A friend of mine is on disability and lives in a subsidized apartment. He doesn't clean up after himself. He doesn't wash himself or his clothes. He only eats sugar and soda. He keeps letting his teeth rot and then won't go to the dentist to get them pulled. He spends all of his money on toys and models and then borrows money to buy "food" with every month. He won't get a part time job or save any money to get a car. He totaled the one he had a year ago because he was abusing his medicine (methadone and klonopin; 2 hit & runs & DUI).

I would sign him up for euthanasia but we don't have that here. So, since that isn't an option, is there anything I can do?

You can't help someone who refuses any help.

Yeah, but... not even like... forcibly?

Yes, you can tell him to get up and get a job.

Eventually, his choices are going to jump and bite him in the @$# if he doesn't shape up.

Wait for him to get welded to his seat?

don't help him. eventually he'll run out of disability and become faced with the choice between his current life style and dying.

You can't make anyone do anything they don't want to.

As soon as you learn that life lesson, you'll be better off.

You can only try so hard. Sit down talk to him and tell him to get his "[censored]" together otherwise your not going to be there to help him anymore.

What are you going to do, point a gun at him and give demands? Because that would place you firmly in the "someone who needs help" category as well. I don't know what disabilities he has, but you can't "make" someone overcome that. The rest of it is his own choices, and if no one is legally responsible for him, options are limited. You can contact any people who know him but don't know his living situation to help. Don't give him money; directly buy food or whatever is needed so that he can't throw it at something else, and encourage anyone else who gives him loans to do the same.

May I dare ask why it matters that you help him? Do you care about him?

The fellow in question is dying a slow death through self-negligence, pure and simple. If he is refusing help, then there's nothing you can or should do for him. Leave him be and move on.

I agree with most of the others here, tell him he's a loser, he has no life, and your not helping him with anything until he puts himself together and stops using my tax monney. It's harsh but it'll work.

The most you can do is encourage him to help himself. If he's not interested in doing that, well... that's his loss, not yours.

You're just inviting more trouble and stress on yourself if you worry about it too much.

You don't run out of disability.
I don't give/buy him anything... other people do. Specifically those in his family with mental handicaps. I was wondering if I could legally force him somehow.
Lol... he's welded to the couch. Sleeps on it every night and sits on it every day.

He's also my brother.

That changes things considerably. Get your parents, other siblings, etc... and go to his house and kick his ass into shape! (or go intervention style)

It's just me and my mother... and he won't listen to her because she blankets everything she says with religious dogma.

It sounds like your friend is a junkie, drug addict, whatever you want to call it. I used to be addicted heroin, methadone and cocaine. I wouldn't shower for days at a time (I've always been clean when it comes to oral hygiene, so I still took care of my teeth), because my life revolved around drug use.

It was a 9 to 5 kind of thing. All the help that was offered to me I would refuse because I didn't want to let go of using and abusing drugs. Eventually I landed in jail and I was bailed out eventually. I was required to go to outpatient rehab.

I took it very serious and after 4 months I graduated from the place. Since I finished my probation and everything, they dropped my felony and I have no record.

What I'm getting at is that your friend will most likely not listen to anyone, and he will continue his way of life until he gets into more legal trouble, or he ends up overdosing. It's a harsh reality. Addiction is a complicated thing. But getting clean and staying that way is the only way he will get better, his hygiene would improve if he was sober, I guarantee it.

Do you give him money when he needs "food"? When he asks you for or other people for money is he sick or does he look ill?

I'm asking because he could be back on the opioids/opiates and he needs money to feed his addiction, and physical withdrawal is horrible.

The only thing I can recommend as a last resort is an intervention. Gather up all close friends and family without his knowledge and ask them to meet up, and confront him about his addiction. Tell him if he doesn't quit you and all his friends/family that are there will not be giving him money or enabling him any further.

I've been clean for 6 months and I'm still fixing all the things I destroyed in the process of my addictions. I'm mending relationships I messed up, and just getting my life back together.

Good luck and I hope your friend gets sober.

It doesn't really change the situation if he's already an advlt.

Is he intelligent? if so, let him sort out his own [censored] brother or not

Intelligence has nothing to do with it. I've seen very intelligent people use dirty needles, steal to support their drug habit, and die from overdosing on drugs.

But eventually that's what will have to happen if he doesn't accept help when it is trying to be given.

He was diagnosed with liver cancer at 21, and after the successful removal of the tumor he became addicted to morphine which he took intravenously for years. He then got off of it through the methadone clinics, but then got a prescription to methadone pills which he takes along with his klonopin. He's been a lot less of a zombie this past year, but still won't take care of himself. He's messed with heroin too, and would still take it to avoid being dope-sick for methadone, which he claims is worse than being dope-sick for heroin.

Edit: He won't change doctors either, because he has the only one around that will give out methadone.

Just distance yourself from him. Some people can't be fixed, family or not.

Trust me on this. My sister's been in jail more times than I can count for meth. We've tried helping her countless times. Know where it got us? She wrote over $1000 in checks from our dad's account to her various meth head friends.

I can't distance myself from him; we're best friends. I don't enable him at all. I don't give him [censored]. It's just that I want him to take care of himself. It was bad when he lived with me, but he doesn't now, so there's no need to distance myself.

I can only assume from what was typed here. so forgive me:
Is this person recently disabled in some way?
Is s/he depressed (one of the signs I know of depression is not caring in your appearance/hygiene)?
Is s/he showing signs of drug abuse? (I can't claim to be an expert, so I don't - look at symptoms for various abuse and see if there's anything you recognise).
If you ever feel afraid, do not stop to highlight these issues. Same goes for if you believe certain issues need to be dealt with the police. Frankly I hold no trust with police where I live but as ineffectual as they are a paper trail is better than nothing.

Methadone withdrawal is worse than heroin withdrawal. Methadone withdrawal lasts up to 2 months. Heroin withdrawal lasts only about 1 week. I know the vicious cycle. He uses whatever he can when he is in withdrawal, then he uses more to get a high. That's how it is.

The doctor that he has knows that your brother is an addict, but the doc probably thinks he's helping your bro by giving him drugs he can't inject. But it's an addiction nevertheless.

Atleast you care about what your brother is doing to himself. Does your mother enable him?