Fall 2010 -- Spiraling Out of Control -- What can we do?

The next few months, things just kept getting worse and worse.  He refused to come home after school.  We were looking forward to wrestling season.  The previous year, he had joined the wrestling team.  While it was hard and he talked about quitting on several occasions, he found something that he was good at and we push to help keep him involved.  He was on the varsity team as a freshman and the coach kept telling him that when he became a senior he may even take state.  So we were hoping this would snap him out of this phase. 

Instead, he went on a binge before wrestling season began because he knew that he would have to quit during the season.  This only took him in even deeper.  So when he tried to quit for wrestling season, he was not successful.  At this time also, we suspected that he was also dealing drugs.

Prior to wrestling practice one day, he went off campus to fight another boy.  The boy did not fight back but had called his dad before telling him he thought our son was going to try to fight him after school.  Our son was pounding away on the kid when the dad showed up.  The fight broke up and he went to wrestling practice, to have the police come and pull him out of practice.  Supposedly, the other kids called the fight -- but I really began to wonder if it was a drug deal that the other kid could not pay up. 

I confronted him about it and he got all mad; that we did not trust him and just think that he does everything that is bad.

We were also missing money and items constantly.  Our older daughter found it safer to keep her money and valuables at school.

Following the fighting event, he was supposed to attend a fundraising activity at the park for wrestling and had asked if he could spend the night at a specific wrestler's house so he could make sure that he got up on time and got to the event.  We agreed but the next morning got a call from the coach asking where he was.  We asked if the specific wrestler was there and he was but had not seen our son.  I started calling around and one of the houses said that he was not there and was not allowed to be there because she overheard him on the phone one day making a drug deal,  She then called back and said that there was another kid at her house that was going by a different name and suspected that it was really our son.  We went over and it was him.  He got home and the coach called.  I handed the phone to him.  The coach talked to him for a long time and then told him that he was kicked off the team.  This was devastating to him but was not a wake up  all.

He continued to sneak out and we  continued to call him in as being missing,