Since you’re here, you probably have a friend or loved one who is an alcoholic. And you probably want to know: how do you help an alcoholic in the real world? What can you do that will make a difference? Let’s find out:
First things first: work on changing your behavior, not the alcoholic
It is a hard fact to swallow at first, but the truth of the matter is that you are probably not going to be able to directly change an alcoholic’s behavior. Manipulating or threatening the alcoholic will only drive them deeper into isolation and heavy drinking.
If you try to control another person’s drinking, you are going to experience a loss of control and real powerlessness. Instead, if you focus on changing your own behavior, you will experience full control and an empowering mindset. This is how you go about helping an alcoholic: by focusing on your own behavior and how you choose to interact with the alcoholic….not by focusing on how you can manipulate or change the other person.
Keep reading. I will explain more below about how changing your behavior can help the alcoholic.
How can I convince an alcoholic to quit drinking?
This is a very difficult thing to do, most would say it is downright impossible. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t make a difference in the potential sobriety of a person. Show your support as best you can and let them know that you will support them in any way that you can if they choose to stop drinking.
There are no secret tricks or manipulations when it comes to this stuff. Some people imagine that there might be a way to threaten or coerce an alcoholic into quitting drinking. There definitely is not. If you threaten them, they will simply withdrawal further away from you.
Most, if not all alcoholics, are slowly self destructing, and they know it. Threats mean nothing to someone who is self destructing. You can’t intimidate someone who has nothing to lose. It is simply more fuel for the alcoholic fire.
Trying to shame an alcoholic into sobriety doesn’t work either. If you succeed in shaming them, this will only make them want to drink more because they will truly feel shamed. The alcoholic really is a sick person. Would you shame a disabled person? Of course not.
So basically, there is no way to directly convince an alcoholic to quit drinking.
All efforts to influence an alcoholics behavior are going to be mostly indirect, but this does not make them unimportant. You can influence their behavior and decisions, just not in a very fast or direct manner. More on this below.
How can I help an alcoholic make the decision to go to treatment?
Much like trying to convince someone to quit drinking, this can be a difficult task. But getting someone to agree to treatment is much easier, but at the same time, it is probably not very useful. Here’s why:
Recovering alcoholics who are sober now will talk about a point of surrender that they reached in their drinking. Virtually every one of them that you talk to can pinpoint that moment of surrender, when they finally threw in the towel and stopped fighting against their disease. This is the moment of surrender. This is where recovery starts.
No one knows how to induce this moment. If we did then we would have solved the problem of addiction and recovery. The best we can do is to encourage people towards this moment.
Once someone has reached the point of surrender, anything you do to help them will basically work. Any treatment center you send them to will produce good results. If they have not yet reached the point of surrender, then nothing you do will matter. At all. Nothing you do can overcome a lack of surrender. The alcoholic is still fighting and struggling and trying to control things and it’s just not going to work.
So how can you convince them to go to treatment? Simply offer to take them to treatment. If they’re not interested, then it makes no sense to press them further, because they are not ready. Even if you can somehow manipulate them into it, you are wasting your time. Not ready means not ready. And this has never been more true than when it comes to quitting drinking.
The best we can do is to be prepared to get them into treatment when the moment is right. Have a plan, make some calls, see what is available for alcoholic help. Then when the person has finally surrendered, you will have some options as to where you can take them.
How do you know when they’ve surrendered? When they ask for help. When they are ready to change on your terms, not on their terms. When they throw up their arms and say “I’ll do whatever you tell me to do. Show me how to live,” that is surrender. That is the start of recovery. Anything else on their part is more manipulation (such as “give me money,” or “I promise to go to treatment next week.”).
How can I organize an effective intervention for an alcoholic?
I have already written extensively about interventions, and I have a small bit of experience with them. I still think it is a possible option in some situations, but for the most part I am starting to see more and more evidence that formal interventions are almost never helpful. There is a sliver of hope here, though, because they occasionally do work in guiding an alcoholic towards recovery. But more and more I am seeing that they are never the magic bullet we think they might be; they cannot possibly be an instrument of real change. An intervention can not be the switch that goes off in the alcoholic’s mind that creates real surrender. That switch must be flipped in some other way, unfortunately, and there is seemingly no rhyme or reason to it.
