Your son has lost a father, and he lost his father long, long before he lost the trees, greensward and lovely bucolic surroundings. If you divorced his daddy when he was seven or so, my guess is that booze dominated LW's husband's life long before that time - two? three? I doubt that the addictive behavior arrived like a tsunami when your son was six or seven..... My guess is that his friendhsip strucutre both mitigated the searing/dull pain of the sense of loss of a daddy and also concealed it, both at the same time. Your divorce clarifies things, gives daddy's behavior a name and a label, and then - removes him from his defacto support group where he may well have been able to draw down a rich positive sense of self.

Frankly, I doubt that moving back would solve the problem of his missing daddy. It might, in fact, make the issue far, far more poignant. And, if you move back, neighborhoods being what they are, the ease of reasserting his friendship structure may not be as simple as you think.

Can you bridge the gap? Can you arrange for playdates in the city one weekend, in the burbs another? Can you give those suburban kids a taste of the city? That kind of bridging may work for a period of time, long enough to stabilize your son and remove some of the sting of the move. That may also give you an opportunity to understand which of those 18 kids your son truly bonded with, and help to sustain that friendhsip if at all possible.

Can you look into what support activities may be available at his school? Are there extracurricular activities that he can participate in in which he might find a strong male role model? HOw about at your school? Where do other grad students with kids hang out? You can't be the only one........

And, can you and your son talk candidly about loss, the loss of a daddy that, in fact, he lost as soon as the booze became more important than the complex, deep, rich loving relationships of a family......In order to do that, you need to truly, creatively, listen to his talking about his loss of a daddy before you think about your loss of a husband. You need to be truly honest about what alchohol does to a person, and then be prepare to support your son in his anger and grief. As your son grows older, that cycle may need to be repeated. Better to do it now than to wonder why your son is a "wildly rebellious" teen who simply doesn't listen.......