Dealing with someone who has a drinking problem is exhausting, emotionally draining, and often confusing. You want to help, but nothing you’ve tried seems to work. The most important thing to understand upfront is that you cannot make someone stop drinking. What you can do is change how you respond to their behavior, protect yourself and your family, and create conditions that make it more likely they’ll choose recovery.
Recognizing the Problem Clearly
Before you can deal with the situation effectively, it helps to be honest about what you’re seeing. Alcohol use disorder isn’t just “drinking too much.” It’s a pattern that causes real problems in a person’s life and relationships. Having two or more of the following signs within a single year points to an alcohol use disorder:
- Drinking more, or for longer, than they intended
- Trying and failing to cut back
- Cravings so strong they crowd out other thoughts
- Drinking that interferes with work, school, or home responsibilities
- Drinking in physically dangerous situations (driving, operating equipment)
- Needing more alcohol to get the same effect
- Withdrawal symptoms like shakiness, sweating, nausea, or restlessness when they stop
You don’t need a formal diagnosis to take action. If their drinking is hurting you or your family, that’s enough reason to change the way you handle things.
How to Talk to Them Without Making It Worse
The instinct when you’re frustrated is to confront, accuse, or plead. Those approaches almost always backfire. An evidence-based model called Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT) teaches a different way. The core idea is that you can’t force someone to change, but you can communicate in ways that invite them toward change rather than pushing them into defensiveness.
Timing matters. Never try to have a serious conversation when the person is drunk or hungover. Wait for a calm, sober moment. Use specific, nonjudgmental language about what you’ve observed and how it affects you. “When you missed the kids’ game on Saturday, they were really hurt” lands differently than “You’re always drunk and you never show up.”
Avoid ultimatums you aren’t prepared to follow through on. If you threaten to leave every week and never do, your words lose all weight. Only state a consequence you’re genuinely ready to enforce. The communication skills from CRAFT aren’t just useful for getting someone into treatment. Families consistently report that these skills improve the overall quality of their relationships, regardless of where the person with the drinking problem is in their journey.
Stop Enabling Without Feeling Guilty
Enabling means doing things for someone that they could and should be doing for themselves, especially when those actions allow their drinking to continue without consequences. It’s one of the hardest patterns to break because it often feels like helping. The difference is in the outcome: healthy support encourages recovery, while enabling quietly reinforces the problem.
Common enabling behaviors include:
- Paying their bills or covering debts caused by drinking
- Making excuses for their behavior to friends, family, or coworkers
- Calling in sick to their job on their behalf
- Keeping their drinking a secret from others
- Avoiding the subject entirely to keep the peace
- Setting boundaries but never enforcing them
Stopping these behaviors will feel uncomfortable, even cruel. You may worry that pulling back will cause a crisis. In many cases, that crisis is exactly what pushes someone to finally seek help. Natural consequences (losing a job, getting arrested, damaging a relationship) are often more persuasive than any conversation you could have. Your job isn’t to manufacture consequences, but to stop shielding them from the ones that naturally occur.
Setting Boundaries That Stick
Boundaries aren’t punishments. They’re rules you set to protect your own well-being. A boundary defines what you will and won’t accept in your daily life, and what you’ll do if that line is crossed. The key word is “you.” A boundary is about your behavior, not theirs.
Practical boundaries might include not engaging with your loved one when they’re under the influence, not lending or giving money that could fund drinking, not covering for them socially or professionally, and not sacrificing your own health or sleep to manage their behavior. Each boundary needs a clear, specific consequence attached to it, and you need to follow through every time. Inconsistency teaches the other person that your boundaries are negotiable.
Write your boundaries down. Say them out loud to a therapist, a trusted friend, or a support group before you say them to the person drinking. This makes it harder to back down in the moment when emotions are high and old patterns pull at you.
Protecting Yourself and Your Family
Living with someone whose drinking is unpredictable can become genuinely unsafe. Alcohol impairs judgment and lowers inhibition, which increases the risk of verbal aggression, physical violence, and reckless decisions that affect everyone in the household.
If there’s any history of aggression or volatility, have a safety plan in place. Know where you would go if you needed to leave quickly. Keep important documents (IDs, insurance cards, financial records) in a place you can grab or in a location outside the home. Have a phone charged and accessible. Identify one or two people you could call at any hour.
Financial protection is equally important. If you share finances with someone whose drinking is out of control, consider keeping a separate bank account. Monitor shared bills and credit cards. Avoid co-signing loans or absorbing debts tied to their alcohol use. These aren’t acts of betrayal. They’re basic self-preservation. If the situation involves children or escalating danger, talking to a legal professional about custody or asset protection is a reasonable step.
Considering a Formal Intervention
A formal intervention is a structured conversation where the people closest to someone with a drinking problem gather together, describe how the addiction has affected them, and ask the person to accept a specific treatment plan. It’s not an ambush or an argument. Done well, it’s one of the most powerful tools available.
Planning takes time. The Mayo Clinic recommends assembling a team of four to six people the individual likes, respects, or depends on: close friends, adult family members, perhaps a member of their faith community. Working with a professional interventionist significantly improves the chances of success. The process typically takes several weeks of preparation, not days.
Each participant prepares specific examples of how the person’s drinking has affected them and the relationship. The team also agrees in advance on what each member will do if the person refuses treatment. This isn’t a bluff. If the person declines help, the team follows through. Having a treatment option already researched and ready (a specific program, a bed reserved, insurance verified) removes barriers in the moment. If someone says yes but has to wait three weeks to get in somewhere, that window of willingness often closes.
Treatment Options They Might Encounter
If your loved one agrees to get help, treatment can look very different depending on severity. Mild cases sometimes respond to outpatient counseling and support groups. Moderate to severe cases often require a more intensive program, potentially starting with medically supervised detox. Alcohol withdrawal can be dangerous, even life-threatening in severe cases, so quitting cold turkey without medical oversight is risky for heavy, long-term drinkers.
Three FDA-approved medications can help. One reduces cravings by blocking the pleasurable effects of alcohol in the brain. Another helps stabilize brain chemistry after someone stops drinking, making it easier to stay sober. A third causes unpleasant physical reactions (nausea, flushing) if the person drinks, acting as a deterrent. These medications work best alongside therapy, not as standalone solutions.
Recovery is rarely linear. Relapse rates for alcohol use disorder are similar to relapse rates for other chronic conditions like diabetes or hypertension. A relapse doesn’t mean treatment failed. It means the treatment plan needs adjustment.
Taking Care of Yourself
The person searching “how to deal with an alcoholic” is almost always running on empty. You’ve likely been managing someone else’s crisis for months or years while neglecting your own needs. That pattern is unsustainable.
Support groups like Al-Anon exist specifically for the family members and friends of people with drinking problems. They’re free, widely available (including online), and built around the idea that you deserve help regardless of whether your loved one ever gets sober. Individual therapy, particularly with a counselor experienced in addiction and family systems, gives you a private space to process grief, anger, and the complicated guilt that comes with setting boundaries.
Your mental and physical health will deteriorate if you pour everything into someone else’s recovery. Exercise, sleep, social connection, and time away from the problem aren’t luxuries. They’re what keep you functional enough to handle what comes next. You are allowed to have a life that isn’t defined entirely by someone else’s addiction.