what do I do?

[momama]

My 16 year old son has been doing poorly in school always. Now as a sophomore, he failed one class 1st semester and currently has 4 F's, 5 weeks from the end of the 2nd semester. We recently found out he has been using marijuana. He has told us not often or for long, of course we believe that it is longer and more often that he admits. We told him that we would regularly drug test him and that we couldn't allow him to do things that would put him in danger. He spewed out statistics and information about the benefits of marijuana use and told us that he had no intention of stopping... My husband and I did see a counselor who advised us on how to work with our son and it was not really working, then we found out about the pot use. We went to our counselor asking about sending our son away for an outback type of program for the summer to try to turn things around and asking what he thought of them, he said that we would send him when we had reached our limit, which I was at then, my husband wasn't... I saw Dr. Bradley 5 years ago and got my husband to go with me recently to see him again. Now my husband gets it. Thank You Dr. Bradley...then we were encouraged by the improvement in home life since we started implementing a change in the way we deal with our son and thought we could ditch the plan to send him away. Our son's behavior at home is exceptionally better since we have changed. We drug tested him and he told us he would fail, just yesterday the same thing happened. He is continuing to use, which we have told him that we cannot allow him to continue to do things that will harm him. We are going to tell him that he is not allowed to go out without us until he tests negative, but he can have his friends come to our house.
After finding out that he is continuing to use pot, an updated progress report arrived today and the grades that he told us he was working on improving are not better, tardy multiple times in many classes and detentions I am feeling that we may need to do it after all. He still has two more years before he turns 18 I feel like we really need to take drastic steps to get him on a better path before our time runs out. Since he has not stepped up to take care of his school work I am thinking that we need to have a tutor sit with him and make sure he does his homework, reading and studying until the school year ends in order to make sure he steps up and does his work. Of course I want him to graduate high school, but we need to get the marijuana out of his life. not sure what to do. He is not usually very cooperative and he has a history of running away...hasn't done that in almost a year but he might try it again.
I told him that he would need to go to a drug program and he told me he wouldn't, "I'm not addicted, I can stop if I want to, I just don't want to". I know if he doesn't want to stop all efforts are a waste of time. So how do we turn this around??!!
Thanks for any suggestions!

[Susan Ogden]

I suggest you enroll him in a drug treatment as soon as possible. While he is still 16, he is in your care and custody. As Dr Bradley said to me(when I consulted him about my daughter's dangerous actiing out) Your child's brain is not working and you need to be his brain.

[momama]

Thank you Susan for your reply. Anything else you can tell me about what Dr. Bradley told you or what you experienced?
Any suggestions of programs? My son tested positive today for marijuana and neg for everything else. He told me that I am not helping him by making him stay home until he tests negitive and that his life would be better if I wasn't in it. I reminded him that we told him that this would be the consequence if he tested positive. He remined me that he told us that he is going to continue to use. So obviously you are right we need drug treatment.
Grateful for your help.

[momama]

So he left last night and didn't return. He had detention at school today and the principal called me so I know he attended that. He didn't come home after detention so I texted him and he told me that he is not coming home becasue he said he needs to take a break from me.
Now what, what do I do when he comes back? There needs to be consequences for his running away but I have no control over him and he makes unfortunate decisions so how do I discipline him? He doesn't abide by the family rules so now what?

[Esprit]

My heart went out to you re: his leaving and not coming home. It's terrifying for a mom especially since he is only 16. It is interesting that he went to school though. I think you need to stand firm on the most major rules of the house which relate to his drug use. Tell him you love him too much to allow him to use drugs. I think the testing is a good idea. Is it a wide-spectrum test you are using? You really need to draw a line in the sand with this that includes regular and unsheduled drug tests with mandatory not going out until they are negative and stay negative. In a sense, you become the drug treatment, but I wouldn't do all of that without a professional to guide you. You said you saw Dr. Bradley recently. Seems like it's important to get your son to him ASAP for an eval. Maybe your son will agree if he sees it as a way to win some freedoms back?

One thing it sounds like your son does is throw around a bunch of statements to throw you off from the matter at hand. It's important to disregard all of that and not get into a debate. He's trying to distract you from the core issue which is that he's positive for drugs and exhibiting drug behaviors. I would think he knows in his heart that he is in trouble. It's not fun living like that. When my son was using he sounded the same and when he was in recovery he said that he talked like that because "I was what stood between him and his addiction/drugs"

Another thought is that if he runs away again, you could consider calling the police to look for him. THat might help in the shock it might be for him and if he were to be arrested he would most likely have court mandated treatment. But I don't know all the ins and out of that.

Bottom line, he needs an individual counselor ASAP and then let the professionals help with the next steps. We can't always do it all ourselves. His safety is the biggest concern. Hope you are holding up ok. It is very, very difficult.

[teenbs1234]

Try researching on Emphatic Listening. Try to know what it is and how to do it. Then, apply it when your son comes back. Listen to him deeply. When you both get settled, advice him to go to boarding school. Find the top boarding school in your area or a military boarding school. They instill descipline and responsibility there. He might be able to adopt that when he's there.