I live with my 89-year old father. I am the Durable and Healthcare POA. We established Joint Tenancy about a year ago after my mother passed away two years ago. My father can take care of himself as far as bathing, getting dressed and fixing his own meals. He can drive short distances. He does have memory issues and dizziness from a concussion 4 years ago. He was intoxicated at the time and has a history of alcoholism.
The main problem is his hostility, agitation, and anger management issues. He expects me to take him on drives and to restaurants. His behavior in public is becoming a real problem. He thinks that everyone wants to hear his jokes and interrupts other diners and if I ask him to refrain he becomes verbally abusive to me and makes a scene in public. The other day, he told a joke about obesity to a diner who was overweight and they were not amused, and a restaurant employee was ready to kick us out. I am not sure if I want to go anywhere with him but he expects me to. He will not have a civil discussion about laying down any ground rules and goes into a rage if I press the issue. He also refuses to take advantage of any senior activities that are available. But since he lacks social etiquette, I doubt that he would last very long. He feels that he does not have to follow any rules if he doesn't understand or disagrees with them. This is becoming a very toxic situation for me and my own physical and mental health.
He also has ALWAYS, his whole life, had a Jekyll and Hyde thing when it comes to how he treats his family (verbally abusive, inappropriate anger responses), but was always much more civil when in the presence of neighbors and at Dr appointments. The Drs do not see his angry outbursts and inappropriate behavior at restaurants. They think that he seems fine and rational when we go to appointments. They don't see the REAL person.
He actually did try to come at me physically recently when I kept telling him that I absolutely did not want any alcohol in the house. He had brought a bottle of wine home for the 2nd time in a month. He got up out of his chair and his hands were just a few inches from my neck...he was going to strangle my neck if he could. I put up my hands to resist him and he lost his balance and fell on the carpet, scraping his elbow which bled because he bleeds very easily.
We do have an appointment with a Dr this week about some paperwork. And since the recent incident, he is telling everyone that I pushed him, and totally denying that he had attempted to strangle my neck. I am sure that he will do the same with the Dr this week.
My dad was an alcoholic too. He would do anything to get booze. My ex-husband felt sorry for him and would sneak it into the board and care home!
You must remove either him or yourself from this situation NOW. You know it's not going to get any better. My dad was Jekel and Hyde too, a wonderful man when sober but a son of a * when drunk. He threw a lead crystal ashtray at me as I was running out the back door. Made a good dent in the wood (thank God not my head). You are not safe.
You say your father can do his own care. Then let him.
You owe him nothing. Don't buy into guilt. One of you has got to go. It's not abandonment, it's safety.
The dizziness and memory "issues" are a result of the alcoholism. My dad had those too. Directly related to booze, not the concussion.
Please report back soon.
When he brought the wine home, he has said different things about what the wine was for. One time he says that he just wants to have it on hand for visitors (which we rarely have), another time he said that he thought it would help his cold feel better. He will say that he would never consume alcohol in the house, but then said that he could drink at home if he wanted to. So he was pretty good for 4 years, but lately he has had a renewed interest in alcohol.
He will tell anyone who will listen about his fall, the concussion and dizziness to try and get sympathy because now he can't do things like gardening due to it. But he of course always leaves out the fact that his blood alcohol levels showed that he was intoxicated. He also had been given inappropriate amounts of Vicodin by his Dr at the time.
If it were up to me, I would like to see if he could be put in a local assisted living place where I see there is a men's memory care unit. I don't think that he would last very long in regular assisted living because of his insensitivity and lack of consideration for others. He was in a nice rehab place earlier this year after being in the hospital for heart issues. Just in the short time that he was there, he had managed to alienate some of the other patients and they didn't want to talk to him. He also had found part of a cigarette in a pocket and had smoked it in the bathroom. They called me about that...like it was my problem, even though I had told my father that smoking wouldn't be allowed.
Oh, and the inappropriate joking and interrupting other restaurant diners is something that he does while I believe that he is sober. He is bad enough already, even without the alcohol.
I'm not sure if you're familiar with this. Maybe your dad has Dry Drunk Syndrome (defined by alcohol rehab.com) as;
The term 'dry drunk' is believed to originate from 12 Step recovery groups. It is used to describe those who no longer drink alcohol but in many ways behave like they were still in the midst of addiction. The dry drunk may be full of resentment and anger.
