[Frosthawk]

My father killed himself drunk driving at the age of 26. My second father was an alcoholic who would get drunk and beat the u know what out of my mother and brother and me. It took 2 years but my mother finally got away from him. We had to leave the state we were living in.
My girlfriend (whom I have been living with for 14 years now) was an alcoholic for 20 years, 5 of which were spent with me. She was what people call a functioning alcoholic, a hard worker and had learned to hide it extremely well. It took me 2 years to fully realize just how bad she was. That is how good she was at hiding it. But then again maybe i didnt want to know. Anyway, it took me another three years to get her into rehab and the only way I managed that was by telling her that I just couldnt handle it anymore. Without going into detail it took me over 6 hours of talking to her that night to finally get her to go. She spent 30 days in rehab.
Within her first week of getting out she started drinking again trying to hide it from me. I was taking her to work when I realized it (yes, she was hitting the vodka in the morning). Instead of taking her to work I dropped her off at her sisters and told her I was out of here unless she went back to rehab. It was at that point that she realized I was serious. She later told me that her real intentions the whole time were to keep drinking and just hide it from me.
Later that day she called and said she would go back to rehab. Another 30 days but she hasnt touched a drop since and that was 9 years ago.

The reason I mention all this is just to show how really difficult it is to get someone to quit and also to show some of the consequences of not quitting. I can't tell u how to help your friend other than what has been said here already. He won't quit till he hits a hard spot, one that will have possibly tragic consequences. Do not show support for his drinking or help him make excuses but u also can't really ride him about it either. One thing u can do is to never drink when u are around him just to show that it is possible to enjoy yourself without it. Also u can throw in the ocasional quick one liner of "Man, that stuff is going to kill you" but dont dwell on it. If he thinks u are judging him he will just start avoiding u and then u accomplish nothing
There is also a group afiliated with AA that is for partners and children of alcoholics. U might want to talk to someone who belongs to that. They would probably be able to give u the best advice on how to deal with your friend.
Michael