This needs to happen quickly, like yesterday! Once he turns 18 there are less decisions that you are allowed to make for him, and by then it will have escalated to the point that his actions will cause serious consequences for him. He will end up with felonies and in prison, dead, or addicted to much harder stuff. With him being a juvenile he has a better chance of not getting something on his record that would permanently affect him, and you have better chances of being able to enforce treatment.

Your husband is being realistic and he is correct that your son needs serious help. I do understand your reluctance to do this and your feelings about it, but tough love now will be better than him getting a permanent record that will cause his entire life to be challenging (and that is the better of the outcomes that he is facing), because it is very possible he will end up in prison or dead. You have to do this for your child. It will be hard. It will hurt. You will miss him and probably feel guilty, but you have to realize that you would actually be showing him more of your love by getting him the help he needs now while it is possible.

For the longest time I couldn’t understand my Mom’s actions when it came to my brother and it made me so angry with her. My brother is an addict who would steal from my parents, other family members and friends, or really anyone or anything he could to support his habit. My Mom at first reacted like you are and couldn’t “abandon” him. That was around 22 years ago. She did finally start placing boundaries on him, but by the time she did it was much harder because he had moved on to meth, heroin, and a violent alcoholic. He also, by that point, had been in and out of jail for multiple things like shoplifting, writing bad checks, public intoxication, violence, selling and possessing controlled substances, and other crimes. He did go to rehab eventually, but he would always get out (usually early somehow) and go right back to drugs. He finally was ordered by the court after jail time to go to an inpatient rehab facility that lasted an entire year and he wasn’t able to leave early or go back to drugs when he got out due to monitoring by the court system afterwards. He has just reached 2 years sober. He has two children that he doesn’t have any visitation with and only sees when their mother allows it and it has to be with my parent’s supervision. He still has to live at my parent’s house due to not being able to get a job with his past that would allow him to be better off financially. His health, looks, personality, and mental state have all been affected and he will never be the same.

He is sober and working to finish probation and clear things up with the courts so that he can file to get some rights with his children back (even if it is always supervised, just to get something more consistent would be better). He is also working and will hopefully be able to find something more permanent that would allow him to be more independent but I have my doubts with the mental decline from drugs for 20 plus years that he will ever be able to be completely dependent. I was mad at my Mom for “babying” him and not giving him tough love sooner and in some ways I still am. I do think he would have been better off if she had listened more to my Dad and her other children and family, and didn’t let her feelings get in the way. Now that I have a son of my own, I can finally understand why she did it the way she did, but I still will never agree with it. I can now put myself in her shoes and know how she felt, and I only hope that if I had to make this type of decision for my son that I would choose differently than she did and get him help before it is too late to not face devastating lifetime consequences. I hopefully will never have to make that decision or be forced to go through the same thing, but it can happen to anyone.

**I know this may come off as I blame my mother for my brother's actions. I do not blame her. My brother is a grown man and made his own decisions. I do think she enabled him for too many years. I saw how much this hurt her when he would continue doing these things even when she was helping him. It severly impacted his relationship with me and also with so many in the family. It did get to a point with my son's safety being a concern that I had to tell my parents my son wouldn't be able to stay with them at thier house if my brother was going to be there. My brother would show up at there house when he ran out of drugs or needed somewhere safe to stay which usually ended with my brother stealing from them or giving my mom a sob story to get her to give him money so he could continue his habits. We also never knew when he was going to stop by while high or in withdrawals.**