Dry drunk is a slang expression infamously known in the sober community. It describes a person who no longer drinks or abuses drugs, but continues to behave in dysfunctional ways.
From americanaddictioncenters.com;
Symptoms of a dry drunk include;
Resentment toward friends or family.
Anger and negativity surrounding recovery.
Depression, anxiety, and fear of relapse.
Jealousy of friends who are not struggling with addiction.
Romanticizing their drinking days.
Being self-obsessed.
It's horrible to have alcoholic parents. Please be concerned for your safety. If he can't live alone, apply for Medicaid and get him into a facility.
That does sound like it could be the case. Because of the fall in the parking lot and the concussion, and then being in the hospital and nursing home afterwards, he never did go through proper detox. He was forced into it. And I am not aware of anyone ever speaking to him about addressing the alcoholism afterwards. My late mother insisted on having no more alcohol in the house after the incident. And he is still in denial about ever having had a drinking problem, even though his blood test showed that he was intoxicated at the time. My late mother also told me that they were once stopped by the police when he was driving erratically. She said that the cop told him that he was drunk and scolded him for endangering his wife's life. But the cop let him go with just a warning, and I am sure that my father has no recollection of the incident.
And he definitely has a selective memory. Ever since his recent attempt to strangle me, his version of the incident is that I pushed him for no reason and it is all my fault that he fell and scraped his elbow. I am sure that this is what he will tell the Dr that we see this week. I have a 2-page letter written up and hopefully I can get it to her tomorrow, a day before our appointment.
Almost every symptom on that list of dry drunk could also apply to dementia! Poor Dad. He has so much going on with his health, and very little control over all of it. Poor you, having to deal with a person you love but who is seriously impaired so that he behaves very badly toward you.
I am afraid at this point that any anger management will have to come via medication. He isn't going to learn anger management. This is why input from a doctor qualified to deal with dementia is critical.
Living with this man, regardless of how much you may love him and wish him well, is dangerous. No one should put up with abuse, whether it is caused by dementia, past alcoholism, a concussion, overuse of Vicodin or any other condition. Regardless of what causes his anger you would be equally dead if he strangled you.
I think you and your father need to separate as soon as possible. Get medical attention for him. Also see your lawyer as soon as you can. They can go over the POA documents with you and explain them paragraph by paragraph. Exactly what authority you have under what circumstance depends on how the documents are written. Ask the lawyer about about calling 911 the next time Dad is headed toward violence, and then using the Baker Act to have him evaluated. Ask them about what measures you can use to protect yourself. But do this very soon! That environment is not only toxic, it is dangerous to the point of being life-threatening.
I think you are right that finding a suitable placement for him is going to be difficult. But if he is appropriately medicated and the staff is experienced, it could work out. Perhaps if you are only a visitor and not the person prohibiting alcohol you could reestablish a cordial relationship.
Do update us on this as it progresses. Many of us will be worrying about you!
So maybe I had better re-type the letter that I was going to give to the Dr tomorrow- we will see her on Wednesday. She works in the same small clinic as his primary Dr. The dementia specialist/advisor said that this other Dr had been at some of her meetings so she thought that she 'might' be more familiar with these things.
I am a lot stronger than he is and he loses his balance easily. I did not push back at him- just put my hands up so he could not get at my neck. Still, the fact that he 'tried' to do it is bad enough. It is the only such incident in the two years since my mother passed. Normally I walk away but when it comes to bringing alcohol in the house after not doing so for 4 years, I absolutely will not put up with it. Even though he already has anger management issues, the alcohol probably exacerbates it. My late mother had a horrible time with him when he was drunk but didn't want to confide in anyone outside of the house about it. Their generation was like that. I worry about him passing out with a cigarette, even though we have fire detectors. And his driving.
My brother did give him a good talking-to last Friday and so far my father has been pretty quiet and leaving me alone. I told my brother that if I had talked to my father that way, he would have come at me but since he is a guy my father didn't do the same to him. But he was still argumentative and kept saying that he didn't want to talk about it just like he is when I want to establish ground rules and boundaries about his behavior. My brother told him that they HAD to talk about it, otherwise I would have no choice but to move out. I have always considered my father to have a sexist attitude towards women, but that was probably pretty common in his generation.