I never thought about drinking with non-drinkers.
Jack London
It is difficult to quit drinking, but it is possible. In such a situation, only a truly loving person can help. Those who try to stop drinking and help to solve some of their problems (for example, housing) will not achieve anything. Love alone is not enough to get rid of the most difficult addiction, you still need to know what to do. In a given situation, the strongest and most noble human feelings save their relatives from alcohol and force them to create a false stereotype in their relationship with it. As a result, they only contribute to the development of alcoholism, and they themselves become interdependent.
The traditional role played by the relatives of alcoholics, mostly spouses, is the role of "nanny". In the classic version, the "nanny" does everything possible and impossible to keep the family afloat, and those around are unaware of the existence of an alcohol problem. It provides for the family, maintains order in the home, raises children, and this upbringing has its own peculiarities: children are taught from an early age not to take "dirty linen in public places. "The relationship with the "half" of the "nanny" depends on the situation of this "half". While drinking, the "nanny" looks at a drink: she finds it where she drinks and brings it home; calls to work and says he is sick; tries to neutralize aggression by enduring frequent beatings and insults; eats it and washes it.
In a sober period, the "nanny" may continue to patronize and delight the alcoholic, hoping not to drink or, conversely, to act as if to impose on him various deeds and duties. In both cases, after a while, another concussion develops and everything starts all over again. Such a periodic algorithm of relationships can exist arbitrarily for a long time. The "nanny" not only aggravates the development of alcoholism by her actions, but in the end she can no longer live differently. Therefore, when alcoholic wives remarry, they often choose drunks or drug addicts as their companions.
The general rule for all relatives, regardless of who they are ill with - husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter - is to do nothing to help the development of addiction. This means the following:
The drinker must solve the problem himself.
Well, let him decide because he created them for himself. Otherwise, there will be no obstacles before the next drink, hoping for your help. Sometimes it comes to the point of absurdity: the husband spends all the "family pot" to drink, there is nothing in the house, and the wife runs around acquaintances, borrows to pay off her husband's debts. to drink
When trying to save money, it is not necessary to call an alcoholic at work and say that he is seriously and suddenly ill. First, it is not good to deceive - do not set a bad example for children; secondly, after two or three such calls no one will believe you and at least they will laugh at you quietly; third - you will save him today, perhaps from a simple blow that will stop him, and tomorrow he will drink more and eventually lose his job.
In our opinion, it is completely unacceptable for compassionate relatives to buy alcohol themselves in order to get drunk. You can offer a medicine or other poison to your loved one with the same success.
treatment is not always pleasant and painless.
For example, if a person has an abscess somewhere in the body, you can hide it under clothes, pour deodorant to prevent odor, create less 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 an abscess opens despite the pain, the course of antibiotics is "punctured", which is very painful, but the chances of recovery are high.
You have to keep your word, and if you can't do it, it's better not to.
Alcoholics, drug addicts, and drug addicts are very sensitive to where something can be achieved and where it can be given up. In this sense, they are like children, and it is necessary to communicate with them as often as with children: if necessary - praise, if necessary - punish. But no episode, even the most insignificant, of alcohol use should go unnoticed, and of course, the degree of "punishment" must correspond to the degree of "crime. "And do not confuse the "sinners" with a healthy age and representative appearance. Sound carrot and stick politics often work well at different ages and social backgrounds.
So, for example, if a wife promises her husband that she will divorce him when he drinks another drink, and that evening comes literally "over her eyebrows, " she should write a divorce declaration at least the next day and ask him to sign it. An application to the registry office can always be taken, but experience shows that such decisive actions make the husband think about his problems more quickly than numerous insults and unfulfilled promises.
Your attitude toward alcohol should always be negative.
Any alcohol consumption, even the slightest, even the smell of smoke, should not go unnoticed. This does not mean that you have to make a fuss every time you break a meal. Under no circumstances should this be done - such "reckoning" will only cause a drink of pure conscience to "relieve stress" and will gladly tell his sympathetic companions what kind of bitch his wife is and that she drinks only because of it. Such cases should be discussed calmly, naturally - on a sober head, the reasons should be analyzed and real conclusions should be drawn. It should look something like this:
- Expensive! At a party yesterday, you promised not to drink, but you drank again. It was very unpleasant for me, because at the end of the evening you looked completely unworthy and it was just scary to come back from you, you were very aggressive.
- You see, yesterday I was in a very bad situation due to difficulties at work and decided to drink a little so as not to spoil the mood of others with my appearance. But the landlady's husband was always there for me, so I didn't have time to eat. And the vodka was probably of poor quality - I still have a headache. Most likely, I overreacted.
