7 ms·

My father died in July of 2015 from alcohol, at the very young age of 60. He drank daily, and then slowly stopped moving due to other health issues related to b

My father died in July of 2015 from alcohol, at the very young age of 60. He drank daily, and then slowly stopped moving due to other health issues related to back pain. After refusing rehab and other options, he eventually died at his home one evening. His drinking buddy was my step-mother, who followed an identical trajectory. Less than four years later, she died in the same spot of the house, in her late 50s. The most difficult thing for my sister and myself was how powerless we were to do anything about it. Despite him committing slow suicide by alcohol, we were advised by lawyers that we had no legal recourse and would just end up burning money in a court battle we could not win. My last ditch effort was an ultimatum, that if he didn't stop drinking, I would no longer talk to him, nor allow him to meet any kids my wife and I might have down the line. He agreed to stop drinking, but then gave up 72 hours later. His grandson was born 7 weeks ago, but he never got to meet him. He would have only been 65.

elliotec 7y ago
What legal recourse were you looking for? What court battle would you have gotten into around this?
- paulcole 7y ago
  Yeah I agree, like isn't that the way it should be? An independent adult doing what they want and what's legal shouldn't have to go to court over it.
  - pfortuny 7y ago
    Addiction is a sickness. Saying that the person “wants” to drink (or do heroin) is missing a huge part of the problem.
    - paulcole 7y ago
      I have diabetes and if I decide I don't want to take my insulin because I'm fed up with the hassle, I shouldn't have to go to court over it. It's my choice and my life.
      - DanBC 7y ago
        Sure, if you have capacity to make a choice you should be allowed to make an unwise choice. People are asking how much capacity a person has if they are addicted.
        fsloth 7y ago
        The thing is - this is impossible to quantify. So basically, you are left with a binary decision - is it okay to overturn peoples civil liberties over arbitrary quotas or not. Personally - having suffered the devastation an addiction of a close relative causes in everyone around them - i would still prefer the current model where people are not forced to things against their will just because they drink too much alcohol.
        DanBC 7y ago
        (I'm in England so all of this is somewhat from an English perspective) There are roughly two camps when we talk about a human rights approach to mental health law, and they're not compatible with each other. The more mainstream version is to look at the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which flows into the EU Convention on Human Rights, which flows into national law. Under this system we can still have detention under mental health law, forced medication, and substituted decision making. But you do need some protections in place to prevent arbitrary detention and to give people a right of appeal. The less mainstream view is to look at the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Under this approach you cannot detain people under mental health laws, you can force them to take medication against their will, and you can only have supported decision making, you cannot have substituted decision making. There's some discussion on the CRPD here: https://www.nationalelfservice.net/mental-health/disability-rights-mental-health-treatment-and-the-united-nations-ronr2019/ https://www.nationalelfservice.net/mental-health/disability-... https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities.html https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-...
        whiddershins 7y ago
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - DanBC 7y ago
      Addiction is a sickness, and society needs to treat it as the public health problem it is and effective treatment needs to be made easily and cheaply available to all who need it. However, incarcerating people against their will, forcing them to take medication against their will, possibly for months, is problematic. We might tolerate that if it worked, but from the evidence we have we don't think it will work for many people with substance misuse. Addiction treatment is hard. I don't know many people working in addiction treatment who are asking for more legal powers to detain people. In England I sometimes speak to people with substance misuse disorders (comorbid with mental illness, or learning disability, or autism, or a mix). Many of them will have been detained for mental illness (they were not detained because of substance misuse). It's fair to say they have mixed views about compulsory treatment. Some of them hate it and think it caused them harm. Some of them think it was transformative. It is complicated.
