The desire to help stop someone who has a drinking problem stems from compassion and concern. However, it isn’t up to a friend, spouse or family member to shoulder someone else’s drinking problem, or battle the problem for them. To teach someone how to quit drinking alcohol is tricky because it depends on some things.

Unfortunately, you can’t force someone with a drinking problem to tackle their alcoholism head on, but you can scale back any efforts on your part to provide a safety net for the problem drinker or continue to enable their drinking in any way.

That can be the hardest part of the helping process, but one (in addition to emergency health problems or situations) that ultimately forces an alcoholic to take full responsibility for their own addiction.

Teach Someone How To Quit Drinking Alcohol By First Letting Them Admit

In addition to leaving all deniability about a drinking problem behind, an alcoholic needs to take steps to solve their own problem.

Those who want to truly help someone to quit alcohol once and for all, need to separate the drinking problem itself from the friend or loved one.

One is not the other, but alcoholism does weave its way insidiously through the problem drinker’s personality, causing them to act in ways they never would while sober.

As much as you long to help someone quit alcohol, the onus remains on him or her. Until you choose to address your friend or loved-one’s alcoholic behavior with healthier reactions to their drinking and opting for more healthful lifestyle patterns of your own, then detrimental scenarios continue to take place that can prolong a problem drinker’s inability to reach out for help.

The Right Time To Intervene An Alcoholic To Stop Drinking

Even though it’s up to the alcoholic to seek out professional help, you can still voice your concerns at the right time and in an appropriate manner.

Anger and emotional scenes only exacerbate the problem, so choosing the best time to let an alcoholic know, in private, how you feel, how worried you are about them are really the only healthy options you have. In the event of a crisis situation, you can involve medical personnel or the authorities.

Always keep in mind, however, that alcoholism is an addiction, a complicated problem that requires professional help and guidance to overcome.

How Alcoholism Can Affect Others Around Them

Addictions are stressful: stressful on the person addicted and stressful for anyone emotionally involved with him or her.

The desire to quit alcohol must come from the person with the drinking problem.

Your desire to feel as healthy and emotionally balanced as possible can be your own first step towards dealing with problem drinking.

The Canadian Centre for Addictions provides intensive assistance for the alcohol abuser, as well as valuable counselling for their support network.

The ability to quit alcohol for good is within your friend or loved one’s grasp.

Showing how much you care, and directing the problem drinker to a safe haven where help is available, are the best possible tools to help someone stop drinking.