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5 Things Not to Do When You Love an Alcoholic
There’s a lot of great advice out there for friends and family members with a loved one who struggles with alcohol addiction. One of the best is to get support, either from other friends and family members, from an Al-Anon group for loved ones of alcoholics, or both.
That’s great advice, but what about the things you shouldn’t do? It turns out there are quite a few, and they aren’t always talked about as openly as the things you should do when supporting a friend or family member through an addiction.
However, they are just as, if not more, important.
Here are five things not to do if you love an alcoholic.
Don’t Take It Personally
Dealing with an alcoholic is hard. It’s especially hard when it’s someone you care a lot about. If they cared about you as much as you care about them, shouldn’t they be able to overcome their addiction?
It’s natural to take things personally. After all, you live in your own head and see exactly how everything relates to your feelings and your daily life.
It’s important to remember that although everything in your life is relevant to you, everything in everyone else’s life is relevant to them. That means the actions and choices they’re making almost never have anything to do with you, no matter how close your loved one.
Your first step is to stop taking their alcoholism personally. It truly has nothing to do with you.
Don’t Try and Fix It
Are you a fixer? Many people are. That means you probably feel like there’s something you can do to fix their problem. If your loved one is a child, the need to fix everything will be especially strong.
Feeling like you’re doing something to fix the problem might make you feel good, but it isn’t going to get your loved one any closer to recovery. They have to want to get better for themselves. No amount of scheduling appointments or acting as a counselor will make their alcoholism go away. It’s their job to fix their alcohol problem—not yours.
Don’t Give Them Money
There are many ways friends and family members enable the alcoholics in their lives. One of the best ways you can make sure you aren’t enabling an alcoholic is to stop giving them money.
If you give them straight cash or provide them with your credit card, it’s almost a sure bet that they won’t use it to buy food at the grocery store. It will most likely go to beer and hard liquor.
That doesn’t mean you can’t help them monetarily. Other ways you can support an alcoholic financially, without giving them money, include:
- Paying their bills
- Paying for their treatment
- Allowing them to live with you during treatment
- Buying food and cooking them meals
- Taking them shopping for clothes and other necessities
Don’t Rescue Them
When trying to fix the problem doesn’t work, many friends and family members of alcoholics do the next best thing, which is to swoop in and rescue them.
You want to keep your loved one safe, even as they’re struggling with alcoholism, but most people don’t learn unless they fail.
That means you shouldn’t bail them out of jail when they get picked up for drunk driving, but it also means letting them sleep the night away on the front lawn instead of carrying them into bed. If you allow the gravity of their situation to sink in by not rescuing them, they’re more likely to get the help they need sooner.
Don’t Have High Expectations
Having high expectations just means you’re more likely to get disappointed. That can be especially dangerous if you’re disappointed because your loved one’s recovery isn’t going very fast, or they have relapsed.
Do yourself, and them, a favor by lowering your expectations. It’s their journey, and it will have many twists and turns. It’s your job to be a support system, not a critic.
Not only will lowering your expectations make you a softer place to fall when your loved one does experience setbacks, it will make you happier throughout their recovery.
There are plenty of things you should do when you have a loved one with an alcohol problem. However, there are plenty of things you shouldn’t do too! This list will help you navigate the waters of supporting an alcoholic loved one without losing your sanity, or your happiness, in the process.
