How to deal with an alcoholic husband and restore family life

In this article we will tell you:

10 signs of alcoholism in men
Basic rules for dealing with an alcoholic husband
Features of living together with an alcoholic husband
Tips for communicating with your husband after coding
Signs of codependency
Is it worth living with an alcoholic husband?

Alcohol addiction is not only a disease, but also a serious test for loved ones. Adherents of the green serpent deny that they are sick and sometimes behave inappropriately, endangering their loved ones. Life with such people is very difficult.

The hardest thing is for the wives. They are forced to put up with circumstances, being unable to change the situation. How to behave with an alcoholic husband so that family life becomes more harmonious? How to avoid becoming codependent, and isn’t it better to file for divorce? The answers to these difficult questions are further in the article.

Basic rules for dealing with an alcoholic husband

How to deal with an alcoholic husband? Let's look at a few basic rules.

Don't threaten the police or leaving the house.
It is necessary to have a firm position and avoid ambiguity in your words and actions.
There is no need to get into an argument with an alcoholic, especially if he is drunk.
It is necessary to speak in calm tones, but at the same time insistently.
There is no need to engage in “pro-life” conversations with an alcoholic, especially if they are full of negativity.
You should not reproach him or swear.
You cannot hide alcohol or pour alcohol into the sink in front of him.

You need to understand that alcoholism is a disease that sometimes cannot be cured on your own at home. Some patients behave quite aggressively and can do irreparable things out of anger, so you should not cause such a reaction with your behavior. Of course, there are also quiet alcoholics, however, you also need to behave calmly and carefully with them.

How to talk to an alcoholic?

The tone should be even and calm.
It is important to remain equanimous.
You shouldn’t engage in persuasion, you need to give arguments and demonstrate facts.
It is important to explain that after recovery a person can return to a normal life without addictions that poison it.
You should not report absolute control over him, demonstrate awareness of what and how much he drank.
There is no need to independently determine the daily dose of alcohol for your husband.
It is important to be honest and open with him.

People living with an alcoholic are usually unhappy. Every day they have to look for ways to solve the problem; many, in despair, give up and go with the flow, watching a loved one go downhill. However, you can try to look at the situation from a different angle. Look at yourself not as hunted animals with no options for action, but as fighters who have a goal - to rid a man of addiction.

Of course, talking alone cannot help an alcoholic, but he needs to make it clear that he has two prospects: to drink himself and lose everything, or to recover and return to the life of a healthy person, husband, father with all its joys and self-control.

Life on the edge

After you have made a firm decision that you need to stop drinking, it is advisable to outline a plan on how to get rid of your addiction. It is necessary to control the patient's behavior. This is necessary so that it does not break.

It is during this period that you need to be closest to the patient. Try to talk to him more, go out into nature, go to museums, parks, theaters, admire the sights.

How should relatives of a recovering alcoholic behave? We need to encourage any changes in a positive direction and rejoice in his small victories together.

Features of living together with an alcoholic husband

Many women are lost, give up, not knowing how to behave with an alcoholic husband. A psychologist's advice can guide your companion's behavior in the right direction. First, you need to convey to the man that he has a problem that only he himself can solve. At the same time, it is important to demonstrate support, readiness and desire to help, the desire to be there no matter what. Experts note that you need to show a man his importance to his family and friends. In the process of getting rid of addiction, it is necessary to captivate the person with some interesting things that will occupy his time and attention.

Of course, all this can affect a person only if he has not yet developed a persistent alcohol addiction. Otherwise, only a narcologist can help, provided that the patient himself is ready to be treated. This is the key point. Denial of the problem and lack of desire to get rid of the disease nullifies all the efforts of relatives. In such a situation, it is not worth wasting your time trying to save someone who does not need it. It is better to leave the person and move on with your life without him.

Practical psychology: is the wife of an alcoholic a victim or an accomplice?

