One of my friends appeared to be struggling with some substance abuse, and some of my other friends who didn't know him pointed it out to me. I decided to talk to his sister, who I know well, to make sure he was ok.

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Before Christmas: 
* Definitely a lot of memory issues. Repeatedly after a very short 10 second tangent he would completely lose his train of thought, had to remind him of it constantly. 
* He would forget about something we had talked about a couple minutes before, or would need to be reminded of it.
* His texts pretty regularly do not make much sense.

Christmas Eve: 
* He was "fine" (same as he was when I saw him a couple days ago) when he got to the party, but he was really bad after having just two beers.
* Slurring words and generally very drowsy and sluggish. He was talking very, very slowly. 
* He wasn't able to control the drone very well at all.
* Repeating himself multiple times. Saying the same phrase or set of phrases repeatedly: that he taught Cosmo how to walk up the stairs, that everyone knows about the Shake It video, what's the appropriate age difference to date someone.
* Multiple people at the party were concerned. He kept insisting he had only two beers. 
* Confusion and having to be told directions multiple times. 
* I think he may have mentioned he's lost a decent amount of weight, not sure.
* He said he had shoulder surgery, so maybe he has drugs.
* I asked him when I walked him up the driveway if he had gotten high before the party and he said no, he just had slept in really late and maybe that was why he was like this.

After Christmas Eve:
* Realized the "sleeping in 2.5 hours" late to work. 
* Being fired abruptly for, according to him, no material reason. They packed his stuff up for him, basically seemed to want to get him out of the building ASAP. No probation period like someone else had, he was just let go immediately. 
* Realized that it was possible that the firing was related to substance abuse issues.

Upshots: 
* I talked to one of my friends about it, who has a close friend currently going through things: 
    * He may want to go to therapy. That's probably a good first step. 
* I could talk to him too, and avoid anything that sounds accusatory. 
* Paul said half a glass of wine would take you to where [redacted] was after painkillers. 

Post conversation: 
* The shoulder injury he had was the result of a seizure that was due to drug related things.
* I think she was surprised by how bad he was with us, thought maybe he had had more than 2 beers and just didn't tell anyone. 
* Said he's been in denial for a while, went through a tough break up in Spring, that's when this started, and deflects by talking about how bad Joey is. 
* She said his memory is horrible and thinks maybe it was because he smoked so much weed 
* Neil mentioned intensive outpatient care, less expensive. Rehab is just there to take as much money as possible. 
* She wrote an article