- wjossey 7y ago
  We were able to work with the local county sheriff, as well as social services, to get him forced into a hospital due to him being a danger to himself. In Ohio, where he was located, this is called a pink-slip law. He was forced to go to a hospital, where he went into a brief 72 hour coma while he was withdrawing from alcohol. From there, he was hospitalized for another 7 days, and then forced to transfer to a physical rehabilitation center, as he was unable to walk under his own power. Once he was at the facility, he was no longer under a required hold. Once he realized this, he promptly left so he could go home and start drinking again. We spoke with lawyers about whether or not I could be granted conservatorship over him, as he went through this detox / early recovery period. Because he hadn't lost his mental faculties in any way, we were advised that a judge was unlikely to provide conservatorship to me, and it would be an expensive and damaging process. Our best bet was to convince him at a personal level, which is what we attempted. Should people be allowed to drink themselves to death? Should families be powerless to help a family member with a disease that makes is so addictive, they can no longer make rational choices in relation to that substance? It's clearly a philosophical question, and it comes down to your views on personal liberty, and whether someone suffering from deep addiction is still capable of making informed decisions. I, personally, believe that conservatorship laws are a reasonable approach to helping people get over the initial hump of detox and then understanding their addiction. I want people to have a fighting chance to come back from the brink, and we lacked the legal right to do so, in this case.
  - elliotec 7y ago
    Interesting, thanks for the insight.
  - taneq 7y ago
    > Should people be allowed to drink themselves to death? Should families be powerless to help a family member with a disease that makes is so addictive, they can no longer make rational choices in relation to that substance? If you're fat and likely to die of heart disease, should your family be allowed to physically restrain you from buying another burger? What about cigarettes, can you lock them up to force them to quit? If you ride too fast should they be able to force you to sell your motorbike? Should they be able to stop you from free-climbing?
pstuart 7y ago
I'm so sorry. I've been there too and that powerlessness is devastating. It seems like the pendulum swung too far in the opposite direction from how we treated mental illness in the previous century (aggressively locking people up in institutions). It would be a huge benefit to society if we could find a (relatively safe from abuse) mechanism to treat people who are "functional" yet too mentally ill to stop their self-destructive behaviors. I'm not sure how that would/could work, but it's a worthwhile goal.
- WalterSear 7y ago
  > It seems like the pendulum swung too far in the opposite direction from how we treated mental illness in the previous century (aggressively locking people up in institutions). I'd argue it's more of the same: finding a way to pretend they don't exist.
- 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
  > It would be a huge benefit to society if we could find a (relatively safe from abuse) mechanism to treat people who are "functional" yet too mentally ill to stop their self-destructive behaviors. I'm not sure how that would/could work, but it's a worthwhile goal. There is a way. When I was lost, dealing with my own problematic issues with drinking, I found another path. Taking a single dose of LSD-25 made me examine the root cause of my drinking, and made me understand just how self-destructive I had been. I've never been religious, but for those 8 hours I felt more connected to everything around me than I had in my entire life. I felt love for the first time. I touched the surface of God, of goodness, of kindness with my soul. And it healed me. Like a bright light, healing me of all of my old emotional wounds. It opened my eyes, so I could see for the first time.
  - tigershark 7y ago
    Great, let’s give LSD to everyone instead of alcohol. /s
    - 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
      It's not about being given things. It's about earning them, earnestly.
fsloth 7y ago
