Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - Surviving an Addicted Friend...

Nov. 9, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

20:55

Surviving an Addicted Friend...

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	All right.
	This is a question from a listener.
	Hi, Steph.
	My wife has tried to help a friend who is an alcoholic.
	She's told him to get professional help several times, but he nods, makes promises, then goes out drinking with his clubbing buddies anyway.
	Last week, he almost died while drinking on a holiday with that same group.
	Only one week before that holiday, he'd sat down with my wife and she had a very difficult conversation with him, urging him to fix his life.
	He promised her that he would.
	She feels deeply betrayed by him and now is having to cut him out of her life as he does not take her advice or listen.
	He also is quite overweight but follows Christianity.
	She's had long conversations with him about his weight, drinking, and asked him what the church would say about his life.
	It's always the same non-response and empty promises.
	We have a son and she made this decision with me, taking advice you have given previously on such life issues.
	We can't have an alcoholic in our lives around our family.
	Have you got any further words on this that could help her understand and process the betrayal she feels?
	She really tried to help him, but it has not worked.
	Thank you for your time from a UPB and Peacefully Parenting Family walking across that desert.
	Ah, yes, the desert.
	Well, listen, I sympathize.
	I appreciate the help that you have tried to give this man.
	Now, I'll just tell you about it's probably a personal failing of mine.
	I'm certainly happy to have it characterized that way.
	But I will tell you my particular thoughts about this kind of stuff, which is it's simply a question or a matter of willpower.
	A question or a matter of willpower.
	Now, if you are born or have developed or have within you a good willpower, then people who don't have willpower are incomprehensible.
	We cannot understand.
	Sorry, repeat the phrase.
	We can't understand them.
	So for me, you know, and this is, again, it's a fault and it's a failing, probably, right?
	I'm certainly willing to have that be the case.
	But when I look at people who just make crazy decisions, you know, like the borderlines and so on, if you leave me, I'll kill myself.
	You have people who just make crazy decisions.
	To me, it's just like, just don't be crazy.
	I view it as a form of self-indulgence.
	Just don't be crazy.
	Deal with your feelings.
	Don't be crazy.
	And I don't, for me, I don't think it's super hard in your life to just, I don't know, hey, not be crazy.
	How about you just don't be crazy?
	Now, when it comes to something like alcoholism, how about you just don't drink?
	And again, I know there's trauma.
	I get all of that.
	I really understand all of that, which is not saying I don't have sympathy.
	I do have sympathy, but at some point, you have to just not drink.
	Ooh, I was about to swear, but we're dealing with some of our Christian friends, so I will be delicate.
	I will be non-cussy.
	So your friend sounds like he is a triple addict.
	Number one, food.
	He's a food addict, which is why he's overweight.
	Number two, of course, he's an alcoholic.
	And number three, he's a social addict.
	Alcoholism, a lot of times, has to do with being a social addict.
	A social addict is, I need to have the distractions of a party.
	I need to be out there, quote, having fun.
	I need to be where it's loud.
	I need to be where it's where it's chaotic.
	I just need to not be with myself.
	Now, of course, as I get older, I mean, I'm pretty much, I'm on the verge of old, right?
	I'm nearly 60 next year, right?
	So as I get older, I've sort of realized over the years that a lot of people who self-medicate don't just do it for the harm they've suffered, but they also self-medicate for the harm they've done.
	Because it's possible, I'm not saying obviously I don't know, right?
	I'm just saying it's possible that your wife's friend is self-medicating not childhood trauma, but a bad conscience.
	Maybe he was a real bully when he was younger.
	Maybe people have relied on him and he's continually betrayed them as a result of his alcoholism.
	So it becomes a self-feeding cycle, right?
	So because he drinks too much, he betrays people.
	He lies to them.
	He alienates them, right?
	He promises to your wife he'll change and then he doesn't change, which means that he has no integrity and he breaks his word and he betrays people.
	Now, obviously, I would assume he had a bad childhood and so on, but then he ends up betraying people.
	As an adult, he lies to people.
	He manipulates people.
