The girl I've been sponsoring for 5 months now, started dating a really good friend of mine. He and I have known each other since before I drank. She seemed like she was working a really diligent program. We had gotten through the steps. She talked to me on a regular basis.

Anyway long story shorter, Friday morning I noticed on her myspace page that her status was single and my friend was removed from her friends list. I sent her a text asking if she was ok on my way to work. She said she was fine, he's a great guy but he's got issues. So I figured they broke up. It had only been a couple weeks.

Well I forgot to put my phone by my bed Friday night and when I checked it around noon yesterday (Saturday) my friend had called me 24 times!!! I was so worried, I called him back right away and found out that my sponsee had gone downstairs outside his apartment and when he took his dog for a walk, he caught her smoking pot. He told her she needed to leave. Pot is his big trigger. For a split second he wanted to hit it but he's been sober over a year.

This is the friend who fixes my computer. The friend who's animals I watch. And to hear him on the phone, so broken....broke my heart. He said he had really been struggling not to drink, and he had eyed his favorite at the store when he picked up his prescriptions at the pharmacy. I asked what I could do and he asked me to come over to I packed up my laptop and went over around noon. I stayed till midnight. My boyfriend told me to give my friend his number.

When I got there I was so worried. He had called the AA hotline and me, but he doesn't have other friends in the program. He didn't call his sponsor because his sponsor has been sick. He was really scaring me. He had really fallen for my sponsee in such a short time.

We talked for a long time and he finally talked to his sponsor which helped. He'd start to be ok and then revert back to depression. We discussed my sponsee's mental health. Before she got sober she had been dx'd bipolar and borderline. But her parents were worried because she was abusing her meds so they had her go off everything when she got sober. So she had cut everything out, alcohol, drugs, meds. For awhile she was doing great. But then she'd have days where she'd do nothing but lay in bed, and then she'd have days with tons of energy.

I'm just so sad for her, and for my friend. Luckily he didn't drink or use, but I don't know if he stayed ok after I left at midnight. We haven't heard from her. He kept telling her to call me but she wouldn't. She sent him a text while I was there but then quit replying.

I'm so angry at addiction. I'm so angry at the mental health agency she was going to because they just kept giving her more and more pills. I'm so angry at her parents for telling her to off everything but then not following up to make sure she saw a good doctor to get properly diagnosed. Alcoholics with untreated mental health issues often fall very far, very fast. I'm so worried for her.

I had to vent and get this off my chest. Oh and she hadn't even broken up with him like I thought she had. They'd had a long talk, through which she wouldn't concentrate on him, and then told him she's not his therapist or sponsor. Ouch.....all he wanted was to share with his girlfriend. Then he finds her smoking pot.

I'm grateful it wasn't me. But I'm sad for her, and for my friend.