But an intervention still might have benefits, even if it can not force recovery to happen instantly. For one thing, a formal intervention can:
1) Let the alcoholic know that people do care.
2) Show them that help is available (in the form of treatment).
3) Be a step towards their eventual surrender, even if it doesn’t get them clean and sober right now.
So if you are considering an intervention, understand that while the goal of the intervention is probably for the alcoholic to attend a treatment center and never drink again, this is probably an unrealistic expectation and you shouldn’t get your hopes up that high. More likely it is a step on their path to eventual sobriety. It might plant a seed for their awakening later on. Keep this in mind if things don’t go perfectly as planned. How do you help an alcoholic? Not by whacking them with a two by four, unfortunately. It takes gentle nudging in the right direction, and this idea of “planting a seed” is just that type of nudging.
How can I stop enabling an alcoholic?
This is really the core strategy that you need to focus on in your dealings with another alcoholic or addict: do not enable them.
What is enabling?
It’s just what it sounds like. If you enable an alcoholic, you allow them to continue drinking when they otherwise might have had to stop for some reason. But this gets tricky, because sometimes when we try to help an alcoholic, we are actually enabling them. Other times when we think we are “hurting” an alcoholic, we are actually helping them by observing healthy boundaries. Figuring out the difference here is critical.
If you can stop enabling the alcoholic, then this will get them closer and closer to facing reality and making an eventual decision to stop drinking on their own. This is the goal of helping the alcoholic–to force them to examine their own reality and hopefully make a change. Trying to convince them verbally is pointless. Threatening them is pointless. The key is to not enable them. Here’s how to go about doing that:
1) Don’t deny them consequences of their drinking
If the alcoholic in your life gets pulled over for drunk driving and lands in jail, leave them there. Do not bail them out. Sitting in jail is a natural consequence of their behavior, and they need to experience that consequence. It is part of the learning process. If you deny them that consequence, then they cannot learn.
Obviously, it might take several consequences before the alcoholic “wakes up” and decides to try something different (like recovery). But if there are never any consequences, why would the alcoholic ever decide to change? They wouldn’t. So do not deny them the natural consequences that occur due to their drinking.
This doesn’t mean you have to go out of your way to punish them or get them into trouble. Just let them fall on their face. If you keep “putting pillows under them” when they fall, then they will never be motivated to change.
2) Understand when you are helping versus enabling
Genuinely helping an alcoholic would involve things such as directing them to a treatment center, encouraging them to get help, or possibly taking them to an AA meeting. Examples of enabling behavior would be like if the alcoholic needs to borrow 50 dollars to keep their electricity turned on.
Just because the alcoholic needs money for something other than drinking does not mean you should give it to them. In fact, you should never loan or give money to someone who is still drinking, regardless of what they need it for. Doing so is enabling because they will continue to spend their other funds on drugs and alcohol.
Your approach to “helping” them needs to become very “hands-off.” The only way to really help them is when it is directly linked to a recovery effort (such as going to meetings or rehab). Everything else you might do for them is just manipulation and control on their part. Help for alcoholics does not come in the form of money or favors. Knowledge and encouragement is what they really need.
Beware of bargaining as well. “Loan me 50 bucks today and I promise I will go to rehab on Monday” does not cut it. Never bargain with them like this. It’s just more manipulation. If they want to bargain, you set the terms, not them. For example: “I will drive you to rehab on Monday if you are still willing to go.”
3) Understand and practice detachment
Detachment is the idea that the disease of alcoholism is separate from the alcoholic themselves. It’s the idea that we can love a person but hate their disease. When we practice detachment, we can view an alcoholic’s outrageous behavior as being part of their disease without taking it so personally. We can still love them even though they are sick and their behavior is unacceptable at times.
