How to Deal With a Family Alcoholic

While alcoholism can cause illness, incarceration and even death, the alcoholic is by no means the only one affected. If you have an alcoholic in your family, you have probably been hurt in many ways. You may have been harmed physically or emotionally by someone who, when they are sober, would never want to hurt you. You might have spent sleepless nights waiting for the alcoholic to arrive safely home, while also dreading their return. You may have suffered financially because of your family member's alcoholism. There are steps you can take in order to deal with a family member who is an alcoholic.

Instructions

• 1

  Determine if your family member is an alcoholic. Organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous offer guides to help determine if your loved one is an alcoholic. But in reality, you don’t need a “diagnosis." If alcohol use or abuse is causing problems in your family, you need help dealing with it.

• 2

  Let go. If you are close to an alcoholic, you may be doing everything you can to help them and to try and find some sort of control over your crazy environment. Realize that you cannot control anyone else’s behavior.

• 3

  While you cannot control how the alcoholic acts, you can control how you react. You can choose not to lose sleep, not to have alcohol in your home or not to live with someone who will not stay sober. You do not have to be hateful to your alcoholic loved one, but you should act lovingly to yourself and your children or other family members.

• 4

  Detach yourself emotionally and/or physically. While this may sound cold hearted, it can ultimately bring your alcoholic loved one to seek help. By detaching, you can learn to stop suffering due to your alcoholic loved one. You can stop allowing that person to manipulate you, or their actions to control your life. You might think that by covering for or cleaning up after your loved one you are helping them. But consider this: has it really worked?

• 5

  Get help. You might think that the alcoholic is the only one who needs help, but you do as well. There are reasons you have allowed your loved one to take you down with them; unless you uncover and deal with those reasons, you will find yourself seeking out other codependent relationships. And if you want to help your alcoholic family member, you need to be well yourself. One drowning person cannot save another. Contact Alanon, your family's church or a qualified counselor.