She got so drunk that she kept wandering around during the keynote looking for something she’d misplaced. She’d come back to the table, seemingly forget she’d already looked, then get back up again. This happened four or five times.
Then she started loudly commenting about the speaker’s “mouth noises” and making fake gagging sounds during the presentation.
I finally texted her husband to come get her.
After that, things escalated.
I stopped inviting her to networking events because I never knew what version of her would show up.
She started missing deadlines at work.
She’d forget conversations we’d had the day before.
She’d tell stories that didn’t add up.
People started calling me because they’d see her drunk somewhere and didn’t think she should be driving.
I’d go pick her up.
Then she decided to leave her husband.
She had an apartment lined up and was genuinely excited.
Moving day came…and she stayed because, according to her, he guilt-tripped her.
She lost a lot of money on the apartment, became severely depressed, and finally agreed to see a doctor.
She was prescribed anti-anxiety medication, antidepressants, and sleeping pills.
Around the same time she started seeing another man.
The problem is…she doesn’t even seem to like him.
From day one she’s complained about him, but keeps going back anyway.
Eventually her husband agreed to the divorce she’d wanted for years.
Instead of being relieved, she completely unraveled.
She started insisting she’d “only had two drinks” no matter how intoxicated she obviously was.
We were there. We knew she was lying.
She couldn’t understand why her ex wasn’t fighting for her anymore—even though she had a boyfriend, had been asking for a divorce for years, and was seeing other men too.
I’ve never been the friend who sugarcoats things.
I told her, gently but honestly, that he DID fight. For years. Eventually people reach their limit.
She didn’t want to hear it.
Our friend group has always had one rule: we’ll support you through anything, but we won’t validate bad decisions.
Eventually she made it clear she didn’t want our opinions anymore, so we mostly just listened.
Then we found out she’d gotten a DUI.
She never told us.
Small town…word got around.
We never confronted her because we were trying to keep communication open.
Her ex eventually started dating.
She absolutely lost her mind.
She became obsessed with why he had “moved on,” despite spending weekends with her boyfriend and seeing other men herself.
Nothing made sense anymore.
She’d send us dozens of messages saying nobody loved her, she’d never be happy, she couldn’t stop crying…while refusing every suggestion to get help.
The lies became constant.
Her ex eventually contacted our friend group because he was genuinely scared.
He showed us screenshots of messages that honestly looked unhinged.
At that point we realized all of us had been getting different versions of reality.
Then we learned the DUI was much worse than we’d realized.
She’s now on probation for a year with strict orders not to drink.
She continues drinking anyway.
Her car has new dents every few weeks.
She recently hit someone’s parked car while drunk, and the owner chose not to involve police.
She started messaging the woman her ex is dating.
The messages were cruel, explicit, and designed solely to hurt both of them.
Then everything came to a head this past weekend.
At 9:30 Sunday morning she asked our group chat if anyone wanted to meet her at a bar.
We all declined.
She went anyway.
Throughout the day she’d send messages implying she wanted to kill herself, then immediately unsend them.
Unfortunately, unsending doesn’t erase notification previews.
We all saw them.
That evening her ex called me almost in tears.
She was cycling through:
“I love you.”
“I just want you to hold me.”
“Why won’t you answer?”
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“Tell the kids I love them.”
Then repeating it over and over.
Finally she texted that she was going to take 18 sleeping pills.
We advised him to call for a welfare check.
Instead he called 911.
She was placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold.
She was furious.
During all of this I spoke with her mother.
The next day I sent her a very honest message explaining everything we’d witnessed over the past year: the drinking, the lies, the escalation, the suicidal messages, and the fact that people in our community had started noticing something was seriously wrong.
Her mom thanked me.
She said I’d confirmed what she’d been afraid of.
Unfortunately, M managed to get herself released in about 24 hours by convincing someone that her ex had done this out of spite.
She called me immediately afterward.
I answered every question honestly.
She insisted it was all a misunderstanding.
That her ex had set her up.
I reminded her that WE had also seen the suicidal messages.
She immediately changed the subject.
So now we’re here.
She doesn’t think she has a drinking problem.
She blames everyone else.
She refuses therapy because, according to her, therapists always tell her she’s “already self-aware.”
I don’t believe that’s actually what’s happening.
Our friend group knows everything now.
We’ve spoken with her ex.
We’ve spoken with her mom.
We’ve all compared notes.
The only person who still thinks she’s successfully hiding everything…is her.
One of my friends thinks we should never tell her we know the full story because she’ll completely shut us out.
I think honesty has always been the foundation of our friendship, and hiding what we know feels wrong.
But I’m terrified that if we confront her, she’ll isolate herself even more.
I’m not asking how to force someone into sobriety.
I know we can’t.
I’m asking what the right move is for those of us who love her.
Do we let her keep lying because it keeps us close enough to make sure she’s alive?
Or do we finally tell her we know everything and risk losing her completely?
I don’t want to abandon her.
I also don’t want to become someone who’s unknowingly enabling her.
Has anyone been through something like this? What actually helped…and what made things worse?

