How to Help an Addict/Alcoholic

When someone you care about is struggling with addiction, it can be incredibly hard to know what to do. You probably feel worried, frustrated, angry, and afraid of making things worse. It’s natural to want to help, but the wrong kind can make things harder, however good your intentions are. Addiction affects all the people closest to us, and it can cause damage that threatens the most important relationships.

Understanding the signs of addiction to look out for, how to approach someone you’re worried about, and what family and addiction research tells us about effective treatment can help you be a positive force in your loved one’s recovery. Here are some important ways you can help.

Understand what addiction is

Addiction means losing control over doing, taking, or using something to the point where it could be harmful. It usually starts with doing something for fun or to relax a little. But addiction is a complex health condition, not just a lack of willpower. It changes how the brain processes reward, decision-making, and impulse control, so you start taking, drinking, or doing more.

If this doesn’t stop, you become physically and psychologically dependent. Physical dependence means you can’t stop drinking or using drugs without experiencing unpleasant reactions called withdrawal, and psychological dependence means you become reliant on substances or behaviours like gambling just to cope with daily life. Both together mean you can’t quit even if you can see the harm.

Know the signs someone needs help for addiction

Knowing the signs of addiction is important because the earlier someone gets help, the better their outcomes are likely to be. The signs often develop gradually, and any one of them on its own might mean nothing. But if you look at the patterns, especially any changes from how the person usually behaves, it can show you that something is not right.

Common signs of addiction include:

• Changes in mood or behaviour that are out of character
• Increased tolerance, meaning the person needs more of the substance to get the same effect
• Withdrawal symptoms when the substance isn’t available
• Secrecy around money, where they are or who they’re meeting
• Neglecting responsibilities at work, at home or in relationships
• Continuing to use drugs or alcohol despite visible harm to health, relationships or finances
• Withdrawing from friends, family, hobbies, school, work, and people and other things used to care about
• Arguments in relationships
• Growing distance from partners and parents
• Breakdowns in relationships that nobody can quite explain

If you notice several of these at once, it’s better to raise it than to wait and see whether things resolve on their own.

Discuss the situation with your loved one

Most people find it hard to raise concerns about someone else’s substance use. You may be worried about saying the wrong thing or scared about how they’ll react.

The best advice is not to wait until things are calm and not to raise concerns when they’ve been drinking or using drugs. Avoid getting angry and giving ultimatums, and don’t repeat the same argument the same way each time.

Tell them what you’ve noticed and how it has affected you, without accusations or diagnoses. That gives them less to be defensive about. Listen to their response without interrupting, so they can say what they need to.

You can suggest professional help by showing them this page, or offering to go with them to an appointment or make the first call. This gives your loved one something concrete to accept or decline. The first conversation doesn’t have to fix everything, so if it doesn’t go well, you can try again another day.

Make sure you’re helping, not enabling

Enabling means that you make it easier for someone to keep drinking, taking drugs, or doing addictive behaviour like gambling. Most enabling comes from loved ones who only have the best intentions.

You might cover for your loved one with their employer, lend them money, or make excuses on their behalf. It can feel like love, but it protects them from the negative consequences that may have been a wake-up call. Enabling addiction helps addiction continue long after everyone around the person can see what’s happening.

Helping someone with addiction means making it easier for them to reach recovery. It’s not the same as making it easier for them to keep using. The two can look identical from the outside, so many family members and friends spend years enabling while believing they’re helping.

Set and enforce boundaries

One important way of helping rather than enabling is to set boundaries. These may include:

• Not giving or lending money that may go on drugs, alcohol, or the costs of addiction
• Not lying to other people about their substance use or behaviour to cover for them
• Not allowing them to stay in your home if they are using substances or if it puts other people in danger

Enforcing boundaries can be difficult emotionally. Your loved one may get angry or upset or accuse you of not caring about them. But they really are crucial for showing someone that the best option is to get the help they need.

Support them during rehab

The person struggling has to choose recovery for themselves, but once they do, there are many ways you can support them.

Offer to help take care of any home responsibilities while they’re in rehab. This could include basic housework, picking up their kids, helping sort out their bills, or preparing a sober environment for them to come home to.

Many rehab centres, including Banbury Lodge, have family therapy sessions and other services. These can help you understand what they’re doing in treatment, and bring families back together.

After they leave rehab, you can attend fellowship meetings with them, try new sober hobbies and activities together, help them stick to their aftercare commitments, and be an available part of their support network.

You also need to save something for yourself. This can be hard because yoy may feel guilty for thinking about your own well-being, but you can’t support anyone if you’re completely spent. Give yourself time to do things that make you happy or help you relax. Try to share any responsibilities with other friends and family, and look after basic things like your sleep and diet.

There are fellowships like Al-Anon and Nar-Anon that bring together families and friends affected by addiction. These meetings are completely free and confidential, run regularly in most areas, and give you the chance to hear how others have handled the same situation.

Your GP can assess the impact on your own mental health and refer you to appropriate support if needed. Even after leaving Banbury Lodge, we provide aftercare and alumni services to all our clients. You can speak to our team about any additional support that you need too, and we can help point you in the right addiction.

You don’t have to support someone with alcoholism or drug addiction on your own, so give yourself permission to lean on anyone and everyone. Addiction is a family illness, but recovery can be a family journey too.

Get help at Banbury Lodge

With the right support, patience and professional treatment, people do recover from addiction, and the people around them recover too.

If someone you care about is struggling with alcohol or drug addiction, Banbury Lodge can help.