My dad is a 66yo raging alcoholic. He has gotten so bad now that he has lost his job, fallen a number of times and injured himself and lately has been urinating IN THE HOUSE! He lives with my mom and disabled brother but they have had enough. Any ideas for placement? Will assisted living take him? Will Medicare pay for a portion of it? The stress is killing us all. I love my dad but he has done this MY WHOLE LIFE and we have tried everything. This is his choice so he needs to be accountable at this point. Please help. I can’t sleep. My hair is falling out. My mom and I are both having heart palpitations. My brother is disabled and my other brother passed away. This all falls on me. Please help me. :(
Has he ever done rehab? Would he consider it?
Wishing you all the best.
I’m so sorry that this is happening to you all.
Are you a member of Al-Anon?
You will hear how others handle their situation and you can share your frustrations with people who truly understand what it’s like to deal with alcoholism.
You are looking for an answer FOR your father. HE is the person who needs to WANT to find an answer to the problem HE is suffering from.
If he went to rehab & checked himself out after 1 day, calling it a 'prison' and saying he's not a 'criminal', he's deeply in denial and doesn't want help.
You know all that, from the comments you've made, yet you're still looking to place your dad somewhere and make him someone else's problem. I'm not saying that in a 'snarky' way either, I'd probably be trying to do the same thing, if I were in your shoes.
I just don't think that's the right approach here. I think the right approach is for you and your mom to give him an ultimatum: he either gets clean and sober somehow, or he moves out and stops ruining your lives. Your mother can file for divorce. If that decision winds up killing him, so be it. It's HIS decision that's killing him, in reality, not the decision YOU are making BECAUSE of his addiction.
I love you dad, but I love MYSELF more, and this behavior is NOT OKAY. Period.
This is tough love, an intervention so to speak. You can 'feel bad' for dad all you like, but in the end, he's killing you and your mom with this addictive behavior which is how it works. You are both having heart palpitations; your hair is falling out, nobody is sleeping while he's going about his merry way peeing in the house and falling down drunk. What's wrong with that picture? His CHOICES are creating a living nightmare for you and your mother, and that's not okay.
Go to Al-Anon meetings yourself right away, and take mom along if she will agree to go. They will help you see that none of this is YOUR fault and they will help guide you to taking care of yourselves now. Alcoholism & addiction is a disease that destroys EVERYONE'S lives, not just the person suffering from the addiction, and Al Anon addresses that fact and helps the family cope with the issues that arise from it.
Please, allow yourselves to take the help and advice they will give you. That's a great starting point to clearing out your heads and getting direction in what to do here. You can't go it alone, nobody can. Addiction is bigger than your father and he is the only one who can admit that fact, and make the decision to choose his family over the bottle.
I hope he does.
Good luck to you.
Also, call his doctor and just ask questions about how admitting him to some facility might work. They'll probably tell you that your dad is an adult and if he doesn't want to be in a facility, no one can't force him to go unless he's incompetent.
This brings you back to the divorce option. He's made his decision to destroy his life (yes, I know it's a disease, but still...), but you, your brother, and your mom aren't required to go down in his ship.
Per HHS.gov website: Who is eligible for Medicare?
Generally, Medicare is available for people age 65 or older, younger people with disabilities and people with End Stage Renal Disease (permanent kidney failure requiring dialysis or transplant).
https://www.hhs.gov/answers/medicare-and-medicaid/who-is-elibible-for-medicare/index.html#:~:text=Generally%2C%20Medicare%20is%20available%20for,failure%20requiring%20dialysis%20or%20transplant).
It's incredibly difficult to deal with. I was talking to the husband of a client about a month ago and he said to me very frankly: "it's been three years of hell." The falls, the rages, the false allegations (every fall blamed on the husband - she pitched headlong down the stairs, blind drunk; when she came to with a broken arm she was convinced it must have been his doing, and she was desperate to convince everybody else of it too). This woman wasn't supposed to be mobilising unsupervised at all, she was supposed to be bedbound - the bruising and the sutures were horrific. But daily, when we weren't there, she was going down the stairs, out along the path in her nightwear using her walking frame, and down the street to her local store - for vodka. Amazing what you can do with a strong enough incentive. And demented as all get-out; but absolutely lucid when she wanted to drink, or wanted to deny it.
The trouble is that by this stage it isn't really your father's choice any more. By now he probably is very ill, physically and mentally.
As your disabled brother is resident in the home, I wonder if there'd be any additional support available to help protect him. What does your mother want to do? Does she want your father out of the house and committed to hospital?
If he becomes violent call the police and have him removed. Tell them ur afraid of him and he is not allowed back.
You may want to call your town’s non-emergency number and see. That way, you can be prepared, if you end up calling, if it applies.
If it does, they can hold him for 3 days, as they assess his needs.
Someone here may know more about this.
There are two ways that a person can force his or her spouse to leave the marital home in Illinois. A person can file a petition for exclusive possession of the home under the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act. The court may temporarily evict a spouse from a home during divorce proceedings under the IMDMA if the other spouse shows that the physical or mental health or well-being of the spouse or children is “jeopardized” by the spouse remaining in the home.
"The second way for a spouse to obtain possession of the marital home during divorce proceedings is to file for an order of protection under the Illinois Domestic Violence Act. To obtain an order of protection, a person must show harassment or threat of future abuse from his or her spouse. The court will also award temporary exclusive possession of the marital home if the risk of threat to the petitioner outweighs the hardships the other spouse has to go through by leaving the home. The court presumes that the risk of harm to the petitioner is less than the other spouse’s hardships, so many believe that the IDVA more readily grants a spouse exclusive possession of the marital home than the IMDMA." (source: https://illinois-family-lawyer.com/blog/articles/can-make-spouse-leave-marital-home-illinois-divorce/)
As you have already seen, your mom's "concern" for his well being has only allowed his problem to rage on. She is an enabling co-dependent and really should go to Al-anon as others have already wisely suggested. I wish you much success in getting help for your family.