In what way can we reach out to the alcoholic and help them? Traditional recovery programs have tried to answer this question for decades now, and typically without much success. You may have pushed someone in your life towards recovery without much success. If you are at this point then you are probably want to know how best to help an alcoholic.

Part of the issue here is that most treatment paths do not really tailor to the individual – they are set up to treat anyone and everyone. They are generic programs that are intended to help everyone but turn out to not really benefit anyone because they are not customized at all. For example, 12 step programs, which typically dominate the recovery scene, have remained unchanged for decades.

When someone needs help with addiction or alcoholism, we typically send them to a traditional recovery program such as AA or NA. When that fails to produce decent results, instead of blaming the program we always blame the individual, saying that “they just didn’t want it enough,” or that “they just did not get into the spiritual side of the program.” These types of excuses point to a failing in our quest for better recovery and we can do better then just blaming the failed alcoholic. I would suggest:

1) Push alcoholics to use treatment for early recovery. This is crucial because early in an alcoholic’s recovery is an especially vulnerable time when it can be hard just to get a few days clean.” In a controlled environment it is much safer and easier to get started on sobriety.

2) Push alcoholics to create a new life for themselves. This is crucial because simply drying out from alcohol is not the answer. When a true alcoholic consumes booze they do it with enthusiasm and so it turns into a driving force in their life. In their recovery journey, an alcoholic must find new meaning and depth in their life or they risk sliding back into a relapse of destruction and despair.

3) Push alcoholics to grow holistically. If you can get someone to grow in one area of their life, that is good. But if you can encourage an alcoholic to make progress in multiple areas of their life, then this is really good. Holistic growth is indicating that the person is treating their disease as a whole, not simply as a spiritual problem (as some treatments deal with it).

Tags: addiction, alcoholic, alcoholism, Drug Abuse, drug adiction