Reply To: Going off the Derech

aries2756-does trying to control my son include wanting him to come home at a reasonable hour? I can’t get him to agree to come home at any specific hour, he wants to be able to stay out as late as he wants/all night, without boundaries. I told him, if coming home by midnight is too difficult, then let’s try to come up with some compromise. Besides the fact that I worry about him, and the fact that his chevra’s rowdiness has warranted a visit by the police periodically, I am thinking more long term. He is isolating himself, growing further and further apart from the ‘world of the living’. He sleeps by day, and lives by night, and is getting used to not being around people and functioning in the real world. How will he ever re-enter mainstream life when he is becoming accustomed to separating from it? And, is ‘using drugs’ one of the mistakes we have to let him make? I really think he needs outside help, but he refuses to go to a therapist, a doctor, or anybody, and he refuses to let me bring someone to the house. The way I see it is I can either go behind his back and bring someone to the house, which may infuriate him (and alienate him from us even more), or I can let him hit rock bottom, which I’m petrified to do. I am back to staying up all night, crying/worrying about him, and am hitting my own ‘rock bottom’. There really is no solution…