Even though he is an adult you can have him committed. Contasct family services and talk to them.

I am sorry for your painful family situation. It is a shining example of the ideal time to practice the Serenity Prayer. “Lord grant me the strength to change the things that I have the power to change, the serenity to be able to accept the things that I may not, and the wisdom to know the difference.” And, as a mother of an adult child, even one who chooses to act irresponsibly, and even if you are not a person of faith, it is important to recognize the wisdom of this prayer. No matter how good your intentions, you cannot make someone change if they have no desire to change. You can only wait till the wreckage of their choices leaves them finally to reconsider, and THEN you may ASSIST them in their efforts to change their behaviors.

Heaven knows I have struggled with this issue most of my life, but I do recognize the truth of it and, though I don’t like it, I have tried to live and act in accordance with it.

That said, I also believe that your son has *at the least* chemical dependency issues, which can also lead to depression and suicidal ideation. But I also suspect that your son may actually suffer from bi-polar disorder, and that he has been using illegal drugs to self-medicate. My brother did that for years and a few of his children still do. Using drugs often springs from an attempt to treat the extremes of mood swings, for bi-polar patients. It also springs from bi-polar patients’ typical reduced fears and tendency toward risky behaviors. Meth and Ecstasy might appeal to a bi-polar patient in a depressed cycle, and Ecstasy, alcohol and weed might appeal to a bi-polar patient hoping to come down from the racing thoughts and uncontrollable energy of a manic high.

The thing that’s frightening is that meth is extremely dangerous a drug for a bi-polar patient to use because it WILL interrupt or even stop their sleep cycle, which WILL lead to a manic high mood swing, which WILL eventually lead to a crash into a depressive stage or what’s called a mixed-state, an extremely dangerous mixture of both which carries a greatly heightened risk of impulsive and suicidal behaviors. Bi-polar Disorder’s symptoms are often very treatable, with a trial of the available drugs to find the ones which match. But the therapy is just incompatible with the use of many illicit drugs. And the lifetime risk for successful suicide is high for bi-polar patients, particularly if they do not follow their therapies.

And all I can say is that if his behaviors have become this dysregulated and self-threatening, perhaps you could stage an ‘intervention’ with family and friends to try to get him to voluntarily submit himself for a psychiatric evaluation with an eye on getting a diagnosis of bi-polar disorder, the implementation of an effective drug therapy, and help ridding himself of using his illicit drugs. And if it’s bad enough, perhaps you could find a judge willing to involuntarily commit him for an evaluation.

But, again, he has to be willing to actually *do* what his doctors tell him to improve and he would have to be willing to seek help to be rid of the drugs which confound his illness. And meth is notoriously difficult to quit, as well as pouring jet fuel on the fires of a bi-polar disorder patient. You may be able to have him committed involuntarily for observation and possible diagnoses, but you cannot keep him there in a safe environment perpetually, and probably not even for more than a few days. So here is where the Serenity Prayer comes in, and the need to allow ourselves to recognize that we may need to wait for wisdom to dawn in our loved ones before we may be able to help them.

I hope that you find your serenity and the strength to persevere until your son is willing to accept help. And I hope that he doesn’t follow the typical pattern of uncontrollable and risky behaviors for many years before accepting that he has a problem and that he just cannot be successful or happy having risky behaviors that others’ bodies may tolerate better of longer. A family support group like DBSA may help.

http://www.dbsalliance.org/site/PageServer?pagename=home

Good Luck,