Hey....there is nothing you could have to done to have prevented this.
Our difficult children (Gift from God...sort of tongue in cheek sad little joke) are wired differently. They don't think like others do. Many have been problematic from birth and have difficult, fighting-the-world, defiant personalities that are inherent. As soon as we are aware of this, and none of us WANT to think our babies will grow up to be a jail risk or a drug abuse risk, we do what we know best and try hard. Usually we figure it out after the drug using starts or the stealing or the incessant lying or the disrespect or the very strange difficult child trait, that is extremely common, of them just not wanting to be responsible, independent and law abiding. Most kids grow up and wish to fit into socieity's norms, but our difficult children do not have that desire. Why? Well, it sure isn't because we didn't teach them right from wrong. They know right from wrong, they just choose not to do it. Very few are psychotic in any way as in mentally ill to the point that they are unaware that what they are doing may result in prison. They do know, but they do it anyway. We beg with them, pay for help, talk to them, give them free money, then we finally need to make them leave our home when they become dangerous to others or they are doing illegal stuff in our house or they are so mean and disrespectful and refuse to do anything with their lives other than to sit at home and scream at us about this and that. Oh, yes, and collect allowance from us at absurd ages, such as 20, 26, 30, 50 if we allow it. It is not healthy for us to allow it. Or for them.
I have a son who is difficult. I know he has broken the law, although not with drugs, but he is too smart to do it in such a way he would get caught and I have no proof of anything that I suspect. He has been a problem since birth. So I've read tons and tons of books and research on people with personality disorders, which I am convinced run in my family. This lack of empathy. This lack of a normal conscience at times. I am reading more and more research on identical twins that implies this is actually mostly inherited...this strangeness, this criminality. The identical twins vs. fraternal twins studies show this and of course identical twins have the same DNA. Even if you adopt a child, their DNA is there and they will be possibly more like their bio. family that they don't even know than us (I have adopted kids too, but my biggest problem is my bio. son).
I just finished reading "In Sheep's Clothing" and it was eye opening. As time goes by, and my son is 36, I look back after reading the expert's words and feel I did all I could. I did not always feel this way. Like all of you, I blamed me, my divorce from his father, his father, the world, those who didn't "understand" him, mental illness, etc. In the end, it is really his choice to behave a certain way. However, I am learning not to enable to horrible behavior. If he isn't respectful to me on the phone, and he calls several times a day, I won't talk to him. If he swears at me, calls me a nice name like a c***t, starts blaming me for something or even raises his voice too much, I hang up. He knows I will do it and I am shocked at how remarkably well finally sticking up for myself has worked with him. He is too close to me and has a need to talk to me, even if it's to abuse me, so he has been almost always fairly polite of late because he knows he can't talk to me if he's not. It's really refreshing. I don't know what he is doing when he's not talking to me as he lives states away and I don't HAVE to know. He is an adult. I don't know if he is always telling me the truth, but I do know he is getting better at that than he was in his twenties. But it doesn't matter anyway, as long as he is polite.
As far as money goes, he has gotten lots of it from his father, my ex, and that is ex's decision. But he doesn't get any from me. Fortunately, he has a good job and always has been self supporting. However, that does not stop him from wanting more money from other sources.
I did not raise my son to steal for money or to hit on vulnerable people for money or to do other things that he does so I no longer blame myself. Except for a horrendous year when he was in a custody battle for his son and was under tremendous stress which is not his friend at all, he has gotten a lot better.
At least, I dont' think he is dabbling in illegal stuff anymore. I don't know for sure. I have decided to not try to figure out if more is going on than it seems.
At any rate, none of you are "bad" mothers and none of this is our faults. We didn't put guns to our kid's heads and say, "Use drugs! Break the law!" They choose their paths. Many difficult children seem to care little about us except for money we may provide. Often the money they beg us for, like a ten year old begs for candy, is spent on illegal stuff, not what they say it's for.But they are manipulative and play on our guilt. If all else fails they often say, "That's it. I'm going to kill myself."
My son did the latter until I started calling 911 every time he said it.
We have zero control over our grown adult children, but we have control how WE behave toward them. I strongly recommend a twelve step group for face time support, tough love groups, The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill which has classes for loved ones of those who are "off", and also a good private therapist. Maybe a combination of a few support systems. This is too hard to do alone. A really good set of books are "Codependent No More" by Melody Beatty and "Boundaries" by Cloud and Townsend. Boundaries is written with a Christian slant, but if you are of a different religion or have none, you can still gain a lot from the parts that are not biblical. That does not take away from it's wisdom. Same with Twelve Step Groups. I am closer to a combination of Buddhist and New Ager than anything and both sources have helped me A LOT!