We just got guardianship of my mother in law. It's been a long and frustrating process. She currently lives with a "friend" about an hour away. He told me today that she is out of cigarettes and since I'm her guardian, I need to be the one purchasing more. She shouldn't be smoking. Not only because it's bad for her, but because her dementia makes her smoking dangerous. I just ignored the request for cigarettes at the moment, but I know I will have to confront him about it eventually. Am I "in the right" to tell him that I will not purchase her cigarettes, legally speaking? Our end goal is to get her into a living facility, but that could take a while. We can't afford one for her and we don't think she can afford one on her disability. Until then, I am a little nervous that he will accuse us of neglect.
Technically if you are responsible for her finances as well, and you do have to report to the court where her money is spent and on what to refuse to buy them is financially responsible.
Refusing to buy cigarettes in no way would be considered neglect.
If you have not yet started application for Medicaid begin now, if necessary the lawyer that handled the Guardianship can help.
If her “friend” wants to supply cigarettes that is up to him.
Would you bring an alcoholic liquor? Of course not.
Just last week, a friend of mine who has her MIL living with her had a major fire (luckily in the backyard) at her house. MIL has to go outside to smoke and she simply 'forgot' she was smoking and dropped the cigarette on the lawn. She is a hoarder and my friend was still have panic attacks about what might have been--and what is very much a worry down the road.
Legally, I doubt there is a precedent for refusing to buy her cigarettes.
Smoking is a drug addiction, and with any addiction, it's not easy to quit "cold turkey." You may just create a monster if you take them away.
Now don't get me wrong, I have never smoked, and don't like anything about smoking, but I think there comes a point when we as caregivers have to pick our battles wisely. I'm just not sure this is one battle I would chose to fight at this time.
I don't think you should be worried about 'legal neglect' but about doing what's best for your MIL, and that's not leaving her high and dry with a raging nicotine addiction in force and no idea why she's feeling so poorly and can't have a smoke! Dementia is bad enough without taking away what may be one of her true comforts. If she is on board to quit, at least get her a nicotine patch or an e-cig or something to help ease the horrible withdrawal associated with quitting nicotine cold turkey.
People who love to say ABSOLUTELY NOT to buying an elder their drug of choice must never have had a bad habit themselves that they had a very hard time breaking. Otherwise, that sort of advice would not be handed out so flippantly.
I would imagine your MILs roommate keeps an eye on her to make sure she's using caution when smoking and isn't likely to burn their house down. If it were me, I'd have a chat with the roommate about it, and then buy her some cigarettes or other devices if she's agreeable to quitting.
Good luck.
thank you, Lealonnie for reading this. I always look forward to your posts. Many blessings to you 💓💕
Buy her cigarettes but, don't buy enough for all her friends.
What will you do if the friend decides that he isn't going to take care of her because she is going through withdrawals and is a bear to deal with? You will be responsible for her and if you can't get her into a facility pronto, what is your plan?
I wouldn't risk losing the best thing you have going for you because you now have the power. It could back fire and you will be so sorry that you now have to take care of her or it is neglect by a guardian and that is no joke.
As a guardian you are not responsible to give her any money. You stay within what she brings in monthly.
Medicaid will pay for her to be in Long term care. As her guardian you can have her placed.
Realistically, if she has funds to pay in the short term, you are probably better off keeping her supplied until you can transition her.
Nicotine withdrawal is not a pretty sight. When this happened with a family member, I observed decreased cognitive function, tremors, and a desperate desire for the cigarettes. Desperate people do desperate things.
If you decide to just cut her off, you should at least have a plan to use any resulting crisis to get her into an ER or police-to-psychiatric environment and then into the system for placement during spend down and on to Medicaid.
Is the the act of buying the cigs that you find so unacceptable, or is it the fact that you really can't afford them? It seem to me that if it's mom's vice, then it should be her money that pays for it.
You say that mom only started back up smoking a year ago. Many people quit smoking many times, without permanent damage from withdrawal - my SIL "quit" 3 times, going back each time until the last time when she quit permanently. Her doctor put her on Chantax (spelling?) to help stem the physical symptoms. It really helped her. Maybe you could encourage mom to get on a program to quit, since she did it once before. I know in NYC they'll give smokers anti-withdrawal medications free of charge to help them quit if they can't afford to get them on their own. If mom qualifies, you might want to look into that.
