Living With An Alcoholic

One of the commonest questions anyone working in the addiction field is asked is "How can I stop my wife/husband/partner from drinking so much?" Unfortunately the short answer to that is - you can't. They will stop when it suits them, whether that is because they hurt so much or because circumstances change. That is painful to hear, but nevertheless it is true.

There is some good news, however, and that is if you can't actually stop them drinking then there are things that you can do, or stop doing, that will make it more likely that they will take action and/or seek help for their drinking. Below we have listed a number of things that you should avoid doing, as they often have the opposite effect to what you intended intended, making the situation even worse. We will discuss the things that you should do in another article.

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Don't protect the drinker from the naturally occurring consequences of drinking. If they embarrass themselves don't make excuses, or if they fall don't pick them up. Only intervene if there is a danger of the drinker being injured. For most people this kind of 'tough love' is a difficult thing to do, to just ignore a loved one when they are drunk goes very much against the grain. However, protecting the drinker means that they never suffer the consequences and so are never aware of the severity of their drinking. Since many believe that problem drinkers only seek help when they are hurting, this means that  protecting the drinker only delays that time coming and that, it could be argued, is more cruel.

Don't protect the drinker from other consequences. If they take time off work through being too drunk or too hungover, don't phone the boss and give an excuse.  (However you may want to consider this carefully if you are dependent on his wage.) The problem drinker is only too happy for someone else to accept responsibility, whereas they need to accept responsibility for their own behaviour if they are to change. 

Don't collude with the drinker. If they spend all their money on drink, don't lend them money or pay their debts. Again this is protecting and delays recognition of the extent of the problem.

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Don't join in and drink along with the drinker. It may seem a natural thing to do - "if you can't beat them join them" but this just makes the drinking behaviour appear to be normal, which of course it's not. Besides if you try and keep up you could end up needing help yourself, and one drunk is more than enough for any household.

Don't scream and shout and nag about the drinking behaviour. This just provides an excuse to drink even more. That is, the logic that is used here is "I drink because you nag" rather than "You nag because I drink". Yea, I know that is not logical but hey this is not about logic, its about drinking.