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My late 60 something neighbor "B" keeps falling. She is definitely an alcoholic and has liver, balance, "failure to thrive" issues as a result. This week she fell again and broke her upper arm badly. She fell 4 times yesterday, once directly on her bad arm. She lives alone and her 2 daughters want to help but don't know where to start to get outside support. They have lives and children and jobs and live in another state. One already provides home health care support for their father full-time.


As her neighbor, and going through home health care for my live-in mother, I have some experience but I'm in a much better situation since my mom does not drink and is very cooperative with me and our health aide. Even though my mom has dementia, COPD, recent blindness ( after AMD + failed cataract surgeries), and cancer, I am very lucky compared to my neighbor's daughters.


B's daughters have reached out to me and our other neighbor for support and we are happy to help but full time care and resources needs to be sourced. Where do her daughters start to get that support? What makes this situation untenable is that they cannot just hire a full-time health aide to stay with B. B's drinking problem is so bad that she needs alcohol to keep from going into severe withdrawal. In the ER this week, she started to detox and it was awful. She needs a medical detox and the ER obviously isn't that place. A home health agency will not put their workers in a situation where they are required to give B alcohol. And, BTW, B gets pretty darn mean when she drinks.


My suggestion to her daughters is to start with Social Services, maybe Adult Protective Services(?) to get her on their radar. I don't know if they would help in getting B into a rehab for her bad alcohol problem as well as her physical rehab needs.


We live in Virginia. Does anyone have any suggestions that I can send over to B's daughters to get her moving in the right direction? In the next 24 hours, she won't have the support she needs and the friendly neighbor 'check-in' solution isn't working. As Dr. Phil says "How's that working?". Well, it's not at all, it's only a band-aid.


Any suggestions are very appreciated. I'll get them back to B's daughters.


Thank you,


Heidi

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At the risk of sounding harsh as well, I couldn't agree more with NeedsHelp. Alcoholism is dreadful. In general it ends with the system taking over. Eventually the Alcoholic ends up in the hospital, in detox, in rehab, and with alcoholic encephalopathy that requires institutional care. Family can honestly do nothing but take themselves to Al-Anon for help. There they will learn again what it is to be helpless in the face of a disease. I would encourage family of your neighbor to do this, because they will at least learn resources in their area and will get tremendous emotional support.
Nextly, you are right next door, and you say one of two neighbors that have been reached out to. I would caution you against getting too involved no matter the wonderful nature of your intentions. I think if you notice no lights going on, no TV, no mail or paper picked up, things you would expect, it is time to check on your neighbor and call APS is you get no response, 911 if you must.
This is a dreadful problem I have dealt with first hand with a brother who tried to help one he loved, and honestly was unable. My bro is gone, and his poor friend remains. As he now has the aforementioned brain problems he is institutionalized now. Even there problems with hand sanitizer and listerine have been problems.
It is a dreadful problem in our country, and in every other, and is, I am sure, even worse in Covid19 times. Good luck. You have a wonderful heart.
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You are opening up a can of worms with this situation!

Let her daughter deal with it. You cannot change anyone else’s behavior, especially an addict.

I am not trying to be harsh. I commend your kindness and willingness to help.

Trust me when I say that you are biting off more than you can chew.

You do not have the power to do this. No one does. An addict has to be willing to being open to changing their behavior with professional help.

Even then, relapse is always a possibility and more often times than not, relapse does occur. This isn’t an easy fix!

Do you have any experience with addictive behavior? If you want to help, tell the daughter to contact rehab facilities or AA and she can offer that.

If she has refused help before and continues to refuse, as sad as it is, there is no other option.

People can’t quit anything cold turkey either. A step down system is needed to safely withdraw.
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iamheidi Oct 2020
Thank you very much. I agree with you. This has been going on for years (on and off) but only recently with such dire medical results. It is time for her daughters to seek outside help because no one can manage it without it. Thank you for your good advice.
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60s is young and I wouldn't consider her elderly. If she can pass a cognitive exam while sober, I'm not sure there's anything that can be done. Mostly her problem is alcoholism. If she does have cognitive impairment and if her daughters have PoA for her, they can legally act to protect her from herself, even is she is uncooperative. But if they don't have PoA for her and she is cognitively impaired then the only 2 choices are for them to pursue guardianship through the courts or to call APS to report her as a vulnerable adult. If they do the latter the county will eventually get guardianship of her and make all decisions for her going forward. The daughters will have no say.
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iamheidi Oct 2020
Hello Geaton777, agreed, 60's is still very young. It was her health that had me use the word 'elderly' and I'll edit that out if I can. It's not the correct word to use. Thank you for the advice. I'm passing these onto her daughters.
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She has to be willing to help herself.
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Late 60's may seem old to some people but it really isn't, the standard age of retirement has been 65 and many, many people work years beyond that - would you be as willing to step in if she was 45? Addicts of any kind have to want to change and she doesn't, my advice is to continue to be a good neighbour but step back from any idea of involving yourself further.
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iamheidi Oct 2020
Thank you Cwillie. I agree 100% with you, late 60's is still young and meant no disrespect to say she was elderly. I should have said that she has the age/years of a person in her late 60'd but her health and body are that of someone more similar to someone in their 80's - and I'm friends with people in their 80s that are in very good health. She is in very very poor health for her age.

Thank you for the advice. I know I need to step back some and this is reconfirming it.
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