GREAT Im so glad to hear that hes interested in going! Im afraid I dont know anything about bipolar, but it wouldnt surprise me if it contributes to the addiction.
Would NA have helped me at the start? Yeah, I really think it would have. I know that I was emotionally pathologic before I ever started using drugs. In fact, when I first started using, a big reinforcement was that it helped me feel like I fit in, with ready-made conversation, well-defined rituals and a hazy sense of well-being. Drugs seemed to work, and it wasnt until later that I found out what an insidious trap they are, but by that time I had lost the ability to recognize it, much less do anything about it. What they really did was to deepen and entrench my spiritual illnesses. If I had been able to get some help at the beginning with all of my internal confusion I might not have needed to turn to drugs, or at least my drug use may have ended sooner. Unfortunately my dad was an active alcoholic and I got lost.
So the most important thing you can do for your son is to get yourself to an Al-Anon meeting TODAY, ask for help, and keep going back on a regular basis (like every day). More than anything he needs his parents to have their heads screwed on straight and tight about how to deal with this when he gets out. Im sure you are totally mystified by how all this happened how are you supposed to understand and respond to insane behavior? Are you somehow contributing to it? You probably dont think so but how do you know? You cant possibly find good answers to these questions by yourself, so you need to have a support system of people whove been dealing with this and who can share their experience, strength and hope with you. As you said, ultimately hell answer to the Lord himself, but he doesnt have to deal with this alone. He has you, and he needs you.
How bad and ugly did it get for me?
By the time I got out of high school I was smoking an ounce of pot a week, plus doing hash, speed, downers, Quaaludes, and acid on a fairly regular basis. Id tried opium (which would have become regular thing if Id been able to find any more), PCP, mushrooms, ether, chloroform, and butyl nitrate, and in college I added MDA and some early designer drugs. I tried inhalants like ether and chloroform, and stimulants like amyl and butyl nitrate. I was drinking every day; a weeks total would have been at least a case of beer and a bottle of hard liquor. I also had a short encounter with morphine, which thank God didnt happen until the end when I was getting tired of it all and had enough sense to be scared to death of it after I found out how powerful the high was. And that's just what I can remember.
I should have flunked out of high school, but didnt for some unexplainable reason. I dropped out of college. I bounced from one minimum-wage job to another. I slept on park benches a bit. I pulled a gun on someone over a 5-dollar bag of dope.
I alienated myself from every healthy person Id ever known, and became the person my parents had warned me about when I was a kid. I stopped talking to my family. I took pleasure in inflicting emotional cruelty on others. My life was pretty much about getting high, getting laid (trying to, anyway) and driving too fast, and figuring out how to do it more. I literally came within inches and/or seconds of death more times than I can remember. Friends and acquaintances of mine died due to accidents, overdoses and bad drugs (some of which I was doing myself).
When the parties ended and I was alone with my thoughts at night, I knew that my life was as dry and empty as a tomb. I felt like garbage wrapped in skin, and yet didnt know why because I was somehow able to tell myself that I was basically a good guy.
Thats plenty bad enough, even for a short and colorless summary, but I know people with stories that sound far worse than mine. My point isnt about how bad it can get, but about how much hope there is that, no matter how bad it is, recovery is possible.
By the grace of God, in NA I stopped using and lost the desire to use. I went back to school and got a degree in engineering - graduated with honors, fifth in my class. I came back to Jesus, and am about to enter the Catholic Church. I have a beautiful family, life is good and Im joyful. I speak to my parents and siblings, and they tell me how proud they are of me. People who meet me cannot picture me as a drug user. Im a Cub Scout leader.
Dont lose hope turn to the Lord. One night I asked Him for help, and eventually I found myself in NA. I believe that it was no coincidence, and its really true that He can make everything work for the good of those who love Him, for the praise and glory of His name. Just keep coming back.