My mother died 6 years ago in her 60's due to alcohol related complex health issues. Se was psychotic for the last months of her life, died of a cardiac arrest, and a had an advanced form of pancreatic cancer. At one time she developed severe dementia due to neurological complications from alcohol. She recovered, but started drinking again after that. I'm not saying what you should feel, but I know the frustration and anger a relatives addiction can cause. Personally, I'm now fine with the fact that a person can destroy their life. Because the option would be, that there would be an arbitrary threshold beyond which a persons right for self determination could be taken away, and unless it's bleedingly obvious (as in they are a vegetable) it's most likely an arbitrary and an unfair arrangement. We are not yet masters of the universe. We are not even masters of human lives. But we've come up with societies that allow individuals freedom to live the lives they choose. This freedom includes the freedom for self immolation. The freedom for self immolation is the price we pay for all the other freedoms. Each one of us need to decide for themselves is this price worth the cost. Personally, for me, I say - yes it is. The price is pain. But the alternative would be even more unfair, and more painfull (i.e. there would be arbiters in the society with more or less arbitrary power to curtail personal freedom due to arbitrary life choices they made).
RaceWon 7y ago
> My father died in July of 2015 from alcohol My adoptive father also died of alcohol abuse. I am Much older than you are though. He served in WWII, also most of his friends drank heavily--I suspect it was due to combat war related PTSD; but that is merely a guess. I am very careful about how much I drink, and I do have an addictive personality. I just had a talk, tonight in fact, with my 20 year old about drugs--and was surprised to hear that coke is big again at my child's University. My kid drinks a bit, but has a 4.0 average as Bio major looking to get into Med School. No guarantee of a drug free life but my point is talk to your son about it when he's older. Sorry for loss. Congratulations on the birth of your son!
- qaq 7y ago
  Not suggesting one does it but coke unlike alcohol causes only psychological addiction.
  - draw_down 7y ago
    Well, fentanyl is a huge problem now. It has killed a lot of people, some who thought they were “just” using coke.
  - RaceWon 7y ago
    Maybe, but when you do anything to get it--Even when you hate doing it... its a huge lifestyle problem.
elfexec 7y ago
> My father died in July of 2015 from alcohol, at the very young age of 60. Condolences, but come on. Since when is 60 "a very young age"? You could start collecting social security retirement benefits at 62. > Despite him committing slow suicide by alcohol We are all committing slow suicide. That's life. You think are you going to live forever? I'm assuming he drank all his life, so a 42 year "suicide"? > we were advised by lawyers that we had no legal recourse and would just end up burning money in a court battle we could not win. What were you hoping to do? Force someone who doesn't want rehab to go to rehab? How would that even work? Wouldn't that drive him to drink even more? Listen, if I was dictator, I'd ban alcohol, cigarettes, gambling, drugs, soccer, 99% news/media, etc. I don't drink, smoke, do drugs, gamble, feel soccer is a waste of time and most news/media is a toxic waste of time. But we live in a free society and grown adults are allowed to waste their time and partake in harmful activities as long as it doesn't directly harm others. And I'm sure others have their own list of things they don't like or feel is harmful or a waste which I disagree with. I don't want them dictating how I live and in return I don't dictate how they live. There are obvious exceptions where someone is physically/neurologically debilitated, but a functional adult human being deprived of liberty is not anything I will ever support.
- rconti 7y ago
  I'd say dying before you even reach retirement age sounds plenty young.
- daseiner1 7y ago
  weird comment. spend the first half picking trivial semantic fights, then conclude with seemingly implying that the original commenter shouldn’t feel negatively about their father’s addiction. Odd
eecc 7y ago
Hi, sorry for the loss. I know of similar circumstances and am wondering how much of alcoholism is caused by some other psychiatric condition. Or perhaps pure idleness and boredom. What do you do when you're a pensioner, you never cultivated lifelong learning so you're not equipped to take on a new challenge, there's no place in society for your residual skills? Maybe you kick back, relax, and pour a glass or two. After all, there's nothing else for you to do anymore. Does alcoholism creep in at this stage?

