Friend spiraling – please help! Seeking advice on a delicate and potentially dangerous situation involving my friend (23F) and her new “friend” (41M)

Hello! Looking for advice on how me (26) and my gf (24) can handle a situation our close friend (23) is getting herself into. Long post, please bear with me..

Both my gf and I care a ton about our friend (let’s call her julia). First some context- julia is amazing, she’s a great friend to both of us (is also gf’s roommate) but, has had a rocky history with men, has had some traumatic experiences, issues with her father, has issues with self-esteem/self-loathing, etc, and hadn’t been in a relationship until maybe 8 months ago. This guy was in his late-30s, not much to offer, didn’t treat her very well, gaslit her when she called him out on some behavior, etc, but she was convinced he was “the one.” She gave him multiple chances, nearly relapsed, and refused to listen to me, gf, and other friends, and was surprised when she realized he turned out to be as bad for her as we’d all warned her.

For those who may wonder/suggest it- she has been to therapy but when she’s told us about about her sessions, it sounds like she deflects/steers her therapists in a different direction and manipulates the sessions so they end up talking about most other things other than the issues she needs to work through.

Fast forward to a few days ago she is now sober (very proud of her ofc 🙂 ) and has been for just over 6 months, we’ve been very supportive of this, as have other friends and we’re all proud to see she is growing into the person we know she can be/deserves to be!

Here’s where it gets interesting (for lack of a better word). Barely a week ago, she was excited to tell us about this new guy she was talking to who she’d met at the salon where she works. Don’t care about the age difference, but this man is 41 years old (lied and told her he’s 40 for some reason, gf did a background check) and came in for a haircut 3 times the week they met just to see her, kind of weird. She’s showed us videos he’s sent her doing tik tok dances in his car which is fine I guess but, texts LiKe THis beCaUSe he ThinKS iT’s CuTe or SomEtHINg(?!!), love bombs her without knowing anything about her, and sexualizes her photos. He seemed (seems) way way too eager to see her. Gf and I weren’t sure about him, but when we voiced our concerns, she shut us down and told us to trust her and that she wouldn’t talk to us about it if we have a problem with it. Fine. They went on a date (which is a generous way to put it considering he didn’t buy her dinner or anything) a few nights ago- she just told us last minute he was picking her up and got in his (a stranger’s) car at 8PM with no idea where they were going. When she got back the next afternoon, Julia told my gf that this guy (we’ll call him John) is an ex-meth addict, lived on methadone mile in Boston for a while, went to jail for a few years (for what and for exactly how long, I don’t know. Julia didn’t bother to ask) got clean (as far as we know) “on his own” after his own brother held a gun to his head, has a crazy ex-girlfriend who he told her may or may not be an issue and said they had sex at a la Quinta (nothing against em, just fucking weird for a “first date”), didn’t use a condom and she didn’t think to ask him if he’d been tested recently. When gf said that her going out with a stranger and having unprotected sex with an ex-addict was dangerous, she just responded “I like living life on the edge” & “sometimes you have to take risks.” And after all this, tells gf that she’s found her soul mate after one night together. As I’m typing this, Julia has just told gf not to tell anyone anything about John, which to us two seems like she knows she’s making bad decisions..

Needless to say, gf and I are very concerned about our friend as she’s ignoring *multiple* red flags, and according to AA, members aren’t “supposed” to be dating within the first year of sobriety, as the philosophy is that one’s sobriety easily becomes dependent on the stability of the relationship, and especially, knowing Julia, her past relationship was pretty closely tied to her sobriety, so now this just seems like a repetition but with higher stakes. The choices she is making are reckless and she seems to be heading down a self destructive path given her attitude and actions lately.

Additionally, potentially bringing this guy into gf/her’s apartment and being completely trusting of him only because he’s been nice to her, got her some $10 roses and they apparently have good chemistry, etc..

So- the reason I’m posting. Any advice on how to go about (delicately) talking her down and how we can support her through this chaos without jeopardizing her own or our safety, pushing her deeper into this spiral, etc.. would be greatly greatly appreciated!! And thank you again for reading this whole post.