difficult child Is Back In Prison - I just Want to Cry

difficult child has been on probation since last august and was doing okay for a couple of months until mid January when he was supposed to go to school for the spring semester. Instead, he left home and told me he was staying with a girlfriend. I wanted to believe him, but in my mind i knew he was lying. Instead i came to learn that he was spending time with a 28 year old drug dealer and his crew. Because he was reporting to his Po and doing what he was supposed to do, i let it play out hoping that he would come to his senses and leave the group. I begged him on the phone several times to leave and promised to help him find a job but he refused, and left with nothing to do, continued working on detachment and praying for the best.

Last Thursday night, i got a collect call at 1.30 am from the local police station. difficult child had been arrested with the drug dealer. Apparently, they were walking towards an apartment building in our town and somebody had called the cops because there was an incident in the area. difficult child and his accomplice were stopped by the one of the cops who had answered the call but instead of stopping they walked away. The cop went after them and did a search difficult child was found carrying 50-70 Percocet pills. The following morning, he was told to report to probation and the Po violated him and he was taken to jail. Now he is facing a new charge and the violation which might lead to him being locked up for more time. He has a hearing on the 4th of April.

Since he has been in jail, he doesn't want anything to do with me. I think he blames me for god knows what. The same night he was arrested, i had talked to him at 6.00 pm trying to get through to him and telling him that being around the people he was with would not end up well. Therefore,in his warped up mind, he thinks i might have called the cops on them. I was doing better on detachment and now i find myself with the same guilt and wondering how i could have raised a child with no common sense. I know very well the pills belonged to the dealer who is known in the area for dealing and who obviously is clever enough to use a handy boy like my son knowing full well of what would happen if they are caught. This is the second time that difficult child has landed in jail because he can't see when he is being used. I feel like crying and shouting at the same time when i think of how far he has fallen.

I would like to help him by retaining a lawyer who can keep him out of jail while he fights the possession charge, but he doesn't want to see me. I am not among the people who can visit him in jail and i don't know whom he has listed, but i am thinking the same kids he was hanging out with. Right now he has a court appointed attorney who doesn't have a good record and might not be able to keep him out. I am so conflicted and asking myself, " how do i look the other way and do nothing while i know deep down my difficult child is just a naive man-child who has been messed up by pot and right now doesn't even realize he is headed to jail? It is very hard.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
I had a daughter who abused drugs and once she quit she told me an earful that I almost didn't want to hear. One of them was, "If you use drugs, Mom, you also sell them. It goes together." I am going to say that I think your son was not an innocent victim here. He is old enough to know exactly what he was carrying and he probably (well, at least maybe) was selling them along with the drug dealer. He wouldn't be hanging around with this drug dealer if he didn't think it was ok to sell drugs. Likely he is also taking those drugs that he was holding. in my opinion you shouldn't bail him out. He won't learn anything if you do. Sounds in my opinion like you want to get him out of it. I think your son is not naive...I think he knows exactly who he is hanging out with, what he was doing, and what the consequences could be. You say he is smart...he knows. I am not trying to be unkind. I spent many years in denial and thought my daughter was only smoking pot when in fact she was snorting ADHD pills crushed in a pillcrusher, taking coke, meth, and even trying heroin. I wouldn't allow myself to believe any of this until I saw it for myself and I never would have seen it if I hadn't come home one day early on a vacation. It is easy for us to see the best in our kids.

Your son, like my daughter, may decide to change his ways. But nobody is putting a gun to his head and making him hang out with these folks and he isn't just an innocent dupe. If you want to bail him out, that is your prerogative, but he needs to eventually face the full consequences of his bad choices or he has no motivation to change.

in my opinion you should stop feeling guilty and start feeling angry. This is JMO. Maybe others will disagree with me.
 
MwM,
I agree with what you are saying. In fact i am angry as hell because i know he knew who he was hanging around with. I didn't mean to portray him as innocent but there is a back story to the whole thing. difficult child has not been using drugs because he had been passing his drug tests as per his probation officer. But what i have learnt recently from one of difficult child's friend is that difficult child was keeping the company with the dealer for protection. From what i was told, difficult child was being threatened by a local gang. When his previous case was finalized in august last year, his co-defendant was given 3-5 years in state prison while difficult child got 4 years probation. Apparently, the co-defendant blamed difficult child for this and sent out word on the street that difficult child was a "snitch," and the guy asked his co-gang members to harm difficult child if he was seen around. Anyway, this dealer that difficult child was with is feared on the streets and now i believe difficult child might have thought that he was really going to protect him. When difficult child left home in mid January, he left in a very unusual way because we we getting along fine and he was clean from drugs. I later saw a message on his Facebook that was written by this guy the day before difficult child left that said "they are looking for you, be careful." I didn't make much of it because difficult child had not mentioned anything and he was telling me that he was staying with a girlfriend. So, it is hard to know what was going on but of course i know difficult child knew carrying percoset pills was illegal and went along with it anyway. But my mother's heart wants to believe the best.
 

