how to help an alcoholic
When someone you care about has developed the progressive disease of alcoholism, it is natural to want to learn how to help an alcoholic in your life.
Coincidentally, most of the steps you can take to assist someone with their addiction depends on your own words, behaviors, actions and state of mind, not those of the person who is addicted to alcohol. Addicts share similar behaviors and patterns and will engage in a lot of commonalities such as manipulation, asking for people to lie for them, requesting assistance to bail them out when in trouble along with many other negative requests. Knowing what to expect and how to react to these typical behaviors in alcoholics will allow you to provide the type of therapeutic environment that is necessary in the present, which can encourage an individual to seek help in the future.
When you are taking steps to learn how to help an alcoholic, you must first recognize that you are powerless to change another person. It is frustrating and hurtful to watch someone you love suffer with alcoholism, but you cannot place the burden on yourself to save him or her. What you can do is learn about the addiction, educate yourself on how to act and communicate with the addicted person and to be there when or if the person seeks help and is ready to fight the disease.
Many of the guidelines, when trying to learn how you can help alcoholics, pertain to what you should not do, rather than what you should do. The following tips will help you help yourself throughout this challenging time, in addition to providing the help and support your loved one truly needs while in the throes of his or her addiction:
Educating And Helping Yourself Comes First
Alcoholism is a progressive disease and learning about addiction and common behaviors of addicts is essential before trying to be of assistance. Alcoholics have to be ready to fight their illness and no amount of guilt, bargaining or pleading will convince them otherwise. At the same time, loved ones who believe they already know how to help an alcoholic might actually be unintentionally encouraging the addiction to continue.
It is important that you learn about the disease and utilize the many supportive resources, books or counselors available to you to help you through this challenging time. You need to learn how to interact with the alcoholic in ways that promote him or her to seek treatment, while remaining mentally and physically healthy. Being in close daily contact with a loved one who is addicted to alcohol can take an emotional toll on you over time. When you feel familiar with the nature of alcoholism and have your own support systems in place, that is the time when you can be of the most help.
Don’t Threaten Or Offer Harsh Criticism
Out of desperation, many people feel that they will “wake up” the alcoholic in their lives by threatening to leave them, making them feel guilt over how much their actions are hurting everyone and other negative reinforcements. In truth, how to help an alcoholic should not involve shaming the individual. Oftentimes, the addicted person already suffers from depression, hopelessness or low self esteem. A good rule of thumb here is that you need to detach and stop reacting. More negativity only validates his or her already low feelings of self worth, which actually increases the desire for further alcohol consumption.
Stop Enabling The Alcoholic
Alcoholics need to want help in order to overcome their addictions. As long as they can continue functioning at some level, there is often little reason for the addicted parties to believe they need any type of assistance or change in their lives. The important point here is that, unless addicts start to feel the negative consequences of their actions, they aren’t likely to take steps to quit drinking and get sober.
When loved ones enable the alcoholic, they interfere with these natural consequences as a way to “protect” their loved ones from harm. By doing so, they are actually encouraging the addiction to continue. Giving a person money to turn on utilities that weren’t paid, providing shelter because they were evicted, lying and calling them in sick to work and keeping their addiction a secret to protect from humiliation are all examples of interfering with natural consequences. Though painful to witness, having them seek emergency housing at a homeless shelter or losing their job might be the bottoming out point they need to recognize it is time to do something about their drinking problem.
Set Boundaries
One positive step when learning how to help an alcoholic, while helping yourself at the same time, involves setting boundaries and sticking to them. Addicts, in order to keep their addictions fed, often manipulate to get their needs met. Often loved ones are told just what they want to hear, so they mistakenly enable the individual given the false hopes they have been promised. Phrases such as “just this last time” and “I’m quitting this weekend” leave friends and families of alcoholics hopeful, so they are more likely to give the addict money, let them sleep over and other negative enabling behaviors. Setting boundaries and never backing down teaches the individual that manipulative tactics will not work, leaving more time to be spent looking inward instead of planning manipulations to feed his or her disease.
Things You Can Do
Though many points in how to help an alcoholic revolve around taking care of yourself and actions to avoid, there are some positive things you can do while your loved one still struggles with addiction. Acknowledge to the person that you recognize he or she has a drinking problem. Let the individual know that, whenever they are ready to take that first step, you will be there. Do your research and then give them gentle encouragement by providing information such as AA meetings in the area, phone numbers to call or informational materials about area treatment centers. On your own, have a plan in place if the addicted person should call on you for help, ready to fight the disease.
There are pros and cons to having an intervention, so be sure to seek professional guidance before trying to organize such an event. Interventions do show the alcoholic that they are loved, supported and cared for, which can be a very positive awakening in an addict who feels he or she has disappointed everyone in his or her life. At the same time, families who approach an intervention believing that their loved one will automatically be ready that very day to seek treatment can become very disappointed. Again, alcoholics need to surrender to their disease and ask for help on their own to increase the likelihood that they will beat their addictions.
Wanting to help a friend or loved one beat their addictions and overcome their disease is a normal, natural desire. However, it is important to recognize that the ultimate decision lies in the hands of the addicted individual. Though you cannot force a person to change, you can promote the environment necessary that helps lead an alcoholic to self awareness and let’s him or her know that when ready, you are there to offer assistance in finding the right help.
Alcoholism is a disease, so bear in mind when struggling with how to help an alcoholic that you can still love the individual while hating the illness.
No comments yet.