Originally Posted by sisterstruggle

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the site and I'm loving all the wisdom so far. My sister (38 yrs old) is an alcoholic and a drug addict. She is also bipolar. She's been drinking for about 20 years and her drug use and other destructive behaviors have really taken off over the past year.
Perhaps you could lead me to some stickies or share some thoughts with me on this: how can I, as a sibling, be OK with watching my sister destroy herself?
My family and I had an intervention with her in July. We went to the city she lives in 3 times over the next 5 weeks. She overdosed on heroin about 3 weeks ago. After that she agreed to go to a residential program at a psychiatric hospital that does dual diagnosis. Three days before she was to be released and transition to their outpatient program, she abused prescription drugs (Atavan and Suboxone) while in the hospital. She got kicked out of residential but can still go to the day program. She is extremely high risk and needs 24 hour monitoring. I talked to her yesterday and she is in complete denial that she has an addiction problem. My dad and stepmom went to see her today to try to force her to go home to my mother's (for 24 hour surveillance) but she refused and was very nasty with them. My sister, the one I used to know, is gone. I know there is nothing we can do to save her. I know our love won't save her. I know that she has to decide herself to recover. But I still don't understand how I'm supposed to sit here and watch her destroy her life. I know anything I do won't change her behavior, but it's so hard to be OK with that and not try to go out there and save her from herself. Any wise words?

Thanks!