Hello, My elder brother is addicted to alcohol, he eats Gutkha and also smokes, he has this habits since 10 years now, he is now married for 3 years and have no kids, he became very weak and his head shakes all the time due to weakness we are very much worried and want him to get rid of this bad habits of alcohol, we have asked him to quit this habits but he won't listen. We do not want his wife life to get spoiled because of him. We want him to lead a healthy life. Please help.

Dr. Saul PereiraPsychologist47yrs exp

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Both of them are orally ingested habits of alcohol and gutkha and so quitting can be a little difficult but can be done at one time. There are no guarantees about stopping one?s addiction. But that does not mean we should not keep at it, over and over again until we succeed. Now it is difficult to give up all by himself because he has become addicted to alcohol and gutkha and there is so much to do. Under such circumstances it is best that he is admitted into a de-addiction center and stay there for at least 6 months and after that he can attend counseling with a professional. Since he has probably tried and found it extremely difficult I suggest he does one of the following: It sounds like he is in an advanced stage of alcoholism and gutkha use and needs admission to a rehabilitation center to ideally help deal with this problem. There are medicines that help with the drinking just to ease the initial craving and to act as an antabuse i.e. He will have a serious reaction, if he consumes even a small quantity of alcohol or alcohol based substances. It has to be carefully monitored to see that he does not only consume the medication but is also avoiding alcohol. Ultimately, it is his will power and the support that he receives from the medical fraternity and his close and dear ones. He must also learn to substitute and deal with the oral need, a rigid value system, the script issue, and of course take a look at all the genetic factors to plan a strategy not to get into what is called ?cross addictions? i.e. Another form of addiction that may appear alright but is in fact as bad as the primary addiction. The center or hospital and the counselor will advise and guide him on several measures and precautions he will need to take to stay with his resolve. Even after the rehabilitation he must attend AA meetings and continue this support for a long time. The family will also need to attend some sessions and go for Al-anon meetings for their co-dependency issues. He cannot be treated in isolation because the family has gotten used to his drinking in particular and have made some unhealthy adaptations to somehow cope.  

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