[masraum]

OK, I've got a 23 yo stepdaughter that's ultra responsible, and a 25yo stepson who is not. He's had various problems over the years. He's been a liar since the 7th grade. At some point within a couple of years of that he must have started on drugs etc... I know there's been pot and some harder stuff, but I think 95% of the time he does quantities of cold medicine. We sent him to his father's about a year after graduation when he screwed up his second semester of Jr College. We thought that a change of location and people might help, but it didn't and his father told him that he had to leave within a year. Just before he left he wrecked the vehicle he'd taken with him and had a DUI associated with the wreck. We had him here for a short time (couple of weeks) before he went to live with a girl he'd met on the internet. They were friends and ultimately that didn't work.

He'd supposedly been clean (mostly because she lived too far from any place for him to get stuff, I think) He was there almost a year. We let him come back to try again. We are usually against medicating things, but he'd had so many problems that we figured it might help and let him go to a shrink and get some pills. We've been monitoring his pills. They seemed to help and he's held down a job now for a while (8-10 months, his usual is no more than 3 months). He took a class at the Jr College over the X-mas break and got an A, and is getting A's in the classes that he's signed up for now.

In the past and possibly recently, he's also been known to shoplift liquor if he doesn't have money to buy it. He has panic attacks and seems to not be able to help himself, he has to get something to dull his brain. He ran out of pills about a week before his most recent appointment (a week or two ago) to get new meds and at the same time had 5 days off in a row from work (idle hands....) He fell off of the wagon. He's gotten back on the meds, but hasn't gotten back on the wagon I found a bottle of vodka and a couple of small flask size bottles of Jim Beam, that was last week. Today, we found a small empty flask size of Jim Beam, an empty bottle of wine, and two empty cold medicine bottles in his room today when we got home. I think that those are from today and yesterday.

We're REALLY fed up with this and have given him many chances. He's 25. We're about ready to give the heave ho, but that's scary. We don't want him to be dead in a month or 6 months. That would devastate my wife, and I wouldn't be happy about it.

I know that many of you had to leave at 18, and that many of you have thrown kids out after 18. How's that work. He doesn't have a license or a car, and there's not really any mass transit in Houston or our suburb. If I could put him into the military, I would, but I'm not sure that would help these days with stress cards and the wussification and all.

We're at our wit's end. We've tried everything that we can think of, and it's not worked. The psych drugs seemed to help for a while, but they aren't the panacea that we'd have liked.

There are times that I'd like to put him in a hole myself. At this point, I don't even really like him as a person. He's not all bad, when he's sober. He always calls my mom to thank her for gifts. He's very sweet. But he can also be a real ass, and I'm really tired of this crap and what it does to my wife and myself.

Any thoughts/advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks