What to Do When All Members of A Family are Alcoholics?

Hello,one of my siblings is an alcoholic and she is getting progressively worse with age (she's 54). The problem is that her spouse is also an alcoholic and her two children, in their 20's, drink excessively and I would refer to them as alcoholics also.

Her husband and two children are also bipolar and being treated with medication. My sister also has pathology but has never been diagnosed. My educated guess is that she has a Personality Disorder (I am educated in the health care field).

Obviously, you cannot have an intervention with an entire family but I'm at a loss as to what to do. I'm watching this "house of cards" rapidly collapsing and I don't know what to do. Thank you.

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Alcoholism-and-Drug-Addiction-Help.com Answer

Unfortunately sometimes there isn't a lot you can do. Who in your sister's family is the most responsible and holding it together best? Because then when that person is sober, you could try and have an honest and open conversation with them and gauge whether they want to do something about their own alcoholism, and then perhaps also become an ally in convincing the rest of the family to do so as well.

It is a long shot, but perhaps if you hit the right emotional triggers, like what the consequences are to the family, the kind of legacy being left etc. - it might serve as a wake-up call to someone in the family, and if one person wants to start doing something about their alcoholism, in time others may follow.

But as I'm sure you no doubt know all too well, if no one wants to do anything about their alcoholism or don't believe their problem is serious enough to warrant doing anything about - in reality there is very little you can do.

You never know though, maybe there is one person in that family who actually would like a way out and wants to make serious changes with their life, so reaching one is better than none at all. And sometimes once you get through to one and the rest of the family see how that person is transformed, then more will follow.

At the end of the day though, what others decide to do with their lives is outside of our control. We can try and persuade others to change and even offer to help, but if they don't want to because the desire isn't really there, our hands are unfortunately tied.

Best of Luck ... hopefully there is at least one person in the family you can get through to.

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