Soberish

She's had a prescription pill addiction for years now, going on 2 decades for sure. She gets bad headaches, or at least she says she does. I really think that it started with bad migraines but now it has become an excuse for her to take these pills. She goes to the Emergency Room when it gets really bad, or when she needs her fix, and gets methadone shots or whatever they will give her. She used to just get demerall (spelling?) shots years ago but now she aims for the stronger stuff, and demerall is pretty strong as it is. I have seen her bounce from Emergency Room to Emergency Room to get these shots because sometimes they won't give her anything because I'm sure that some doctors can sense she just wants to get high. I was a kid when this first started so as far as I can remember it started with the ER trips which led to prescription pills. Maybe she was always on prescription pills and it just wasnt as bad so I didnt really notice?

Anyways, her husband passed away from overdosing on her prescription pills about 8 years ago. I honestly think this was unintentional on both his and her parts. This was a wakeup call that didnt wake her up at all. Fast forward to now and she has gotten worse, as we all know addiction is progressive. She has two daughters, one is in 4th grade and the other is 19 years old. The older daughter is now on these pprescription pills because she also "gets headaches", which I know is just her and my sisters excuse to get high. I feel this came about because my sister just needs that extra source of pills in the household.

Anyways long story short, she has over dosed a few days ago for the 3rd time in the past 2 years which has required an ambulance trip to the hospital all 3 times. Like her husbands death, these have not been wakeup calls for her and I am well informed that she is probably going to kill herself soon from just not caring about how severe this addiction has got. My mom tried to talk to the child protective services after the 2nd OD to try and get custody of my neice, but since these pills are prescribed it doesnt seem like they can do much.

I really don't know the details of her talking with them, but this 3rd OD has involved the school principle because no one was there to pick my neice up from school. She told my mom that she is well aware that my sister has a problem because she can tell. She is going to file a report (with Child Protective Services?) but claims that if my sister has electricity, water, and food in the fridge then there is usually nothing that gets done, as she has seen in similar situations from the past.

We all don't really know what to do, it seems like people cant really do anything because her issue is a legally prescribed medication. I feel that if she had her child taken away from her that might open her eyes a bit but it also may not. Its really the only thing left to try because she nothing else has opened her eyes about the severity of this. I would think that the Emergency Room would be contacting her doctor about this but she somehow still gets pills after the first 2 overdoses. Its really baffling that they would still be giving her prescriptions after all this.

I have sort of been ignoring this problem for years now because she wont listen to our reasoning, and I know thats because she needs to want to help herself. This has just gone too far though and I fear if nothing happens she will die soon. I really want my neice out of there by court order or something because I know how much she loves her children and I feel it may possibly be the only thing that helps her. I am well aware that it may not though. We're all at the end of our rope here, can anything be done to do this?