Is there any way to help a friend who is a mess?

I have an internet friend who seems to be in a lot of trouble. She and her husband are unemployed. She is trying to find a college for her kid to go to next year. Her father just passed away and her mother is in and out of the hospital. Her mother lives several hours away.

In addition, she is an alcoholic, and, I think, she is hooked on some prescription drugs of quasi-legality. Oh. If that weren’t enough, she’s bipolar and doesn’t really want to take her meds.

Now my thinking is that you can’t force someone to take care of themselves. If this is the way she copes with pain, I can’t do anything to tell her otherwise. She’s very smart and she knows all the health issues involved. It doesn’t stop her from her self-destructive path. I take heart from her assertion that she would never abandon her kid.

Is the only thing I can do is to keep on writing her and listening to her?