Negativity- never looking at the good
 

I have a son who moved to another state. While he lived at home, he was a heavy drinker and used marijuana. He has a college education. He has always been a negative person. Always feels everything bad happens to him and he has no luck. Most times it was his choices. He moved away and ended up not being able to land a job like he thought he would be. This spiraled him down even more and he continued his alcohol drinking and weed smoking. Ended up with a dui and that got his attention - we hope. He is still dealing with that with probation. He has an breathing thing in his car as well and will have that for 2 years. He should soon be off of probation and I fear he will go back to drinking. I know he will go back to weed. THAT is a problem as well because to land a decent job you have to pass a drug test. Finally he should be able to pass one for a job. He has a job now but hates it. He loves his boss but hates what he is doing. He is making cold calls to sell things and absolutely hates it. Says he can't sell anything..... No matter how hard he tries. It is making him very depressed so he is looking for a new job. Had 4 interviews and so far no offers! He doesn't understand what is wrong. I don't have any answers either. I feel he needs to turn to God for help because that is missing in his life. I have told him it is his constant negativity and people can feel it. He said he has nothing to be positive about. Anything bad that can happen happens to him.... He refuses to work in a retail environment because he hates people. Hates to be amongst them. Funny now how when I look back to his teen years he was the life of the parties but I guess it was because he was drunk. Other students from our home town also attended the same college as my son and told me that he was always drunk walking to classes or at least he looked it. It makes sense because he did tell the therapist while living at home how he hated college and the students. He always felt they were looking at him. He is on the heavy side and always stayed to himself at college. Lived alone as well. I just don't know how to get through to him that he needs to change his attitude. He is no fun to be around. While at home he had seen a few therapists and doctors but always seemed to "fool" them about how much he drank. He was on antidepressants and anxiety meds but then stopped taking them because he hated the side effects. Said weed was all he needed.... but that wasn't true because he still drank heavily.
Any advice on how to get a person to be more positive

Unfortunately, nobody could get through to me to get me to be clean and sober or to be more optimistic about life, I had to reach the point of desperation where I wanted it myself.

I know now that God has been in me all along, sobriety and a program of recovery have given me the ability to have gratitude for much of what my life is now, but there are still times when I question and doubt.

As a parent, I've come to realize that the best thing I can do for my children is to lead by example, to be a Godly father and husband. The rest I turn over to God. It's difficult to watch my children choose destructive paths, but I know that the only way they will learn is by having consequences at times.

When I was drinking, I couldn't see any good in anything, including myself. I had to get sober for a few months for my attitude to change.