Will Alcohol Be the Death of My Dad?
Over Christmas 2003 my Dad was severely ill, comprising of mainly terrible halluciantions/delusions/hearing voices and paranoya. It was originally thought my doctors that he was suffering with schizophrenia. After consulting specialists on Boxing Day at a Mental Institute it was decided that he was not at all mentally ill and they sent him back to the hospital. Turned out that he actually had blood poisoning as his kidneys had not been working properly. After a week of him being very ill, he recovered.
As a family we had all noticed that the amount he drunk was rapidly increasing and it even got to the point where we had to ban alcohol in the house so he was hiding it in the wheelie bin outside and in the shed and behind trees up the road. We tried to help, but we could do nothing and he eventually ended up in hospital as mentioned above.
Several years on, he is still drinking but does try to stop,but all of a sudden after a maximum period of 5 weeks will begin to drink again. He admits that he drinks too much but can not stop and will not help himself.
For the past week he has been up every night, through out the night, keeping my mum awake with hallucinations which are mainly lots of people and children walking around the house and in the garden and he often says that they are arguing. Last night he could also smell burning and was insistent that every one got out of bed and checked the house over to ensure we were all safe.
He is psyhically sick every morning, often has blood from his backside and the halucinations seem to be getting worse again. I have tried to help but I really don't know what else I can do, he won't see the doctor and won't listen to us and I fear that if he carries on, he is going to get a lot worse and this will be the death of him.
Sorry about the essay, it is just so hard to explain without background knowledge. Is there anyway that as a family, we can help him. We constantly try to give him support and love, but it just doesn't seem enough and we think that he is seriously ill.
Please help me.