Q: My wife’s cousin came over for a holiday dinner with our family. All of us love him until about the fourth beer. Once the alcohol starts to pile up, he gets belligerent and all of that fun degenerates into sarcasm and dark humor. He has managed to stumble through just about all of our family holiday times, he has discouraged our family reunions and two of his sisters refuse to have him over to their house. Both my wife and I would like to get him to stop drinking but we have no idea how to go about it. What do you suggest?
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A: I hope that you will always encourage your wife’s cousin to stop drinking and support him if and when he commits to his recovery but you must always remember that the decision to stop drinking is his and his alone.
You can try to talk him into signing on for a treatment program, and even pay for it, or you can encourage him to start attending Alcoholic Anonymous meetings, but that is about as far as it goes.
Unless he is committed to his own recovery, the odds for success are limited. Talk to some of the people involved with one of your local AA groups. They might have some ideas to help you encourage Bob to stop drinking but they too have to admit to a certain helplessness without Bob’s own determination to reconstruct his life.
You could try joining with your wife’s sisters and prohibit him from attending whatever it is that your family is planning but that has only limited value.
The other option is to simply run alcohol-free activities. You can have fellowship without alcohol.
