I don't have any sage advice about your father and dealing with that situation. It sounds rough and others have posted lots of advice already. I can say though that if he's pushing for more natural approaches there is one thing I discovered recently that helped some. I thought that the whole essential oils thing was complete quackery and frankly completely stupid. Then I was with my bff the other night and she saw I was in a bad state and called a friend who does the whole oils thing. She came right over and trialed them on me. I know it wasn't a placebo effect because I thought it was dumb. It's worth looking into, even though they can be pricy. As pointed out, the longer I can keep myself (more or less) off serious drugs, the more I'll have available later. Looking into alternatives to hard hitters is a great idea, but keeping away from the daily dose things like lyrica, cymbalta, gabapentin and the like that have the potential to be really helpful just doesn't seem to make sense to me.