<p>Thanks for all the advice. Lots of it has already been tried over the past 3 years. </p>
<p>There are too many comments I want to make to individually address all the questions, but I think I can cover nearly all of them in a longer explanation than my original. I would like to specifically address the one about my screen name though. I have been very supportive of my son until the last 3 years and only started thinking of him as a knucklehead when he started making hundreds of bad decisions. I should also add that he too calls himself a knucklehead. </p>
<p>Also, DocT, I am so sorry about your loss but really appreciated you trying to help even though it must bring up very painful memories. </p>
<p>So, here is the longer version. </p>
<p>Our son was a perfect child up until middle school. At that time he started struggling a bit in some of his classes at the magnet school, and also got caught for the first time telling a lie (and it was a big one about stealing at school). He begged us to let him go to “the normal school” and we let him transfer since he was still in the gifted program, just at his home school. </p>
<p>8th, 9th, and 10th grade go by pretty uneventfully. He gets about 3/4 A’s and 1/4 B’s and is not involved in drugs or alcohol at all. And yes I am 100% sure of this. </p>
<p>11th grade his grades start slipping and near the end of the year he starts drinking. He begins to make other bad decisions, like not showing up to work if there is a party and he can’t find a sub.</p>
<p>12th grade he really slacks off and gets several D’s. He also turns into a big drinker. We all go to counseling then split, where he goes individually to the addiction specialist and DW and I go to another guy. We are told (right in front of him) that he is experimenting and doesn’t have a problem. We are dumbfounded that she would make that determination after just a couple of sessions (and without us to corroborate statements), and then tell us in front of him.</p>
<p>Summer after HS- the poor decisions get more frequent and even poorer. Pot enters the picture. He lies more and more to us. We kick him out of the house. He moves across the state to attend CC but then can’t find a job and decides not to enroll so that he can have some money to live. He tries cocaine but swears he never will again. He runs out of money and begs us to let him come home. We agree, but only under strict conditions. </p>
<p>1-he goes to a psychiatrist. This one is supposedly the best in the area, and a specialist in teenagers and behavior problems, including ADHD (which I had as a kid, and which one of my other children has). He too tells us that our son is experimenting and doesn’t have a problem. </p>
<p>2- drug testing.</p>
<p>3- he has to work.</p>
<p>4- he has to go to school and since he has no money we front him the tuition with the understanding that he will pay us back for anything under a C. </p>
<p>Spring 2011- 1st semester of CC he does ok. 1 D in a remedial algebra class; D in History; A in business; A in PE; A in a 1 credit class. He pays us back for at least one of the D’s (and may have paid the other one, but I think I remember that he didn’t have the money to pay back the other one. </p>
<p>Summer 2011- fails a drug test, loses his job because of irresponsibility (failing to get a sub), and initially lies about the job. We kick him out again and he moves nearby. BTW- this entire time we have not given him any money at all (other than the tuition). He and his roommates (friend and the friend’s dad) pay rent but the person keeps the money and doesn’t give it to the landlord and disappears. They lose the house around Christmas. He begs us to let him move home. He admits to selling pot, and to using it every day, and swears he wants to clean up his act. He also admits to arranging to buy a lot of pot while visiting friends at the State U with the intent of selling it. The police set up a sting and he barely avoids a felony charge, but lucks into a simple possess charge and has almost $2000 confiscated as drug funds. </p>
<p>Spring 2012- we let him move home and he gets his job back, registers for classes (again, agreeing to pay us back for any bad grades). He goes back up to fight the possession charge and misses school but the case is continued. He goes back a 2nd time and is convicted and loses his license. This time he misses a week of school because he has no car or license and can’t get a ride until the weekend (and claims he can’t even find a ride to the bus station an hour away). Neither time do we give him any money or help him in any way. Then he goes back again, this time to try to get his money back, and is successful, but misses a week of school again despite the fact that I showed him a bus schedule from the college town to the Greyhound station an hour away. </p>
<p>His grades come in and he gets 1 D and the rest F’s. He decides he is going to go back out west and live at the State U with friends and go to CC. He quits his job saying that it isn’t fair to work to have them train him in a new position and then leave in 2 weeks for school right after training is over. We tell him he has to move out immediately and he goes west and stays with friends who are in summer school. </p>
<p>He then asks if he can go on the family vacation with us and wifey says yes over my objections, figuring that getting him out of his environment and away from his friends will benefit him. We have a great vacation and he is his old self, but gets very sick and we have to go to the hospital twice, with follow-up care needed at home, which means he ends up moving back in with us until he can leave for school and his new apartment, which is another story. </p>
<p>We wouldn’t give him any money or co-sign the lease. We told him if he got the cash for the entire year though that they couldn’t deny him the apt. He didn’t have enough, but my wife co-signed the lease anyway after he gave her the first 7 months rent in cash and agreed to pay the rest in installments. </p>
<p>This takes us up through the recent incident with finding the pot in the backyard, which has another new twist. </p>
<p>While waiting to decide what to do, we hid the pot and told him we were leaning toward turning him in. At some point he figures out where it is and takes half of it back to the dealer so that if we turn him in he won’t get in as much trouble. But, he doesn’t take enough back to change it from a felony to a misdemeanor (he would have needed to take most of it back for that). He also doesn’t take it all back though, saying “I knew you guys would be super mad if I did that, but I was so scared and couldn’t let you turn that much in”. I am amazed that he didn’t turn it all in and protect himself, it shows me that he still cares about our feelings and wants to do the right thing (at least somewhat). He also tells us about it, instead of letting us find out first. </p>
<p>All of which bring us to today. Since counseling didn’t work, I don’t want to spend money on a long term rehab since I am not convinced that his drug use is the big problem. I think it is more his overall laziness and immaturity, and I don’t want to take a chance on losing that much money when I still have two other college careers to pay for, as well as a job that is extremely shaky at the moment.</p>
<p>Also, he has been ready to leave but wifey wanted him to stay until we decided on what to do, so that he would be available for rehab etc.</p>