	Obviously, he makes promises, solemn promises that he doesn't keep.
	And he doesn't even own that he doesn't keep them.
	Like he doesn't call up your wife and say, listen, I know I promised this, but I'm so sorry.
	I fell off the wagon, blah, blah, blah.
	I'm going to get help.
	Right?
	So at what point does it tipping point, like walking over the seesaw, at what point are people no longer self-medicating because of a bad childhood?
	They're self-medicating because they're Judas.
	They're self-medicating because they lie, manipulate, betray, harm, undermine, and hurt people.
	Alcoholics and other addicts hurt people enormously.
	And this is when you have to be strict with yourself, right?
	If you think that he's the only addict in this relationship with your wife, I would disagree.
	I would disagree.
	Now, you say your wife has cut him off, so, I mean, I think that's for the best.
	But why would she want to help someone like this?
	Is she addicted to helping people?
	If she's addicted to helping people, then she will choose people she cannot help.
	If you are addicted to a drug, you would choose the drug that doesn't work or doesn't run out.
	If your wife is addicted to helping people, then she's going to choose people in desperate straits who fundamentally cannot be helped.
	And that's the real addiction.
	So there's a bargain under the table.
	The secondary gains, they call it technically, right?
	There's a bargain under the table.
	I assume that your wife was raised by highly dysfunctional parents who needed her constant help and support, right?
	And so she's used to helping people and she's got a Simon the Boxer helping people.
	But if your goal is just like the welfare state, right?
	They need the poor in order to justify their paychecks.
	They cannot solve the problem of poverty because their careers are based upon the existence and continuity of poverty.
	So I assume that your wife was raised by chaotic people that she had to try and fix.
	And if she's addicted to fixing people, she's going to choose unfixable people so she doesn't run out of her drug.
	So I would look at your wife's addiction to helping people, which I assume comes from trauma, but she's choosing people who are probably unfixable because they're guilty as hell of a terrible behavior.
	And this is certainly true with parents.
	If you have, you know, chaotic, abusive, destructive parents, never underestimate the horror and hellscape of what's inside their minds, of what it's like to be inside your minds.
	Obviously, far from a perfect person, but I think I've done pretty well in life.
	I do a reasonable, for me, a reasonable amount of good.
	In this world, I've taken some significant risks to advance virtue.
	So my conscience is pretty good.
	It's pretty good.
	And it's pretty fierce if it's not.
	So my conscience is pretty good.
	So it's hard to understand what it's like to live in a mind with a bad conscience.
	So what is this guy self-medicating?
	Why is he drinking to oblivion?
	Why does he drink to passing out?
	Is it to shut up his trauma?
	I would assume not at this point in his life.
	I assume you guys are in your 30s or 40s.
	So, you know, I give someone a pass for, you know, five, maybe seven years after childhood.
	So, you know, 23, 25, and so on.
	After that, the continued torments are arising from a bad conscience, not a bad history.
	In other words, you are manufacturing your own torment in the present through corrupt, evil, immoral actions.
	So your wife probably has a tough time understanding, well, why does this person keep drinking?
	Why do they keep drinking to destroy their own consciousness?
	Well, because it's hell to be them.
	And why is it hell to be them?
	Well, it's hell to be them because they've done terrible things over the course of their life.
	And listen, I'm not, obviously, I don't know anything about this guy, but if somebody is self-destructive to this degree, I mean, my gosh, this is the kind of bad conscience that maybe he was a child abuser.
	Maybe he molested someone.
	Maybe he's done something really nasty and evil and wretched and corrupt.
	Maybe it's more than just betraying and lying to his friends and those who care about him.
	Maybe he's just done something like truly, stupendously, badly evil.
	And then he would drink, of course, to erase his own conscience.
	He can't stand himself.
	In other words, he drinks because, you know, the conscience counsels, if you've gone beyond a certain evil, the conscience cancels self-destruction directly.
	So it's possible that, entirely possible, that what he's doing is erasing his conscience and its desire to erase him because it's the only way he can survive is through drinking, if that makes sense.
	So this is, of course, the tough love question.
