I just tend to focus on the overall facts and figures without letting my emotions get the best of me.

My family has been through a lot over the last five years.  If I let my emotions rule me every time something happened I probably would not have a job right now.

This is not a popular viewpoint with everyone who wants to constantly beat the same problem past death and pulverize it until it is unrecognizable.  Yes, I do rant and rave online.  However this makes the problem "optional".  I'm not shoving my rants down your throat in person; online you can either read it or don't read it and carry on with your day.

DH has a childhood friend who in the almost 9 years we've been together he has only talked to online through Facebook.  This "friend" wasn't invited to any milestones: our wedding, housewarming, birthdays etc and I've never met them.  DH doesn't talk about them much.

Friend is currently being hospitalized due to alcohol overdose and organ failure, the children haven't lived with this parent for almost a year, and friend had been in a medically induced coma for months.

Friend just "came out of it" a few weeks ago.  And now DH is on a "survivor guilt induced fix-it" mission.  So far he has gone to the hospital at least three times a week (non visitation days of course) and spends HOURS on the phone talking to other people about this friend because some of them live out of state and can't be there.  He is spending money he doesn't have on overpriced crap at the hospital gift shop, and since my medical diagnosis (no alcohol while on this medication) has already consumed all of my alcohol. (WTG DH...drink because your stressed about a friend in the HOSPITAL BECAUSE OF DRINKING, that makes sense)

 This friend has been a hard-core drinker for a very long time, liters of liquor each day, and the body couldn't take it anymore.  Treatment was mentioned in the past but the friend didn't want to and the topic was dropped.

I don't know what DH expects from me while this is going on, but he isn't being a husband to me or available for anything going on in our lives at home. 

Friend gets "over-stimulated" easily to the point where they have had to cut many visits short due to over-stimulation.  Friend can't speak, can't write, has to wear gloves to prevent the self-removal of all the tubes and I.V.'s, they are just a complete mess.  Last week this friend "relapsed" and DH is distraught.  I made the mistake of saying not to worry about it too much; you can't put somebody in a coma for months and expect them to be back to their old self immediately.  The body is already having trouble recovering from the alcohol abuse, factor in waking up from a medically induced coma that lasted over a month and YES, you aren't going to have "all good days", it's going to fluctuate.  This led to gaslighting from DH: "when YOUR friend was in the hospital you never said that about THEM" etc. 

Um....DH....when my friend was in the hospital I got the call that he was admitted that day, went and saw him hooked up to tubes/wires, told him I missed him and wanted him to get better (no response given, he was not responsive in general) and not even five hours later I got a phone call saying he was dead.  So NO DH, this isn't the same at all.  There were no words exchanged, no 'final thoughts', no warning.  Also, my friend had an incurable disease....your friend CHOSE to drink themselves into a coma so NO DH this isn't on the same chapter.

I have a hard time finding sympathy for someone who chooses to do drugs, drink, etc and self-destruct their lives.  Maybe that's why I have such a hard time with MIL.  She lived a drug-filled life and is now happily spending the rest of her years mooching off family and getting everything else paid for by the government because she "doesn't feel like" she's ready to enter the workforce due to anxiety.  But for the last 9 years she's been "getting better every day!".  Vomit.

When I get a phone call about mom going nuts again; I don't start drinking and freaking out.  I get as many facts as I can, usually end up posting a rant on Stalk, and start trying to figure out the steps needed to fix the issue.

I know people deal with things in different ways, but I don't think "my method" means I "lack empathy".  However I am having a hard time feeling any "empathy" towards this person. 
Especially a person with young children who did this to themselves.

Rant over.