I am looking for advice for my 82 year old father. He lives with my mother in  NJ and for a number of years has been suffering from drug addiction/dependency for years. He is currently buying prescription drugs from the internet and so I don’t know what he is taking but it involves Ambien  abuse. He previously had been dependent on Oxycontin and has now come ‘off’ that after the doctor he had been getting it from is no longer his practitioner. His says that he suffers from back and stomach pain and has been given all sorts of tests by doctors but not really diagnosed with anything definitely other than scoliosis and arthritis. My mother is way over her head and his is abusive towards her. He is also showing signs of dementia (not knowing where is his or remembering things he has done) and is still driving, ehich I consider a danger to himself and others.

I currently live in Ireland and they have both come to visit this week. It has been a year since I have seen him and I am shocked at his deterioration. I have had to ask them to leave my house and go to a hotel as my father’s behaviour is frightening and cannot be tolerated in front of my children. My mother is ineffectual when it comes to monitering his drug intake as she end up giving into his abusive demands for his pills.  So in fact she is enabling him and under a lot of stress herself.  He needs some serious help and I need to support my mother to be strong enough to find him the help he needs when they return to New Jersey next week.  I have no other siblings and they don't have a close group of friends to support them through this.

HELP

Can you give me someplace to start? I need to k now if it is possible to have him committed if he will not go willingly (which he probably won’t) and how I can prove that he is a danger to himself and others.