I'm sorry, I don't have much advice to offer because my experiences with alcoholism are a bit different from yours, but I just wanted to tell you that I feel like I can relate. My Dad was an active alcoholic when I was a young kid (he stopped in my teen years - apparently because I told him about how worried I was for him) and that combined with his weight problems resulted in him having major, serious health complications in my adult life.

He's been very ill with heart failure, kidney failure and now a stroke - and he's not even 60 years old. I bring this up because I think that alcoholism is as much a disease as any of these things, and the worry for your parent in either situation is very similar.

Like you, I don' t live at home and only get updates from my mom, but when he's been ill, I felt very helpless, and like I should be doing more (like somehow help my Dad overcome his stubbornness and just DO what the doctors told him).

If you haven't tried already, maybe just have a one-to-one with him and tell him honestly about your worries about the situation. For me, it meant tears and fears and a lot of supportive talking and ensuring him that I don't blame him for where he is, but that I want him to be around to be a grandpa one day and a healthy grandpa at that. I know that it resonated with him - that and the huge health scare - and he started, for the first time in his life, making some real changes. Maybe try something like that.

It sounds like your dad is in a really rough place right now and, like you mentioned, that will probably only make him more likely to resort to alcohol as a coping mechanism. And it seems like he is out of options, particularly with the health insurance problem. So maybe you just have to encourage him to go with what is practical based on the situation - and to me it seems like AA might be a good option. I don't know how it works, but maybe you can offer to accompany him - if you can't sit in on the meeting, then maybe just offer to take him there and take him home after for some of the sessions, if he'll agree to it. If he sees that you are supporting him, it might make it easier to take that first step and just give it a try.

I hope that you're able to find something that works.