A dear friend of mine is drinking too much. What shall I do?
About alcoholism and drinking habits
The man who is clearly drunk is not nessecarily an alcoholic.
How do you feel about that statement? What is an alcoholic then?
If your friend sneeked out in the bathroom to have a glass of milk, what would you think? That he is sick? or crazy? or what. Well... at least you will realize that something is wrong - right? This is very often what an alcoholic does. Drink alone, in secret and without others around.
There is always a reason to drink. Either you celebrate the victory or you have to drown the sorrow. An alcoholic has an unhealthy view of drinking and will find a reason to all the time. The husband of my friend had the "smart" habbit of drinking a beer in the evening. He got more and more drunk and the little bottle of beer was not even finished. So here is what he did. He sneeked out in another room and had much stronger drinks and to hide that from his wife, he had the beer to cover over the smell from his mouth. Since I can tell you this, you understand that the wife found out.
This lens will try to sort it out for us. If I write "HE" you will have to realize I mean just as much "SHE"
A master in hiding bottles
The next morning after a party, some of us feel tired, have headache, take a day off and rest. But some of us have an enormous craving to continue drinking alcohol! It is like somebody else took over our mind and descided to find a drink quickly. This is often the first warning that you might have developed alcoholism.
You start to always have something to drink in the house somewhere. The heart is set on taking just one little tiny drink to calm your nerves or stop the shaking of the hands. If you have been an alcoholic for years, by now you have bottles hidden all over the place. So you go for just that little drink and the travel downhill has started. You must get just one more and one more and finally you are drunk again.
The bottles can be hidden in the most fantastic places like in the landry basket, inside the drawer with socks or bra´s. They are in the garage, in the garden tool-shack, together with your medicine(!) and even in your car. The sky is the limit in finding hiding places. One woman I knew hid the bottles in the store house together with junk. Another friend - a man - hid it inside the stack of cut wood.
The best you can do for your friend is to make him think about how sick this is. Make him realize that something is really wrong here.
The alcoholic must take responsibility
It seems hard, but one way of helping an alcoholic to realize, accept and be aware of the seriousness is to let him lay where he fell.
Do not clear up the mess or help him to bed. Let him wake up where he fell and see for himself what happened. Do not protect him from others to see this.
The ONLY way to treat an alcoholic might be to force him to accept, acknowledge and realize that he or she IS AN ALCOHOLIC!
REALIZE AND ACCEPT THE FACT THAT YOU ARE AN ALCOHOLIC
then you can start to do something constructive
To drink or not drink - that is the question
The saying is clear: For an alcoholic, a glass is too much and a bottle too little.
That means that he or she must stay away completely from alcohol. Because if he takes that first drink, he cannot stop. The body and brains is craving for more and more and more.....
The Anonymous Alcoholic is a great help here.
Since there is nothing that stops him - he will keep drinking. A person that is not an alcoholic, will set a limit and keep it even after he started to drink. An alcoholic cannot and will not do that.
Knowledge is a must to fight this
In this groundbreaking book, Arnold M. Ludwig--a doctor with over twenty-five years of experience working with alcoholics--penetrates the minds of alcoholics in order to explain the behaviors and thought processes they use to get and stay sober. He has worked with over one thousand alcoholics from all walks of life and within many different settings, including hospital clinics, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, detoxification centers, and private homes. Using clinical vignettes, research findings, and personal anecdotes, he documents the basic principles necessary for conquering craving and achieving recovery.
Do you know anybody that you think drink too much?
Work mate, relative, neighbor or close friend. . . they all are in danger and you CAN do something if you know what to do.
Are you ready to act?
Do the test here - Questions about your drinking habits
Alcohol: Also known by its scientific name “ethanol”, alcohol is a colorless, volatile, and pungent solvent in liquid form found in fermented liquors such as beer, wine, wine coolers, champagne, and liquors. It is a depressant to the central nervous system when ingested. If ingested in large amounts, coma or death will occur.
Do something to find out if you are in danger - do it here and now!
- Questions to find you if you are an alcoholic
You might like to take the following test, developed by the World Health Organisation. To calculate your score add the figures up in the left-hand column. A score of eight or more suggests a drink problem.
The impact on Children - when a parent is an alcoholic
- Impact on children
What happens to the children in a home where one or both parents are alcoholics?
More litterature to read about alcoholism
Since each and every one is different, we have to find knowledge and meditade on what to do. Sometimes the issue of drinking too much alcohol is so hard to talk about. Maybe if you read a book - together or shared it with the person in quiestion - can help.
Too often we laugh when we see an alcoholic - but this actor is so good at pretending he is drunk - I have to show it to you
Foster Brooks as Drunk pilot
I am sure that many has something to share on this subject
