[rainbow376]

I have an 18-year-old son who was out of education from the age of 11 due to mental health issues. He has been diagnosed as being on the Autistic Spectrum and with Pathological Demand Avoidance and severe social anxiety.

For reasons I won’t go into he has not been prescribed any medication to help with his anxiety, despite being under CAMHS from age 10 to 18. For the last couple of years, he has smoked cannabis on and off to help with his anxiety and problems with sleep.

He tried to return to college in October 2020 to attend a Foundation Course to help get him back on track and in the absence of any prescribed medications he took to alcohol as a self-medication to manage his anxiety.

To cut a long story short, this escalated, particularly during lockdown and he has now become severely alcohol dependent. To the extent that in May this year he had his first alcohol withdrawal triggered seizure and has had 6 seizure hospitalisations since then.

Our GP referred us to CGL (Change Grow Live – our local Alcohol and Drug misuse service) in April but when he had his first seizure this eliminated his chances of getting medication and support in the community to assist us with reducing his alcohol intake. As a result, he has been left for months waiting to be considered for funding for a medically supervised detox and rehab as this is the only option now open to us.

In recent months I have discovered he is now also regularly taking both Cocaine and Ketamine at weekends. Last weekend I witnessed him hallucinating and paranoia causing him to think there were people in the house and I had to hold him down in bed for his own safety as he was trying to get up but unable to walk.

On Tuesday at 9am this week he had his 5th seizure at home when he woke in the morning after simply not drinking while asleep. He was discharged from A&E after very little help at 4pm and fell to the ground and had a further seizure before we got more than 100m outside the hospital doors. We were discharged the next day with no real support or advice other than to speak to CGL and still no medication to prevent further seizures because of his situation.

My son is also Bulimic. So, as well as poisoning his body with alcohol and drugs he goes days without eating and then binge eats but does not keep it down. I worry that his seizures could also be related to something called Refeeding Syndrome as a result of this, as well as the drugs and alcohol.

CGL have this week finally advised me that they are applying for funding for him to have a 2-week detox but this will take 8-14 weeks and in that time my son must reduce his alcohol intake and get clean of all other drugs to be able to attend the detox. I honestly don’t think he can achieve either of these without proper in-patient and mental health support.

I also do not think we can wait that long. I am scared beyond belief that I am going to lose him to either drugs or a seizure that ends badly. He already had one seizure about 6 weeks ago where he fractured his skull, perforated his eardrum and had a small bleed on the brain and was hospitalised for 5 days.

I have suggested to CGL that I will privately fund my son’s detox and rehab, but I went through a company called Which Rehab who our contact at CGL advises me against using claiming they are not CQC regulated and charge over the odds. Further that they feel my son needs more time to prepare for detox and needs the 8-14 weeks that funding will take to attend their one hour weekly pre-detox sessions to achieve this. Even that is unlikely due to his erratic sleep patterns as he tends to be up most nights and asleep most days.

My son does not understand the severity of his situation. He is very bright and intelligent, but he just doesn’t seem to see the risks or care. He says himself that he does not think he will live much longer but to him that just seems to be a fact, not a concern.

When we talk about detox and rehab, he is not against the idea, even wants it at times, but a) is scared of being away from home and b) wants to be able to drink socially at weekends in the future and cannot face the thought of never being able to drink again.

I am at the end of my tether as to what to do. I would gladly pay for the private detox and rehab, but I honestly don’t think it would work as things stand or that he would stay there. He has a history of self-discharging from hospital stays as it is, although often due to frustration at the lack of care and understanding that we both experience.

He is in a very bad way mental health wise but all avenues to support for this are blocked by the fact that he is now alcohol and drug dependent. He spends all week gaming, using social media or watching tv/films and just drinks heavily and sleeps his way through it. He lives for the weekends when he gets high on drugs and goes out to pubs and clubs drinking with his friends. Friends who do not do drugs themselves or drink heavily and are as frustrated with my son as I am that he does this.

My son is also at the stage now where he wakes up feeling so bad that he does not even want to drink. But when he doesn’t, he has the seizures so he is actually having to force himself to drink to prevent these.

After the last week with the hallucinations and 2 seizures I feel totally traumatised myself. I have good friends, family and a very understanding boss who I talk to, but I feel so helpless and scared for my son’s safety. I don’t want to let him leave the house on his own for fear of another seizure.

There must be an answer out there and I thought I found it when I spoke to Which Rehab earlier in the week, but CGL have now left me feeling that even that is not going to work. My son needs to want help and want to be clean and right now I am not sure he does.

I am so desperate. I have even considered trying to get him Sectioned for his own safety, but he was an inpatient for a year at the age of 12 under section through no fault of his own (a story for another day!) and it was largely that which has sent his life down the terrible path that it has.

Any advice would be appreciated. And thank you if you have taken the time to read all this.

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