u/donotmentionself

I should probably start off by saying, that I have already made another post on r/aspergers about a year ago concerning the same topic.

I have struggled with my oral hygiene for the best part of a decade at this point, and I have no idea why. Initially I suspected it might be a sensory issue, because I do tend to dislike certain smells, flavours and textures. So I switched to the softest manual toothbrush I could find and got rid of any and all oral products containing menthol or alcohol. But to no avail. To say that my oral hygiene remains a disaster would be putting it mildly.

Did/do any of you guys struggle with this as well? And if yes, do you have any tips on what else I could do? I'm kind of at the end of my rope at this point, because I have no idea where the issue could be, and I do not want to lose any of my teeth.

If you have additional questions, feel free to ask them in the comment section and I'll try to answer them to the best of my abilities.

Kind regards, and thank you in advance!

Let me preface this by saying, that I don't really know whether this is the right place to turn to. But I'm kind of at my wit's end regarding the drinking of a friend of mine.

The friend in question has drunken alcohol for as long as I've known him, most of the time without any issues. After some recent very challenging life events, and likely also due to poor mental health, his drinking has increased rapidly. In the last two weeks alone, he has doubled his alcohol intake and nearly trippled the number of cigarettes he smokes in a day. It has reached the point where physical dependency has started and he shows withdrawal symptoms such as sweating, shaking and chills if he hasn't had any alcohol for a couple of hours. This has increased his willingness to engage in risky behaviours, such as secretly drinking at work, driving under the influence and combining alcohol with his various medications on a nearly daily basis. And - at one point a few weeks ago - a line of cocaine, which combined with everything else landed him in the emergency room the next morning. He is fully aware of how dangerous his behaviour is and wants to change it, so he applied for rehab. But the date of entry into the clinic is still at least a month away, which is a lot of time considering how much worse his drinking has gotten in just the last two weeks.

Long story short, this is the first time anyone around me has dealt with a drinking problem this openly, and I do not know how to deal with it. I check in on him nearly every day and I try to be as supportive as I can. But I worry that in my anxiety about something bad happening to him, I might say the wrong thing and unwittingly make things worse, which is the last thing I'd want. I want to be supportive, but I neither want to sugarcoat it nor be dismissive of his issues.

Do any of you have any tips for me on how I should approach this, what kinds of things I should say or not say? Thank you in advance for your help, it is very much appreciated!

Kind regards

Edit to clarify: When I say doubling his drinking, I mean to three to four pints of beer a day.

Maybe it's because it's late at night when I'm writing this, but I've come to realize something. I'll be turning 24 this year and I can count on one hand the number of times I can remember the words ''Well done'' explicitly crossing the lips of my parents. At times I feel like there's no way for me to do things right in their eyes (particularly my mother's), only better or worse ways of failing.

Can anyone here relate to this?

Kind regards