We have never helped any of Ashley's friends get emancipated. I didn't even know that boy, I only heard about it from Ashley and Alex. I still to this day have not met this boy. Yes, we probably would help anyone, not just her friends, anyone who needed help, within reason. The way you tell your version of what happened, is not exactly the way I heard/remember it. Alex did go home to work things out on Friday while Ashley was at work. He called me to come pick him up and get his stuff to move back home. Shortly after picking him up, Jacki called and told him not to come back home that night as they were not emotionally ready to handle it. He went home Saturday at 12:00pm. He called Ashley later in the afternoon and told her his mom went shopping to Old Navy, so they never spoke. Yes, I believe Ashley was upset, but so was Alex. Upset that no one would sit and talk to him about the situation. He wanted to reach some mutual agreement. His father came home and never spoke to him. He tried to show his father the paperwork on Maplegrove and was basically ignored. Many hours had passed with no communication before he decided to try to talk to them, I recall it was at least 1:00am when he left home again. The morning he left for school, Ashley already was at school. Granted, it was very hard for me to get her to go back to school, but she did go. We met several times with the counselors and principals, and they also helped her to return to school. Her reason for not going back was not just because Alex was not there, there were a lot of other issues with the other kids. As for all the drugs, all I know is Alex sat and talked with us and told us what he had been doing. He also told us he wanted to stop, seek local treatment, go back to school, and work as hard as he had to in order to graduate in June. He knew he had to quit using drugs, he knew the consequences involved if he failed his drug test. We believed he was sincere. He had been drug free at that time since November 9th. Yes, maybe Ashley did have a lot of control over him, but he was looking for guidance. He was very confused, but he did know what he wanted and what he did not want. When I met with Jacki, the three month program was not even an option. She stated that would never help him, he needed longer. They were running out of time, and needed us and Ashley to help convince him to go to this "school." We did talk to him while he was in jail, and he did agree to go to a three month program, but when he came home they gave him the paperwork on all of the other programs. When he looked into these programs he saw they were 12-18 months. That is when he refused to go. I am sure he never imagined he would be taken against his will. We never tried to tell him what to do, we listened to him and tried to understand what he wanted to do for himself.
