It’s very difficult to determine if certain people need treatment for alcohol abuse as alcohol abuse symptoms may be difficult to spot. First, you must be able to distinguish between “moderate drinking” and “excessive drinking”. After all, drinking alcohol as an adult is perfectly legal. It’s easy to spot a heroin addict; a person putting the needle in their arm just once needs help. Drinking alcohol is different.
Some people display no obvious alcohol side effects such as slurring or falling down in the street. We can all spot a wino staggering down the street, but the business woman with the briefcase could just as easily have an addiction to alcohol, it’s just not as obvious.
Before anyone can get the appropriate alcohol treatment, they must admit they have a problem. It may be much harder to convince that business woman that she needs alcohol treatment as she has become so used to hiding her alcohol abuse symptoms that she denies they even exist.
Unfortunately, it’s often a drunken driving accident or a fall while drunk that makes people like this see they need help. If you know someone like this, talk to them about getting help before they do something that gets them arrested or they cause an accident while driving drunk. They may not listen, but you wouldn’t be a good friend if you didn’t try.