What to do if your husband drinks every day? Psychologist's advice

It's hard to watch how alcohol ruins the life of a loved one. The problem of alcoholism is dangerous because alcohol is socially acceptable. They drink in clubs, at corporate events, birthdays, weddings. If you don’t drink, then you’re either sick or a wimp – this is our mentality.

But the reality is that uncontrolled alcohol consumption destroys not only internal organs, but also the psyche. Disturbs thinking, causes hallucinations and schizophrenia.

Dealing with a drinking problem makes denial worse.

The process of denial in an alcoholic

Often the alcoholic is not aware of the problems and does not see the danger. Common phrases: “I drink when I want,” “I can quit when necessary,” “Everyone drinks” – dive further into the problem of alcoholism.

Over time, our loved one will understand that he has problems, but he will no longer be able to live without drinking. There will be a lot of destruction and scandals in life.

Only relatives see the problem, and the addict does not want to listen to anything. He believes that he can handle it on his own and doesn’t want to change anything. He is happy with everything: “My body is my business.” And these phrases kill loved ones and make them suffer. After all, we see perfectly:

• Problems at work and school, due to tardiness or absenteeism
• Problems with the law: prosecution for being intoxicated in public places, deprivation of a driver's license
• Inability to refuse drinking when needed
• Inappropriate behavior around alcohol
• The desire to drink in the morning to relieve a hangover
• Deterioration of relationships with people
• Irritability and deceit

Denial is an unconscious process; the patient really does not see the problem. This is how the disease works.

Reasons why my husband drinks

The reasons that prompt a man to drink alcohol are psychological in nature. The psyche of representatives of the stronger sex is not able to cope with life's problems, pace, stress.

Alcohol serves as an outlet, an opportunity to temporarily disconnect from the outside world. By causing oxygen starvation of certain parts of the brain, the action of ethanol blocks consciousness, creating an imaginary feeling of euphoria. Reasons for men's craving for a bottle of alcohol:

1. Family alcoholism. Constantly drinking parents create a model of family behavior in children's minds. A grown child becomes an involuntary hostage of the childhood program. By creating their own unit of society, relationships based on alcohol are repeated.
2. Society or “for company”. The tradition of drinking on Friday after work, joint group outings with alcoholic beverages, and the desire to curry favor with superiors forces a man to succumb to the general trend. Unnoticed, alcohol becomes a part of the life of a former teetotaler.
3. Dissatisfaction with family life, low self-esteem, inflated demands of the wife, a tense work environment, weakness of character - encourage a man to temporarily escape responsibility with the help of strong drinks. Binge indefinitely delays the moment of decision-making, dulls the sense of reality, and the resulting feelings of joy, peace, and relaxation encourage you to refill your glass more often.

What not to say

There is no need to persuade, threaten, or appeal to conscience. It is pointless. By engaging in such “rescue”, you waste time, and the addiction progresses. The desire to drink alcohol is always stronger than any persuasion.

Don't force an alcoholic to stop drinking. Alcoholism is a complex multifactorial disease, so it cannot be overcome by force. Forcing you to stop drinking will encourage you to drink even more. You must understand that you cannot force a person not to drink. You can only support him on the path to recovery and help him find help.

Where to get energy from?

A woman must realize how long and difficult the path to restoring the personality of her loved one will be. You won’t be able to protect yourself from stress, but you can try to gather strength and learn to preserve your internal energy. The following can help you cope with stressful situations:

• muscle relaxation in a calm position;
• special practices;
• auto-training;
• yoga;
• pleasant hobbies;
• creation;
• walk outdoors;
• psychological support from friends;
• help from a professional psychologist.

Hotline phone number: 8 (495) 153-98-70

What to say and do

Prepare for the conversation

Prepare for a conversation, preferably with a motivation specialist: narcologist, psychologist, consultant.

