Quote:
Originally Posted by Jen-jen
How does alcohol affect someone who is bipolar? My dad is on a manic high right now. He has gambled away almost every penny he and my mother had.
He spends days and nights at the casinos, even getting kicked out of two for being drunk. He is calling escort services (I know, his phone is on my account). He says "They are nice girls). My brothers say, "he just wants the company". Yet, he got a prescription for Viagra. Hmmm.
This is all breaking my mother down. How do you stop someone in a manic episode form doing hurtful and sometimes irreparable things?
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Your father is a legal adult so you can't actually force him into treatment, and it sounds like no one has thus far given him any kind of ultimatums. [Maybe they have, but from the information you have provided I see no evidence of that so I am just going off of what information I have been given]
You can attempt to sit him down and tell him you will start cutting him off from specific supports that you provide to him until/unless he reports to a health professional to address his behaviors.
Examples:
He still has access to the money your mother and him share- if he has been wasting it, she can take action [albeit drastic] and move the funds to a different account that he would not have access to if he is depleting them in this manner.
You can cut off his phone services.
I'm sure there are other things you can do.
These things sound harsh, but his behavior is risky, putting OTHER people at risk and hurting them.
You kind of have to be tough about things at this point.
And that advice is actually coming from someone who is diagnosed bipolar and who has experienced some pretty severe manic episodes themselves.
If you chose not to do these things, what may put the brakes on this might ultimately be:
a natural course in which the mania devolves into a depressive episode
or
he hurts himself by being reckless and ends up in the hospital
or
he does something illegal or [even by accident] hurts someone else and ends up in jail
Those are all pretty viable options.
I'm not trying to scare you, but you can't really tiptoe around when things reach this severity in my experience- as some one with bipolar and also interacting with those who are diagnosed with it.
The alcohol can add to it, but it's really just icing on the cake at a certain point.
If you are manic, you are manic and you will do crazy stuff alcohol or no.
my .02 for what it's worth.
ETA:
He will probably be mad at you for forcing him into a corner with any of these options. it's kind of par for the course. But you can endure that or endure the worse consequences that come eventually- longterm if not now- with doing nothing at all?