If you really want to help an alcoholic then you must start practicing detachment. Doing so will save your sanity as well as to start pushing the alcoholic closer to facing their own reality. That’s because your detachment will force them to examine their own actions instead of your reactions. When you stop reacting to the alcoholic’s outrageous behavior, it takes away an “out” that the alcoholic can use to shift the focus.
Detachment is not easy, and you might not do it perfectly at all times. But it’s important to understand the concept and to practice it as best you can. Even if it seems like you are distancing yourself from the alcoholic, it is still the healthiest behavior you can choose. You are choosing to distance yourself from their disease and the emotional turmoil that it creates.
4) Set healthy limits and boundaries
How can we know what healthy boundaries are? By separating the disease from the alcoholic.
In other words, if the person were not drinking, would they still need you to bail them out of jail or call in sick to work for them? Of course not. So don’t do those things for them, ever.
Always ask yourself before attempting to “help” the alcoholic: “Could they do this for themselves if they weren’t drinking?” If the answer is yes, then you should not “help” them with it.
Likewise, if the alcoholic is drunk and is engaging in unacceptable behavior (such as being verbally abusive for example), would that behavior be acceptable to you if they were sober? If the answer is no, then you should not tolerate that behavior….ever.
If their behavior is unacceptable when they are drunk then it is unacceptable, period. You should not tolerate it if you would not expect it from them if they were sober.
This is the process of setting healthy limits and boundaries. You have to decide what is acceptable behavior on their part, regardless of whether or not they have been drinking. In other words, the drinking can no longer be an excuse for their behavior. Separate the disease from the person and act accordingly.
Sometime, when the alcoholic is sober, you will want to communicate your limits and boundaries with them. This doesn’t have to be an angry argument. Simply tell them in advance how you will behave under certain conditions. For example: “I will not loan you money in the future, regardless of what you need it for. I will not bail you out of jail. I will not call in sick to work for you if you are hung over.” And so on.
Always, always, always follow through on your promises. Never make idle threats. Say what you mean and follow through with it. This is the only way to affect lasting change in the relationship.
You might be tempted to make a threat that you do not intend to follow through with. Don’t do it. Only set limits that you fully intend to enforce.
5) Don’t react to their drinking episodes.
Most of the big arguments happen when an alcoholic gets out of control and either gets into trouble or makes a fool of themselves. We have a tendency to react to these situations, and it is natural for us to believe that the greater our reaction is, the more likely it is to change their behavior (or at least get through to them so that they hear us). This is the wrong strategy.
When you react to their drinking episode, they can shift to focusing on to your reaction instead of on their behavior. Carry on as normal and they are forced to examine their part in things. Stop giving them fuel for their fire by reacting and blowing up at them. This just creates arguments and possibly drives them into isolation and more drinking.
This idea of non-reaction does not mean that you forget about your limits and boundaries. By all means, stick to your guns with them. That is extremely important.
Enforce limits and boundaries with decisive action–action that you had previously decided on in a rational moment of clarity and probably also communicated to the alcoholic. In the heat of the moment, do not react. Do not pour fuel on the fire. Simply follow through with the actions that you decided on (such as, “if you come home drunk again, I’m going to go stay over at a friend’s house for the night,” or whatever the case may be).
This is how to enforce limits and boundaries…with action instead of arguing. With detachment instead of emotional turmoil.
Action items – What you can do:
1) Detach. Separate the person from the disease and act accordingly.
2) Don’t enable. Never do for the alcoholic what they could do for themselves if they were sober.
3) Don’t react. Stop blowing up at the alcoholic and thinking that this will change things. Ignore their episodes and they will be forced to look at themselves for once.
If you found this helpful, feel free to share it with others
Recommended Reading
- Overcoming Addiction
- Addiction Recovery is about Discovering New Layers of Information
- 5 Ways to Supercharge Your Recovery, Avoid Relapse, and Dominate Your Addiction Over the Holiday Season
- 10 Ways to Embrace Creative Recovery and Take Your Sobriety to the Next Level
- Holistic Addiction Treatment Center
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my step brother drink’s what do i do
My brother has been diagnosed as having bipolar disorder and refuses to take his medicine. He self-medicates with alcohol and marijuana (maybe other drugs as well, but I’m not sure). He is 29 years old, has never had a job, and seems to have some sort of personality disorder (very narcissicistic, highly sexed, sense of entitlement, etc). What options are there for my family? No one can afford to pay for him to go into treatment and he has been committed in the past (in state and local hospitals) with only short-term success. Right now, he’s cut off all ties with everyone in my family and we are all worried about him. It’s hard to know that he’s going to suffer, but we also know that he’s suffering as a result of his own choices. What do we do?