Is the Guardianship because it was deemed your Mother required someone to make decisions for her? Including *financial* decisions? Including *lifestyle* decisions?
If so, then is her friend considered to be her Caregiver? Is the friend 'employed' as such? How does he currently pay for your Mother's expenses? Eg: groceries, rent, utilities? Does he pay upfront & invoice you (as Guardian) for reimbursement or do you (as Guardian) pay directly to the landlord, store & providers?
Seems the friend had been gifting her cigarettes, but enough is enough & his gift ran out. Fair enough.
Who & how are the groceries bought now?
Obviously it would be better not to be smoking.. But if the cigarettes go into the shopping basket with weekly shop... I would treat it like buying donuts. Wholegrain bread would be better.. sure, but you don't have that level of control.
You are correct when you say it presents a risk. So does crossing the street. But I am loathe to rob an elder of yet one more thing. I recall when I quit smoking those many decades ago. I was so depressed I honestly wondered if life was worth living without that cigarette with my a.m. coffee. How much closer she must be to that very thought.
The bigger issue is expecting OP to pay for the butts. NO NO NO NO NO, not with her own money. A 3rd party guardian would never be expected to expend their own money to buy things, neither should a family member who is appointed.
The bigger issue is finding another place for her, until they can get her in a facility. A place that has NO smokers, and get her off them.
Sent with love and care for you…..
If you wish, you can insist on smoke alarms and/or that she cannot be left unattended with matches or a lighter.
If I had my way, I'd also provide some sort of protective apron - a couple of weeks ago my ninety something year old client denied all knowledge of how the large circular hole with the singed edges could possibly have appeared in her skirt. I felt quite faint on her behalf.
* With her money, obviously. Not your own.
I have never smoked, but quitting smoking is very hard, to force her to quit cold Turkey is cruel. I am not discounting the safety aspects.
Can you look into e-cigarettes, patches etc? An alternative that will give her nicotine more safely? I understand that with dementia she may not manage to learn to use these products.
Or ensure her smoking is fully supervised?
I'd say you and your spouse really dodged the bullet if the daily care of your MIL with dementia is not put on you. You're very lucky she's got a 'friend' who's doing it for you.
Get you MIL as many cigarettes as she wants. Pay for them out of her money which you have legal access to. Try to put yourself in her caregiver's shoes for a minute. You certainly should be nervous that refusing her might look like neglect. It is neglect if her guardians will not spend her money to get cigarettes for a person who is a lifelong smoker.
She's probably going nuts from nicotine withdraw and that's making her caregiver's job a lot harder. Don't make it too on him or he might just drop her off at her guardian's house. You.
I would NOT spend a dime of my own money to buy her butts (this is what she's being told to do.) No idea what MIL's income is or what it's used for - one could assume it is minimal SS and it is needed for housing and food.
I would want her OUT of that friend's place ASAP and then get her off the butts again. If long term facility isn't available, find a respite place or a care home for the interim and get her out of the smoking den!
Send a small allowance for cigarettes before you are forced to take her into your home.
If you think it is rough now, have this person in your home and you will know what rough feels like.
Even demented in a facility have a minimal personal needs allowance, what are you giving her?
No, within the scope of a guardianship, you do not have the right to tell someone they cannot smoke.
Getting her a chargeable vape with refills wouldn't be an expensive investment. She might adapt to them. If it were my MIL, I'd encourage her to vape at this point in her life. She's addicted to nicotine but there are safer ways to provide that to her.
(That's how our backpacking share-house bought them anyway. Home brand bread, home brand baked beans & one pack of ciggies. Bad choice, yes, but our bad choice at the time).
it would be abusive at this point to refuse her cigarettes...
if you can’t afford some cigarettes
for her .. why would you fight so hard for guardianship???
it’s all about $$ for some caregivers...
put yourself in her shoes .. where’s the love ... she has so few pleasures
left ...
There's nothing that says guardians get paid. Guardianship is a step up from POA, where you make decisions and can move someone to a facility, with court approval. Why would they fight for it? Because she needed oversight and was likely beyond POA ability.
If MIL has a pittance SS, it is more likely being paid to the "friend" so she can live there and eat. My mother's SS probably wouldn't have covered housing and food (thankfully dad's pension was good, she had savings and net from selling her condo, so that wasn't an issue for us.)