• Be prepared not to blame, not to condemn, to avoid moralizing - this causes resistance and worsens the situation.
• Accept that the reaction may not be appropriate. Your loved one is using a powerful psychoactive substance. And even if at first glance he looks normal, there are lesions in the brain and your words can cause aggression.
• Don't start a conversation if your loved one is drunk or feeling frustrated and angry.
• Think about which family member or friend is an authority figure for him. Whose opinion can influence him? It’s great if this person is present during the conversation.
• Create family rules: there is no alcohol in your house - all members must follow this rule. This rule says that the house becomes a sober territory.
• Prepare evidence of inappropriate behavior (photos, videos)

Conversation process

• A good place to start is by expressing your feelings. That you feel pain from your loved one’s behavior. Don't be dramatic, just express your feelings.
• Remind that excessive use has already led to serious consequences. List them.
• Say that you don’t want to see how your loved one ruins his life and you don’t intend to tolerate it.
• Tell him that you are ready to support him in recovery and if he wants to solve something with his problem, you will try to help.
• Voice the prepared rule at home. And indicate that if a loved one wants to use, they should do it not at home.
• Attach prepared evidence of inappropriate behavior to the conversation. Speak factually, not abstractly.

“This behavior caused me great pain. I love you, but I can’t watch you destroy yourself. Due to this situation, we have new rules in our house: 1, 2, 3….” If you don’t want to comply with them and continue your madness, I don’t want to consider you my family. If you want to do something about your problem, I am ready to help you. But if you think there is no problem, I am forced to apply sanctions:..."

Methods of dealing with husband's alcoholism

Treating alcoholism is a labor-intensive process. The difficulty lies in a conscious approach to the need for assistance from the husband and wife.

A man must clearly understand the significance of the procedures being carried out and have an unshakable incentive to live without alcohol. Eliminating addiction will bring you back to the problems you wanted to get away from. The reason that forces you to undergo treatment will not allow you to abandon the process.

Therapy consists of a complex of medications and psychological support. Folk remedies can help a drinking husband at the initial stage of alcoholism, as additional elements of treatment.

Psychological help

Correcting the emotional background is of paramount importance when eliminating cravings for alcohol. The tasks of the psychologist are:

1. Find out and compensate for the cause of craving for strong drinks.
2. Motivate a man to exist without stimulating the emotional background.
3. Help a person understand the meaning of life, its colorfulness.
4. Tell the reasons, indicate people for whom it is worth quitting drinking.
5. Explain ways to solve problems in various life situations.
6. Form goals for short-term periods that need to be realized.

In the process of raising a man’s self-esteem and self-confidence, psychologists insist on family support. Spouses, children, and relatives are advised to:

1. Remind you of the positive aspects of your beloved man, happy moments of life together.
2. Create an atmosphere of psychological comfort in the house, do not put pressure on your husband, do not blame him for failures.
3. Take up a joint hobby that will bring family members closer and take away thoughts about alcohol. Read, attend cultural events.
4. Family work, building a house, or a dacha contributes to the development of a sense of responsibility for the result and others.

Drug treatment

You can help your husband stop drinking with medication. Treatment with medications is carried out under the guidance of a doctor on an outpatient basis and at home. Complex therapy includes several stages:

1. Reducing toxic effects on the body, cleansing alcohol breakdown products. They use intravenous drips with drugs such as saline solution, “Disol”; "Acesol", "Reamberin", "Methusol". Tablet forms of succinic acid, Glutargin, and Zorex are also effective.
2. Withdrawal syndrome causes the patient to experience attacks of headache, nausea, insomnia, and aggression. To reduce these symptoms, drugs such as Elenium, Lorazepam, Relanium, and B vitamins are prescribed orally or intravenously.
3. Anti-relapse treatment. The purpose of the drugs used is to cause aversion to ethanol drinks, relieve cravings, and eliminate pleasure after drinking. Drinking alcohol during therapy causes a man to experience shortness of breath, increased heart rate, pain in the stomach, nausea, and fear of death. Naltrexone, Acamprostat, Antabuse, and Colme are used.

