My step dad is 94 years old and is addicted to gambling (he lives in Reno, Nevada). His mind is all there, but his body is failing him. He’s been in great health all his life until a heart attack last year. He insists on living on his own, but it is now very clear that it is not safe for him. He falls all the time and can’t clean his house properly and has recently been hospitalized for e-coli as a result. He refuses to live in assisted living. He is now in a nursing home after his hospital stay, but says he’s leaving after 7 days no matter what the doctor’s say. He refuses to pay for home healthcare and refuses to pay for a house cleaner. All because he wants as much money as possible to gamble. He is very selfish and demanding of me. I have my own health problems and I am not able to care for him. I want to just give him what he wants and let him live alone, but then I worry so much about his safety that it is detrimental to my own health. I have no legal recourse because I am a step daughter.
If you believe he is truly in danger then you can ask Adult Protective Services to check on him, his living conditions, and request their advice of how you should proceed.
This has to be such a worry for you. At this age, and with what he is doing to himself in these conditions it is truly self-limiting problem, because at some point they will not allow him discharged home. That may be now. Talk to them at his facility and tell them what you told us; tell them you feel his discharge home is an "unsafe discharge". Not a word they like.
Is he still driving?
I wish you peace in your heart that there's not much you can really do if he doesn't see the need to act.