DDD

Well-Known Member
I'm sorry. My last experience like that was when easy child/difficult child was 18 and he had less than ten pills in his unoccupied car. He is a registered felon for life. I've never been able to focus my emotions on anger as MWM suggests...but I think she is likely right. I don't dwell on it after all these years (eight as of this week) but it causes profound grief to realize that even before he became an adult his future was irreparably impacted. on the other hand, my easy child/difficult child is alive and much improved over where he was at 18 and I hope your son will soon reach new landmarks of maturity. Hugs DDD
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
HaveHadEnough, I do understand the problem. Actually, there were people after my daughter, although she didn't tell me at the time and there was no Facebook so I could check up on her. One reason she wanted out of Wisconsin is because some drug dealers wanted her. It had to do with money or a misunderstanding or both...I never wanted to know the entire story. She learned that when you hang out with bad people, bad things happen. She was very fortunate that she was never in jail. And, yes, it was just luck. She did go on probation twice when she was a minor, but that was taken off her record at eighteen. I mean, LUCKY. So I do get it. I'm so sorry. I hope that you can work it out and he sees that bad people==bad experiences. I don't know if you can move him out of state, but it sure helped my daughter to run off to Illinois. Nobody knew where she was and she had a fresh start.
 

Tiredof33

Active Member
(((huggs)))
I have no advice to give, just wishing you the best. I wish I had this forum for support when I was going through all of the jail, bail calls.

The last time (many years ago) I bailed my son out and waited in the car for 5 hours waiting for him. He never showed up and I had no way of contacting him. The pain in the a** difficult child had called another 'friend' to pick him up after I bailed him out and did not think enough of me to let me know.

There are so many things I would do differently with my difficult child and one of them is to let him sit in jail and figure it out for himself. I finally got to that point, but it tool a while.

I honestly feel that my difficult child only thinks of me when he needs money - now that I have stopped that he has gone NC. It hurts, but it is so peaceful most days! All of my 'helping' only delayed his learning to take care of himself.
 

Calamity Jane

Well-Known Member
HHE,
I am so sorry - I know you are hurting so much right now. difficult child probably does think you ratted him out. The whole situation stinks.
My difficult child also was a great kid till he got involved with drugs, initially pot, at 16. Your son's story could be my son's story. Common sense is obliterated when someone lives in the alternate universe of drug use/sales. None of this is your fault at all. Sadly, it sounds possible that he left your home so abruptly to not only avoid the gang himself, but to also protect you from any violence as well. That is why he is probably so angry with you, because he thinks you betrayed him by telling the police.
I don't live in the world of drugs, so I can't see the logic in seeking protection from a gang by living with a drug dealer. It just makes no sense, but it's a crazy world and maybe that is the way things work. He is probably under pressure right now to give up all the information he knows on the drug dealer whose protection he sought. That's a bad spot to be in. I hope he relents and allows you to see him soon, because he WILL need a good lawyer. I hope once this is settled he turns his back on that lifestyle forever. Stay strong.
 

dashcat

Member
I am so sorry this is happening to you. My only experience (thus far) with substance abuse is from reading the experiences of others on these boards, and from Family's Anonymous, so hear my advice with that in mind: sometimes we have to let them experience the consequences of their choices. Whether or not those choices were innocent ones sometimes doesn't matter. What matters is that they see that how they live their lives is up to them... do they want turmoil or do they want peace? I know it's hard, but maybe he has to be a bit shaken up before he decides to change things.

Dash
 
Your responses are so valuable and i very much appreciate your support. Your words have given me courage and helped me look at the situation differently. @ Mwm i would love so much to get him out of state but with these new charges it will probably be impossible until the case is settled assuming there will be a positive outcome. To tired, jail is his only option right now until maybe the 4th when he has the hearing for probation violation. I am hoping he will take time while there to reflect on his life and the choices and circumstances that have led him there but you can only hope. unfortunately for me, i get very panicky when i think of him being in jail because i tend to believe the stories that people tell about the jail environment - the beatings and all the other bad stuff. Hopefully he is safe. @ CL, you just spoke the feelings i have had about difficult child being under pressure from the police to give away his accomplice, which i know he wouldn't do because he is probably getting pressure from the dealer to keep quiet or else. A few weeks after difficult child left the house in Jan, i talked to a former friend who stopped hanging out with difficult child because he didn't approve of the company difficult child was keeping and this boy told me that the dealer that difficult child was with is somebody who has been sought by the cops before. When i tried to talk to difficult child about it, he told me i did't know anything about the people he was with so to just leave him and them alone. This makes me very sad because i don't recognize the person difficult child has become. Anyway, like Dash said, i hope this will shake him into changing his behavior.
 

recoveringenabler

Well-Known Member
Staff member
HHE, I'm sorry you're going through this with your son. I can only imagine how much your heart hurts and how confusing all of this is. Is it possible for YOU to talk to an attorney to get some legal advice and find out what the options for your difficult child are after the hearing? Perhaps if your difficult child were willing to go to a recovery facility that could be arranged for him. He may not be at the stage where he is seeking help yet and not communicating with you at all is tough on you. I see the value of allowing natural consequences to reign, but I also understand your fears and confusion as well. I don't know, if it were me, I might talk to an attorney for my own peace of mind and if there are other options, then maybe tell your difficult child what they are and see if he would agree to getting help now in which case you might be willing to hire an attorney for him. It might be worth it to try to negotiate a healthier option with him. Whatever you do, I hope you find some peace of mind.
 
RE, the court appointed attorney had mentioned that the new charges didn't appear strong because there were grounds for dismissal of evidence, but he was not very positive about the violation charge and told me difficult child might get jail time because this is the second time that he has violated probation. My feeling after learning everything that has been going on is that difficult child needs a change of environment because he is keeping the company of very dangerous people. Prior to his arrest, he had been passing drug tests so i don't know whether the court can give him a break following that angle. But i have been thinking and had decided to seek a second opinion from a private attorney and see whether there is any other way difficult child can be helped besides jail time, so i am going to contact one tomorrow. Thank you for the encouragement.
 
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