This article is about the experience of nursing a schizophrenic alcoholic who is frequently admitted as a result of delusions, alcohol abuse and violence. The client suffered unsatisfied basic needs, poor disease control, and lack of an effective family support system, causing indifference, poor interpersonal interaction, refusal to participate in activities, and feelings of self-abandonment and despair for the future. We utilized the strategies of maintaining relationships, experiencing success, promoting self-control, and finding meaning, to evoke feelings of hope on the part of the patient and enhance interpersonal relationships. We also helped the patient to modify his pattern of family interaction, raise the level of support that he enjoyed from his family, release his emotions, change from passivity to pro-activity, participate in the control of his disease, use all the resources available to him, accept his self-limitations, and find a focus and a goal in life.