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Helping a much older addict (82)

FiatFlux

FiatFlux

Bluelighter
Joined
Jul 6, 2002
Messages
532
Location
Maine
My best mate in Colorado is having a complete psychotic breakdown partially because her 82 year old grandfather who raised her is taking about 6-10mg klonopin/day, 160 lortab every 3 weeks, as well as 90 xanax/month. Apparently things have gotten so bad that he will ring her phone and have conversations with her and then 10 minutes later call her back to have the same conversation again because he doesn't remember what he is doing from one minute to the next. Also, for an older man who is a cancer survivor, I think the levels of acetaminophen alone are probably harmful for him. The most worrying thing is that up until this point he had been a very rigid traditional airforce man from a small town in the south. His personality has turned vicious and irritable... The man is probably only a few years away from a nursing home, and I am posting this on behalf of my mate.

Its always difficult to get into the head of an addict, but someone that old and set in their ways, it seems almost impossible... Short of having an intervention with a mediator (which wouldnt go over well), how do you go about helping someone like this? Does anyone know of any resources/have any experience with this? <3
 
Someone should try to reach out to his doctor, not because of the pills, but because his personality has changed. His dependence/addiction issues may be causing the personality changes OR the dependency/addiction issues and personality changes may be symptoms of geriatric condition. Only his doctor can determine which it is.
 
Does he suffer from dementia at all? Is this something new that started as a result of the meds he's taking?
 
I know most states now have a agnecy on aging, typically tied into the dept. of social services. Is there a chance that his cancer isn't in remission and he's self medicating because of that. If he's lonely and boredom there's a good chance that could be another cause. I doubt an intervention would go to well. I'd look into the social services and see if there are any resources. At 82 it makes it much harder, but not impossible.
 
Thanks for the replies guys.

@NQA the family has been in contact with the doctors, and what they have said is that it is more dangerous to take him off everything he is on than to leave him on it... I don't really understand this.

@Swerlz up until the past 6 months when he has been heavily using, no there have been no dementia type symptoms. It is very difficult to determine if he is going senile in addition to the drugs issue.

@sid we are in Colorado fwiw Ill have a google. IMO he is self-medicating not because he is in legitimate pain but because all he ever did in his life was work, and be told what to do (career military man). Now that he doesn't have anything to fill that void and has no direction, he is completely lost and it seems, feels pretty worthless....
 
The doctor is right he probably would not survive the withdrawls. Keep him comfortable but dont let him run out of pills. I know thats not the answer you wanted sorry.
 
^ what about facilitated detox though? i cant imagine him agreeing to it however.
 
82 years old.
FiatFlux said:
His personality has turned vicious and irritable...
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We can not establish for sure this change is from the benzos and lortabs. Could be, but could also be his age and underlying health conditions. Bring this all up to Doctor might help. It could also result in fewer scripts and a more unhappy but just as non-lucid old guy.

Putting someone through detox is usually about increased quality of life for most likely a longer period of time than Grandpa likely has left. Can't assume it will be helpful and it will be a lot of discomfort for a possible improvement for how long? Your friend needs support. I'd not alter things with Grandpa as a replacement for bolstering friends ability to cope.
 
Wow. poor guy. must be a difficult state of being for him. Just proves you're never too old to suffer at the hands of substance addiction....
 
FiatFlux said:
^ what about facilitated detox though? i cant imagine him agreeing to it however.
Click to expand...

I just think its a no go even detoxs use rapid suboxone tapers then try and combat symptoms with other medications. The problems will be dehydration elevated blood pressure and who knows what other health problems it will contribute to. That is how Jerry Garcia died after all.
 
I'm sorry but its near impossible for me to be optimistic about this situation.

Its just a bad age to be addicted to drugs. It takes A LOT of energy and willpower to break an addiction at 50 years old, nevermind 82. At that point drugs prob help him keep his mind off the fact that he doesn't most likely have a lot of years left. They prob also help him keep his mind off the idea that he has no purpose or meaning left in life.
And the body just is not resilient at all at that age. His age alone would aggravate wds by a great deal, and I just don't see it happening. Maybe if he was just on the lortabs, but that amount of benzos facilitated or not would do him in. I don't mean as in kill him (which is still a possibility) but it would be entirely too much stress to handle at that age.

If he actually had the motivation and desire to want to stop, then a long enough taper MIGHT work, but I still see it being too painful and I still see him going back to where he was before. Its sad to say but chances are he will be on those drugs till he leaves this world. At any rate, its still very unsafe for him to be taking that amount of drugs at that age outside of a medical setting. He can easily get depressed one night and intentionally take too many drugs. Thats why at this point you may want to focus more on his mental health than his physical health. He should still have things to do during the day, SOMETHING to look forward too, cause w/out those things he will only have more reason to progressively keep getting worse.
Depression at that age is common, much moreso common when you're abusing those types of drugs, which is why I say it may be useful for him to see an older aged therapist. Maybe someone he can relate to who can breathe some spirit back into his soul. But as far as getting off the drugs I'm just not optimistic about it.
 
