site banner

Wellness Wednesday for February 22, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

A lot of advice on both sides has been given in other threads, so I'll try to shed some light with an anecdote or two.

One of my friends dated a girl like this: sweet, caring and kind day-to-day, but became a monster when drunk. A combination of undiagnosed BPD and low tolerance for alcohol due to SSRIs led to quarterly, then monthly, then finally almost weekly blowups. She would get belligerent, messy, self-destructive, would actively fight off/try to escape from people trying to help her, it was a simple nightmare. For some people with BPD, alcohol is the perfect stimulant/depressive/uninhibitive cocktail to get them to show a really dark/animalistic side of their condition. Independent of the alcohol, it can begin manifesting in other areas of life.

Alcohol tolerance can shift wildly from person to person and from day to day, depending on food and water intake prior, rest and wakefulness, exercise, etc. People tend to find comfort in keeping up with others, because that keeps their consumption in check (they should only really get as drunk as they next guy/gal). If you're consuming more than everyone else, hard to act surprised when you get sledgehammered. I've had friends of all ages get surprised once in a while by how hard 8 to 9 drinks can hit. In an environment where alcohol consumption is ubiquitous (i.e. the West, South America, and large parts of Asia), getting a bit too drunk is inevitable. @MathiasTRex brings up a good point, the fact that her friends let her get away from them in that state is unacceptable. The number of delirious drunks that jump/fall off high ledges, or even just stumble and hit their hand and suffer permanent damage, would shock you (ask a cop/EMT from your area if you're curious).

From your post, it's not entirely clear if she falls more under the former (alcohol highlights {un,under}diagnosed condition) or the latter (sometimes can't keep up with the social drinking, and somewhat stupid/irresponsible drunk). In either case though, going forward, extra caution is definitely warranted around alcohol.

Thanks for anecdote. I believe there was a period in her life when she went to therapy for destructive behaviour and benefitted a lot from it. So much so that I didn’t feel the need to ask much about what was the reason exactly but perhaps I should.

I will reply under another comment about her friends not helping her.