My mother is an alcoholic. I am in a family of enablers. My dad threatens to cut off her money to go to the beer store, he never does, he breaks. If he does not break, she gets alcohol from neighbors, or drinks whatever she can find in the house, from holiday champagne to cooking wine. I now realize that yelling at her and making her feel guilty or leaving notes around to make her feel bad are not working. I have 2 brothers that are so rude and nasty to her over her drinking, but they think it will make her stop. All I know to do now is pray. She is losing her mind, she won’t see a doctor for any health issues, she is skin and bones, except for a beer gut. She is very manipulative, she always turns things around on all of us. Saying things like “don’t gripe about me drinking, I could be doing coke or meth” or she compares her addiction with me being addicted to chocolate. She gets just as nasty as my brothers and brings up old things about all of us. She calls us all names, and some times she breaks down and cries and says she wants to change. It lasts for a day or two and then back to the old habits again. I am going crazy and feel helpless. Any suggestions?
My wife Diana is an alchoholic. I have been going to al annon and using this site for a few months. When I first started going and using some of the things I picked up there and some of the things I picked up from Patrick, I found that her drinking actually became worse, then I noticed that she seemed to be getting better. I fell into the trap of thinking she was on the mend and stopped going to al annon and thought I could get back to a “normal” life , whatever that is, I suppose I took my eye off the ball. Of course she has gradually gon back to her old drinking ways and the other night in desperation I went back to al annon with my tail between my legs feeling a bit embarresed although everyone there seemed like they had been expecting me! I did speak to Diana about our situation but it never ceases to amaze me the grip that alchahol can have on someone. Diana is kind and caring and a hard worker, she will do anything for us, she works as a comunity nurse and is well liked by her patiants, but when it comes to alchahol she can look me in the eye and lie to me without blinking. When I first found this site I felt utter desperation, frustration,fear,and felt extreemly sorry for myself and the situation I found myself in. My feelings now are more of resignation and an acceptance that there is nothing I can do. It seems easy but it is actualy one of the hardest things to accept that you are powerless over this. I still feel a rage now and then. So I hav ereached a crossroads, to stay and accept the situation however it turns out, or leave and start my life again . If I am honest at the moment I would like to walk away, but I am actualy scared of leaving my current life even with all its problems. The conflict within me now is not how to change Diana, but how to come to the right decision for myself, it is actually a great relief to not have the stress of thinking I can change Diana if I do this or that, so in a way that is progress.
@ Leroy – I would see if he can get funding through the state maybe….of course that will depend on where you live, and whether or not he will go willingly to rehab. Sounds like you might do just as well getting him into a mental hospital too….
@ Angie – I would get the brothers aligned with you to try and encourage healthy action. Convince her to go to rehab. What else would be a better outcome than this? Not much that I can think of. But it sounds like you need to get your family aligned a bit better to make it happen. Good luck. Might try Al-anon as well (for you).
@ Dave – sounds like you have made huge progress in how you relate to her. Good luck to you and to her….
my dad is an alcoholic and my mum can’t deal with it how can i help to get him to stop every thing i do doesn’t work i’m 14 and have had to put up with it for 5+ years please help patrick
james
my dad has also talked about suiside it makes me even more depressed
My boyfriend is only 21 years old and he has been drinking since he was 13. This past weekend he had an episode, throwing things, screaming at me, calling me names and threating me. I tried my best not to react to it but it was so hard. we ended up getting into a huge fight and I walked out on him.
