Advice for helping your alcoholic/addict family member

[Velvet]

What are some ways to help an alcoholic/addict?

As you can imagine, everything has been tried before. Some stuff actually helps. Most things that we try, however, do not. Therefore, sometimes it can be useful to know what not to do. So, let’s take a look at what generally does not work:

1) Giving them money

Never give an alcoholic money if they are still actively drinking. Even if they need it for a “good purpose,” such as to buy food for their family, you should not do it. It’s always more manipulation on their part; money that they did spend on booze should have been spent on food, and if you give them money then you are telling them that it is OK to drink.

In short, never bail them out. Doing so only perpetuates their drinking.

2) Bargaining with them or threatening them

When it comes to dealing with the alcoholic, talk is cheap. Anything you say is completely worthless unless it is firmly backed up by action. So idle threats or trying to persuade them to back off in some way is completely ineffective. The only thing that matters is action.

One bargaining chip that people often play is to get them to drink less. Most people eventually figure out that this is a hopeless idea, even if the alcoholic genuinely agrees to try. Their condition prevents it. It is either abstinence or all-out drunk.

3) Helping them avoid the consequences of their drinking

Don’t do it. You’re actually hurting them. If they get a drunk driving and end up in jail, leave them there. Do not bail them out. If you deny them the consequences of their drinking, then they will definitely keep drinking. The only way that they might stop eventually is if they feel enough pain as a result of their drinking. Don’t ever deny them their pain.

This doesn’t mean you need to intentionally hurt them. They will do that on their own. Just don’t bail them out of situations that they have created by their excessive drinking. An alcoholic will not make this huge change if everything is going good in their life. People quit drinking when things get bad enough. If you prevent them from getting bad then the alcoholic will never change.
Now let’s take a look at what actually helps

Here are some ways to help an alcoholic that are actually beneficial:

1) Stop enabling them

This is probably the number one thing that you can do to help an alcoholic. When you enable them, you allow them to continue to keep drinking comfortably. You make it so that the easier path is to just continue to drink.

When we stop enabling someone, we make it so that the easier path is to take a look at their drinking. We do this by not bailing them out of jams and letting them experience the natural consequences of their drinking. Other things we can do to stop enabling them would include:

- No longer drinking or using drugs with them, ever.

- No more covering for them in order to help them out if their drinking is going to get them into trouble.

- No more making excuses for them

- Practice detachment by separating yourself from emotional turmoil that they create. Choose to not be a part of the chaos.

2) Set healthy limits and boundaries

Setting healthy limits is about deciding what is acceptable behavior to you. This is not about pointing the finger at the alcoholic and telling them what they should or should not be doing. Instead, you are going to decide for yourself what you will no longer put up with.

For example, if the alcoholic in your life typically comes home in a drunken rage, this might be something that you decide is unacceptable to you. So you set a limit. Then you communicate that limit and the consequences of that limit. You might say something like: “If you come home drunk again, I’m taking the kids and we’re going to go stay somewhere else for the night.”

Notice the following things about setting this boundary:

- It is communicated clearly

- There is a consequence that is also clearly explained

- The consequence is enforceable and is not a hollow threat

Never set a boundary that you do not intend to keep. Never threaten a consequence that you don’t intend to follow through with. If you do this will create problems and only perpetuate further drinking.

3) Practice detachment

Detachment is the goal of anyone in your position. The idea of detachment is to separate the person themselves from their disease of drinking. Making this clear separation in your mind will help you to change your behavior in such a way as to help the alcoholic.

Detachment is the idea that you can love the person and hate their disease of alcoholism. What you are detaching from is the emotional chaos and turmoil that their drinking creates. The idea is to remove yourself from that part of their life on an emotional level. Thus detachment is about freedom, for you. You are liberating yourself from their chaotic life.

Of course this is much easier said than done. Detachment takes practice. We have to analyze situations and ask ourselves if we are getting angry at the person or if we are getting angry at their alcoholism. If we are angry at the disease, then we need to stop ourselves and attempt to remove ourselves emotionally from that situation. This is detachment.

4) Encourage treatment

Finally, it can be worthwhile to encourage treatment for the alcoholic. It’s not worth making this into your life mission, but it can still be a useful effort on your part.

Encourage treatment without insisting, as we are almost never in a position to really insist anyway.

Encourage treatment without badgering, even though we probably think that we deserve to badger the alcoholic who has caused us so much grief.

Let them know that the option is there, when they are ready to get help. Do not let this idea of treatment turn into your only hope. Many alcoholics get sober without treatment. Others will find their own path. Remember that you can not do it for them.

When they are ready to change they will either change or ask for help. That is the time to act. That is the time to put forth a full effort in helping them. Not before then. Your efforts before this point of surrender are largely wasted.

[Bruce]

Right on. Now, Vel...sweetheart.....read this every day....5 times a day....OK?

with much love-B

[Velvet]

Oh, I know! I put it up, selfishly, for myself.

[Chy]

Really great stuff there V! Thanks for taking the time to do that!

[Savinghope]

Thanks for the reminder. I think a great key to success as well is for us to remember to live a happy and healthy life. Sometimes we can be what they want to become and live by example.....they just might reach for sobriety.
So when our hearts are recovered and detached and we stop enabling them they might see how calm we are and want it.

[Done-With-It!]

