My problem is twofold. My mother-in-law is in her mid-70's, has significant health problems, and an out of control addiction to "pain pills and nerve pills". I think she mostly takes Vicodin and Xanax and has a "pain patch" that is also a powerful narcotic. Her health problems are real and irreversable, she has a severe heart condition with lots of old heart muscle damage and two or three damaged vertebraes. Her heart problems prevents her from being a candidate for surgery for the back problem, so chronic pain is always going to be a big part of her life. Also, she was on a ventillator for eleven months after the first major heart attack but has been off for almost two years now, so her breathing is impaired without all the narcotics. She is noncompliant with her breathing treatments, but with all the medicine she's over using it seems she only does what she wants to and she's not inclined to do the nebulizer regularly. My father-in-law is in his 80's and just wants her home with him and their life to go on like normal. He enables her one minute and hides pill bottles the next for fear she'll accidentally overdose. He'll complain about how hard it is to take care of her but won't let any of his children help and refuses to consider putting her in a rehab. He says last time they put her somewhere it took a year and a half to get her home so he thinks she's better off there. The other problem is we live five hours away and find it difficult to get there often enough to make much of a difference even if they would let us help them. My sister-in-law lives ten hours away, another brother-in-law lives fifteen hours away. It leaves everything on the two brothers that live in the same county, but they tell us their parents won't let them do much to help either so we might as well accept it. Anybody have any ideas what we should do?
Adding drug and alcohol abuse to a care-giving situation can be challenging. Connect here with others battling their loved ones' dependency issues.
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