I know that was not the right thing to do on my part but it seems like if I dont react like that then he will think what he is doing is ok. I want to help him and support him but it is so hard for me to do that when he drinks, blacks out and has an episode that way he always does. What do I do in a situation like that, how do I handle him when he has an episode without reacting in a bad way?
@ James – ask for help or support at school? You need to talk with someone who can help guide you.
@ Helpless – If someone is in a blackout then I would get away from them as fast as possible. I would not react, but only escape. That is really the best solution for your own well being. You should encourage him to seek treatment and think about finding a healthier environment to live in yourself possibly. Gotta set some boundaries. Blackouts are not something you should have to deal with.
My husband has promised me many times that he would never drink again. Every 4 months or so, he goes totally overboard. I am so angry. I believe he wants to stop. He has asked me to go to an AA meeting with him. Is it better that he goes alone or at least with another alcoholic. I do not feel that I should go to a meeting when I am not an alcolic. What would the group think?
@ Chloe – there are open and closed AA meetings.
Most AA meetings–about 99 percent of them–are closed. That means that only alcoholics are welcome to attend.
But there are a few meetings that are open meetings. These include speaker meetings, where one person gets up and tells their story.
You are welcome to attend an open meeting.
I don’t think that you being there with your husband is going to make much difference in terms of his decision to stop. You cannot stop drinking for him. He has to walk this path without you, so to speak.
If you really want to go all-out with this, then attend an Al-Anon meeting while he goes to AA. That would be ideal.
Good luck.
I have never been exposed to alcoholism before and I am not quite exactly sure what or how to deal with someone who I think drinks too much. Anyway, I stay at my girlfriends one night during the week and on the weekends. It is a rarity that she goes to bed with me. She always stays up to drink even if we have had a couple of drinks together, she wants more. I offer to stay up with her, but she always insists on being alone. When she does come to bed, she is mad at me for not touching her. When I am not there with her, she drinks after she puts her kids to bed and then calls me to yell at me for not being there. She only seems to get mad at me when she is drinking. Her Mother died of alcoholism and she tells me she is not going to turn into her Mother, but I am worried sick that she is slowly but surly. She thinks because her Mom’s drinking patterns are different than hers, she doesn’t have a problem. I brought her drinking up to her once and I got a quick “then leave me” speech. I love her but, I am not sure I can go through this. Do you think she maybe crying for help? Maybe I am in over my head..
My husband is a kind, loving and unflinchingly honest man, who has always loved me and been a loyal partner. He became addicted to alcohol when we had some difficulties early in our marriage – not his fault. He did manage to stop drinking for two years in 2005, but I had to go away to work abroad for a few weeks and he relapsed. I see no hope of him stopping again in the near future, and I have suffered the consequences of his drinking for over 20 years. Throughout all this time, I have worked constantly, and dealt with the inevitable financial and psychological implications of having a husband who has never really worked at all, and who spends my hard-earned money on alcohol as if it was his right. When things were at their worst, I wanted to kill him, and came very close. I have of course considered leaving him, but he has nowhere else to go, and I cannot bring myself to just lock him out of the house. His family feel sorry for me but offer no practical support, and I have no close family, having lost them in my twenties. He will never go of his own accord – I have asked him many times. I care for him but cannot go on like this for the rest of his life. I will end up having to look after him if he becomes ill, and my life will have been wasted, as I am already 50 years old. I have tried all the things you mention, but in the end I am only human and cannot help being hurt and angry with my husband. What can I do?
Hi.
I have a friend I love dearly who can go without a drink for about 5 – 6 weeks and then binges on alchohol for 3 – 4 days and feels awful after not surprisingly. She feels guilty and a lot of remorse and the pattern then starts again: another 5 – 6 weeks clean and then another binge. She is ruining her life and alienating all her friends, risking losing her job and also drinking and driving regularly. It is so difficult to sit back and watch all this happen. I take your point about not enabling her drinking and also letting her feel the consequences of her drinking but it is so hard to watch someone you love destroying themself without intervening. I have encouraged her to go to AA but she hasn’t yet – she says she doesn’t need to while she has me to counsel her. Should I now withdraw from the siuation and say I will only carry on helping her if she goes to AA? It is so difficult – she doesn’t have many friends and I feel like I am her only hope.