In order to deal with any problem, you must first understand and understand its origins, as they say, find out the ins and outs, otherwise all efforts and efforts will be wasted, and you will only experience disappointment and emptiness inside from powerlessness and misunderstanding. Therefore, psychologists have invented a wonderful term - codependency, which must be properly assessed, since it is extremely capacious and accurate. Moreover, this is not even a term, which is a definition completely inapplicable to life, but a real diagnosis, exactly the same as alcoholism.

Need to take into account

Professional psychologists have long since agreed on a common opinion, which would not hurt the wives of alcoholics to find out. No one can ever help an addict in any way unless or until he sincerely wishes to do so. Therefore, the question of how to cure an alcoholic without his desire completely loses its relevance, remaining at the rhetorical level, which does not have and does not require an answer.

Choosing behavioral tactics

The problem must be voiced, informing everyone who can influence the person and bring him back to life. After talking with people who are important to the alcoholic, whose words have weight for him, he can think about what is happening.

When a person is drunk, there is no need to bring down all your anger on him - it is useless and even dangerous. You just need to put him to bed. It’s worth waiting for sobriety to talk about painful things. You cannot remain silent about the problem; it is important to convey to the alcoholic how much stress he plunges the whole family into, how unhappy he makes loved ones. Perhaps this will make him change his mind.

It is important to talk about the problem, but you should not do it all the time; it is advisable to choose some frequency. Forcing an alcoholic to seek treatment or quit drinking is a bad strategy.

Psychologist's recommendations for women

Psychologists recommend that a woman who is the bride of an alcoholic, first of all, love herself and ask herself, does she want such a life? If not, then you need to learn to satisfy, first of all, your interests, and not the interests of others. It is also recommended that brides of alcoholics undergo a short training. It consists of asking yourself 2 simple questions. It is better to write down the answers to them on paper, but you need to answer as honestly as possible for yourself.

Where am I going? It implies a woman’s life goal, her plans, what she would like to see herself in the future, what she would like to see her family like, what she would like to achieve in life.
Who am I going with? He suggests reconsidering your surroundings, thinking about what place in society the main companion in life occupies.

If, answering these questions, a woman feels unhappy and understands that she will suffer in the future, then such a marriage will not bring happiness and joy to either spouse. And only after a woman honestly answers these 2 questions, she must choose whether to continue this relationship and endure everything that awaits her ahead, or does she want the life that she described when answering the first question!?

In any case, there is always a choice, and the main thing is to choose the right, thoughtful decision so as not to become that same victim.

Setting an ultimatum

Some experts say drastic action is needed. The main thing is to end the relationship with the alcoholic. Intimidation and threats will get you nowhere. If you promise to leave, but don't leave, the person stops being afraid. But real care can make him think. Usually in such a situation, the man asks his wife to return, promising to quit the bad habit. The main thing here is not to take your word for it, but to give an ultimatum: if you don’t give up alcohol, don’t start treatment, the marriage will end.

Psychoses

These are disturbances in the mental activity of a dependent person, developing at stage II or III of the disease. All psychoses are divided into several varieties.

Hallucinosis

Psychosis that develops during periods of hangover or prolonged drinking bouts.

A person orients himself in time and place.
The patient is clearly conscious.
Rare visual and tactile hallucinations, predominance of auditory hallucinations. Such manifestations are accompanied by attempts to run away and hide from danger.
Persecution mania.
Low emotional background – fear, gloominess, gloominess.
Arming with items for protection.
Attacking others in an attempt to avoid perceived aggression.

Delirium

Psychoses that occur during alcohol withdrawal.

Patient behavior:

Excitement, aggressiveness.
Lack of orientation in time and space.
Aversion to alcohol.
A sharp change in mood - joy is replaced by melancholy and depression.
Tremor of the limbs.
Restless sleep.
Hallucinations.

Peter the Great fought against drunkenness in a special way: everyone who distinguished himself received a special order, the weight of which exceeded 7 kg, and wore it without taking it off for at least a week.

Panic attacks

Seizures that occur after excessive drinking of alcohol.

Behavioral norms:

Inexplicable fear.
Nervous excitability.
The patient complains of poor condition, feels alternating heat and cold, trembling, and fainting.

Paranoid

Psychosis characterized by acute, subacute or chronic delusional disorder.

