Hello I am new to this forum and at my wits end. My 20 year old son, whi has always been strong willed and a bit if a challenge has recently (past 12 months) gone completely off the rails. He has a warm and loving homelife his dad and I are supportive and his elder sister loves him to bits. Everybody loves our son he has many friends and has always got on well with adults being polite, helpful and respectful.
He left school at 16 and immediately started a specialist course which took him away from home in the week. The course, accomodation was expensive but his dad and I were happy to support him. After the 12 month course he secured a four and a half year apprenticeship which kept him away from home. For the first couple of years all was good he came home some weekends and was honest and relaible and managed the small amount of money he had reasonably well. But around 12 months ago all started to change he started to spend all of his money regardless of his commitments etc. His dad and I bailed him out several times thinking the shock would make him see sense but it did not and we did not find out about this until he was a more than £1500 in debt with no hope of paying his mountain of bills.
After a teary chat (him) and a promise of reform I agreed to take out a loan in his name so long as he agreed to let his father take control of his accounts. This was agreed, having taken out the loan he avoided changing the bank details etc so his dad was unable to log on. He spouted a plethora of excuses and continued to promise that he would sort it, he avoided our calls emails etc for weeks. Eventually after a surprise visit to his rented house (he lives nearly 100 miles away from us)he had no choice but to hand out his details. My husband then took over his accounts for several weeks, he had to place several hundred pounds into his account as, once again our son had spent the lot. His job required him to have a car so his insurance would have remained unpaid and I am sure that he would have driven without. After several weeks my husband had difficulty logging on and it transpired that our son had tried (without success) to hack into the accounts, this blocking the accounts for all.
The latest is that he has telephoned us today saying he is hungry and would like to come home but can't afford the fuel, so muggins (soft mother) has transfered his fuel money for him, but guess what he has not turned up as promised, no call no email. We have no idea where he is or what he is up to. Does anyone have any suggestions as to where we could go from here? Just so that you know, most of his money seems to go on pub nights and smoking. He works hard is doing very well on his apprenticeship (due to complete this in May)
This is just a tiny snapshot of the last year, obviously we could say stand on your own two feet but he owes us money, we have a loan in his name but also I am worried about him and ultimately want him to come out of this.
We want our old son back