I feel you. My mother is a sullen alcoholic who lies in bed nearly 24 hours a day with the television constantly on. We find empty bags of chips and jars of mayonnaise just sitting next to her bed, and she doesn't really eat meals. She doesn't shower regularly and is always constipated because of her bad diet and lack of movement. She compensates for this with lots of laxatives, which then give her explosive diarrhea. She's completely unresponsive to any encouragement to change any of this. When she occasionally ventures out of her room she does one of 3 things: ask where all the cats are at that moment, boss my dad around and steer any running conversation toward an anecdote about her childhood, usually some tale of woe about herself that she wants pity for. She has done literally nothing with her life these last 10 years except drink wine and watch television. She's found one reason or another to write off virtually everyone she's ever known. I have no idea how or why she's still alive. She doesn't seem to be living for anything whatsoever, and it's painful to be around a person whose mind hasn't been nourished by learning or traveling or working or social life in years. Her idea of something to talk about is an amusing commercial she saw on TV. We've lost other elders in our family who were vitally alive and forces for good until cancer or some other illness got them. I feel like every day of my mother's life is not only a waste, and a burden to others, but an insult to those we've lost. I refuse to end up like her: wallowing in self-pity and consoling myself with unrepentant sloth and squalor.