More of the Story

Andy was not opposed to the move.  In fact he seemed excited about meeting new friends, living 20 minutes from Six Flags, Universal Studios, the beach, and an hour from Disneyland.  He planned on trying out for football, went to one practice, and then quit.  Within just a couple of months after school started I was called to a meeting with a school counselor to discuss his behavior and lack of motivation to do his homework.  He would stay up late at night, struggled to get up in the morning, and began blowing off school.  Yes, he was disciplined, grounded, taken to a counselor, and loved.

It didn't take Andy very long to become friends with questionable people.  I could smell marijuana often in our home.  The day after his 16th birthday we took him to Arizona for a ten week wilderness experience with an organization that uses the wilderness (and professional therapists) as therapy for at-risk kids.  He enjoyed it for the most part, learned a lot, had a change of heart, but the very night we got home he left with friends and came back smelling like weed.

To make a long story short--he was expelled from school, tried alternative schools, quit his high school education all together,  and continued hanging out with other drop-outs.  He was arrested for writing checks off of his employer's business; checks he made out to his drug friends.  He got probation, along with community service, which he wouldn't show up for and when he did he shoplifted and got kicked out of the program.  His choice then was either jail or rehab for three months.  He chose a residential rehab.  He wouldn't go to the 12-step meetings or counseling, but did stay the full three months.  His dad and I continued to have hope that this was just a phase, he'll outgrow it and get tired of court dates, getting into trouble, etc.  Our discipline fell on deaf ears. 

He was always fairly congenial to be around, didn't argue or fight with us, but did his own thing when we weren't looking.  And when we weren't looking, our son had outgrown the marijuana phase and had graduated to heroin.  He was 17 or 18 years old and addicted to a "killer" drug.

Andy refused help and the consequences were many more traffic tickets, cars impounded, and run-ins with the law, but no more arrests until he and some "friends" went to a home where they were invited in by a young teenage girl.  The boys got drunk, ransacked the house and stole the TV along with some other valuables.  They were arrested, put in jail and Andy was sentenced to one year of which he served six months, eventually.  In between court hearings he was arrested in AZ for a large quantity of marijuana found in his car.  He was sentenced to six months in AZ.  While in jail he detoxed, while out he used, and using means finding money somehow, somewhere to buy the drugs.

After living in California for six years we moved back to Arizona so between the two states, going back and forth for court hearings, warrants, DUI's, in and out of jail for probation violations, it has now STOPPED.  While waiting in California after a court hearing for permission to return to Arizona our son was arrested for possession of stolen goods on his person and in our home there.  He is being accused of many burglaries in the local area.  All done to support his drug habit.  Oh, and I forgot to mention  over the past two years he has stolen many of our personal items that went to pawn shops.

I'm sure as you read this you are wondering why we didn't get this taken care of years ago, when it first began, or when the carnage was happening, or when, when, when.  I tried, we tried various things, could have turned him in when he first began stealing from us, perhaps should have called the police when he brought marijuana into our home.  I really don't know if that would have made a difference.  It seems that his course had been set from an early age.