IF YOU LOVE ME, LET ME FALL

IF you love me let me fall all by myself. Don't try to spread a net out to catch me, don't throw a pillow under my ass to cushion the pain so I don't have to feel it, don't stand in the place I am going to land so that you can break the fall, (allowing yourself to get hurt instead of me)

Let me fall as far down as my addiction is going to take me, let me walk the valley alone all by myself, let me reach the bottom of the pit....trust that there is a bottom there somewhere even if you can't see it. The sooner you stop saving me from myself, stop rescuing me, trying to fix my broken-ness, trying to understand me to a fault, enabling me.....The sooner you allow me to feel the loss and consequences, the burden of my addiction on my shoulders and not yours....the sooner I will arrive....and on time....just right where I need to be...me, alone all by myself in the rubble of the lifestyle I lead...resist the urge to pull me out because that will only put me back at square one.

It I am allowed to stay at the bottom and live there for awhile, I am free to get sick of it on my own, free to begin to want out, free to look for a way out, and free to plan how I will climb back up to the top. In the beginning as I start to climb out....I just might slide back down, but don't worry I might have to hit bottom a couple more times before I make it out safe and sound.

Don't you see?? Don't you know?? You can't do this for me...I have to do it for myself, but if you are always breaking the fall how am I ever supposed to feel the pain that is part of the driving force to want to get well. It is my burden to carry, not yours.

I know you love me and that you mean well and a lot of what you do is because you don't know what to do and you act from your heart and from knowledge of what is best for me....but if you truly love me, let me go my own way, make my own choices be they bad or good.

Don't clip my wings before I can learn to fly....nudge me out of your safety net....trust the process and pray for me.....that one day I will not only fly, but maybe even soar.

Ivey

[Done-With-It!]

You can't make me clean, though I know it is what you want for me to be. But until I want it. I won't be. You can't love me clean, because until I learn to love myself. I won't be. I know you must wonder how can I learn to love myself when I am caught up in a life style of self-hatred and self destruction. I can learn from my own experiences. I can learn from the things that happen to me along the path of my own mistakes. I can learn by being allowed to suffer the consequences of my choices. Life has a funny way of teaching us the lessons we need learn.

I know it devastates you to watch me hurting myself. I know you want to jump in and save me. This helps ease your pain, but I don't think you understand just how damaging it is to me.

You see, although I look and sound like your loved one. I am not. That person is in a self imposed prison way deep down inside of my being and what you see before you is an addict ruled and reigned by my addiction. I am a addict and my main focus is to feed the addiction. Every effort you put forth in the name of "helping me" falls prey to my addiction giving it more power to shackle me down a little more each time.

I feed my addiction enough. So please don't help me.

The only way for the real me to get free is to be free. FREE to fall as far down as I need to go in order to find the strength to fight and find my way back. To break free.

How can or will I ever be able to get clean you wonder ...

The same way I gave myself over to my addiction is the same way I can give myself over to my recovery. BY MYSELF

By not enabling me you will be allowing me to reach "rock bottom". By trusting the process you move over and allow me to find the my own way back. You see, it is in the fight to get free that I will find myself. It is in the fight that I will learn to love myself and the more I love myself ... the more I will start to do to better myself, but I myself, must do this.

I am aware that when I use I am playing Russian roulette with my life. I know this, but that is a chance I take when I use. The addict in me is willing to take that chance in the name of getting high.

Rock bottom is but a circumstance away. I can't reach it you are blocking the entrance.

I know you love me and you only want whats best for me ... but that very love keeps you blind sighted to just what truly is best for me and causes you to act from/out of fear and emotions.

Please for my sake don't try to stop me... just let me go ... move out of the way and let me fall as far down as my addiction is going to take me ... as far down as I have to to reach rock bottom. Don't try to cushion the fall. Just believe in me and trust the process. Pray for me that when I do hit ... it is not with the impact that leaves me for dead (I know that is your greatest fear), but if it comes to that, be sure to tell my story so that others might learn from my mistakes and live.

Passion
Recovering addict

[Velvet]

Good stuff...Thanks Miss Done.

[Done-With-It!]

Thanks but weren't those two the exact same, lol

[Velvet]

I knew you would fix it. They are what I need to read....daily.

[Done-With-It!]

Originally Posted by Velvet

I knew you would fix it. They are what I need to read....daily.

I know.

[CDawg]

Awesome, Miss Done!!!!!

C

[Kymberly]

Really good stuff, Ladies. Thank you! Just what I needed to read.

Love and hugs,
K

[Velvet]

just a reminder for us enablers.

[Chy]

...a very good one at that!

[Hopefloats]

Yes, for me too!! A great reminder!

[indigo]

I am no longer enabling, not even myself to have those thoughts, I can't keep on doing it so as I said in another thrad I row my boat with faith. Thank you Velvet a great reminder, I will be back frequently.

[Hopefloats]

The enabling for me was so complicated. I kept having to tweek things. I would feel that I was not enabling and come to find out, I was. I think I learn in a reasonable fashion "Intellectually" but man did it take time for my emotions to catch up to my thoughts. Then I had to learn to act.

Over time, things got so much better. I look back now, and shake my head. Yet...I also understand that it is about a process.

Then there are those "relapses" for me. I find before it happens, I feel very unsettled. Maybe things are more like a slip for me today opposed to a real relapse with my enabling......
Are we not lucky to have one another to keep learning from! YES WE ARE!
Thanks guys....it is so nice to be able to lean on each other.

[Velvet]

Are we not lucky to have one another to keep learning from! YES WE ARE!
Thanks guys....it is so nice to be able to lean on each other.

Amen to that Sister!!