Expert: Druideck - 8/17/2011

Question
This time my adult son has hit bottom and it keeps getting lower. He was sober for almost 2 years and started back big time. We took him to the hospital after 5 straight days of drinking, in which time he had gotten a DUI. He was in the hospital for 3 days then sent to a mental hospital for evaluation, he had a gun and said he wanted to commit suicide. We found out he left there and checked into a motel with plenty of booze and spent the next week drinking. He showed up at his sons house drunk, dirty (hadn't changed in a week),unshaven and hurt. He said he had been throwing himself down to hurt himself because he was a bad person. The family is at wits end as to what to do.I can't take another drama and watching the kids is unbearable. HELP.

Answer
Hi Judy,

There is only so much you can do for a person that is
afflicted with alcoholism. Your son is a very ill person
at this time and the bad feelings coupled
with wrong thinking and physical compulsions
keep him in denial.

The reason many alcoholics have a relapse is because
they do not develop a program for recovery.
They just quit drinking and fail to treat the underlying
problems by attending Alcoholics Anonymous or
at least getting alcoholism treatment at a proper facility.

Alcoholics have to change their life to stay sober. This includes
their thinking and their behaviours.
Sometimes a family can crack their denial by arranging
an intervention of the people that still care.

An alcoholic left to his own thinking will often
choose destructive actions.
An intervention can help them to see that
they they must get help to survive.

At this point it will be his choice to live
or die. If he keeps drinking he will die
or go insane. We can only offer a person
the option of recovery. They must make this
choice for themselves at some point.

IF you have a mental health or alcohol
counsellor locally available
I would discuss intervention with them.
This is about the only tool left at the point your
son is at.

Alcoholism is deadly and you must see it as an illness
that he cannot control without help.
He has to go into detox and treatment
or attend AA meetings on a regular basis, like it or not
these are his only choices to get better at this point.

No amount of pleading is going to stop him,
he has to get treatment or he will not stop.
He is addicted to alcohol right now and
cannot stop on his own.

Take care,
Druideck.
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