You see a problem. The family sees a problem. But is the person himself willing to change? If life has taught me anything, someone who is unwilling to change won't no matter what the world does.

Put a depressed kid in Disneyworld and all they will do is cry that they didn't get the GameBoy Advance they wanted with Pokemon Ruby.

Its not very hopeful. The family doesn't wanna take off his meds. They're tired of his behavior, but not willing to change.

Valium is the magic tapering benzo, but I never taken it before nor have any experience. Do what you can, but don't expect the impossible.
 
He sounds very much like my granddad who was a life long whiskey drinker and had a curved spine. I sometimes dreaded him because he got really mean when drunk and this was when he was in his 50's-60's. He eventually started medicating himself by way of 222's that you can purchase over the counter in Canada.
My granddad would make my aunt and uncle drive to Ontario once he got so ill that he couldn't drive himself. He would also get pain meds from his doctor but they weren't enough and he would get so loopy. Yes, dementia came quickly! He got to the point to where he was paranoid and thinking the FBI was coming after him for crimes he committed many decades before.
Elderly addicts are so much more frail and resistant to intervention. It's best just to let them be I think. Let him have his pills and what he perceives to be some "quality of life" left.
 
benzos have a much lower elimination rate in the elderly, so the plasma concentrations stay elevated for longer.... and their withrawals are worse. dangerous stuff.

If he's ex-AF, the VA provides hospice workers for terminal/handicapped vets. Usually private ones contracted through the VA have a small fee, but for the really old/crippled/sick vets it's free. The VFW and American Legion have the same kind of things. While it's probably too late to cure him of his addictions, at least there will be someone there to closely monitor his condition and meds, give him company, and make him more comfortable.
At-home hospice care helps a lot.

I lived in Alamosa, the Springs, and for a short while in Trinidad. The best VA facility is up in Denver. But I'd stay away from them if at all possible. Try the VFW and AL first.
 
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You said he is Air Force. The only advice I can give is try looking into the local VA clinic. They should have counseling as well as med management available. Some of what you described is probably inevitable and that is just the way it is. It is always sad to see people decline like this but maybe he just needs to feel like people understand him. Try the VA and just keep him engaged. As long as he is not dangerous. You said he is irritable maybe he just wants to talk about his good ol days. Sorry if this does not help and good luck.
 
Medications affect the elderly differently and doses often need radical adjustment to offset side effects. It can be really difficult to determine whether changes in behaviour and neurological function are due to aging itself or are drug-induced.

It might be worth getting a geriatric specialist to review the meds, but the reality is that at 82 there's likely to be some trade-off involved and that the doctors aren't going to see any reason to take this man off his meds altogether - more likely they'll change his dosage or switch him to meds which have less impact on his lucidity.

There's no point in trying to detox someone who wouldn't be capable of living and enjoying a functional life. There's even a possibility that the meds are actually controlling a disintegration of personality and that both the man himself and everyone around him would be far more miserable if he wasn't on them.

Based on what you've told us, nursing home care might be a lot closer for this man than the family want to believe, but nobody should be trying to make decisions about his current or future medical care without the input of a specialist in geriatric medicine - it's one of the fields of medicine in which generalist doctors are usually way out of their depth.
 
Sort of related story I read on AOL news. An 83 year old woman had been suffering with stomach ailments for quite some time. Her daughter took her to hospital expecting to get the usual meds and get sent back home.

The doctor ordered an imaging scan and told them her stomach area with riddled with black spots and had spread into her lungs: incurable cancer! Grim diagnosis, they said she had 2 months to live. This poor woman cried and screamed and her family was shocked as well. Gave her heavy doses of morphine and after 6 months, she didn't seem worse. Of course the meds were so strong she was seeing things that weren't there.

Her granddaughter, a nurse suspected something was wrong with the diagnosis and requested a second opinion from that hospital. They said at her advanced age, they didn't want to "put her through this" But ended up at a different facility that did more thorough tests and found no cancer at all!

This woman had been through so much, her husband had left her. Her family is suing the hospital. She is trying to wean off the morphine and struggling to get some normalcy back. She is 85 now and grateful to be alive but it was such of "comedy of errors". It's truly sickening when these things happen.
 
Well if he's happy having his little hghs around what's the harm.
I hope when I go I am kept very comfortablr
 
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