Chris.
@ Chris S. – I would not necessarily take a hard stance saying that she has to go to AA. There are other paths to recovery. But yes, I would try to move in the direction of withdrawaling support unless she becomes willing to help herself.
Let her know that you are also protecting yourself by drawing back a bit. Tell her that binge drinking is still a form of alcoholism, and that it will eventually destroy a person if left untreated.
I would encourage treatment rather than encouraging meetings. These are slightly different outcomes. To me, going to rehab represents a greater level of surrender and willingness to change.
Good luck…..
i am also in the same position as many ppl on here and it is an awful situation to be in as there is nothing anyone can do. I love my boyfriend and he has been in jail twice since i have been with him all due to drinking and i have given him ultimatums and he has promised me this and that and never followed through. At the moment i am in the process of finishing with him for my own sanity because i know i deserve better than this,i lived with an alcoholic who was my mother and that was the most hurtful thing i have ever experienced in my life and it still affects me to this day but i have realised that with my boyfriend i have a choice, with my mother i had something to fight for and my mum has managed to fight the disease thankgod. Anyway to all that are going through the hell of alcoholism YOU CANNOT CHANGE OR MAKE SOMEONE STOP DRINKING THEY HAVE TO DO IT FOR THEMSELVES STOP BLAMING YOURSELF AND OUTSIDERS FOR THE DRINKERS PROBLEM. it is a very hard thing to cope with but believe in yourself and happiness will come with it.
God bless, Theresa. You nailed it right on the head there. We can’t change anyone.
A hard truth for all of us at times…..
Patrick, this was an incredibly informative and brilliantly written article, thank you. My father, an almost lifetime alcoholic now age 65 has been on a bender for two weeks now. He is not caring for himself at all (not eating, not bathing, etc.) and we have been presented with that difficult place where he hasn’t been arrested for anything yet, but he is spiraling out of control. We believe he began drinking at an early age to self medicate for anxiety related issues…so it makes it difficult to separate his drunken (or even dry) alcoholic behaviors and his ‘normal for him’ anxiety-ridden mood behaviors. Regardless, we know he *can* function when he isn’t drinking, so we must detach and let him make his own choices. Thanks again for such a wonderful place for those of us who have an alcoholic in our lives.
Patrick, thanks for this site. There is plenty of good advice here if someone is ready to listen. I’ve finally decided to make some changes. It’s heartbreaking but I have to draw some lines and stick to them. I plan to go over my list with him this weekend. I also plan to tell him we will have to see each other during the day for awhile. I can’t stay there while he drinks at night any more. Here is my first pass…
I’m losing my best friend.
I’m afraid of him when he drinks
He’s killing himself
He puts alcohol before our relationship
Our future is uncertain if he drinks
His brother needs him to be sober
His sister needs him to be sober
His nephews and step-children need him to be sober
His mother needs him.
Carman needs him. He’s her one and only.
He’s my one and only.
We won’t be able to get married if he drinks.
We won’t be building a new house if he drinks.
I wake up at night with nightmares of him dying in a hospital bed, with tubes coming out of him.
I miss him when he drinks.
I don’t like him when he drinks.
It is aging him – he looks older than he should/could
He doesn’t take care of himself
He smells bad
It’s not fair, I wouldn’t do this to him.
His drinking makes me depressed
He is a wonderful person when he is sober
I want to be with him when he is sober.
I’ve been drinking with him so that I don’t have to deal with the fact that he is killing himself – that is over.
I’m doing him and us an injustice by letting things go on as they are.
He is doing himself and us and injustice by letting things go on as they are.
So I dearly love my fiance and he’s left drinking for 4 years now but since he joined the military he started back with his old drinking habits.He tells me that the military makes it really hard to avoid the temptation of drinking since a lot of them get drunk. I know he can over come this like he did before but he said he needs help to do it.He said he would get the help necessary but he wants me to be with him to help him. He wants me to marry him already so I can help him with his problem. I love him with all my heart and I would do anything for him…. but I worry about the proper way to help him without bring me down as well… What should I do?
