Jo alcoholism is a heart breaking disease, not only is it a physical addiction, but a mental obsession, worst of all it is gangrene of ones soul.
There is hope for every alcoholic out there, but the sad truth of it is the majority of us die from our disease!
The only hope an alcoholic has though is within them selfs, there is not one thing any one can do to help us until we are ready to be helped. There is no amount of love, money, forced detoxes, rehabs, begging, pleading, threats, promises, lose of family, lose of material things, jail or prison time that will bring an alcoholic to sobriety until the alcoholic them selfs wants to be sober more then they want to drink.
We all need to drink enough, I drank enough, it took me 40 years to get full, but I finally had enough, when I had enough I was physically, mentally and spitiually addicted to alcohol! I spent the last 10 years of my drinking trying to recapture what alcohol had given me the first 30 years I drank and I could only attain that feeling for a very short amount of time if at all, but I kept chasing it until I finally became sick and tired of being sick and tired.
I reached the point where a moment of clarity showed me I was going to die if I kept on drinking, I was scared of dying and put out my hand for help at that point....... I had finally had enough to drink, I knew the thrill was gone and would never return. Some of us have that moment of clarity and our soul is so wracked by our disease that we choose to die. It is our choice and ours alone.
An alcoholic is full of pride, we need to be in control of our destiny, no one is going to tell us what is best for us, we determine that for our self. We do not see our selfs for what we have become, we go to our graves most of the time telling and beleiving our selfs when we say to our selfs "I will handle it this time!" "I can stop when ever I want." I am just fine, you just do not understand me!"
Alcohol lies to us, it does not let us see our selfs for what we are, reality has escaped us, we are always trying to do it our way.
Jo I pray you are taking care of your self and not letting your sisters disease ruin your life as well as hers.
Please tell me you have come to accept there is nothing you can do to help your sister except pray and being ready to take her to a detox/rehab when she asks.
Do not even suggest detox, do not point out to her what she has become, most alcoholics will go to thier graves trying to prove to others that they were okay if some one is telling them they are not. It has to be our idea, not yours or anyone elses.
In many ways it is like dealing with a child, if you told me I was drinking to much, well you are wrong and I will prove it by possibly drinking even more just to "SHOW YOU!" It has to be my idea, my decision, not yours or anyone elses.
Interventions are not for the addict or the alcoholic, they are for the family and friends, it allows them to honestly be able to say to them selfs "I tried everything and it did not work, it is time to just accept it is in the alcoholics or addicts hands."
The show intervention burns me up, it gives false hope to families of alcoholics and addicts that they can help by hiring someone to do an intervention. I would love to see that show do a follow up on the ones that had an intervention done a year after the person gets out of rehab.
I know hundreds of alcoholics personally, of those there is only one that an intervention "worked" and he shares that he was ready anyhow, I know a bunch of folks who had interventions done and they were drunk in a month or less after getting out of rehab. Today they are sober because they decided they had had enough to drink, they made this decision usually years after the intervention.