Is there any hope at all?

[Nicelady]

Hello all I am new to this forum. Hope sharing my story will help others and will also help me. Thank you all in advance!

I am a single mother of 18 years old boy. He is residing with my parents his grandparent in another state since I am working in a big city and busy all the time my parents have offered their help to watch him and take care of him while he was at the private school.
May be me leaving separately from him and being a single mother was a root cause of the problem but it is too late to undo that anyway.


Also there is no father figure in his life. Grandfather could hardly play this role. To addition to that he has a club foot even it was thread with the surgery there are more are expected and he is trying to bring it as an excuse to his performance at school and general behavioral issues every time I am trying to have a conversation with him.


He always had performance issues at school from the beginning and was balancing between D and F.
However private tutoring, online schooling and other individual options worked much better and that is how he was able to earn credits at 9[SUP]th[/SUP] and 10[SUP]th[/SUP] grade in HS.

However he was always complaining of him being unhappy in private school and was always asking to transfer him to the regular public school with the promises to improve the performance.
I made a mistake of believing him and when he started his 11[SUP]th[/SUP] grade at the regular public school then the real “fun” begun.

Almost every day it was class skipping, no homework doing what so ever, weekend hanging with “friends”, drinking and marijuana use.
And non-stop assuring that he will take care of things. As a result he earned no credits for the 11[SUP]th[/SUP] grade.
At this senor year things are even worse: he got caught with shop lifting, possession of marijuana, suspended at the school for bringing scale and a pipe to the school.

And he still needs to earn 6 credits in case to be graduated in June. School has offered him online class option and the only thing he needs to do just to take some online classes that are very easy to learn and pass(for normal people). He could not even pass a driving permit exam.

Despite all of that he is continuing to do nothing, absolutely nothing expect getting more marijuana when he is out of it. And his only thoughts were to get money to buy more weed.

I was asking him to move out he is saying he is not moving anywhere and my poor parents his grandparent are not ready to call a police on him to physically kick him out of the house. They just are not capable of literally forcing their only grandson on a street and neither am I.
We afraid he is capable of begin roaming street and he could frizz to death like it happened a lot with homeless people in that region. Winter is brutal in that state.

So it continues: he is spending most of the time at home doing nothing expect only going out to get more weed and to get caught by police for a possession. Seems like he does not care about being caught either.

He refuses any counseling and so far passed all the drug tests. I don’t know how it was possible at the special medical office but officially he is clean even though he is openly smoking marijuana.

I was thinking to place him at residential treatment facility but it’s required to do some prior counseling and positive drug tests. But that means he is not going to be graduated this year and no college for him either.
I am frustrated and depressed since I myself have Masters and MBA and have very good career and that helped me to survive as a single mother and keeping two households and I was hoping I will be proud of my only son but as it turned the only child could crash all the hopes in a very brutal way.

Any advice any reference any suggestion would be appreciated!

Thanks you, Nicelady.

 

[buddy]

Hi there... Just wanted to welcome you. This is not the parenting issue I have but others here are very very experienced in this kind of situation and I hope you find them to be the kind and supportive peers I have. (I know you will)

Take care, HUGS, Buddy

 

[AmericanGirl]

Welcome Nicelady,

I'm sorry about the turn of veents which has brought you here. I have an 18 yr old son too.

Have you had him drug tested at more than one place? There are three here. One does it the right way. The others have much lowered standards. I don't have personal experience with hair testing but that may be worth looking into. Others here can help.

Since he is 18 you likely cannot force placement at any facility under these circumstances.

I have recently started going to Alanon. It has truly been a salvation....such good information. Clears my head so I can think properly.

Any mental health issues in his family tree?

 

[pinevalley]

Welcome to this community, Nice Lady,

You have come to a good place, because you will find a lot of advice and support here.

I'm so sorry that you and your parents are in this crisis with your son. I also have an 18 year old son who is addicted to marijuana, so I can understand your pain. In many ways your story sounds a lot like mine, because my son is also just a few months from graduating from high school. His personality has been completely changed by his drug use, and he is not the same boy that we once knew. He has no motivation except to hang out with his friends and use weed, and he absolutely refuses to go even go to school. This is a nightmare for my h and I, so I can understand what you are feeling.

My h and I felt that we had to establish clear rules about what we would not accept in our home. No drugs or drug paraphanalia (sp), and no alcohol use allowed at all. We do not let our son drive a car, he can not use a cell phone, and we absolutely never give him any money at all. This is very important, because whenever your parents give your son even a few dollars he probably just spends it on weed. I know that this will be hard for your parents to do, but they must be very firm about not giving him any money if he is still using. If you cut off his money supply your son might try to steal money or credit cards from you or your parents. Your parents will have to lock up their cash and credit cards in a secure place. We had to change the lock on our walk-closet to a lock with a key so that we could keep our son from stealing all the cash that we had in the house.

We made it very clear that if he was high from weed he would not be allowed to stay in our house. He still parties with his loser friends, but he does not come home to us, and instead stays with friends. This is not easy for us at all, but we are trying to make our son's life so difficult so that he realizes that he needs help for his drug problem. It is a very long process, and our son is still using weed, so I definitely do not have all the answers.

I hope that you can find a counselor or a therapist to help you deal with all the emotions that you are feeling now. To answer your title question, I really believe that there is hope for my son and for yours. It will not be easy, but we are all in this together. Sending you strength for the long battle ahead.....

 

[BusynMember]

Hi, NIcelady. You poor thing... I really felt you pain.

I have a daughter, now 27, who used drugs heavily from 12-19. I thought she would either end up in jail or dead and I preferred JAIL!

After a few false starts and a trip to live with her straight brother in another state, she quit. She not only quit drugs, but even cigarettes. She walked to and from work (her license had been revoked) and she became the manager of a Subway.Baby Steps. She is now a culinary school graduate with a good job at the college she went to (she is the pastry chef of all their events). She bought a house with her boyfriend of eight years. She has been clean all this time without going to rehab or even therapy (not that these things are not helpful, but she did it herself). THERE IS HOPE. My daughter was in such bad shape that drug dealers were after her for money.

Sometimes it is just a phase, so please hang in there and Keep the Faith. I did not expect her to turn this around on her own. Your son is still young too. He has plenty of years left. Something may scare him into quitting (my daughter had a special Ah-Ha moment). It is never too late to get your life together. Ever.

((((Hugs)))) and sending you good wishes and crossing my fingers, eyes, and toes!

 

[Nancy]

Welcome Nicelady, your name fits you well, you sound like a very nice lady. I am sorry you have these issues with your son. So many of us are struggling with difficult child's who are abusing substances to deal with life. If your son refuses help and your parents are not able to take the steps necessary for him to get help, there isn't much you can do. Unfortunately his substance abuse may get to the point where you will need to do something.

At 18 he can refuse residential treatment, however you can make that a condition for him living with you or your parents.Then it becomes his choice. We also have members here who had to accept the fact that their difficult child was not going to graduate from high school. I know that's very difficult to accept but if you can get him into residential and he can get help for his problem, he can always finish with his GED and still go to college.

We've had to make some difficult decisions as a family over the years but in the end we could not ignore our difficult child's drug/alcohol use. Every family has to come to that in their own time.

Hugs,
Nancy