	What does it mean to genuinely love someone or to care about them?
	Well, in my mind, what I do is I look at the question or the challenge or the difference between mortal and venal sins.
	So a venal sin, you don't do something great, you've done something wrong, you know, you lie to someone or you betrayed them in some manner or you, you know, choose a lower path, but the higher path, you know, you dodge someone you maybe you owe money to or something like nothing horrendous, but not great, right?
	And that can be dealt with.
	The question with the alcoholic to me is always look to the position or the place where restitution has become impossible.
	Can someone undo the damage they have done?
	Can your alcoholic friend, who I assume is in his 30s or 40s, can your alcoholic friend undo the damage he has done?
	I would argue, no.
	If he's a fat drunk in his 30s and 40s, his life is ruined.
	And he has also done significant harm to others.
	I guarantee you that if he is a drunk, he has encouraged other people to drink.
	Oh, one more.
	What are you going for?
	Come on, you'll be fine.
	We're having a good time.
	So he has pushed his drinking, his alcoholism, he has pushed on others, right?
	And because of that, he has done the kind of damage he cannot undo.
	He has encouraged other people to drink.
	He's portrayed the drinking as a fun party lifestyle.
	He has enabled other people and so on.
	He also, most likely, being overweight himself has undermined or harmed other people's intention or desire to lose weight.
	Oh, come on.
	No good story ever started with I had a salad.
	So he has probably pushed, almost certainly he has pushed his addiction on others younger and he has seduced them into the dark path, into the bad way, the bad place, the bad thing, the bad things.
	And because of that, he has corrupted others.
	I mean, it's one thing if you make a mistake yourself, you know, that certainly happens.
	It certainly happens that people make mistakes themselves, and that is survivable.
	Those are all venal sins.
	Those are all survivable sins.
	However, when you have gotten to the place where you have corrupted others, that cannot be undone.
	And again, I have made my mistakes over the course of my life, but I don't believe or I can't think of an example or an instance where I have corrupted others.
	The mistakes I have made have been largely borne by myself.
	I have suffered, right?
	The mistakes that I have made or committed.
	I can't think of a time, and I'm not saying there isn't one, I just try to be fairly strict with myself about this and listen to my conscience because I want to be a happy guy.
	But I can't think of a time where I have corrupted others.
	So I think all of that is survivable.
	Now, if you have corrupted someone or worked towards their corruption, that's not the end of the world either, because what you can do, of course, is apologize immediately and retract and change and blah, blah, blah, right?
	So what you want to do is try and weigh, and people won't often give you the truth about this, but what you want to do is you want to try and weigh people's hearts, minds, and souls and say, if I had done the kind of wrongs that they had done without fixing them, what would my relationship to my conscience be like?
	And it is very hard to understand what it's like to live with a really bad conscience.
	It's really hard to understand that.
	What is it like to live with a really bad conscience where you hate yourself, you loathe yourself, you've harmed and destroyed innocent souls, you've corrupted and undermined people, you know, hoary and old as you are in your addiction, you have greased the path down to hell itself for others to follow with a push and a shove and an enticement and an oily.
	So that is really important.
	Don't look upon people, especially in their 30s and 40s, do not look upon them as victims.
	That is what victimizers want you to do, right?
	The victimizers want you to look upon them as victims, and they will cry how sad their childhood was and this, that, and the other.
	And again, we can sympathize with the bad childhood, but the bad childhood does not dictate that you corrupt others.
	The bad childhood will mean that you have pain and sorrow and anger and hurt, but the bad childhood in no way dictates that you corrupt others.
	Corrupting others is a choice.
	And of course, it's pretty hard to have sympathy with someone who was corrupted as a child and as a teen, who then in turn goes and corrupts others younger than himself.
	Again, it could be children, could be teenagers, could be young adults.
	So you lose the victim card when you victimize others.
	It's the most foundational aspect, really, of moral philosophy, and because it keeps us away from pathological altruism.
	Once you victimize others, you no longer have the right to cry about being victimized.
	Once you hurt others, you have no right to cry about being hurt.
