I have a friend who has a history of substance abuse, mainly meth. While they were using, their addiction has destroyed much of their previous relationships, jobs, self-confidence, sense of trust, and more. However, they’ve been clean for the last year. I’m super super proud of them for that. During that time, they got their life back on track, got a job, but still suffered from deep mental health issues (loneliness, depression, really bad social anxiety, very negative self view, trauma from past relationships). Over the last year, their main mental health triggers were stress and anxiety from their work environment. I won’t go into details, but they constantly believed they were on the verge of being fired, which many times would cause them to spiral into depression and anxiety. Most recently, they felt almost surely they will be fired and had a mental breakdown. They relapsed after being clean for so long in order to cope with their situation.
I’ve seen them repeat this cycle so many times: they get clean, pick up the pieces of their life, get a job, get things back on track, then mental health issues get too much for them to handle causing them to relapse. They would self-sabotage and end up losing their job, hurting their family, hurting themselves. Then after some time they get clean and pick up the pieces. And then the cycle begins again.
I’m at a loss on how to help them. They have deep depression issues, as well as social anxiety and trust issues. They have a very negative self-view and little self confidence. They are deeply lonely, feel like a failure, and see almost no point in living. They have repeatedly said they desire connection and friends, but they can’t muster up the interest to explore hobbies and go out to meet people (perhaps due to depression and social anxiety). During this latest mental breakdown and relapse episode, they have also mentioned their suicidal ideations have increased over the last few months.
And throughout all of this, meth is always there for them to fall back on when things get unbearable, which always makes things worse. Currently they’re feeling some of the after effects of the meth usage (paranoia, no memory of some things happening) and are also very emotionally unstable. I don’t even know where to begin, how can I help my friend? I feel like I’m in way over my head. I don’t live near them, but I don’t want to lose them and I don’t want them to undo all this progress they’ve made in their life.
I’d be grateful for any advice. Thank you.