What can I do to help an alcoholic?

Watching someone struggle with alcoholism is painful, and the closer you are to the person, the more it hurts. You can help an alcoholic move toward sobriety, but you have to know what works and what doesn't, and when "helping" crosses the line into doing harm.

Treat It Like a Disease

Whether alcoholism is truly a disease is still being debated, but that's beside the point. A successful recovery involves treating it like one. An alcoholic is not a bad person who needs to get good, but rather a sick person who needs to get well. That's why moralistic appeals or begging the alcoholic to "do the right thing" or "think about your family" just don't work. In fact, they do the opposite. They give him an excuse to see himself as a horrible person--and to keep drinking over it. Skip the condemnation. In any discussions relating to his drinking problem, take the stance that you'll do anything you can to help, but that this is his problem, and it's his responsibility to deal with it.

Get Out of the Way

The single worst thing you can do in a misguided attempt to "help" an alcoholic is to get between the alcoholic and the consequences of her actions. Making excuses, covering up, bailing her out (both literally and figuratively)--all these things prevent the alcoholic from coming face to face with the real damage her drinking is inflicting on herself and others. That frees her to believe that her drinking doesn't really have consequences and is therefore not a problem that needs to be addressed. This behavior on the part of well-meaning people who are only trying to help is known as "enabling," because it enables the alcoholic to keep drinking without having to pay the price for her actions. Don't enable.

Support Recovery

If the alcoholic is taking a stab at sobriety, such as going to counseling or attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, show that you're supportive of recovery-related activities. Offer him a ride to meetings, or let him take time to go to outpatient treatment sessions, or even make clear that if he needs to go into rehab for 28 days, you'll help hold things together in the meantime. If he's going to get sober, there will be things he needs to do. Don't make it a hassle for him to do them.

Stage an Intervention

This is a last resort. An intervention is a planned confrontation during which the people in an alcoholic's life describe how her drinking has affected them and what they will do if she doesn't stop. But it's all meaningless without follow-through. A successful intervention doesn't end with the alcoholic promising to "do better" or "give AA a shot" or even "think about rehab." It ends with the alcoholic committing to go into treatment immediately. If she refuses to do so, then the people at the intervention must make good on their promises of what will happen. If you tell her your friendship will be over if she doesn't get help, then you'd better be prepared to end the friendship.

Source:

The Recovery Book; A.J. Mooney, Arlene Eisenberg and Howard Eisenberg; 1992

Under the Influence; James Milam and Katherine Ketcham; 1983

More Information:

Alcoholics Anonymous

Al-Anon/Alateen