Tips For Helping Someone With Alcoholism
By Robert Thatcher
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When a person is affected by alcoholism in their family they often want to find a way to help the alcoholic.
There are some great tips for helping someone with alcoholism.
 Alcoholism effects
everyone the alcoholic knows and for someone to offer the alcoholic help will benefit everyone in the end.
It is important for people to understand, though, that alcoholism is hard to fight and it takes dedication, time
and understanding to be successful.
The following is a list of tips for helping someone with alcoholism:
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Keep focused on the task at hand. It can be frustrating but when the person helping
the alcoholic shows frustration or anger the goal is lost. An alcoholic is more likely to listen and work with
someone who isn’t judgmental or pushy.
- Maintain a normal environment. Trying to change everything about an alcoholics life will just cause them
stress which triggers their alcoholism. It is important when helping that a person tries to keep things normal
with the exception of eliminating alcohol.
- Find activities to replace the old alcohol-related ones. Since helping the alcoholic means taking alcohol
out of their life it is important to eliminate activities where drinking is a part. For example, if the
alcoholic went to the ball game every Saturday and drank while there, then that activity needs to be altered.
It is often best to completely avoid the activity for a while until the alcoholic is further into recovery, so
in the mean time the person helping could find a new Saturday past time.
- Don’t make excuses for the alcoholic. Part of getting over alcoholism is learning to deal with the problems
it caused. If the person helping is taking responsibility or making excuses for the behavior of the alcoholic
then they will never be able to completely recover.
| The process of detoxification from alcohol typically takes three to seven days,
after which the alcoholic's dependency on alcohol is primarily psychological, rather than physical
or chemical. The goal after detox is to prevent a relapse of excessive drinking. |
These four tips cover only the beginning of what a person can do to help someone with alcoholism. Alcoholism is
a hard disease to fight, but with help alcoholics have a better chance of winning that fight.
Robert Thatcher is a freelance author based in Cupertino, California. He publishes articles
and reports in various ezines and contributes on a regular basis to FreeNetPublishing.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Robert_Thatcher
| There are hundreds if not thousands of clinics, hospitals, and other facilities
in the United States provide alcohol detox, rehabilitation, and alcohol treatment services.
These treatment options range from short-term in-patient, residential hospitalization to
long-term, outpatient education, therapy, and counseling. The immediate goal of the
professional staff at these facilities is to help the alcoholic learn how to remain sober and
to resist the craving and the urge to drink. The more long-term goal of these drug and
alcohol abuse professionals, however, is to teach alcoholics new coping techniques and
different ways of thinking and behaving that will help them become productive and contributing
members of society. |
| A woman who drinks alcohol while she is pregnant may harm her unborn baby (fetus).
Alcohol can pass from the mother’s blood into the baby’s blood. It can damage and affect the growth
of the baby’s cells. Brain and spinal cord cells are most likely to have damage. |
| Regardless of how someone is diagnosed as alcohol dependent or how they came to
realize they have a serious drinking problem, the first step to treatment is a sincere desire to
get help. Alcoholics who are pressured into treatment by social pressure or forced to quit by
circumstances rarely succeed in the long run. |
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