[logicvscake]

This is concerning my younger brother's heroin addiction. His age and sex are those filled in the information requested. He was not waned off the drug, he was cut off completely from the heroin. Confirmation that he is smoking marijuana to curb cravings he says, however, he has lost over 25 pounds in the matter of 30 days. He went from 150 lbs to 125 lbs at 6'1. He is living away from town, with an older brother of ours so that he has no access to social media, the drug, or his dealers. He recently began in an outpatient program around December 20, 2014, that constantly cancels his appointments or forgets to put them into the system. He has been rated a high 60 on a depression scale.. That's really all that I've got, but my parents are concerned that he is going to starve to death. We just found out that he was an intravenous user, when all along we were under the impression that he was not, so this could be a series of diseases or blood poisonings.. Looking for a plan of action.

[talaniman]

What does your big brother say with whom he lives? How does he get his marijuana, and who prescribes this as a treatment? If indeed he went through a detox, and inpatient program and is now an outpatient, then he has probably been tested for diseases and is being monitored but all that is speculation and pretty useless if he is not working the program on his own.

For now the marijuana is deeply disturbing and I think you need a heart to heart with your older brother and get the facts while you educate yourself with heroin addictions and the treatments for them. This sound more like home brew remedy than a structured supervised program.

Where are you?

[Fr_Chuck]

If he is allowed to be alone and unsupervised, he has access to drugs, they are available everywhere. Yes he could have any one of a 100 illness from the previous drug use.

It sounds like he needs an inpatient program