Medicines are prescribed by a narcologist. The drugs have a number of contraindications and are selected individually, taking into account the patient’s medical history.

ethnoscience

Traditional medicine is based on the use of herbs, infusions, and decoctions. Treatment takes two stages.

When preparing any product, you must strictly follow the recipe. Before use, consultation with a doctor is necessary. Herbs cause allergic reactions in humans.

The first stage of treatment is detoxification of the body after ethanol. Use:

1. Green tea - cleanses the liver and kidneys of harmful elements. The recommended dose is 4 glasses per day.
2. Water regime - drinking enough water is determined by weight: 30 ml per 1 kg of weight.
3. Fermented milk products saturate the intestines with lactobacilli and stimulate the restoration of the gastric epithelium.
4. Rice water or oatmeal kvass - adsorb toxic substances, removing them with feces, envelop the walls of the gastrointestinal tract with a film, and help reduce permeability.
5. Honey drinks with lemon in the morning on an empty stomach stimulate metabolic processes.
6. Bath, sauna.

The second stage is treatment with herbal decoctions and infusions. The goal is to eliminate cravings, cause disgust, and force the man not to drink alcohol. Popular recipes:

1. 3 tablespoons of thyme are poured into a liter of boiling water. After complete cooling, take 1 tablespoon before meals in the morning and evening. To enhance the effect, mix a few spoons into an alcoholic drink.
2. 10 g of crushed licorice root are infused for 2 hours in a glass of boiling water. Drink with green tea 3 times a day.
3. 2 tablespoons of tomato thyme in a water bath in 200 ml of boiling water for 10-15 minutes. Drink the solution cold, 1/3 cup after each meal.
4. 10 g of club moss is poured into 200 ml of boiling water. Let it sit for 10-15 minutes. Used in a mixture with alcohol-containing drinks.

Other herbs that are also effective: bay leaf, lovage, horsetail, centaury, cyanosis root. Diet and proper nutrition support the body during treatment.

The conversation was successful

A successful outcome of a conversation is an agreement to accept help. Start doing something about the problem. We can discuss further actions together. Agree that if the situation repeats, you will begin professional treatment, but will no longer tolerate your loved one’s illness. You can also choose a convenient method of treating your addiction and turn to professionals. This could be inpatient rehabilitation, online sessions with a psychologist, outpatient treatment, or visiting self-help groups.

Keep yourself in check

If, nevertheless, trouble knocks on your home, try to calm down. Emotions overwhelm you, it becomes very difficult to behave correctly. Scandals begin, which, in fact, will only worsen the situation. Those around you also contribute to this: “Oh, why is your guy so drunk?”, “And how do you tolerate it?” and such phrases “help” a lot in aggravating the problem.

Your dreams of a happy marriage have drowned in your husband’s glass, and the “prince” is sleeping, exuding a “pleasant” fume aroma throughout the entire apartment.

Of course, a wave of resentment hits. But here a decision needs to be made. Is it important for you to save your family? Remember the pleasant moments, remember the one you fell in love with a few years ago. Get together, act, fight. Put aside your grievances and don’t take your husband’s harshness while drunk personally. Your happiness is in your hands. This person once made you happy. Give it back.

The conversation didn't go well

The main thing you need to know when having an unsuccessful conversation with an addict is that you are not to blame for anything. This is a disease. You need to mobilize, breathe out and not give up.

The alcoholic must be held accountable if he does not follow previously agreed upon agreements.

Actions must be radical: deprivation of parental rights, denial of residence at home. Depriving the alcoholic of any funding. You are sponsoring an addiction that is destroying your loved one. This is the most difficult moment in a conversation with an alcoholic. Fulfill the conditions you set. You need strength for this. You can receive them by becoming a member of our anonymous telegram chat. There you can anonymously share your problem and find free experience, strength and hope from specialists.

You should not start a conversation if you do not fulfill the requirements.

