You are doing the right thing, I live with a similar BM ssons situation, however it has gotten soo bad that Dh and i washed our hands of it and said if she wants to be super mom let her, there is a reason that she did not have custody when they were young but you can't tell my skids anything so we'll let them learn the hard way! My mother also says you can teach the right and they may stray but they will come back to it you can only do so much, sometimes you just have to be there when they fall. don't do his school work for him let him be responsible for it done or not, failing a grade is not the worst thing in the world, it may open his eyes to some of the little realities in life, that you have to work for what you want. As for the alcohol, point out to him the older generation that are drinkers and tell him to notice what kind of car they drive or the clothes that they wear, everyone starts the same so you don't notice the effects of alcohol on younger people but after years of drinking you start to notice that these people drive crappy cars and have crappy clothes because they spend all their money on alcohol, when instead they should be driving a new car. And also you should never drink around them, it's a monkey see monkey do thing, they love you -you drink.. ergo to be more like you they drink. But I agree with you about disciplineing him for drinking but make sure that he has some controll in the grounding, like for good behaviour he can be done his grounding 3 days early bad behaviour 3 extra days of grounding. next time he goes out just a quick reminder to him like " I hope we can trust you to be resposible and remember what we taught you" and of course the I love you be safe, have fun!! All in all you are doing the best you can and that is all you can do the rest is up to him!!

That's a hard place because i'm sure he's heard stories from his friends parents or maybe his own BM or BD about underage drinking and the "fun" and "excitement" this brought on. I can only speak for myself but I experimented with this as well. If it gets too bad, consider taking him to an AA meeting so he can clearly see what alcohol does to people. You may also want to reaffirm his goals and ambitions and show the nexus of his decisions today and the affects they can have on his future. (i.e. if he wants to be a police officer, but gets caught underage drinking). Sounds like his dad needs to step in and have a talk with his son. It's hard to step back but you don't want to have misguided resentment towards you. This little talk might also solve the schoolwork issue. Just continue to be supportive and hang in there.