- It seemed to me that if a man speaks, then he must keep his word! And it turns out that it is easier to break a promise than to say "no" when pouring vodka!
- Understand. . .
- No, I did not understand! Let's not steal ourselves! We have been talking about it more and more for the last year - I think it's time to consult with experts.
- You need it - you need treatment.
- First, we both need it, and secondly, no one will treat you, we will just talk to a psychotherapist about how to behave in some situations related to alcohol.
Sometimes such a conversation is enough to make a person with an alcohol problem come to us, but he resists it, citing the lack of more free time, the futility of this visit, and many other "valid" reasons. You have to be determined and insist more and more with each new alcohol episode. In addition, if conversations are ineffective, do not hesitate to use other methods of pressure that your intuition and knowledge of the character of your loved one should motivate you. By the way, remember that in developed countries, a person who is more or less self-respecting has his own psychologist, whom he meets from time to time. And not having it, for example, is as embarrassing as riding a rib "Zaporozhets".
All conversations about alcohol must have a certain logical ending.
Any conversation you have, any dispute over an existing alcohol problem should end with a kind of constructive decision. Under no circumstances should you stop halfway and allow your patient's alcoholic "I" to deceive everyone again and postpone real anti-alcohol actions indefinitely. Usually, such conversations end with the promise of abstinence from alcohol, and everyone officially calms down. Obviously, after a while everything repeats itself and so on. - ad infinitum. So, if your drinking relative says that he understands, understands, deeply regrets and will not be like that again, if he still drinks at least once (no matter how much), tell him that you will go together. psychologist.
While saving from drunkenness, do not drink an alcoholic beverage.
The smartest thing a patient's relatives can do is not to drink or store alcohol at home. In such a house, alcohol can be in only one form - as part of external disinfectants (iodine, bright green, and the like). Although many of our patients who have not drunk for many years feel completely calm in the company of alcoholics, and are indifferent to alcohol, it is better to play it safe. The less provocative the factor, the calmer it is. This is the first, second, remember the following:
The situation is not very promising when an alcoholic who does not consider himself to be so is educated and tries to help another alcoholic (along with the Green Snake) who is more "successful" in creating daily and social problems. Clearly, appeals for a sober life do not seem convincing if they take a toll on you, and the difference between a sick person and a "healthy" person is that the latter has not yet lost his job and his wife has not yet left him. .
Don't hide the fact that your loved one has an alcohol problem.
This is not about the urgent need to tell everyone about your husband's drunken tricks. No, but you should not deceive anyone, you should not mislead them by claiming that you know nothing. Under no circumstances should you deceive children, do not force them to lie. As a rule, they know and understand everything perfectly.
If you are sure that the involvement of people affected by alcohol to solve the problem: parents, adult children, friends, managers, colleagues will help to put forward the reason - do not hesitate to tell them everything and ask for help.
Talking to an alcoholic should be reasonable.
It is not enough to say that he drinks a lot and often. For him, this is an empty word. You need to prepare in advance for a conversation with an alcoholic, especially if you are going to involve someone else. To do this, it will be useful to record the frequency of alcohol episodes, the degree of intoxication, and the behavior in this situation. Simply put, keep a diary and preferably with pictures. That is, if it is possible to videotape drunken flights, it should be done, and you will discuss the moral and ethical aspects of such actions while rescuing your loved one about the consequences of a serious and incurable disease.
The alcoholic must be given objective information about his illness.
The drinker unconsciously receives any information unilaterally: he hears and sees only what he wants, and ignores what he does not want. Of course, only that information is allowed in the mind, which does not harm the friendship with the green snake. The role of the sensor is played by the alcoholic "I", the inner voice that resounds inside every drink and justifies, masks, adapts everything related to drinking in any way possible.
From this point of view, it is necessary to take a creative approach to solving the problem in order to get all the negative information about the disease and its consequences. You can't go anywhere if you stick newspaper clippings and anti-alcohol posters on all the walls. However, if you happen to say that one of your acquaintances, who is a few years younger than you, is already in the other world and that the next drink is to blame, he may drink alcohol. to be thoughtful
One of our patients "woke up" (in his own words) after having difficulty recognizing his schoolmate in one of the homeless who had been thrown into the trash.
Make sure you allow an alcoholic to read our book, it is written specifically for everyone to read.
Help the sober "I" of alcohol.
Don't wait for an alcoholic to start changing his or her lifestyle, but help him or her actively (but without interfering). Take him to the movies, theaters, sports fields, take him out of the city, meet interesting people. It is often difficult for an alcoholic himself (of course, if he is still socially adapted) to do so, because he always faces a problem - the Green Snake takes the lion's share of his time. And he has lost the habit of such events and does not know which way to approach them.