Coaching practices for How to Help My Friend Who is a Functioning Alcoholic

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How to Help My Friend Who is a Functioning Alcoholic, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• If a friend brought me this exact dilemma I’d know in two seconds what they should do, but stuck inside my own version I just go in circles
• I keep pouring myself into caring for everyone around me while running on empty, and instead of feeling connected it just leaves me hollowed out
• If a friend told me they’d blown off this exact thing I’d be gentle and kind to them in a heartbeat, yet to myself I’m brutal
• I’ve tried the buddy thing but the person I picked just says “no worries, next time” whenever I flake
• I love someone who’s struggling and I keep swooping in to manage it all for them, but I’m starting to see that treating them like they can’t handle it might be quietly telling them they can’t

Practices that may help

1. Give yourself advice as if advising a close friend
   Describe your problem as if a close friend brought it to you — then write the advice you would give them.
   Self-Distancing Journaling
2. Tend to yourself before tending to others
   Sustainable tend-and-befriend requires that the caregiver’s own basic needs are met — otherwise helping depletes rather than regulates.
   Tend-and-Befriend, Made Practical
3. Extend the compassion you would give a friend to yourself
   Ask what you would say to a capable friend who had delayed on the same task — then say that.
   Self-Forgiveness and Procrastination
4. Choose a partner who will actually hold the line
   Pick someone invested enough to ask hard questions, not a friend who will let it slide.
   Accountability Partners
5. Trust their capacity to find their own way
   Hold the belief that they can move through this — don’t treat them as fragile or as a problem to manage.
   Holding Space
6. Be a source of relief, not reactivation
   When your partner is distressed, your first job is to reduce their threat response, not solve the problem.
   Secure-Functioning Relationships
7. Apply self-compassion when restructuring gets harsh
   Use the "friend perspective" to find a tone that challenges distortions without adding shame.
   Cognitive Restructuring: The CBT Method for Changing Unhelpful Thoughts
8. Affirm genuine strengths and effort
   Notice and name real strengths the person brings — not empty praise.
   Motivational Interviewing, Made Practical
9. Enlist a helping relationship appropriate to your stage
   The kind of support that helps in preparation (accountability) is different from what helps in contemplation (empathy).
   The Transtheoretical Model of Change, Made Practical
10. Apply self-kindness as actively as you would to a friend
    Treat yourself with the same warmth and understanding you would offer a close friend in the same situation.
    Self-Worth vs. Self-Esteem

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