Paying off a child's drug debt

Addicts are liars. I wouldn’t believe a word he says. 🤷‍♀️

You really need to try to nip this in the bud and get him support and professional help. It will only get worse believe me. If he carries on living with you and doesn’t get the help to come off the stuff he will no doubt move on to “brown and white”, start injecting it. He will start stealing from you and stealing things out of your home to sell. It is one slippery slope that they go down fast.
I have had first hand experience of living with a heroin user. I wish you and your family the best of luck.

Sounds like a lie to me and he probably wants money for his own drug addiction

He needs to be in rehab otherwise he will always owe his dealers .Blunt yet it is the truth sorry.

Go to the police

if you are worried about safety, then move. Yes that is dramatic and disruptive, but it will get you and your son away from the situation.

If I was your position, I would not pay his debt. I would encourage him to access support.

What else option is there, have my windows smashed in? I'd pay the debt then move without telling him in that case. He can deal with the mess on his own, not under my roof.

He will pay it in one hand and buy more with the other, then he learns he can rack up a big drug bill again because mummy will sort it again

Not popular opinion, I'd pay the money then move away with him. £850 is a lot but small price to pay to keep peace. Your son entered a contract unfortunately with those pills, he owes the money. Just pay it, be done and move.

As others said Dont pay the debt and going forward no one should buy him things - anything money gifts vouchers whatever.... It'll all be sold.

Also look after yourselves as well.
consider finding a therapist to help you as this is probably going to be a long and painful road 💐

Your son is using and cannot be trusted! He needs to get back to GP for his Actual meds!

Get him to an NA meeting, tough love is the order of the day and every day until he his clean and straight!
*Narcotics Anonymous

What part of selling amphetamines to other children at school and (at best) a thousand's worth of stolen morphine prescribed for a dying man's pain relief to other children/young people makes your son not a 'scumbag teenager who would be the type to be involved in hardcore drug dealing'?

Also agree with moving him away if that is an option.

As soon as you clear any drug debt for him he is now able to get more - do not clear this debt. Its never ending. He's already very deep into his addiction if he's selling things and you clearing this debt wont stop him from getting more drugs,, in fact it will do the opposite as he now doesn't have to hide from the dealers because he has paid.

Its a really hard and lonely road being the family of an addict. Please get some support for yourself, read loads of forums and educate yourself on all their tricks and schemes. We went through YEARS of paying debts, begging, bargaining and calling police and nothing helped.

The only thing that helped for us was educating ourselves, supporting eachother and refusing to pay any money anymore. Eventually making him leave the home. I dont know what your religious views are but praying brought me so much comfort and gave me more strength than anything else. Our prayers were eventually answered and he is now clean. But there is always the worry with an addict no matter how many years they have sober. But you absolutely must save yourself years and years of a merry go round of torture and be firm NOW. Dont take any shit. Dont trust a word comes out of their mouth if moneys involved. Dont leave valuables in reach. Dont take threats. Dont let them manipulate you. And do not blame yourself.

When a person is in addiction they are the most selfish, conniving, manipulative person they can be and its because the drugs have such a hold over them they no longer have the morals or thinking of themselves anymore. So you must always be a few steps ahead and tough love is the only way. Its a horrible road to go down but you are not alone, there are so many families of addicts who are suffering alongside the addict, infant i think the loved ones are the ones who suffer more than the addict themselves.

My inbox is always open OP

He goes to a youth group on the weekends and there was a sketchy lad the same age as him who handed him unused pills of morphine and oxycodone after his grandfather died from cancer to sell to other students/anyone he knew.
Unfortunately, your DS is now one of the sketchy lads.
He'll lie, guilt trip and manipulate you, before flogging your belongings to fund his habit.
Nothing you do will turn his life around.
No amount of money, reasoning or tears will make any difference to his current life choices.
Any changes need to come from him.💐

Given we don't know the country, I can't offer any advice.

I assume you're in Ireland. Can you move away, to a different city? Or the countryside? Although possibly they will find him there too, as Ireland is so small.

This is a really awful situation OP. I would listen to the people talking about county lines. Your son sounds like he is up in it to his neck, and is already dealing hard drugs.

This is an extreeeemely bad situation OP.

My DB has a bad problem with drugs. A possible scenario here that you need to be aware of is that he may be beaten up over drug money.

Entirely wrongly, I paid about £350 of drug debt for my brother. He was being threatened with being stabbed. The only way we did it was that I took my large boyfriend with me at the time, he met the dealers, who were absolute fucking ratty oik teenagers and handed over the cash.

Did it stop him taking drugs? Nope.

Dealers are not good people and I would be livid - he has bought this problem to your door, but I would not in a million years, ever, give cash directly to your son to deal with this himself. That is not an option. I speak from bitter experience.

Only viable options are:

Kick him out

Let him stay with conditions- gets an honest job, pays the 'debt' himself, gets drug support

In terms of informing the police, its up to you.

Missed the €!

Not an ex junkie but I call absolute BS on this.

but he also admitted that he lost some drugs given to him to sell.

How handy! And he "admitted" it what a brave sausage.
Now you can give him an extra grand so he can get high.

You cant believe anything he says

Im with @Sabretoothtigress
This happened with my cousin he actually got a his skull fractured and that was when he was packed off. he was sent to live with us for 2 years (London from ireland) he got clean and built a new life.

Id move or send him to stay with family to break the cycle early.
Half the time Rehab is just full of junkies and they trade tips so I wouldn't start there personally. He hasn't been abusing that long right now.

Get him clean and keep him close to family.
If it was my child this is what I'd do.

I agree. I'd move across the country to get my ds away from this.
And get him help for addiction so we don't have to keep moving!

Pay it. And then get him professional help. You don’t mess around with drug debts.

Pay the dealer. He entered into a contract with him and then broke it. Whether its legal or illegal is not the point imo...he gave his word and broke it. Now he owes.

I’ve been where you are and I was just as naive thinking everyone else was scum but my boy was innocent in all of this. He was the same age too.

In the end we told my son we were going to the police about HIM. We told him he had a few days before he went. He threw the biggest tantrum, broke things, threatened to kill himself, etc. It was all guilt trip to stop us doing it. I very nearly broke but my husband stayed strong.

when ds realised we were serious he left home. He stayed with a friend who was also a dealer. We didn’t go to the police as I couldn’t go through with it.

he came home a month later asking for help. Not money but actual help getting his life on track and getting clean. It took a long six months but he has been clean for 2 years. When he started his treatment and we knew he was serious we paid his debt off -about 2k. He changed his friendship group and has nothing to do with them now, got an apprenticeship and generally became a nicer person. He is now 2 years clean.

@viques please note the OP speaks in Euros. I don’t believe the NHS is available to her.