Hi Blueberrybook. I have an older sister and an older brother. I talked to my brother last night. My sister and I have been discussing the issue a lot over these past months, too.

I just got off the phone from an information search. I called one of the psychiatric hospitals both my youngest nephew and I went to in the past. I know they have an older adults unit that can address both psych and addiction issues. They gave me a lot of information on how to precede with possible admissions. Basically they said we'd need to take him to the ER for a medical evaluation (particularly since he's elderly) and psych evaluation, and if the doc and social worker agreed, they could refer him to the hospital. The difficulty would be getting dad to agree to go to the ER.

I called a sort of hotline that the psych hospital admissions woman suggested. The hotline guy said that the options in getting dad help against his will are to either call the police to come to his house for a "Wellness Check", and the police may or may not take him to the hospital. Or, if dad drives somewhere drunk, to call the police to track him down and charge him with a DUI. If this came to pass, dad would be taken to the police station and charged with a first DUI. That's a rough option. It would likely piss off my dad. I'm not sure if/when we'd ever go that route. That still wouldn't necessarily get dad to a psych hospital/rehab.

The hotline man also suggested we try to encourage dad to go to AA, but just going to AA doesn't help with withdrawal symptoms. He may not want to go to AA anyway, though the hotline guy's suggestion was to get dad among sober people vs. the so-called "friends" at the bar dad goes to. The trouble I see with this is that it wouldn't get him the psych help. That issue would need to be addressed, otherwise I think stopping drinking would be hard for him to do. I know from my past that it's hard to stop self-medicating with alcohol if you still have psych issues. It's dangerous to take psych meds if you are drinking or drugging heavily.