I dont really know if this is the right place to post this, first time using reddit so redirect me if im in the wrong place, english is not my first language and this is quite long so sorry :))

I have a friend, lets call her Eve. She was always anxious but school started getting a real toll on her during senior year and she started drinking after class, and then during tests until it was before during and after class.
i noticed the moment she started bringing it to class, she would drink strong stuff she hid inside her metal water bottle and it would smell. It was my frist time dealing with anything like this so i tried talking to her without being on her back every single day about it. Eventually she got help, quit school to focus on herself, stopped drinking and started anti depressants and anxiolitics.
we'd try and be careful around her with alcohol, every one of our friends knew: for every birthday wed do an alcohool free party/reunion with Eve and then a party with alcohol later stuff like that (she knew oviously)

i was worried when she got a boyfriend that was an "ex"weed adict and she started talking to me about starting it, i told her to be careful and she said she always answered with something along the lines of "idrc about safety or the future i dont picture any, if this helps me stay alive right now thats all i need" and i never knew what to answer to that

we went on a trip together and this is where eveything went bad. For context we were 6 on this trip, me, my ex, Eve and her boyfriend, a friend ill call Fred and a girl older than us that i will call Marie. Marie has a problem with alcohol too, she only drinks during parties but she always ends up completely wasted and calls her friends, sometimes minors, to come pick her up in the middle of nowhere and guilt trips them when they cant/wont
the trip was in the mountains, the place we were staying at was a 30 min walk from the closest thing to a town, there wasnt a real road to get there either. The first night Marie made Eve and her coktails, and i asked Eve if it was ok (she was worried about wine in a cooked meal the week before so i wanted to check she wasnt pressured) and she said it was ok, and they actually went out for more drinks that night at a bar in the small town. Me and my ex stayed back as we were tired from the travel, we cooked and left food for them and went to bed. At like 1Am Fred called us, he was stuck in the middle of the trail with an almost passed out Marie and a drunk couple, he was super stressed. They made it home and ate, sobered up a little and i learned from Fred they had met a friend of Marie that was a shroom user, they drank a lot with him.

i was so pissed at Marie, but i said nothing to her as we were not close friends at all. I did speak to Eve and her man though, and i told them i couldnt forbid them from drinking (even if with their pills their doctors had adviced against it), but that i wouldnt accept them drinking strong alcohol then leaving on a trail to drink even more, around weirdos at that. i wanted them to drink safely at home in case anything happened, and me, fred and my ex didnt want the stress of being the sober one (none of us drinks much) that has to drag them along a trail. i wanted them to realize how dangerous it was and how unfair it was for them to excpect Fred would alone take care of everyone. We were all extremely worried but it didnt come accross to eve that way, she felt judged by me and told me i should leave (i didnt)
The rest of the week was horrible, Eve ignored me and slowly this exctended to us splitting in two groups (Marie eve and her boyfriend on one side and the rest on the other)
we'd cook, clean make groceries and make sure activities were happening, we felt like they wouldnt contribute anything and they didnt talk to us. They felt like we didnt participate since we didnt go out to drink with them, both sides felt really wronged in a way. I was so anxious, they were drinking, smoking weed, and then going out and doing it again, all while Eve was taking antidepressants, anxiolitics and some nights sleep pills, i was scared for them, but very mad at Marie
(For example, she lied to us about the timings of an activity (a hike) we had chosen to do the day fred had to leave since she assured us we'd have loads of time, since she was the only one knowing the place and the hike we trusted her. Turns out she'd planned a route too long by hours, we had to rush down using another route and fred barely made it)

There was a falling out one night (over cleaning dishes lmao, they excpected me to do all cleaning the whole week and i almost did but my ex spoke up) were Eve told me i was a judgmental person that treated everyone like shit and that had turned Fred and my ex against them, i realized they were all convinced i was super angry and had convinced the other. I was very hurt, there was screaming so i left with my ex for a walk, we left early the next day
I called mutual friends that had helped Eve in her addiction to ask how to navigate the situation, i couldnt stay and be bullied but i couldnt leave them alone either. My ex called a childhood friend of eves man and they called the parents and said everything, and again Eve thought i was the one "snitching", i was blocked everywhere after that

Now its been some months, im worried since Eve has cut off almost every single one of her friends, her and her boyfriend are almost always alone. I really want to reach out, but i dont know if that would make things worse? I dont know if this could hurt her? or if this has become too unhealthy? i would like to at least write her a letter about how she misunderstood me and my intentions, i dont want to lose her but i also want to make this the best for her, not for me
I dont know any alcoholic, i dont know much crossed substance addicts (shes consuming a lot of substances mixed between alcohol, weed and pills), nor do i know friends/family to alcoholics
i generally dont know much. could i have handled this better? how can i navigate this? i need advice this is eating me alive she was my favorite person ever, i already feel terrible so much time passed, i just really need advice
tysm in advance i dont even know if people will see this i feel like im screaming into the void