detatchment

[pippy]

I come from a long line of bipolar/alcoholics. my mother drinking every night and trying to take her life continuously. She finally found sobriety but died of cancer 3 years later. my sister also struggled with depression and succeded in taking her life almost 4 years ago. My brother is also bipolar, and a alcoholic. After years of drinking and black outs, he finally hit rock bottom when his girlfriend kicked him out and be was arrested during one of his blackouts with stolen tools. He says he doesn't remember breaking into the place. Anyways he finally found a good doc. who got his meds right on the money and was clean and sober for 3 years when his doc moved away and he had to go to a different one who really screwed up his meds.(like prescribeing vicodin for his back pain, which he was taking to get high off of) so to make a long story short he went downhill and almost succeded in taking his life. He was on life support for a week. I visited him every day. contacted docs to try to find out what when wrong and tried to fix it. Well he finally got his old doc to get his meds back on track, but he can never get an appointment to see him. Never returns his calls apparently. Any ways I recently found out through his room mate that my brother is back to taking vicodin for his back pain. And when I asked why he won't see his doc, I was told that he only calls him when he needs his meds. Well I've just about had it. I have a feeling that he is going to crash again soon and I can't stand the roller coaster ride with him. I've decided to just let him go. He knows I love him however I can't stand letting him back into my life just to watch him hurt himself. I mean if he was serious about getting help, don't you think he would tell the doctors that are prescribing him vicodin that he is a recovering A? I'm sure that if he told his psych. that he really needs to see him, he'd get an appointment. My monther inlaw thinks I should call his doctor, But I can't I've done enough, he needs to do this for himself, I can't save him. Any advice?

[Juls]

Pippy,

I can relate to some of your story. My brother also suffers from mental illness and is a drug addict. You are right that he does need to do this himself, but since he cannot control himself, I think that calling his psych doc to let him know that he is abusing his pain meds would be o.k. However, I would tell him first. He'll probably be angry, and notifying his Dr. won't prevent him from getting pills if he wants them, but his Dr. will be informed.

If anyone else has an opinion on this, please jump in.

Juls