So, last night my wife and I got home around 930 to find my 15 step son rolling around in his bedroom floor absolutely hammered. Almost non responsive, puking all over the place. We had only been gone about 2 hours and he was fine when we left. Called an ambulance and ended up in the hospital until 7 am this morning when he finally came too and could talk about what happened. (He blew a 0.3 alcohol level!) We have alcohol in the house, but we don't DRINK, mostly for mixed drinks every now and then. He told us he was depressed about his dad not coming around anymore (his dad married a woman and moved away and has zero contact with my step son) and had a drink while we were gone, he said the drunker he got, the more he kept going back and getting a sip here and there. We are really conflicted on how to handle this with him. He is a good kid, we've never really had any problems with him and I don't believe this the start of a pattern considering how remorseful he was when he finally woke up. How would you guys handle this with your kids? Should we allow the hospital stay be punishment enough and just talk and really dig into his issues with his dad, is this something we should come down hard on? Just looking for opinions on how to handle this if anyone has experience with this. He swore after waking up this morning he was never going to drink again considering how bad he felt.