Patient behavior:

Systematic delusions with a predominance of negatively colored emotions - jealousy, persecution, poisoning.
Lack of adequate assessment of reality.
Incontinence, anger, or, conversely, lethargy.
Lack of control over the ethics and morality of one’s own behavior.

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Depression

A condition that occurs during alcohol withdrawal.

Behavioral norms:

Melancholy, irritability, mood swings, tearfulness.
Blaming others for indifference.
Acute feelings of guilt and inferiority.

Antabuse psychosis

A severe form of mental disorder that occurs during treatment of an alcoholic with certain drugs.

Behavioral norms:

Manic state.
Confused consciousness.
Paranoid and hallucinatory disorders.

Tips for communicating with your husband after coding

Encoding does not guarantee a complete cure, so it is important to support the person and monitor him.
Support does not mean that you need to praise him like a child all day long. A person must independently realize the importance of a healthy lifestyle.
You should not bring up the past, especially in front of friends and family. What happened, happened. The person has undergone treatment and is ready to improve.
No matter how difficult it may be, it is necessary to establish healthy contact with your husband, not torment him with your suspicions, and re-build a trusting relationship.
Alcohol should completely disappear from the life of the family, from the home, even if the rest of its members do not have problems with alcohol.

How do husbands behave when they drink?

Before you sound the alarm, you need to understand what type your husband is - a drunkard or an alcoholic. It would seem that the difference between these concepts is small, but it is also quite significant.

So, for example, a drunkard is a person for whom alcohol acts as a reliable and always effective antidepressant. It helps you relax. But if he wants, he can stop drinking on his own, and to do this he just needs to want to.

But the alcoholic is a husband with a developed dependence on strong drinks and he himself is no longer able to quit. Here you need qualified help from a narcologist. He gets drunk even from a small dose of alcohol, his consciousness becomes clouded, and his speech becomes slurred.

It is better to prevent the second stage, and therefore, if at least one of the symptoms of alcohol dependence appears, it is better to seek help from a specialist.

It will help if a person has been on a drinking binge for too long.

It could be:

My husband began to drink more and more often.
After the feast, you began to notice slight lapses in his memory.
He definitely needs a hangover in the morning. This has already become a tradition.
On weekends, he relieves stress with the help of alcohol.
With all attempts to help or talk, the husband begins to behave aggressively.
He made new friends and his lifestyle changed.
After a few shots of alcohol, his mood completely changes.

Note! Before you begin to act in any way, you need to understand that your husband has a serious illness. He is sick, he needs your help to get out of this state.

Signs of codependency

Codependency, in the context of all that has been said, is the behavior of loved ones of an alcoholic in which they begin to adjust their lives to his behavior. Family members stop behaving the way they are used to and coordinate their schedules with the rhythm of the alcoholic’s life.

Often a woman is fully confident that the power of her love, determination and will can influence her husband and help him cope with the disease. However, it is clear to everyone around that this is not so. It is possible to help only those who want it themselves.

You can spend the best years of your life trying to pull your alcoholic husband out of the hole in which he is diligently burying himself - controlling every step, hiding or pouring out alcohol, suffering. Looking back, the vast majority of women who did all this understand that their efforts were in vain, and they had to leave almost immediately.

What happens to the nervous system of an alcohol addict?

It may seem that lovers of “fire water” are quiet drinkers who only think about where to get the next bottle and “drink.” Actually this is not true. Alcohol lovers, completely ignoring the generally accepted rules of coexistence in society, invade the space of relatives, friends, and acquaintances. They do not plan such actions - the “green snake” leads to degradation: physiological processes in the brain are disrupted, including social skills. In other words:

nerve signals are transmitted differently than normal;
neurons malfunction;
neurotransmitters are produced with disturbances.

Assumptions that a drunkard can be brought to the path of truth through persuasion alone are incorrect. The central nervous system is the same material as other organs and tissues. Resuming its work in case of severe disorders without resorting to treatment is like trying to persuade a stomach ulcer to disappear, and “healing” a fracture with a lecture on the importance of movement.