	In other words, once you become your parents, if they were abusive, once you become your abusive parents, you have zero right to complain about being abused because you now have become your parents.
	And if you have become your parents, you cannot complain about your parents.
	It would be like somebody becoming a thief and complaining about stealing.
	Somebody becoming a murderer and complaining about killing.
	Somebody becoming a criminal, dedicating their lives to crime and then complaining about crime.
	You are the source of what you are complaining about.
	And so if somebody is innocent and somebody breaks into their house and steals their stuff, I have great sympathy and wish punishment, of course, upon the thief.
	However, if the thief who stole his stuff himself gets stolen from, I have no sympathy for the thief who was stolen from.
	In the same way, if someone goes to kill some innocent guy and then the innocent guy kills him first, I have no sympathy for the killer.
	Right?
	So turning off your sympathy to those who have harmed others is really, really important because you do not want to enable the harm.
	Now, if he says, gee, you should have sympathy for me, even though I admit I've harmed others.
	You should totally have sympathy for me because I was harmed as a child and I'm angry at my parents.
	It's like, okay, but if being harmed as a child means that we have to have sympathy to those who harm others as adults, then you must have sympathy for your parents and you cannot be angry at your parents.
	You cannot be angry at your parents if you in turn have corrupted others, particularly those younger than yourself.
	And again, I'm not just talking children or whatever it is, right?
	Teenagers, even adults when they're young.
	I mean, one of the reasons I think instinctively why I avoided corrupting others was so I could remain justly angry at my parents.
	In other words, I can get angry at a thief because I've never stolen.
	But when people have turned from victims into victimizers, they lose all moral authority and you cannot sympathize with them anymore.
	They have crossed over.
	They have become their parents.
	Because the only way you'd be sympathetic to them is to say, gee, your parents treated you really badly and unjustly as a child.
	It's like, yes, but now as an adult, you're treating people badly and unjustly.
	You've become your parents.
	You've become your parents.
	Now, again, I understand it's a power relationship.
	It doesn't necessarily have to involve children.
	Children are trapped.
	So there's definitely some differences.
	I understand that.
	But your parents were corrupt because they let or enabled their hurt, gave them permission to hurt others.
	And then the addict hurts others.
	It's one thing if you just live alone in the woods and drink your moonshine or whatever it is.
	That's bad in that you, you know, society invested a lot in you and you're just kind of taking it and consuming it on your own, but at least you're not directly harming others.
	But if you're an alcoholic and you say he likes to go out and party and so on, then for sure he is corrupting others.
	And he is lying, cheating.
	He's stealing sympathy by promising change, which he has no intention of delivering.
	So you have to harden your heart when people start doing serious wrong to others.
	They lose all rational sympathy for the wrongs they suffered when they were young.
	Now, again, I understand this kid might have been harmed when he was five or 10, and maybe he's harming people who are 20 or 25.
	I get that there's a difference.
	I understand that.
	I do.
	But what he lacks in authority and control, he makes up for in repetition.
	So if you have parents and you corrupted two children, that's one thing.
	But if you're 35 and you corrupt 10 to 15, 20 year olds by advertising the party lifestyle, encouraging them to drink, mocking them if they try to lose weight, like just really harming people.
	Okay.
	So you've done less harm per individual, but instead of harming two people, you've harmed 10 to 15 or 20 or whatever it is, right?
	And then if you post, you know, having a great time, social media way, you fun party, party, party, right?
	Then you're also harming other people by advertising and drawing them into a corrupt, decadent, and destructive lifestyle.
	So that is your life.
	That is your legacy.
	And once people have crossed over to doing direct evil, direct corrupt, corrupting others, which they cannot undo, then there's no hope.
	There's no hope for them.
	They're terminal.
	I've never seen it turn around.
	Because what you can't make restitution for, you just have to double down and keep defending.
	So stay away from people.
	They are elegant traps that spread corruption and they cannot be fixed because they cannot undo the damage they've done.
	I hope that helps.
	Freedomand.com slash Onate.
	Thanks, Emil, as always.
	Talk to you soon.

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