Our Difficult Child is hub's 16 yr old son that he adopted with his ex-wife. He is addicted to pot, and we believe he recently started huffing (due to empty co2 cartridges we keep finding in his room). We were in truancy court last week (for the second time in a 2 months) due to excessive absences/refusal to attend school and the judge court ordered him to leave school and obtain his GED in the next 6 months. When he did go to school, he was constantly getting into trouble and had a long discipline folder, so I guess that helped the judge decide to remove him from school. Difficult Child has stolen money from our bedroom, so we installed a deadbolt and lock our room every time we leave the house. Then, he started stealing from one of his sisters (she is a bagger at a grocery store and gets tips, so she regularly had $$ laying around). We got her a lockbox, but then Difficult Child would toss her room, so we recently had to get her a locking doorknob that he couldn't pick. We keep wondering when we are going to come home to find our things gone. Another issue is the girlfriend. She lives very near our home and we are having trouble keeping her out of the house. Difficult Child sneaks her in when we aren't home. Sunday was the second time I have found her in his room. The first time I told her she wasn't allowed upstairs (in his room) no matter what he tells her. Sunday, I told her that she was no longer welcome in our house and if I caught her there, I would call the police. As they were leaving, Difficult Child laughed and said he would bring her back whenever he wanted. (along with an expletive or two). Hubs wasn't home, and by the time he got home, Difficult Child was long gone. Yesterday, my daughter got home from school and the girlfriend was there again and she called and told me. I told my husband and he left work to go take care of the situation. He has told Difficult Child that he is going to stay at his mother's house for a while. Maybe for good. Once we get him to his mother's house (she only lives about 15 minutes away), we plan to change the code for the garage door, and since he doesn't have a key, we can at least limit is access to our home. We don't want to "pawn" him off, but the mother pretty much encourages this behavior. I won't say she encourages the drugs, but she and I have had the typical "mother/evil stepmother" relationship and really made things difficult between the kids and me from the very beginning. I have been with my hubs for 15 years (our first date was on Difficult Child's 2nd birthday...which was also the day his divorce was final), we have been married for the last 5 years, but have only lived together for the last 4 years due to small house issues (all 3 kids have always lived with us). Both of hub's kids were adopted with his ex-wife during their marriage. They share the same birth mother, but different fathers. All parents are/were drug users and last time we even received a letter, both of Difficult Child's birth parents were in jail (but that was probably close to 10 years ago) Nevertheless, I knew the mom (ex-wife) behavior influenced the kids, they treated me a certain way and I still married my honeybuns. I did not come into this marriage blindly, so I am not looking for pity or sorrow because I am the stepmom to a difficult child. I am hoping for some positive thoughts, lots of prayers (if you are a praying person, I would love it if you said a prayer for us!) and mental support.