My son's addiction to vicodin

[zig49]

my son is hooked on vicodin. He's admitted to taking around 26 pills a day and also drinks a lot of beer.  He is one of the crew leaders in my husband and his partner's painting business and earns a good wage.  He gets paid on Friday and all his money is gone by Monday on vicodin and beer.  He has resorted to stealing from us and God knows who else.  A few months ago my husband and I went on vacation and when we got home, our bank account was overdrawn.  I went online to see why and noticed a check for $1800.00 was cashed while we were gone.  I looked at the cashed check online and my son had written it and signed my name to it.  I couldn't bring myself to press charges against him.  I know I should of. He has two roommates and collected their rent money for the last two months and spent it on drugs.  They are now being evicted.  When he moved out of our home, he took his dog with him.  I was told yesterday that the dog was really skinny.  (This is a big dog)  I told my husband and he went and got the dog.  When I saw him I cried.  This beloved pet of ours is skin and bones.  You can see every rib on him.  I can't believe my son would do this.  He has lost all his morals.  We have tried over and over again to get him to stop.  But nothing works.  He took a week off from work to quit, but I know he didn't.  My husband has no choice but to fire him.  He's not going to have a source of income or a place to live.  He also has a nice car and hasn't been making the payments, so we are going to take it from him.    We were going to let him move back in with us, but I think that we shouldn't.  That would make it to easy for him.  Should we cut our son off of all help?  What do you advice parents to do in these situations?  I have this fear that he's not going to stop and he's going to die from liver failure or something and noone would be there for him at the end.  

[fuzzypeach27]

I was moved by your post. I am a mother too. We want to help and look after and make things better. The truth is sweet heart, until your baby is ready to stop there is nothing you can do every addict had to hit rock bottom and want to get clean. If you can please take his dog from him, you look after the dog. Dont give him money,Its tuff love, but we can be helping the addiction by giving money etc. Keep posting. From a mother to a mother my thoughts are with you

[worried878]

I feel ur pain...does ur son want to stop?  he has to also want this...addiction causes lots of pain///pain to the person and also to those who love this person..it is not fair but it is a disease and he is not thinking as ur son would possibly...but it is someone u do not know..it is his addiction doing these things...he is still in there tho
Peeps often hit a bottom..a place that makes them snap out of this...unfortunately some never do and will proceed to lose everything they love and own..including themselves...it is a very sad disease and to understand it is hard if u havent been there
being there for support is really all u can do..letting him  know u r there and will help if he wants the help..stepping back is hard..but u cant make him do this..he has to do it for himself
Firing him was hard probably..but it may help tons cos his cash will be gone now..it is hard to use the amount u stated without a cash coming in///it may force him into wd eventually and it wont feel too good at all...it is hard to use without money//very hard//specially for a male...he may experience feeling bad a few times and realize how addictive these things are...it may be enuf to snap him out iof it..probably not tomorrow tho..unless he has expressed a desire to snap out of it
How old is he?  is he a strong type personality?  being there for him is all u can do...and hope he lets go and takes u up on the support u can give him

keep us posted