Also, she HAD been weaned off the butts and this "friend" got her hooked back on them! He wanted someone to smoke with. I'd have very little sympathy for that "friend."
It would be better to get her out of there, find a temp place until the facility has room and get her off the butts. If she's moving to MC or NH, she won't be able to smoke anyway.
Guardians can not use any of the money for themselves and she doesn't make enough to pay for facility services, so she will be a Medicaid recipient when she goes to a facility.
If she is on Medicaid nursing home placement is easy.
Some states do not allow smoking in facilities including nursing homes. Tobacco products prohibited include e-cigarettes or vaping. The danger is sometimes they explode and with oxygen delivery systems, the fire will be massive.
https://psnet.ahrq.gov/web-mm/e-cigarette-explosion-patient-room
Multifaceted problem. Some people never really made enough to "save" for their future needs (How many posts I've read lambasting people for not providing for their own needs!! Some who work minimal jobs never can put aside nearly enough to cover the costs needed), some frittered it away, so that IS on them for not having planned ahead, and some use the EC atty route to "hide" the funds and rely on Medicaid, thereby cheating those who truly need the help.
No one anticipated this tsunami of dementia we find ourselves in and it's projected to get worse. It is true that most Medicaid programs do not cover any AL or MC. A few states do cover some, but most likely the waiting list is miles long! Agreed also that people need to qualify for NH care (and Medicaid in general has requirements for the need - dementia alone isn't enough, rightly so, as NHs are for specialized nursing care, which dementia really isn't. Yes, they need care and oversight, but not generally nursing care.)
The current bill they are trying to get passed has some, but not all, benefits for care-givers and the needs people have in caring for a family member, but it's hung up. Much more will be needed to resolve the issues with dementia. So many people are struggling trying to provide the care and many have to give up jobs to do it, since there isn't money to cover a facility, thereby jeopardizing their own health and future financial needs as well! No extra money on hand to save and not working will reduce SS funds for that person as well. It's like a giant snowball heading down the mountain - it will only get bigger and more dangerous!
Quitting cold turkey is harder for some than others. I quit the nasty habbit about 40 years ago while working a a prison guard. I hate the smell of cigs now and can't stand getting near someone who has the smell on them, their clothes and it seems, just the air around them.
There are some very good meds available today to help stop smoking, but they only work for someone who truly wants to stop. My wife started smoking again after having quit about 35 years ago. She went 25 years without smoking, but started hanging around some sorry neighbors who were a BAD influence on her. She started smoking cigs, pot and drinking. I don't know what else might have been going on. I finally sent her to her sisters home with the plan of her quitting the bad habits , mainly due to health reasons, or for her to file for divorce. I sent her nicotine gum, patches, and lozenges as she needed them. about 3 months later she was ready to return home. She continued the nicotine supplements for about 6 more months and to this day has not started again. Was I hard on her? Yes, but with COPD, oxygen, several strokes under her belt already(at that time), and her heart struggling to function, I did not think I had another choice.
I'm glad you quit smoking. I was a child smoker (11 when I started) and I'm almost 50 now. I quit a year ago. One day at a time.
Alazrielle's MIL is elderly and her family's end goal is putting her in a care facility. Why take her cigarettes away now? The MIL lived long enough to become elderly being a lifelong smoker and all. Let her have her cigarettes. When they put her in a care facility she'll be lucky if they let her have one a week.
I suggest talking to the "friend." Talk about your reluctance to contribute to her "smoking" problem. Offer to bring nicorette gum and a limited supply of cigarettes. Tobacco is addictive and a hard addiction to break. Maybe you can discuss with this friend cooperating together to help reduce MIL's smoking. If "friend" is not willing to do this you have a few options:
1 - Take MIL into your home and help her to stop smoking. This is really the only way you can control how much tobacco she ingests.
2 - Get MIL into a facility that doesn't allow smoking. Get doctor's prescriptions for nicotine patches or nicotine gum. let the facility try to wean MIL off her nicotine habit.
3 - Buy the cigarettes that MIL needs while she continues to live with her "friend."
This disease takes things from you little by little.
Let her have what little she has left.
My Mom smoked her entire life.
At the end she forgot how to smoke and would
carry an unlit cigarette around all day.
Let her have a bit of comfort.