I apologize in advance for the LONG post...

My Mother in law, is 16 years sober from Alcohol, she goes to regular meetings etc...

She has degenerative disc disease in her back and other issues which requires her use of Narcotic pain meds.

For years, they had her on Roxycodone and she took it as prescribed, about 2 years ago, she began, we think, abusing, she came to our home for the holidays and accused myself, my husband and my small children of taking almost 100 of her pills in less than 2 days???

Last year she fell and broke her hip, because of her long standing use of the Roxycodone, while in the hospital they used Morphine and sent her home with a script for Oxycontin, her PM Dr, told her, he would only give her the oxy for 30 days, then back to her usual meds...

I'm sure you can guess THAT didn't happen...I personally have not seen her since the blow out over my kids supposedly stealing her pills, that was until Easter Sunday...

She has lost probably 30 pounds that she could not afford to lose, she is now wetting herself, talking to long dead relatives, and her pride and joy, show dog, has severe mange...I had to walk outside several times and cry, during the visit.

She is on a fixed income, she has no medical insurance that would cover rehab and she sees absolutely no problem with how she is acting or living..

My question?...Any suggestions how we could possibly help her?

She is prescribed:

Oxycontin 80 mg 2 x a day
Roxycodone 10mg as needed for break through pain
Zanaflex (muscle relaxers) as needed
Phenagrin as needed
and several blood pressure and cholesterol meds

ANY and all advice, would be most welcome.

I feel real bad for you and your family...........all I can say is that you have got to start doing reserch into rehap centers that take in people that are in her shoes...........there has be some place that will take her

I wish you all the luck in the world........just don't give up on her

There are a lot of places that will take people with no insurance. It also depends though if she would be willing to go or would even see why she should. Some things are out of your control. All you can do is try a few times and then give it up to god's hands. And honey I am not a religious person but you just have to in order to live a peacful life. There are tons of what they call state slots...free beds and they usually take a few wks to get into. I went to rehab probably eight times and never once had insurance or paid for it. Sad and nothing to be proud of but yet very true.

You didn't mention her age, which has bearing both in terms of the potentials for treatment and in terms of which specific treatments might be of use. The older she is the more difficult the problem.

IMHO:
1. First issue is diagnosis: if the primary mechanism for pain is pathology in her back then the attempt to treat addiction issues will be blocked by reference to pathology, as you reflected when you said "which REQUIRES her use of narcotic pain meds". Many, many patients with primary addiction problems become untreatable because they and their doctors believe the primary problem is some physical illness which "requires" the meds. So, both she and her doctors must be convinced that the primary mechanism for her pain isn't her back.
2. IF she can reach this level (possibly by recognizing the background and observing that all the drugs don't work the way they should if the primary problem really were back pathology) then she may be in position to look further at the drug use.
3. Drug problems have been a "lifetime" issue for her so the underlying proclivities are deeply entrenched. They must be understood if the problem is to be controlled. If what she is really treating is deep emotional anguish then it must be recognized that simple attempts to avoid drugs are likely to fail. The anguish is still there and the tendency to use drugs to self-treat it is deeply entrenched.
4. Control of the situation may come if she has proper perspective of the true role of back pathology in "the pain" and if the psychosocial issues of emotional pain (also "the pain) are being approached constructively.
5. Sadly, this kind of situation doesn't have a good prognosis. It is entrenched. She has life adversity (physical, financial, probably other) which will drive her stress--which, in turn, will drive her pain. Her doctors may find it vastly easier to approach her illness under the hypothesis that back pathology warrants any amount of medications she requests (unless she--willingly or unwillingly--provides them SOLID data that she qualifies for a formal diagnosis of addiction [which is more than just chronic use of the drugs]). So, not easy.

As a place to start you could ask her doctors "Do you feel she shows any evidence of addiction?" If they give you a resolute "no" then they are possibly not likely to be much help in your pursuits. If they say something like "why do you ask" then they may become part of your team (they are open to the potential issues). If they say "yes, but she also has back disease" then they are probably already part of your team and both of you need to work toward a solid understanding of the relative roles of back pathology and anguish as predisposing factors to "the pain".

Good luck.