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If this happens, a properly organized intervention may be needed. There may be many reasons why someone is hesitant to seek help — from lack of awareness to stigma and shame. Sometimes, a person’s https://ecosoberhouse.com/ personality can influence their tendency for denial. Certain traits, such as independence and perfectionism, can add to a person’s hesitancy or reticence to seek help, says Grawert.
In other cases, you may know, either because the employee admits to being an alcoholic, or the problem is self-evident. For example, an employee may become intoxicated while on duty or be arrested for drunk driving. Your role in dealing with alcoholism in the workplace is crucial. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), nearly 14 million Americans (1 in every 13 adults) abuse alcohol or are alcoholics. Several million more adults engage in risky drinking patterns that could lead to alcohol problems. The costs to society in terms of lost productivity, health care costs, traffic accidents, and personal tragedies are staggering.
Avoid the soapbox when talking to an alcoholic.
They’re not drinking, but they’re white-knuckling it through the week with the expectation of binging as soon as they clock out on Friday. Someone who is high-functioning uses drinking to cope with unpleasant emotions or stressful situations. They may be able to go several weeks—or even months—without drinking under the right circumstances. However, when something triggers the urge to drink, they can easily spiral back into drinking on a nightly basis. Even if your loved one stopped drinking, the original cause of the drinking would need to be addressed – and if they knew how to do that without alcohol, they probably would have done so to begin with. It is important to immediately and accurately document in writing what has transpired.
Along with this, however, the body becomes used to these amounts of alcohol and now suffers from withdrawal when the alcohol is not present. In the workplace, there is likely to be little or no obvious impact on the alcoholic’s performance or conduct at work. At this stage, the alcoholic is not likely to see any problem with his or her drinking and would scoff at any attempts to indicate that he or she might have a problem.
Denial as a Symptom of Alcoholism
It is important to be specific about the problems in the employee’s performance and conduct and the particular incidents of concern. It might be helpful how to help an alcoholic in denial to rehearse this or at least go over the documentation with the EAP counselor. Your friend or loved one may also vow to cut back on their own.
Twelve Step meetings provide the opportunity for a newly sober person to find a substitute for their drinking. In programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholics can replace an unhealthy network of drinking buddies with a group of authentic, recovering friends. They’ll learn what it means to break old habits, how to take new and better action, and to live by spiritual principles (think honesty, responsibility, integrity, and humility). Supporting an alcoholic by taking them to a meeting can be beneficial to their recovery. If your loved one is struggling with addiction but refuses treatment, you might feel helpless, scared, and frustrated. There’s no magic formula for how to get someone to go to rehab.
Fear of Treatment
Have the conversation in a place where you know you’ll have quiet and privacy. You’ll also want to avoid any interruptions so that you both have each other’s full attention. Make sure your person is not upset or preoccupied with other issues.
- Families are often able to change their behaviors of enabling and codependency.
- What might look like denial may actually be a lot more complicated and multilayered for people with high-functioning AUD.
- When you are looking for what to say to a loved one when they arein denial, it doesn’t always go the way we planned.
Be aware of the common forms of denial, and consider whether they are familiar to you. Addiction can be a never-ending cycle because addictive substances are both the comfort and the problem for the person who is addicted to them. Denial is when someone ignores, downplays, or distorts reality. You may use denial as a way to protect yourself from having to see, deal with, or accept the truth about what’s happening in your life. Accepting unacceptable behavior usually begins with some small incident that you brush off with, “They just had too much to drink.” But the next time, the behavior may get a little worse and then even worse. You might slowly begin to accept more and more unacceptable behavior.
There is no clear line between the early and middle stages of alcoholism, but there are several characteristics that mark a new stage of the disease. Many of the pleasures and benefits that the alcoholic obtained from drinking during the early stage are now being replaced by the destructive facets of alcohol abuse. The drinking that was done for the purpose of getting high is now being replaced by drinking to combat the pain and misery caused by prior drinking. If the employee is willing, he or she may be sent to the health unit for observation or a possible assessment. Health unit personnel may be able to offer a medical judgment that, in their opinion, the employee is intoxicated.