The best way to help an alcoholic is indirectly. This means that you do not try to control or manipulate them. Don’t make feeble pleas with them to miraculously stop drinking. Do not threaten them or shame them or engage with angry arguments with them. None of these strategies really work at all. At best these ploys will create false hope before they fail to work. At worst they create more chaos and despair for the drunk in question. If you are at this point then you probably want to know how can I help an alcoholic?
The first thing you need to know is that an alcoholic who tries to change for other people is not going to make it in recovery. What you must understand is that the choice has to be theirs. You and other people in their life can’t make this choice for them. Not you, not a jail cell, not their parents, nobody.
The second idea for you to grasp is that this decision that will eventually be made by the alcoholic will be motivated by pain. Ultimately this is how it has to go. The alcoholic will finally decide that they have had enough pain and misery in their life and decide it is time for change. This is the only driving force that makes real change. You can promise them the whole world if they stop drinking but this will not produce any different results. The motivation has to come from pain and fear and misery.
Given both of these concepts, you can probably tell where this is headed. The most important thing for you to concentrate on in attempting to help an alcoholic is that you should never try to deny the alcoholic of their pain. The alcoholic is trapped in a cycle and experiencing pain and misery on a regular basis and your job is to step out of the way and let them endure that pain. For example, if an alcoholic gets loaded on the weekends and can’t make it to work on Monday morning, they might lose their job. Let them lose it. Do not attempt to cover for them or help them to keep their life held together. This is a part of their natural consequences and you should not deprive them of it. Doing so will keep them drinking. Let them experience their misery and they just might find recovery in the future. This is probably the best way to really help an alcoholic.
