"It's never too early. It's never too late." My mantra to people who are flummoxed by when, whether or how to get between the person they know and the drugs that will destroy that person. Addition kills. Waiting can be a killer. Don't wait.

Yet there's no cookie-cutter design that works all the time to get someone to stop. If it were that easy, I'd have patented the solution for when the parents of a 17-year-old academic all-star son fear he's high on their pain medication. When the human resources director is alerted that her boss drank too much every night he was at the out-of-town sales conference — and he's the CEO. When the perplexed husband finds a bottle of half-empty vodka wedged behind the infant seat in his wife's car. When Mom again passes out after an afternoon game of bridge and it dawns on her adult kids that their assumption is wrong; it isn't only because she's 90. These aren't made up scenarios. In the past few months, they've happened.

I know why these people ask for guidance. With alcohol and other drug problems, misunderstanding, fear and shame are interlaced into a barrier of denial — not just for those who worry but for those they worry for. What usually occurs is people talk around or behind the problem, if they talk about it at all. Meantime, the one in trouble thinks nobody's paying attention, which fosters a twisted misperception that he can get away with it a little longer or, worse, that things are still somehow OK.

This I know is true from my own experience: The addict or alcoholic is usually aware there is a problem before those around them can say there is a problem. Addicts know they drink too much or can't stop using drugs and regret the hangover, the squandered paycheck, the lost opportunities and the damaged relationships. They may even try to alter their intake. But alone, one more attempt is followed by one more failure. Then when they are drunk or high again, there's the medicated allure that somehow it will be different this time.

Rare is it that this unsettling, often intuitive inner awareness translates into a self-directed attempt for help, though there are among us some who needed no cajoling, plea or threat before taking the first step in a new direction. Most people sick with this illness need help to ask for help. And here is where the rest of you come in.

Nothing is more potent than the truth, and when it comes to alcohol or other drugs, reality is the antidote to what blocks people from asking for or seeking help. I believe the most effective way to deliver this truth is by asking, "Can I help you, and do you want help?"

The response may surprise you. Not necessarily right away, because often the addict or alcoholic, when confronted by the harsh starkness of a truth that means there is an alternative to drinking and drugging, may run, or evade or simply deny that help is what he needs. "No!" is a typical reaction, expressed angrily. So are four-letter versions unprintable here, as well as the classic blame-game tactic, which tries to turn it around as if it's somebody else's fault and thus that person's problem.

But what I know, too, is that often addicts and alcoholics aren't asked whether they want help while it is still early and before it is too late. The parents of the med-stealing student, the HR director with the drunk CEO, the husband who found the bottle in his wife's car and the adult siblings with the intoxicated mom never popped the question. They waited. And of course, things have gotten worse.

It's complicated making this transition from the problem of addiction to a sustainable solution. A lot has to change — and stay changed. But it can start with a simple question. Go ahead; ask it. It beats the alternative.

William Moyers is the vice president of public affairs and community relations for the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation and the author of "Broken," his best-selling memoirs. His newest book is "Now What? An Insider's Guide to Addiction and Recovery." Please send your questions to William Moyers at wmoyers@hazelden.org. To find out more about William Moyers and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.