Support for Families and Friends

By the time family members ask this question, the drinker has usually crossed over from occasional alcohol abuse to actual alcohol dependence.

The disease of alcoholism affects everyone in the family whether they realize it or not.

The following questions are designed to help you decide whether or not your actions and reactions to the alcoholic might be enabling instead of helping.

Millions of people are affected by the excessive drinking of someone close. The following questions, from Al-Anon Family Groups, are designed to help you decide whether or not you need Al-Anon.

Is your love one an alcoholic or merely a problem drinker or alcohol abuser. These 20 questions might give you an indication if it has progressed to the alcohol dependence stage.

Having any member of your family in rehab for drugs or alcohol means that you're inevitably facing and perhaps even struggling with a lot of concerns, questions and maybe some misconceptions about how professional treatment works.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has unveiled the first practical guide for substance abuse treatment counselors to incorporate family therapy techniques into substance abuse treatment.

As the saying goes, you are not the cause of someone else's drinking problem, you cannot cure it and you can't control it. But there are ways that you may be contributing to the problem.

What is the best way to react to the situation? How do you react when the alcoholic has pulled another one of his stunts?

Some of the topics that seem to be of most interest to those who are newcomers to Al-Anon Family Groups, or who want to learn more about the program.

This unfortunately is a true story about how many lives one alcoholic can affect, and how alcoholism can spiral into a full-fledged family disease.

What efforts have you made to try to get someone that you care about to stop drinking?

Though it may be hard to admit it, do you think you could – intentionally or not – be playing a role in the life of an alcoholic?

Most people who come in contact with the inappropriate behavior of an alcoholic will simply walk away. But for many others it is not so simple.

It took only three months for the cycle of violence to go from the making up stage through the building up of tension, and finally to an outburst of violence.

Don't worry, he whispers, it will never happen again. I promise.

Because of the insidious nature of alcoholism, alcoholics and even those around them sometimes do not notice that their behavior has slowly grown more extreme and unacceptable.

Experience, strength, and hope on the topic enabling, shared in an online meeting.

Before I came into Al-Anon the concept of being powerless was totally foreign to me.

When alcohol begins to take more and more control of their lives, many alcoholics find themselves making promises that they cannot keep, buying things they cannot afford, and signing contracts they cannot possibly fulfill.

When we last visited David and Glenda, they had just repeated the cycle of violence again and were in the break-up stage, cancelling a long-planned family vacation.

Research shows that alcoholism affects both the time it takes to get married in the first place, as well as how long the marriage lasts.

When someone who has an addiction passes away, the grieving process for those who are close to the addict or alcoholic can be particularly difficult, because the survivors are always left with the "what if" questions.