[Cliff R]

I have a daughter and a son, Steph and Matt.

Steph went to college, got a degree, on to another degree and is now Directer of Nursing at a huge nursing home, owns a 7 acre Eastate, 6000 sq ft house, married to a great husband with a fantastic career and two children, she is 37.

My son Matt is 41 and never has "found himself". He got involved with the "wrong crowd" at age 15-16 and went downhill from there. Coincidentally the two "characters" he got hooked up with way back in High School are dead, one from a car wreck the other from a heroin overdose. Up to that point he was doing great, but shortly after choosing that path quit the golf league (no kidding at all he could give Tiger Woods a run for his money, even two this day he can drive a golf ball to greens and can't even see with a set of binoculars!) and school sports, started smoking like a chimney, and doing pretty much everything you wouldn't want your kid into.

We enrolled him at OSU and he went one semester, but never attended single class, just partied his ars off and left me with a big bill to pay. Culinary school was next, he made it thru but more troubles close to the end (got a classmate pregnant) and I ended up forcing him into the Air Force.

He flunked out there too after 6 years (got hooked on pain killers) and ended up divorced, two kids in another State and him in my basement.

It's been a roller coaster ride every since, a few high points and just when you think he's on the right path.....ROCK BOTTOM once again.

I've tried EVERYTHING and still here we are, pretty much the same as the day he showed up, but now I have two grand kids to raise for him.

Cell phone in his face 24/7, or Play Station, or whatever they do with that sort of chit. COUNTLESS jobs, some really good ones, but it ALWAYS ends up the same, unemployed and still in my basement.

Addiction takes many forms, and that's what ALL this is about. Cell phones, alcohol, drugs, gaming, or just plain being a "turd" and happy with that deal. As a parent I've tried EVERYTHING, being a dad, trying to get him into the business (employer), friend, father and kicking the chit out of him a few times when it was well deserved. NOTHING that I or we can do makes one damn bit of difference in the end. You may see some superficial improvements from time to time, but most of it is "spoken words" as these sort of folks have developed a survival system unlike any other I've seen. They will tell you something you know damn well is pure BS and by the time they get done you've got to slap the chit out of yourself because you are starting to believe that nonesense!

The wife buys into ALL the BS (slapping herself wouldn't help) so it's a constant battle between us and no reality checks for her makes any difference.

So basically I can tell you what the problems are with a child that just can't seem to connect the dots, but certainly I have no answers on how to fix it. Tough love doesn't work, rehab (twice) waste of time/funds, even let him go to jail (the wife makes sure my wallet prevents that when those things come up) once and didn't phase him in the least. At the end of the day I have someone we raised to be a good person and a contributing member of society who just lives to serve himself and no one else.

Rant over, and now the bad news. IF you made it to the bottom of this read and have a solution that I haven't tried, ABSOLUTELY let me know about it because I've tried all of them.........