Geez, Rob, that was freaking powerful. Prayers for both of you. Sounds like you might have to make a decision, though.
Tough choices, no easy answers.
@ Sidney – It is easy for me to say “help first, then marriage.” But I am sure he is seeing it differently and wants to marry sooner. There is no right answer….but wisdom from recovery circles would encourage you to wait a year or so before making major decisions. As in, he would need to be past his first year of sobriety before you commit to marriage. But that is just a general sort of direction from the oldtimers in recovery….not to be taken as gospel.
I have been dealing with this for 25 years. We have 2 wonderful children. One is now married, one is still in College getting and Education. My husband is a very hard worker, and I have also always worked as a 2nd income before we were even married.
My husband since day 1 always did what he wanted when he wanted. More or less no respect, just knowing I was always there. Drinking became his priority. Not me, his children, and now not even his Grand daughter. For one month straight now, once he is done work, because we already went through him almost losing his j ob, but he got help., and a lot of support..Now back at it again. It never ends. I have tried everything….. Except Al-anon which I am going to try next. I have to help me, not him any more. God knows, with any Alcoholic… We cannot help them. They have to help themselves, and we have to be the backbone. Until we get to tired, because they have given up. Not us!! God bless all who is going through the pain I am going through.
I come from a family of alcoholics and it really pains me that none of them sees it as a problem. The most painful thing is that my mother who is in her late sixties is also an alcoholic and doesn’t want to quit. Unfortunately there isn’t much help here for them. Where we could find help is far from where they live. How can I help them. I feel if I could start with my mother maybe the others can learn from her that its is important not to drink. I really hope you will be able to help me.
Well, I am 14 years old and my 58 year old dad has been a major alcoholic for at least 30 years. From the time I was able to comprehend things, I knew that my dad was an alcoholic. My parents divorced when I was 8. For the first 2 1/2 years I really didn’t see my dad at all. During those years all I remember is the night when my parents had the worst fight they have ever had. That was a bad night. But then, as the years went on, our relationship has gotton much better. But he still had those times when he was so drunk that he would do the worst things. When I was 11, my dad came to my moms house in the middle of Feburary and told me that he has cancer and was going to die. I was little and all I could do was cry. The days, months, years went by and guess what, he is perfectly fine. Then last saturday he told me that he did something but he just couldn’t tell me. I cryed for 4 1/2 hours that night. I was so scared for him. 2 days later my grandma calls and says that she read in the newspapers that he was arrested for DUI. This wasn’t his first, I think it was his 3rd. The night I actually cried myself to sleep was the night that this is a disease and that it is going to kill him. I don’t know what to do. Thankfully his girlfriend is keeping him more and more in line. She is the best thing that has ever happend to him. But I don’t think that he is going to do well from now on. He has also been laid off from his job for a year in a half now. I don’t know how I can help, but alll I know is that I need to help him somehow.
Need some advice. I divorced my husband 10 years ago for smoking, drinking and verbal abuse. When I saw my daughters standing up for me I knew it was time to leave. Since then He and I have tried to work things out but he has changed and hangs with some bikers and smokes, drinks, and lies all the time. I would go out with him but have stopped and have tried to place boundaries but so hope that he gets in trouble more then he has. Been caught twice for pot and once dui but he has money and always seems to get out of trouble. He last week got really drunk did somethings and left out of my car walking and I could not find him. He called me a couple of days later and said he did not remember what happen but wanted help and then switched in the conversation stating he wished I would have cared enough to go looking for him. I called him and told him I would help him but the way he lives is his choice. I have not heard from him and I know he has been drinking because he is always around social drinking and just returned from a casino. My girls don’t care and say they love him, I am sad for him so what do you suggest. Say goodbye tell him my concerns and walk away or what… He does not believe he has a problem but he drinks at least 4 nights out of 7 getting drunk, the others a couple of drinks and smokes everyday. Plus he has been bleeding for years but looks healthy, but to me has a red face and pale body. Worried Please respond to this Thank you
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