Alcohol addiction and treatment for alcoholism began to be discussed more and more often and persistently. There is a problem. How to help an alcoholic cope with addiction?
This question is asked by more than one family member with a similar problem, most often the wife of an alcoholic, who dreams that one day her husband will stop drinking. How to help an alcoholic stop drinking?
When you want to help a patient with alcoholism, you are most often accompanied by a subjective feeling of the problem. You are irritated by alcoholic beverages, which complicate family relationships and contribute to financial difficulties.
A person who is dependent on alcohol may have only a vague impression that the matter is out of control, and often does not see the problem in alcohol abuse at all.
He does not understand that he has to do something about alcohol dependence, especially when asked to be treated with drugs. The alcoholic sincerely denies that he is.
In the eyes of a drunkard person, other people who want to help him exaggerate the situation. They are like enemies, not helpers and allies. What can be done to make the help for a home drunkard effective?
How to help an alcoholic stop drinking?
Paradoxes of assistance rendered to a drinking person.
More than one wife of a drinking man wondered what family life would look like if the husband stopped drinking. In a fit of grief and anger, she throws arguments in the style: "If you loved me, you have finished with this alcohol a long time ago. "Unfortunately, this kind of words only bring about a result that is fundamentally different from the intended one.
Strengthening the feeling of guilt in the domestic drunkard, the result is that the patient wants to drink. The behavior of alcoholics is not a manifestation of his ill will, it is a consequence of the disease.
His emotions, thinking and will began to be guided by alcohol, from which it is difficult to escape. Alcohol becomes a way to drown out sadness, boredom, shame, stress, routine.
The mechanism of addiction is that ethanol turns off negative emotions, giving in exchange, at least for a short time, positive ones - joy, relaxation, peace. When he has sobered up, despondency overtakes the person again, and later another bottle or beer becomes the "medicine".
A person who is dependent on alcohol, under the influence of drinks, changes bad emotions to pleasant ones, which leads to a complete lack of desire to change anything in his life. Therefore, the best help to a drinking person is the one that consists in confronting the alcoholic with reality when he has sobered up.
Let him experience the consequences of his drunkenness, for example, wake up on a park bench without a watch or shoes, pay a drink-driving fine, and collect a reprimand from his boss for not showing up at work after an event with colleagues.
Each negative experience of alcohol intoxication will be a signal to the drinker that drinking alcohol is not attractive at all and is a serious problem that creates other difficulties - problems in relationships with family or at work.
Unfortunately, many people who want to help a loved one, racking their brains about how to help an alcoholic cope with addiction and make every effort to hush up the issue of alcoholism, so that the family does not learn about the problem.
Instead of calling the problem "alcoholism" and allowing the drunk to experience the negative consequences of alcohol abuse, people do something completely different. They defend the domestic drunkard, justify his drinking, hide alcoholic drinks from him, deny that they have any problems with alcohol at all.
Thus, the drinking household feels "protected" and can still drink with impunity. Often, people who want to free the alcoholic from the shackles unwittingly become helpers in drinking and contribute to the postponement of the decision to stop drinking.
The most common victims of co-addiction are the wives of alcoholics. If the husband is an alcoholic, then he is addicted to a chemical substance - ethanol, and his wife becomes, oddly enough, dependent on her alcoholic husband.
She becomes a so-called partner who does not trust anyone in the world of her husband, and in despair, she is constantly preoccupied with finding a new job in order to pay off the partner's financial obligations. This makes her lie to the children that dad is sick, denies alcoholism, neglects both herself and the children, ignores her own needs.
This problem also requires some therapy. How to help an alcoholic cope with addiction? Until the alcoholic's wife understands that she is not helping him, protecting him from the negative consequences of alcoholic intoxication, until then, the husband will drink.
Co-alcoholism is a series of careless behavior of a partner of an alcohol addict who is trying to adapt to a pathological situation. Unfortunately, this only multiplies the subsequent pathologies and problems.
The family then comes to tinker with not one, but two addictions - alcoholism and co-alcoholism. The wife makes every effort in good faith - she hopes that in this way she will make it easier for the husband to get out of addiction. Unfortunately, her efforts have the opposite effect - she unwittingly provokes the disease even more.
Pays a lot of attention, cares, makes promises, lies, protects - nothing. How to help an alcoholic cope with addiction? To help an alcoholic stop drinking once and for all, you need to stop pretending, admit that you are helpless, and seek professional help.
Helping an alcoholic is a thankless role because the alcohol addict will fight fiercely for their drinks. Having decided to help an alcoholic, it is worth remembering that this is a work for many years, and not for one day.
A person who drinks will not change under the influence of one, even the most violent, obstacle. Some argue, on the contrary, that it is impossible in itself to help an alcoholic, because you can only harm yourself. Encourage people to seek help from specialized centers such as addiction therapy centers and others.
Tips for helping someone with alcohol addiction
How to help so as not to harm and not increase the development of alcoholism?
Here are some tips and tricks to keep in mind when deciding to support and heal a drinking person:
- Accept that alcoholism is a chronic disease. Don't see it as a shame and a shame for the family or something that needs to be hidden in front of the whole world.
- An alcoholic is like a naughty child who needs to be punished for lack of discipline and disobedience!
- Do not take on faith the promises of a home drunk when you realize that it is possible to fulfill them! An alcoholic can declare his desire for "cosmetic changes", for example, guarantees that he will change the type of drinks to weaker ones. Don't expect drastic changes driven by one quarrel or blackmail.
- Be consistent! If you said you would do something, please do it. Don't worry about leaving when you're not ready.
- No need for reproaches, do not drag yourself into conflicts, do not read sermons, especially when an alcoholic is intoxicated. He already knows everything that you want to inspire him. This behavior only provokes further lies and the presentation of unfounded promises.
- Don't expect an immediate and quick way out of the problem! Alcoholism is a chronic disease, and even long-term periods of abstinence do not guarantee that the disease will not return. Brew monastery tea daily, it effectively removes alcohol and nicotine addiction.
- Do not check how much an alcoholic drinks, do not put away purchased bottles, but also do not allow open access to alcohol - this will only push the alcoholic into even more desperate attempts to get alcohol and look for an opportunity to drink.
- Never drink together in the hope that he will get less and drink less. How can you help an alcoholic stop drinking if you are sitting and drinking together? No way.
- Do not let the drunkard lie, do not believe his lies and promises, because in this way you allow him to hope that he is able to outwit his loved ones.
- Try to give the alcoholic support and love. Appreciate his attempts to stay sober. Remember that alcoholism is a disease, and you do not need to scold anyone for the disease.
Helping an alcoholic will be most effective if you just leave him alone - do not insist on rehabilitation, do not shout, do not cry, do not beg, do not prepare sick days, do not borrow money, do not clean up after his drunk parties, let him try to put things in order with a hangover. . .
Let him drink at his own peril and risk. The sooner he reaches bottom, the more likely it is that he will quickly want to give it up in order to start getting better.