I have a friend who’s alcohol consumption has gotten out of control. Me and his other friends/family are planning an intervention and so I’ve been doing a lot of research/reading on the topic.
NEVER and I mean NEVER have I seen so many fucking ads for alcohol in my LIFE. Instagram? 15 ads in a half hour of scrolling reels. YouTube? Ads. Google results? Ads. Twitter? Ads.
It’s fucking everywhere and it’s SICK. I’m researching how to help someone stop drinking and I’m getting inundated with ads for anything from gin, beers, vodkas and more. I can’t even imagine having an alcohol issue and trying to find help for myself with the web being this way.
It’s fucking sick.
I had 2 interventions in my life and neither worked. In fact, they made it much worse for me.
I suggest that you go to AlAnon and learn a bit about alcoholism before trying anything (btw, AlAnon is not AA, but is a program to help non-alcoholics understand what they’re dealing with.)
Your friend is lucky to have you. Don’t give up on them. It truly is hellish.
I’ve found with my own addictions that forcibly stopping one just causes a different one to start up.
The real solution for me has been healing trauma, resulting in baseline consciousness not being painful.
Most alcoholics use alcohol to run from difficult, unprocessed emotions. I was one of them.
Many of the programs recommend therapy first. No one wants to drink themselves to death, even though it feels like that sometimes.
AA always gave off bad vibes to me because of the whole “surrender to a higher power” shtick
Lots of secular AA groups out there
It’s hard to know which are really secular. Some folks think that calling it “a higher power” makes it secular. A fig leaf over the word “god” doesn’t do it for me.
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Not in Texas seemingly lol
Lots of secular groups on zoom.
Don’t think that my father would be able to use zoom like that when he decided to go to rehab and got the basic AA give it all to God treatment.
Same, but the community was great. Being around people that understand is so beneficial.
Absolutely. There has to be some little glimmer of already wanting to quit for them to take the help seriously. I would absolutely recommend AlAnon as well. You can’t just force someone into treatment, and that’s pretty much what interventions try to do, on top of making the person feel guilt and shame which likely is why they drink in the first place. Being able to have a one on one, calm conversation about how the person is affecting themselves and others is probably a good route, because people often do not recognize they have a problem in the first place. It would not be surprising for it to end with the person getting angry and storming out, but it plants the seed in a more reasonable way than having everyone they know cornering them, humiliating them, and saying “go to rehab now or we never speak to you again.”
Source: in recovery, worked in the field.
The guilt and shame is brutal, and shouldn’t be used to try to change someone into behaving better. It’s like spanking you kids, which is illegal now (at least whew I’m at).
+1 AlAnon is a good program. It shows how deeply ingrained alcohol is in our society that we have support programs just for people who know an alcoholic.