In the presence of non-drinkers, I never thought of drinking.
Jack london
Quitting drinking is difficult, but possible. Only a truly loving loved one can help in such a situation. Those who try to help an alcoholic to stop drinking, to save him to solve some of his problems (for example, housing), will achieve nothing. Love alone is also not enough to help you get rid of the most difficult addiction, you still need to know what to do. Since it happens that the strongest and nobler human feeling in a given situation causes relatives, saving an alcoholic, to create the wrong stereotype of relationships with him. As a result, they only contribute to the development of alcoholism and they themselves become codependent.
The traditional role played by family members of alcoholics, most often the wife, is that of "babysitter. "In the classic version, the "nanny" does everything possible and impossible to keep the family afloat, and those around them are unaware of the presence of an alcohol problem. She supports the family, maintains order in the house, raises children, and this education also has its own characteristics: children from an early age are taught not to wear "dirty clothes in public. "The relationship to the "half" that drinks from the "babysitter" depends on the state in which this "half" is found. During a binge, the "nanny" takes care of an alcoholic: she meets him in the places where she drinks and takes him home; she calls work and says he's sick; she tries to neutralize his aggression, often enduring beatings and insults; she feeds him and washes him.
During a period of sobriety, the "babysitter" may continue to be condescending and accommodating to the alcoholic, hoping to prevent her from drinking or, on the contrary, as if she were acting badly, burden him with various actions and duties. In both cases, after a while, another binge develops and everything starts all over again. Such a cyclical algorithm of relationships can exist for an arbitrarily long time. Not only does the "babysitter" with her actions only aggravate the development of alcoholism, - in the end, she herself can no longer live differently. That is why so often the wives of alcoholics, when they remarry, again choose drunkards or drug addicts as partners.
The general rule of thumb for all family members, regardless of who is sick with them (husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter) is to do nothing that contributes to the development of addiction. This means the following:
The person who drinks must solve her problems by himself.
Well, since he creates them himself, let him decide. Otherwise, he will not have a barrier before the next drink, as he will wait for your help. Sometimes it gets to the point of absurdity: the husband has spent himself drinking the entire "family pot", there is nothing in the house, and the wife runs around her acquaintances, borrows money to pay her husband's debts, that he did during the drunkenness.
To try to save, it is not necessary to call an alcoholic at work and tell him that he is suddenly seriously ill. First, cheating is not good, do not set a bad example for children; second, after two or three of those calls, no one will just believe you and at least they will laugh quietly at you; And thirdly, today you will save him from a simple beating that, perhaps, would have stopped him, and tomorrow he will drink even more and ultimately lose his job.
It is completely unacceptable, from our point of view, the situation in which compassionate relatives buy alcohol themselves to make an alcoholic drunk. With the same success, you can offer a loved one medicine or some other poison.
treatment is not always pleasant and painless.
If, for example, a person has an abscess somewhere on his body, you can hide it under clothing, pour deodorants so that there is no smell, create greenhouse conditions for a person to move less and not experience pain. As a result, all this will lead to the development of sepsis and death. If, despite the pain, an abscess opens, a course of antibiotics is "pricked", although this is also quite painful, then there is a high probability that the person will recover.
You must keep your promises, and if you can't keep them, it's best not to give them.
Alcoholics, quitters, and drug addicts are very sensitive to where something can be accomplished and where there will be outright rejection. In this sense, they are like children, and you often have to communicate with them as with children: when necessary, praise and, when necessary, punish. But not a single episode, even the most insignificant one associated with alcohol consumption, should be left without your attention and, of course, it is necessary that the degree of "punishment" corresponds to the degree of "offense". And don't be confused by solid age and representative appearance of the "culprit. "Successful carrot and stick policies often work well across a wide range of ages and social backgrounds.
So, for example, if a wife promises her husband that in case of another drunkenness she will divorce him, and he literally gets "on his eyebrows" that night, then at least the next day he should write a declaration of divorce and ask your husband to sign that he agrees. The application submitted to the registry office can always be withdrawn, but practice shows it: such decisive actions make the husband think about her problems much faster than numerous reproaches and broken promises.
Your attitude towards alcohol should always be negative.
Any consumption of alcohol, even the slightest, even the smell of smoke, should not be left without your negative evaluation. This doesn't mean that you have to make a fuss with broken dishes all the time. In no case should this be done: such "confrontations" will only lead to the fact that an alcoholic with a clear conscience will "relieve stress" and will gladly tell his sympathetic drinking companions what a bitch his wife is and that he drinks exclusively for she. Such situations must be discussed calmly, naturally, with a serious head, their reasons must be analyzed and real conclusions must be drawn. It should look something like this:
- Expensive! Yesterday at a party you drank again, despite your promise not to. It was very unpleasant for me, because at the end of the night you looked completely indecent, and coming back from you was terrifying, you behaved so aggressively.
- You see, yesterday I was in a very bad mood due to problems at work, and I decided to drink a little, so as not to spoil the mood of others with my appearance. And next to me was the hostess's husband, who kept serving me all the time, so I didn't have time to eat. And the vodka was probably of poor quality; my head still hurts. That's probably why I went overboard.