elliotec 7y ago

What legal recourse were you looking for? What court battle would you have gotten into around this?

paulcole 7y ago
Yeah I agree, like isn't that the way it should be? An independent adult doing what they want and what's legal shouldn't have to go to court over it.
- pfortuny 7y ago
  Addiction is a sickness. Saying that the person “wants” to drink (or do heroin) is missing a huge part of the problem.
  - paulcole 7y ago
    I have diabetes and if I decide I don't want to take my insulin because I'm fed up with the hassle, I shouldn't have to go to court over it. It's my choice and my life.
    - DanBC 7y ago
      Sure, if you have capacity to make a choice you should be allowed to make an unwise choice. People are asking how much capacity a person has if they are addicted.
      - fsloth 7y ago
        The thing is - this is impossible to quantify. So basically, you are left with a binary decision - is it okay to overturn peoples civil liberties over arbitrary quotas or not. Personally - having suffered the devastation an addiction of a close relative causes in everyone around them - i would still prefer the current model where people are not forced to things against their will just because they drink too much alcohol.
        DanBC 7y ago
        (I'm in England so all of this is somewhat from an English perspective) There are roughly two camps when we talk about a human rights approach to mental health law, and they're not compatible with each other. The more mainstream version is to look at the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which flows into the EU Convention on Human Rights, which flows into national law. Under this system we can still have detention under mental health law, forced medication, and substituted decision making. But you do need some protections in place to prevent arbitrary detention and to give people a right of appeal. The less mainstream view is to look at the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Under this approach you cannot detain people under mental health laws, you can force them to take medication against their will, and you can only have supported decision making, you cannot have substituted decision making. There's some discussion on the CRPD here: https://www.nationalelfservice.net/mental-health/disability-rights-mental-health-treatment-and-the-united-nations-ronr2019/ https://www.nationalelfservice.net/mental-health/disability-... https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities.html https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-...
        whiddershins 7y ago
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - DanBC 7y ago
    Addiction is a sickness, and society needs to treat it as the public health problem it is and effective treatment needs to be made easily and cheaply available to all who need it. However, incarcerating people against their will, forcing them to take medication against their will, possibly for months, is problematic. We might tolerate that if it worked, but from the evidence we have we don't think it will work for many people with substance misuse. Addiction treatment is hard. I don't know many people working in addiction treatment who are asking for more legal powers to detain people. In England I sometimes speak to people with substance misuse disorders (comorbid with mental illness, or learning disability, or autism, or a mix). Many of them will have been detained for mental illness (they were not detained because of substance misuse). It's fair to say they have mixed views about compulsory treatment. Some of them hate it and think it caused them harm. Some of them think it was transformative. It is complicated.
wjossey 7y ago
We were able to work with the local county sheriff, as well as social services, to get him forced into a hospital due to him being a danger to himself. In Ohio, where he was located, this is called a pink-slip law. He was forced to go to a hospital, where he went into a brief 72 hour coma while he was withdrawing from alcohol. From there, he was hospitalized for another 7 days, and then forced to transfer to a physical rehabilitation center, as he was unable to walk under his own power. Once he was at the facility, he was no longer under a required hold. Once he realized this, he promptly left so he could go home and start drinking again. We spoke with lawyers about whether or not I could be granted conservatorship over him, as he went through this detox / early recovery period. Because he hadn't lost his mental faculties in any way, we were advised that a judge was unlikely to provide conservatorship to me, and it would be an expensive and damaging process. Our best bet was to convince him at a personal level, which is what we attempted. Should people be allowed to drink themselves to death? Should families be powerless to help a family member with a disease that makes is so addictive, they can no longer make rational choices in relation to that substance? It's clearly a philosophical question, and it comes down to your views on personal liberty, and whether someone suffering from deep addiction is still capable of making informed decisions. I, personally, believe that conservatorship laws are a reasonable approach to helping people get over the initial hump of detox and then understanding their addiction. I want people to have a fighting chance to come back from the brink, and we lacked the legal right to do so, in this case.
- elliotec 7y ago
  Interesting, thanks for the insight.
- taneq 7y ago
  > Should people be allowed to drink themselves to death? Should families be powerless to help a family member with a disease that makes is so addictive, they can no longer make rational choices in relation to that substance? If you're fat and likely to die of heart disease, should your family be allowed to physically restrain you from buying another burger? What about cigarettes, can you lock them up to force them to quit? If you ride too fast should they be able to force you to sell your motorbike? Should they be able to stop you from free-climbing?

pstuart 7y ago

I'm so sorry. I've been there too and that powerlessness is devastating. It seems like the pendulum swung too far in the opposite direction from how we treated mental illness in the previous century (aggressively locking people up in institutions). It would be a huge benefit to society if we could find a (relatively safe from abuse) mechanism to treat people who are "functional" yet too mentally ill to stop their self-destructive behaviors. I'm not sure how that would/could work, but it's a worthwhile goal.

WalterSear 7y ago
> It seems like the pendulum swung too far in the opposite direction from how we treated mental illness in the previous century (aggressively locking people up in institutions). I'd argue it's more of the same: finding a way to pretend they don't exist.
0x8BADF00D 7y ago
> It would be a huge benefit to society if we could find a (relatively safe from abuse) mechanism to treat people who are "functional" yet too mentally ill to stop their self-destructive behaviors. I'm not sure how that would/could work, but it's a worthwhile goal. There is a way. When I was lost, dealing with my own problematic issues with drinking, I found another path. Taking a single dose of LSD-25 made me examine the root cause of my drinking, and made me understand just how self-destructive I had been. I've never been religious, but for those 8 hours I felt more connected to everything around me than I had in my entire life. I felt love for the first time. I touched the surface of God, of goodness, of kindness with my soul. And it healed me. Like a bright light, healing me of all of my old emotional wounds. It opened my eyes, so I could see for the first time.
- tigershark 7y ago
  Great, let’s give LSD to everyone instead of alcohol. /s
  - 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
    It's not about being given things. It's about earning them, earnestly.

