Thank you for your prayers and concern.
I know there's nothing I can do until and unless he is ready to reach for help.
I feel for him, because he has gone to ERs and detoxes and psych wards for so many years he feels nothing will work. I can see that for him the prospect of detoxing again is a fate equal to death. I can see that his addicted mind only sees the pain and not the possibility. He is homeless and penniless apart from the few hundred dollars of his last check from a temp job has held for a month. I can see how bleak the prospects look. I can see how the hospital only aims to put him back on the street as soon as they can, how the community mental health backlog is so burdensome that their help feels hopelessly far off in the future to him, how he struggles just to get through the next hour as his body shakes and wretches and convulses.....
I can see how even in a rare moment he may WANT help.... he can't see where it would even come from.
Another 12 hours in the ER and some Benzos and back in the shelter?
Best case, tell them he's suicidal and maybe get 5 days on the psych floor?
And what the hell can I even offer him? Take him.... where? Every program requires an evaluation and a wait and a process... this guy needs immediate inpatient, but even if he were to say OK, let's go, I want it..... he'd have to detox somehow and stay sober ling enough to get in.
It's so discouraging. It's weighty and sorrowful. I am OK, I know there's not really anything more I can do, and I'm not will8ng to sacrifice my own wellness for his decision to continue down the hole....
Still, I can't not care and I can't not feel it.