WOW, firstly as I am still fasting and weak, I can feel your pain and understand everything that you are saying. It is a terrible parsha to be in and one no parent should ever go through. Our children are our life, our reason for living, being, breathing, eating. They bring light into an otherwise dark world, and here in the parsha you feel the darkness with each confrontation and each step in the wrong direction. I hear you loud and clear and feel the agony that brings you here for help.
I wish I could tell you otherwise but I can’t. It is going to get much worse before it gets better. You and your husband will have to brace yourselves and hold on to your hats. It is almost likes surfing sometimes you glide in and sometimes you the waves get you. One thing I have to say is that you can’t give up on him nor can you throw him away. You will never forgive yourselves if you do and he doesn’t deserve it. He is not a bad kid, only a kid going through a very bad situation. He is frustrated and confused and believe it or not he is doing everything he is supposed to in his situation. He is doing everything every other kid does. It is pretty much a textbook story. How each set of parents handle it is the unknown in the situation.
I believe that kids need boundaries and that one needs to promote the concept of RESPECT. Try and keep that in the forefront. I don’t agree with handing over everything he wants and I feel that your husband actually came up with a very creative solution to the cigarette saga, so kudos to him. He is NOT responsible how and when he uses them, so please tell him not to go there. It was extremely clever of him.
He is going to get drunk because that is what kids do to ease the pain. They want to be numb. They do it to be “cool” to their friends but the effect is that they don’t feel anything and they are out of it. That is what they are looking for, not to think and not to feel; not to remember and not to plan. Believe me he wouldn’t like himself or recognize himself drunk.
I don’t feel the need to allow him to boss you around or to tell you whats what nor to make the rules in your home. Everything is a matter of choices and you speak in the language of choice. You gave him a choice when you told him that he had a choice to come home at a decent hour at which time the door would be open, if not the door would be locked. He tested you and he got in. Thats fine. He came home drunk and he should have been directed to his room to sleep it off. I would say “If you choose to get drunk that is a choice only you have control over, but the rest of us do not have to suffer the consequences of your choice. Go sleep it off in your bed or take a shower first, you will feel better”. You might also say and use your son’s name looking squarely in his eyes “stop spouting things you might regret later. Because you are in a drunken stupor and are not in control of yourself. You will not remember what you said or what you do but WE will never forget. It might also be advisable to video his behavior without letting him know. On a calmer day, you might have the opportunity to show him what he looked like drunk.