Recovering Drug Addict

How can you help an alcoholic who refuses to quit drinking?

If you answered “you can’t,” then you’re mostly right.  But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some things you can do to help a struggling drunk in some indirect ways.

If you really want to know how to help an alcoholic then you need to learn the art of detachment.

Practicing detachment

The art of detachment can take years of practice to master.  Fortunately you will have plenty of time to work on it if you happen to be married to an alcoholic.

Detachment is all about keeping yourself sane in the face of insanity.  What you have to do is to separate the disease of alcoholism from the person who has it.  This means that you hold them accountable for their behavior while still understanding that they have the disease of addiction.  It is a fine line and it is not easy to maintain in all situations.

One thing that you want to make sure is that you do not enable the person.  For example, if they need money to pay the rent and you bail them out of a jam in this way, it is likely that they will simply return to drinking away all of their money.  This can be tricky because sometimes they will manipulate you and say that they need the money for their kids or something.  While this is half true, the other half of the truth is that part of that money is going to booze.  Or, they bought booze because they knew that you would not let their kids go hungry.  So even though you might buy the food directly for the kids it is still enabling the alcoholic to continue with a destructive pattern.

Rescuing and consequences

You want to be sure that you are not rescuing the person as well.  This means that you simply allow them to experience any natural consequences of their drinking.  You do not have to be malicious or try to punish them in any way.  Just don’t bail them out of problems created by their drinking.  If you do so then your behavior is extremely unhealthy and is actually contributing to the problem.

So don’t rescue them.  If they get pulled over for drunk driving do not bail them out of jail.  If they are hung over and can’t make it to work do not call in sick for them.  Let them face their own music.

If you practice the principles outlined here then eventually this will nudge the alcoholic towards making a decision.  It is not a magic bullet but it is the best you can do if they refuse to get help for their alcoholism.

Tags: alcohol addiction, alcoholism