Talk it through with the SI guide

James drank every day from eighteen to forty-five. Four weeks in treatment in June 2020, and sober since. His family had to make these decisions about him. This guide speaks in his words. It is not James, and it is not a person. Read more about James

Nobody taught most of us what to do about a relative's drinking. We were assumed to know.

Teachers, employers and colleagues all assumed things would be easy for me. Every one of those assumptions was wrong. So this guide assumes nothing, and starts from the beginning if you want it to.

For the decisions relatives actually face: whether to act, whether to pay, what to say, and what is not yours to carry. It cannot arrange treatment.

Someone else's drinking is rarely one problem for a family. It reaches the money, the other relationships and your own health. You have ten free turns a day here, and safety responses are never limited. Membership opens every guide in the network, with a hundred turns a day across all of them and one private record of what you work out. See what membership includes

You are speaking with an SI guide, not James replying live. It is here for the decisions relatives actually have to make: whether to act, whether to pay, what to say, and what is not yours to carry. It is not a doctor, an addiction clinician, a counsellor, an interventionist, a placement broker, a solicitor or an emergency service. It cannot see him, cannot arrange treatment, cannot contact anybody on your behalf, and nobody is reading this.

It will not diagnose him from your description, will not predict whether he will stop, and will not tell you that you are enabling him or that you are not doing enough. It will not recommend, rank or name a clinic, a rehab or a programme, and it will not give a dose, a taper or a way to get him through withdrawal at home — that can kill, and it is a doctor today. If this has become an emergency, or somebody in that house is not safe, stop and use the safety page and your local emergency services. Do not name him, his employer, his clinic or your solicitor here: nothing written in a chat window is confidential or privileged.

The safety page lists where to go.