Living With an Alcoholic Spouse? Here Are Four Options To Consider

Even though they may want to stop, many functioning alcoholics often won’t know where or how to begin the process. This is where family, friends and medical professionals can work together to create a plan to help end this cycle before they do more harm to themselves. People can have a varied reaction and tolerance to alcohol and that doesn’t necessarily mean they are alcoholics. However, as functioning alcoholics drink more regularly, they develop a higher tolerance.

Not only does alcohol addiction, or alcohol use disorder (AUD), affect those who have it, but it can also have significant effects on their interpersonal relationships and households. Most crucial, don’t make excuses or cover up for your loved one’s bad behavior. Attempting to shelter them from their responsibilities would only prevent them from seeing the destructive repercussions of https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/dealing-and-leaving-with-an-alcoholic-souse/ their drinking, potentially delaying their decision to seek treatment. There is no set threshold for someone diagnosed with an alcohol use disorder. Instead, it’s defined by how drinking affects the life of someone you care about. Over time, a history of binge drinking can cause lasting damage to regions of the brain that control how you perceive pleasure and exercise self-control.

The don’ts of talking to your alcoholic partner about their drinking

If you’re concerned for your safety, you should immediately make a plan to leave. Trust your instincts — there’s a reason you’re worried. And don’t convince yourself that it will only happen one time. If your partner has gotten drunk and hurt you, there’s a very high probability they’ll do it again. Talking to an addiction counselor can help you better understand the situation and work through your feelings. Programs like Al-anon, Alateen and Families Anonymous offer opportunities for emotional support.

If someone close to you is a high-functioning alcoholic, it’s just as important to seek support for yourself as it is to get help for your loved one. You likely have questions about how to deal with an alcoholic, or how to help an alcoholic. Self-help organizations, church groups, and 12-step programs like Al-Anon and Alateen offer advice, hope and encouragement to people involved with functioning alcoholics. High-functioning alcoholics will rarely admit that they have a problem. But if someone in your life has three or more alcoholic beverages per day (two or more for women), they are consuming more than the recommended amount.

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We even hear now about how you can donate a lobe of your liver to someone and you can grow them a whole new liver for transplantation. Cirrhosis, the term is for the amount of scarring and damage to the liver from alcohol that is considered irreversible. And so there is kind of a point where it’s too much to recover from. And so that fatty liver, the steatosis, the scarring, the fibrosis, those things can be identified earlier and those you can recover from a lot of the time. And especially as soon as you stop drinking, the fatty liver and that kind of stuff can start to resolve. The liver can regenerate and go back to functioning the way it wants to.

The type of relationship you have with the person with alcoholism often affects how his or her disease affects you. Instead, seek emotional support from those around youYou’ve taken up the challenge to help a loved one become https://ecosoberhouse.com/ sober. There are others who have been through what you’re experiencing. If you know of no one to reach out to, try 12-step programs, like the Al-Anon, which are designed for family members and friends of alcoholics.

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In reality, an alcoholic spouse will likely not get better on their own, so doing nothing is not a wise option. For those dealing with alcoholism, giving up alcohol may be one of the hardest decisions they’ll ever make. Often, alcohol is used as a coping mechanism to deal with feelings or experiences that are too difficult to face. Navigating how to discuss your concerns with the person with whom you live can be difficult. And it’s hard to know how best to support them while also making sure you’re paying attention to your own wants and needs. Liver damage is the most talked about physical consequence and that is a concern almost immediately.

The scapegoat is an outlet for the family to direct some of their anger and frustration while neglecting the real problem. The addict is the person who is engaging in addictive behavior and becomes the focus of the family and main source of stress. Codependency is a psychological condition or relationship where a person has an unhealthy attachment to another person, who is often controlling or manipulative. The person who is codependent may have low self-esteem and a strong desire for approval from others. It might be hard to hear, but if your loved one isn’t getting better and has no interest in doing so, it might be time to leave.