Alcoholism In The Family – How To Help A Loved One Addicted?

It is still too rare that an alcoholic becomes aware of his own difficulties at some point in his addiction. Then it can make a conscious decision to start fighting the addiction. Unfortunately, most often it is the addict’s closest relatives who fight a fierce fight for him to come back to life in sobriety. Alcoholism in the family is a problem not only of the addicted individual. It is because it involves all the closest people.

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Alcoholism In The Family – Symptoms Of Alcoholism

Alcoholism can affect anyone, regardless of their age, gender or social status. It is very insidious, it quickly lulls the addict’s vigilance, who usually does not even realize at what point in his life he fell into the addiction. The pace of everyday life, permanent stress, the multitude of duties and problems – all this means that we increasingly use alcohol as a method of relaxation and a moment of relaxation. This moment can cost us dearly – this is how alcoholism begins in most cases. One glass of wine, one drink, one glass of vodka or just one beer starts the problem. It is worth remembering that the alcohol problem does not only concern the addicted person. Alcoholism in the family is also a great tragedy for the alcoholic’s relatives.

Due to the ever-increasing frequency of its occurrence, alcoholism is now called a civilization disease. It affects younger and younger people, and addicts are unable to hide the accompanying symptoms. Nevertheless, it is not easy to answer the question of how to recognize alcoholism. Each addict can display different behavior that does not necessarily seem suspicious at first glance. The four phases of alcoholism allow symptoms to be assigned to the stage of development of the disease.

Mental Consequences

The consequences of the addiction affect not only the addict himself. Alcoholism in the family is a complex problem that directly affects each of its members. An addict often develops chronic diseases, he or she suffers from severe liver or kidney diseases, and then the family most often takes care of him. A family member’s alcoholism also has psychological consequences. Often, loved ones blame themselves for addiction, control the alcoholic’s sweat, excuse him, protect him from responsibility for drunkenness. That’s when pathological codependency begins.

Most often it takes the form of persistent concentration of thoughts and feelings towards the addicted person. Family members are unable to function normally, taking on their shoulders the burden of responsibility for the alcoholism of a loved one. They control the alcoholic behavior of an addict, feel tension, shame, depressed mood, fear, suffer from insomnia, blame themselves and systematically divide their lives into activities undertaken in the period of abstinence and alcohol addiction. Codependency is known as a psychological trap. Hiding your loved ones’ illness from being surrounded is not only exhausting but also pointless. Even though it’s hard to admit it, since alcoholism is still taboo, it’s worth the courage to step out of the shadow of co-addiction. You should be aware that only the alcoholic is responsible for his condition and addiction.

Therapy

When we want to help an alcoholic, we must start with ourselves. In order to recover from co-addiction, we will often need the help of a specialist. We do not always know how to help an alcoholic on our own, at home. It is not always even possible. This is where alcoholism therapy comes in handy. Most often it consists of several elements. This guarantees the highest effectiveness of actions taken by many specialists and therapists. The faster we react to the first symptoms of alcoholism, the more effective help the addict will receive.

The first stage of comprehensive alcohol therapy is alcohol detox. After breaking the chain in which he is addicted for a long time, his body is exhausted and destroyed by the action of the toxin. By introducing a narcotic substance in excessive amounts into the body, we lead to the formation of irreversible changes and metabolic disorders. Detox aims not only to remove the harmful substances of ethanol metabolism from the alcoholic’s body, but also to supplement nutrients and vitamins. Without this action, it would be impossible to continue fighting the addiction – the exhausted body would not be able to cope with the troublesome symptoms of the withdrawal syndrome and the popular hangover. Vitamins and electrolytes can be effectively replenished with vitamin drips.