KEY POINTS:
The problems that alcohol causes are heightened at night, at weekends - and especially during the Christmas holiday break.
It is the most difficult time of the year for the grossly intoxicated person to get help.
Doctors, therapists, counsellors and specialists can go home or on holiday, leaving their patients' problems on hold at the office.
We who live with them cannot. They and the problems that excessive alcohol consumption causes are with us day in and day out.
The partners of alcoholics loathe the season of peace on earth and goodwill to all men as they live with a constant brick of dread weighing them down, while trying to maintain a brave mask of normality.
Often the only assistance is the police and partners are reluctant to go down that road for fear of retaliation.
My husband often drank a bit more than most, but in the last 10 years he slowly became what medics described as a chronic alcoholic.
There is a huge chasm between coping with an out-of-control drunk person in the home and getting them admitted to hospital or, even worse, seeing them held in a police cell until partly sober.
And then there is the stress of having the alcoholic appear in court or of being released back to the unfortunate family who may be ill-equipped to cope with the person in that state of health and mind.
Unless major changes occur in the alcoholic's life, unfortunately the pattern repeats itself and escalates with every drinking episode.
What is needed is a safe place for these intoxicated people to go. A place that can monitor their safety and medically assess their individual requirements. A place where they can sober up after a drinking binge or to enter a residential detox programme, if alcohol has become a constant problem.
The police are not equipped to handle this type of problem and nor should they have to. They could spend more time on non-alcohol related crime.
The problems I have faced over the last few years led me to write My Concrete Umbrella. It is a first-hand account of living with a husband addicted to alcohol which was a rollercoaster ride of hope and despair, love and loathing, embarrassment and anger and of dreading each day.
I was isolated, confused and upset that I was not doing enough to help him.
Slowly I came to realise that I was always the one wanting him to change.
He saw no reason at all to change his life. He had a good job, a nice home, his meals were cooked for him and his clothes were cleaned. He enjoyed living as he wished, seemingly oblivious to the harm he was inflicting on himself and his family.
You become worn down by the windscreen wiper mentality. The good guy, bad guy, drinking, not drinking, telling the truth, lying, worrying, hoping, please not this time, maybe he will stop or maybe I am going mad - perhaps it is me.
As the drinking got worse the only answer was that I had to be the one to change.
In my book I describe how I reached these conclusions, the choices I made and how I improved my life.
The problems of the alcoholic are ingrained and complicated so a system must be put in place to individually assist them to uncover their problems not just recover. Until we uncover why they drink and self-medicate we will never begin to help them.
Group discussion does not work for everyone. Alcoholics are individuals with unique problems and dilemmas that cause them to travel that road.
Every problem that arises from alcohol needs to be addressed differently from the way we are doing so at present.
If they live long enough, alcoholics go through the court system over and over again and eventually we put them in prison. Few people deal with the core problem.
There is no quick, easy, economical solution. Change takes time and money - money that many would argue should be spent on a perhaps more worthy cause.
That may be so but the cost in accidents, hospitalisation, welfare, police intervention, alcohol-related medical appointments, family breakdown and constant counselling must be immense.
If all of the above fails we build more prisons at the bottom of the cliff.
We must question the effectiveness of how we are treating alcoholics. Are alcohol-related crimes and family problems decreasing?
We are not heading in the right direction by merely ordering more bricks and mortar.
Alcohol dissolves families, jobs, homes, marriages, friendships and health. Being as readily available as milk will only escalate the problem for years to come.
* Cherry Parker is the author of My Concrete Umbrella, an account of of living with a husband addicted to alcohol.
