An Alcoholic in Your Life—What Can You Do?

by HM1 Alvin Grant, USN

Are you concerned that someone in your life is drinking too much? The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism says that more than 18 million American adults are alcoholics or have drinking problems.

And that’s just the adults: Keep in mind that a report released this year, found that up to 30 percent of 18 year olds were heavy drinkers; they had five or more drinks on one occasion on five or more days during the previous 30 days. Alcoholism is an illness and, like any sickness, can strike at any age.

So for any one of us, the chances are good that we know someone who has a problem with alcohol. If it’s someone you know at work, or a neighbor, or a distant relative, you probably respond by shaking your head and feeling badly about the situation.

But if the problem drinker is someone much closer to home—a brother or sister, a close friend, your son or daughter—then you have many other feelings, and they are complicated and intense. You may be asking yourself some questions:

  • How can I tell if someone is an alcoholic?
  • What’s the difference between liking to drink a lot and being an alcoholic?
  • What makes him drink so much?
  • I know that his drinking is affecting his life, why doesn’t he know that?
  • What would make him stop drinking?
  • What can I do to help?

Your DAPA can answer these and other questions in an effort to help you understand people who have trouble with alcohol, and what you can do to help them. But that question—what you can do to help the drinker get control of his drinking—is the hardest one to answer. Still, there are things you can do and ways you can behave that will make it more likely that the drinker will get help and less likely that you will get hurt.

Let’s start answering these questions by taking a look at:

The Problem Drinker

Any man, woman, or child who uses alcohol can become a problem drinker. While about three-fifths of all Americans drink sometimes, most of them do not make it a habit and most do not have a problem. There is no one thing that turns one drinker into an alcoholic; neither is their one single way to protect yourself against the problem.

Problem drinkers can occur at any age, in any setting. People who were brought up around a lot of drinking are more likely to become heavy drinkers themselves, but so are people who grew up in totally alcohol-free homes.

There are vast differences between people who abuse alcohol: some are rich and some are not; most have steady jobs, while some don’t; some drink every day and some only once in a while; some get violent and some just fall asleep. But there are two things that problem drinkers generally do have in common: they are not in control of their drinking, and they do not believe they are in trouble.

(DAPA Note: Both male and females can and do have problems with alcohol. In each article I refer to drinkers as "he," but that is for grammatical purposes only.)

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