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What to do if you Suspect your Elderly Parent Is Abusing Alcohol

By Jill Gonzalez

Age is certainly not a significant factor when trying to determine whether someone you know has a drinking problem. People of all ages are susceptible to developing an addiction to alcohol, and people from their teens to their 80s routinely indulge in alcoholic beverages for one reason or another.

But studies have shown that alcohol has a more profound effect on the elderly than it does on younger members of the population. This is quite significant, particularly since about 2 million senior citizens use alcohol on a regular basis to deal with grief or loneliness and they often don’t seek out needed alcohol addiction treatment.

Many assume that as people get older, they drink less alcohol, but this is not necessarily the case. As people age, they not only have to deal with increasing health issues, they have to deal with the loss of loved ones. Many elderly individuals become more isolated as they advance through their senior years, and the growing sense of desolation drives many of them to drink alcohol excessively in an attempt to deal with the things that are beyond their control.

Alcohol addictions in the elderly are sometimes quite difficult to pinpoint because the symptoms can frequently mirror other conditions that are common among older adults. Some of the conditions that share symptoms with alcoholism include Alzheimer’s disease, side effects of medications, panic disorder, bipolar disorder, antisocial personality disorder and the general aging process.

Possible Signs of Alcohol Abuse

If you suspect that your elderly parent may be abusing alcohol, there are some signs and symptoms you can look for that will alert you to a potential problem:

• Depression
• Confusion
• Forgetfulness
• Insomnia
• Anxiety
• Memory loss
• Loss of sex drive

Even if you notice one or more of these symptoms in your parent, you might want to take the time to start watching him or her carefully (and more regularly) rather than immediately jumping to a conclusion about alcoholism. It is important that you obtain a good feel for your parent’s condition before you initiate a confrontation. You know your parent well enough to be able to recognize behaviors and patterns that have been present throughout their adult lives versus those that are new and not in keeping with their personality.

Alcohol abuse can not only cause a variety of health problems on its own, it also tends to interfere with a doctor’s ability to be able to diagnose certain medical conditions. For example, because alcohol causes changes in blood vessels, the elderly might not be able to recognize symptoms of a heart attack or other physical ailments.

When to Seek Professional Help

Of course, every elderly person who drinks alcohol does not have an alcohol problem. As a general rule, if you start to notice any of the following behaviors in your elderly parent, you might want to seriously consider obtaining some help:

• Gulps down alcoholic drinks rather than sipping them.
• Develops financial, social or medical problems that have been caused by drinking.
• Lies about or hides drinking habits.
• Feels unreasonable, resentful or irritable when not drinking alcohol.
• Drinks to calm nerves or forget about problems.
• Consumes more than one alcoholic drink per day on a regular basis.
• Hurts him- or herself, or someone else, while drinking.
• Claims to need more alcohol.

Alcohol treatment is normally just as successful with elderly patients as it is with younger ones. The type of alcohol addiction treatment program that is most appropriate for your elderly parent is something that you should discuss with his or her doctor. Doctors can recommend a course of treatment that they believe to be the best option for meeting your parent’s needs. They can also provide advice regarding health and drinking in general, and how your parent’s actions may be interacting with the medications they are currently taking.

If your parent is reluctant to admit to having a drinking problem, and if they are adamantly against talking to a substance abuse professional or doctor about their problems, then you may need to enlist the services of an intervention specialist. A qualified interventionist should be able to talk to your parent and get the lines of communication open. This will help the entire family talk about what is going on with your parent, and will hopefully lead to a positive course of treatment.