I have known this individual for over two years. He was a kind and wonderful person with a promising career in the field of neuroscience. A head injury he received at 18 initiated his prescription drug abuse, and he has been hooked ever since. His grades are plummeting, he lost his job, and numerous behavioral issues are starting to surface. I tried contacting his family once before to inform them of the issue, but they didn’t seem concerned and did nothing about it.

I later found out from his sister that his parents were aware of the issue. She tried to get him help, but they told her to shut up about it. They are from a small town, and she told me that they didn’t want people knowing their son was an addict. I hate to portray them this way, but the mother is legitimately a “refrigerator mother” and the father is entirely apathetic. Their son desperately wants help, but they would prefer to ignore the issue and have him handle it on his own.

When things became very bad, I contacted them yet again and they finally flew into FL to see their son. It soon became clear that they wanted to get me out of the picture, and to get me to shut up because they are embarrassed. They would rather live in denial than deal with the inconvenience of having an addict family member.

I feel as though they are going to throw their son in rehab, and leave him there to rot. They have never been actively involved in any of their children’s lives (they are likely responsible for the development of these issues in the first place -3/4 of their children suffer from similar problems). They are not proactive, and though they knew their son had this problem, they wouldn’t even do so much as to call him to see how he was on a regular basis. I refuse to let him sit there in rehab alone with no support system. What do I do?