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Try to adopt the following approaches to your alcoholic / addict;

1. Try to learn the facts about alcoholism and other drug addiction. Keep an open mind.

2. Recognize addiction for what it is-a disease of the body, mind, behavior, and spirit from which people can and do recover. Like other diseases, nobody really intends to get it or wish it upon their loved ones once they have it. Try to remember that the alcoholic / addict in your family isn’t doing this at you. This is a disease beyond will power.

3. Practice detachment. Do not allow yourself to become obsessed with your family member. This is sometimes called “release with love.” In effect, there are times that you simply must let go and let the alcoholic / addict experience the consequences of their drinking and drug use.

4. Set realistic limits and expectations but don’t think that you can exercise complete control over the alcoholic / addict. Change has to come from within them. They need to get sober and clean for themselves if their recoveries are to be maintained.

5. Practice “tough love,” the type of love that does not require you to be a “doormat.”

Make up your mind what you will accept and what you will not accept from the alcoholic / addict in your family and don’t deviate from these. Set realistic limits and make realistic demands.

6. Attend meetings of Al-anon and open meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. You can learn a great deal about your family situation from hearing the experiences other family members. And you can learn a great deal about alcoholism and other drug addiction from hearing alcoholics and addicts talking honestly about their slide into addiction and their recoveries.

7. Take life a day at a time. It is impossible to predict what will happen with an addicted person in the family. Many do an abrupt about face and get clean and sober just when everybody was ready to give up on them. Remember the saying, “”This too shall pass.” Use it when the going gets tough.

8. Take your eyes off of the alcoholic and turn them squarely upon yourself. What do you need to learn about yourself? What are your defects of character that need to be addressed? What are your skills, abilities, interests, and good points? What do you need to do in order to be happy and productive?

9. Remember the needs of other family members during the difficult times of active addiction. Try to be there for your children. Explain the illness of addiction to them in terms they can understand. Plan family outings with or without the alcoholic / addict and carry out the plans. Learn how to have a good time with the family regardless of whether or not the alcoholic member participates.

10. If you find yourself feeling anxious, depressed, helpless and hopeless, seek out a mental health professional who, in addition to expertise in mental health, has some understanding of addiction in the family.

See also;

• HEALTH BENEFITS OF CHOCOLATE REVEALED
• Brief-TSF can assist patients cease alcohol consumption.

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