Where do I start....?!
Well, my Dad has been an addict for about thirty-five years now. He's been on a methadone program for twenty-five, but has showed no signs of recovery, and is still a very heavy drinker, and takes pills all the time.
Now, seeing his highs and lows have always been a part of my life. Family is a impossible thing for a kid like me to escape. However, he's a very kind, and gentle man, and this is what makes it so painful to me.
My sister just turned nineteen, and I actually dropped out of the social system all together, so recently, he was informed that his insurance wasn't going to hold out, because, well, I dunno how MediCal works, but I guess since his kids are now out of the picture, they won't support him, anymore.
A little more backstory before I move on, he has a long criminal record for various drug stuff, and he's fifty-three years old. He's been looking for work, but can't even get the lowest of jobs. (He was denied shoveling dog crap at the kennel, last time I asked how the search was going....) He lives with his mother, or my grandmother, and he has been for thirteen years or so. My grandma, an AMAZING lady, was the one who took care of me and my sister as children. But we have literally been living off of her social security forever, because her husband left her many years ago. She owns very little, and my father has NOTHING. Remember money is something we do not have.
Anyway, moving on.
When my dad got the news of the MediCal running out, I guess this really made him depressed. I think it's due to expire in a month or two, but that really scares me to death.
Because no more MediCal means no more methadone.
Now, I'll never be able to fully understand how painful it must be to be such an addict, because I'm just a kid, and I'll probably never know any better. None of us can relate, it seems.
But because of his depression, he's been drinking HEAVILY, and getting some sort of prescription pills from some druggie at the YMCA. And I don't even know the half of it....
But he's been really messed up. That's all I need to say.
Three weeks ago, I was visiting my grandma, and he was there, drunk. She started yelling at him, and giving him a hard time because of his condition, and the next thing I knew, she was running to my room, yelling at me to see what he was doing: And that he had a knife.
I got scared, so I ran to the kitchen, but it was too late. When I got there, the was blood all over the place. On the walls, on the floor, the kind of thing you'd only see in nightmares. And in the middle of it, was my dad, already on the floor, with his head bent over, and a big chunk of flesh sliced off his arm. He kept saying: "I'm just gonna go to sleep, now...."
Of course, I didn't stand around to chat with him. I ran to the phone, and called 911. I mean, what else was I going to do? He went to the hospital and of course, the 72 hour lock-down in the psychward, and was let out about a week later. This whole time, I visited him, and he told me how stupid he was for doing what he did, and all this jazz about going to support groups, and getting help. I was really proud and happy to hear him say that after the horrors of the event that's still fresh in my mind.
However, only three weeks later, I hear that he's in the mental hospital again, except this time, I don't know what happened, and why he was sent there. He was already released, and I haven't seen him since. According to his friend, he's been drinking WORSE than he was before his original suicide attempt, and all I can think about is something happening to him. There's no reasoning with him when he's like this....
I talked to my older sister in Colorado on the phone about it, and she told me that he had given her a list of songs that he wanted played at his funeral, and that he wanted to be cremated, and all this really morbid stuff.... She told me that he doesn't want to live anymore BECAUSE of his methadone being cut off, and that's something that I have no control over.
I just feel so helpless. I'm not really sure if there IS help out there for him, anymore. He lies his way out of the hospital, and doesn't seem to want to help himself....
Are there any free self-help programs out there for someone like him? And I'm not talking about NA or AA.... He gets mixed up with bad people when he gets into those kinds of groups....
But it's come down to life or death, it seems, and I'm just so scared for him....
And now, about a month after all of that, he had been clean and his lovable self for about three weeks, but relapsed when he got enough money to get himself some pills.
My grandma found them, and took them to me asking what to do about them. I told her to get rid of them, of course, but now I regret it big time, because in the middle of the night, he woke and began looking for them. I kinda hid the whole time, but he started asking Grandma for them back, asking that they were someone else's, and he'd get in big trouble for not having them.
She pretended she didn't know, and he went outside. I thought he was just there for a smoke, but I heard him make a sick sounding groan, and before I knew it, the cops were there again. Another slash to the wrist.
I dunno if he called them, himself, or what happened, but they took him in again, and he's once again, in the hospital.
He doesn't seem to want to help himself. He's like a child; Everytime he gets in a fight with his mother, it ends up like this.
What do I do?
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