Some argue that you need to wait until the alcoholic reaches his “bottom.” Maybe this makes sense, but it’s hard to watch a loved one die. If you are reading this article, then your loved one has already hit rock bottom. You don't want to put up with the disease and want to help. Prepare yourself and find the words to talk to your loved one to stop drinking. If you need help and strength, write to me in an anonymous telegram chat by putting @alexandrLeschenko in front of the message.

Main signs of addiction

It is important to understand that alcoholism develops gradually. By seeing the first signs of addiction in time, you can convince a man to overcome his addiction before he turns into a drunkard. In some cases, it’s worth thinking about and suspecting something is wrong:

• the attitude towards alcohol has changed; without it, vacations and holidays are not a joy;
• the man begins to often stay late at work or gatherings with friends, and comes home drunk;
• the husband began to drink much more often and more than usual;
• an alcoholic looks for any excuse to drink;
• during and after intoxication, memory lapses appear;
• aggression towards family and friends appeared.

Understanding from close relatives is critically important for someone suffering from alcohol addiction. Without psychological support, coping with this problem is difficult or even impossible.

How to help my alcoholic husband? Psychologists have clear answers to this question. You should not scold, insult or humiliate an alcoholic. Sometimes wives begin to educate their spouse, especially when they come out of a drinking binge. Such care is harmful and has the opposite effect. Overcontrol, setting excessive demands, and frequent family scandals due to alcoholism only erect emotional barriers between spouses.

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take care of yourself

To be close to an alcoholic means to be codependent on his illness. It is important, from time to time, to be distracted from solving the problems of your loved one. Spend time with friends and rejuvenate. Don't ruin your other relationships by over-solving an alcoholic's problems. You are not to blame for his behavior. Subscribe to our newsletter, add to the chat, read the blog and you will definitely be able to constructively solve your problem.

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Last edited: 08/29/2021
About the author

Providing assistance from family members

There are many cases where alcoholics quit drinking on their own. It is worth considering that if alcoholism is in an advanced form, he denies that he is sick. He remains unconvinced, even after realizing a situation from which it is difficult to get out of his own way. A big role is given to relatives - they should gain strength, patience, help them accept their problem, cope with it on their own, and refuse to drink alcoholic beverages. As practice has shown, such assistance is not superfluous. We need to decide how to create a caring atmosphere for him so that he can gain confidence that he is loved and raise his own self-esteem.

A situation is possible when guilt and a feeling of shame arise. This process is difficult to control; many believe that it is not worth interfering. If it is impossible to achieve a result in any way, you can consult a psychologist. This is an important topic and requires specialist advice. You can't leave everything to chance. If necessary, in some situations, the patient needs constant care; you need to monitor what he did, decided and whether there is an improvement in his physical and moral well-being. Hobbies help, change the rules of a given family, add more responsibilities around the house. There are many means of achieving it, you need to look at his behavior, take into account his real desires, you should take into account the possibility of a relapse.

When deciding to return to social society, an alcoholic who has quit drinking must understand that he was on the brink and can now expect only good things from the future. With effective treatment and voluntary cessation of bad habits, you can live happily without various abuses.

Author of the article: Yakovlev Evgeniy Anatolyevich

Narcologist, Candidate of Medical Sciences.

What are the dangers of quitting alcohol?

The first stages of abstinence from alcohol can be very painful and place significant stress on the body.

When you give up alcohol, alcohol withdrawal is detected, which manifests itself:

• worry and anxiety;
• insomnia;
• dizziness and headache;
• nausea and indigestion;
• increased blood pressure;
• pain in the joints;
• arrhythmia;
• increased heart rate (it feels like your heart will jump out of your chest);
• attacks of panic attacks.

Only a doctor can choose the optimal remedy to eliminate unpleasant symptoms. Each body is individual, and what alleviates the condition of one person can lead to a significant deterioration in the health of another. Therefore, you should not self-medicate, especially since withdrawal can cause delirium tremens, which often ends in death. If the above symptoms appear, you must promptly contact the clinic for help. Private medical centers provide treatment anonymously.