-It seemed to me that if a man gives his word, he must keep it! And it turns out that it is easier for you to break the given promise than to say "no" when they serve you vodka!
- Understand. . .
- No, I do not understand! Let's not fool ourselves! Over the past year, we had to talk about this more and more often; I think it is time to consult with specialists.
- Needs - you and be treated.
- Firstly, we both need it, and secondly, no one is going to attend to you, we will only talk to a psychotherapist about how to behave in some situations related to drinking.
Sometimes such a conversation is enough for a person with alcohol problems to agree to come to us, but most of the time they resist in all possible ways, referring to the lack of free time, the uselessness of this visit and many other "valid" reasons. You must be inflexible and with each new episode of alcohol, insist more and more resolutely on yours. Also, if conversations prove ineffective, feel free to use other methods of pressure, which your intuition and knowledge of your loved one's character should prompt you. By the way, do not forget to periodically remember that in developed countries any self-respecting person more or less has his own psychologist, with whom he meets periodically. And not having it is as embarrassing as, for example, riding a hunchbacked "Zaporozhets".
All conversations with an alcoholic must have a specific logical ending.
Any of your conversations, any dispute over an existing alcohol problem should end with some kind of constructive decision. In no case should you stop halfway and allow your patient's alcoholic self to fool everyone again and force them to postpone real anti-alcohol actions indefinitely. Since these conversations usually end with the alcoholic's promise to stop drinking, and everyone formally calms down. It is clear that after a while everything repeats itself again, and so on, ad infinitum. So if your drinking relative tells you that she understood everything, she realized it, deeply regrets it and it will no longer be so, believe him that if he still drinks at least once (no matter how much), they will go together to a psychologist.
In saving yourself from drunkenness, do not drink in the presence of an alcoholic.
The smartest thing the patient's family members can do is also not drink or store alcoholic beverages at home. Alcohol in such a house can only be in one form: as part of external disinfectants (iodine, bright green and the like). And while many of our patients, who have not been drinking for many years, feel completely calm in the beverage companies and are indifferent to alcohol, it is best to play it safe. The fewer provoking factors, the calmer. First, and second, remember the following:
The situation is not very promising when an alcoholic, who categorically does not consider himself as such, educates and tries to help another more "successful" alcoholic in creating (together with the Green Snake) daily and social problems. Clearly, calls for a sober life sound unconvincing if they smoke you up, and the difference between a sick person and a similar "healthy" person is that the latter has not yet lost his job and his wife has not yet left. .
Don't hide the fact that your loved one has an alcohol problem.
This is not an urgent need to tell everyone about her husband's drunken antics. No, but you mustn't fool anyone, fool, pretending you don't know anything. In no case should she fool the children, much less force them to lie. As a rule, they know and understand everything perfectly.
If you are sure that involving people who influence the alcoholic in solving the problem: parents, adult children, friends, bosses, colleagues, will help promote the cause, do not hesitate to tell them everything and ask for help.
The conversation with the alcoholic must be substantive.
It is not enough to say that she drinks a lot and frequently. For him, this is an empty phrase. He should prepare in advance for a conversation with an alcoholic, especially if he is going to involve someone else in this. To do this, it will be useful to record the frequency of alcohol episodes, the degree of intoxication and behavior in this state. In short, he should keep a journal and preferably with illustrations. That is, if it is possible to film drunken flights on video, this should be done, and you will discuss the moral and moral aspects of such actions when you save your loved one from the consequences of a serious and incurable disease.
The alcoholic needs to receive objective information about his illness.
A person who drinks unconsciously perceives any information unilaterally: he listens and sees only what he wants and what he does not want; he ignores it, not paying attention to it. Naturally, only that information that does not harm friendship with the Green Snake is allowed into consciousness. The role of censor is played by that very alcoholic self, the inner voice that sounds within every alcoholic and in every possible way justifies, disguises, adapts everything related to drinking to the norm.
In this sense, in order for all negative information about the disease and its consequences to reach the recipient, it is necessary to approach the solution of the problem creatively. You won't get anywhere if you stick newspaper clippings and anti-alcohol posters all over the walls. But if you, as by chance, tell him that one of your mutual acquaintances, who, by the way, was several years younger than you, is already in the other world, and your next binge is to blame for this, an alcoholic may be thoughtful.
One of our patients "woke up" (in his words) after he barely recognized his friend from school in one of the homeless people rummaging through the trash.
Be sure to let the alcoholic read our book, it is specially written to be interesting for everyone to read.
Help the sober "me" of the alcoholic.
Don't wait for the alcoholic to start changing his life stereotype, but actively (but not intrusively) help him in this. Take him to the movies, theaters, sports fields, get him out of town, introduce him to interesting people. The alcoholic himself (if, of course, he is still socially adapted) is often very difficult to do this, since he is in constant time trouble - the Green Snake takes most of his time. And he has already lost the habit of such events, he does not know from which side to approach them.