fsloth 7y ago

My mother died 6 years ago in her 60's due to alcohol related complex health issues. Se was psychotic for the last months of her life, died of a cardiac arrest, and a had an advanced form of pancreatic cancer. At one time she developed severe dementia due to neurological complications from alcohol. She recovered, but started drinking again after that. I'm not saying what you should feel, but I know the frustration and anger a relatives addiction can cause. Personally, I'm now fine with the fact that a person can destroy their life. Because the option would be, that there would be an arbitrary threshold beyond which a persons right for self determination could be taken away, and unless it's bleedingly obvious (as in they are a vegetable) it's most likely an arbitrary and an unfair arrangement. We are not yet masters of the universe. We are not even masters of human lives. But we've come up with societies that allow individuals freedom to live the lives they choose. This freedom includes the freedom for self immolation. The freedom for self immolation is the price we pay for all the other freedoms. Each one of us need to decide for themselves is this price worth the cost. Personally, for me, I say - yes it is. The price is pain. But the alternative would be even more unfair, and more painfull (i.e. there would be arbiters in the society with more or less arbitrary power to curtail personal freedom due to arbitrary life choices they made).

RaceWon 7y ago

> My father died in July of 2015 from alcohol My adoptive father also died of alcohol abuse. I am Much older than you are though. He served in WWII, also most of his friends drank heavily--I suspect it was due to combat war related PTSD; but that is merely a guess. I am very careful about how much I drink, and I do have an addictive personality. I just had a talk, tonight in fact, with my 20 year old about drugs--and was surprised to hear that coke is big again at my child's University. My kid drinks a bit, but has a 4.0 average as Bio major looking to get into Med School. No guarantee of a drug free life but my point is talk to your son about it when he's older. Sorry for loss. Congratulations on the birth of your son!

qaq 7y ago
Not suggesting one does it but coke unlike alcohol causes only psychological addiction.
- draw_down 7y ago
  Well, fentanyl is a huge problem now. It has killed a lot of people, some who thought they were “just” using coke.
- RaceWon 7y ago
  Maybe, but when you do anything to get it--Even when you hate doing it... its a huge lifestyle problem.

elfexec 7y ago

> My father died in July of 2015 from alcohol, at the very young age of 60. Condolences, but come on. Since when is 60 "a very young age"? You could start collecting social security retirement benefits at 62. > Despite him committing slow suicide by alcohol We are all committing slow suicide. That's life. You think are you going to live forever? I'm assuming he drank all his life, so a 42 year "suicide"? > we were advised by lawyers that we had no legal recourse and would just end up burning money in a court battle we could not win. What were you hoping to do? Force someone who doesn't want rehab to go to rehab? How would that even work? Wouldn't that drive him to drink even more? Listen, if I was dictator, I'd ban alcohol, cigarettes, gambling, drugs, soccer, 99% news/media, etc. I don't drink, smoke, do drugs, gamble, feel soccer is a waste of time and most news/media is a toxic waste of time. But we live in a free society and grown adults are allowed to waste their time and partake in harmful activities as long as it doesn't directly harm others. And I'm sure others have their own list of things they don't like or feel is harmful or a waste which I disagree with. I don't want them dictating how I live and in return I don't dictate how they live. There are obvious exceptions where someone is physically/neurologically debilitated, but a functional adult human being deprived of liberty is not anything I will ever support.

rconti 7y ago
I'd say dying before you even reach retirement age sounds plenty young.
daseiner1 7y ago
weird comment. spend the first half picking trivial semantic fights, then conclude with seemingly implying that the original commenter shouldn’t feel negatively about their father’s addiction. Odd

eecc 7y ago

Hi, sorry for the loss. I know of similar circumstances and am wondering how much of alcoholism is caused by some other psychiatric condition. Or perhaps pure idleness and boredom. What do you do when you're a pensioner, you never cultivated lifelong learning so you're not equipped to take on a new challenge, there's no place in society for your residual skills? Maybe you kick back, relax, and pour a glass or two. After all, there's nothing else for you to do anymore. Does alcoholism creep in at this stage?