Treatment of Alcohol Abuse
What is the best treatment of alcohol abuse? How can we best treat the problem before it escalates into something worse?
Alcohol abuse precedes alcoholism. It is possible that someone is abusing alcohol, drinking too much, and possibly too often, but yet they are not yet a “full blown alcoholic.” What is the best way to prevent them from achieving that undesirable status?
Obviously the solution is to stop drinking so much. The other obvious solution is to stop drinking entirely. Either solution will work just great, if the person can actually implement them. Another question that typically comes up is: “how can you convince someone to drink less or stop drinking?”
Basically, you can show concern for a person and state the reasons you are worried. Beyond that, there is not much that you can do. Making idle threats or trying to scare them into quitting is not going to help. Trying to manipulate them into quitting or drinking less is not practical either. So essentially, your only option is to do an informal intervention, or do a formal intervention.
I tend to discourage the idea of formal interventions, because I do not think they are effective. Or rather, I believe they are only effective when the timing is right, in which case a large, formal intervention is not even necessary. Simply offering informal help at that point will yield the same results.
If the person is under age and is abusing alcohol, then you can threaten legal action in some cases, but this sort of strategy normally backfires in the end. If it really works, then you simply create resentment, and add more fuel to the fire for someone who is abusing alcohol.
Now if the person in question has agreed to try to quit drinking, or to stop abusing alcohol, then progress has been made. They can make their own efforts at stopping or cutting back. If they prove over and over again that they cannot really do so on their own, then chances are good that they are addicted and thus they are an alcoholic. In this case they will probably need help in order to stop. My personal opinion is that going to treatment is the best choice for people in this situation, but this is only a good solution if the person genuinely wants to stop drinking for themselves. In any other circumstances, treatment will not work, and the person will quickly return to drinking after they leave rehab.
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