Found out my son Drank and Smoked Pot!

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Registered: 08-03-2006
Found out my son Drank and Smoked Pot!
37
Sun, 07-29-2007 - 12:39pm

I really need some advice on here. My son is 15. My son's half brother told his dad that my son took a beer out of the ice box when they were camping and drank it. In the same discussion my son also told his little brother that he had smoked pot before. He said he 'tried' pot before. The little brother was afraid that if he told on his big brother that his big brother would hate him forever. His dad promised him he would not tell my son he told me. But....his dad told me. And now I dont have a clue as to handle this. My first thought it is beat the crap out of my son! My next thought is to talk to him about this....ask him about it. But my sons dad has asked me not to let it be know that it was the little brother that told. Dads thoughts are if we let my son know that his little brother 'ratted' him out we will never get anymore info like this again. The little brther is so afraid right now that he will never be friends with his big brother again.

But here is the thing....I just can not do nothing...I need to deal with this some how.

PS...I little history about this....My son just got back in contact with his dad over 14 years. This is the first year to have spent any time with his little brother. His little brother adores my son and he is really worried that he will get mad at him if my son knows where I got all this info.

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Registered: 10-16-1999
Wed, 08-08-2007 - 5:36pm

You make some really good points Janet.

Avatar for mjaye2002
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Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 08-08-2007 - 5:47pm

> > But now at age 51 I know plenty < <

Ah, yes, at 51, we *do* know plenty, but as we all ALSO know, we *must* recognize the wisdom of the all-knowing and life-experience-rich teenagers that are in our midst.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-16-1999
Thu, 08-09-2007 - 7:04am

LOL- snerk???

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Registered: 08-07-2007
Fri, 08-10-2007 - 7:43pm
If marijuana makes people apathetic that's their fault. There are plenty of people who smoke marijuana and may be apathetic. But there are plenty who aren't. Apathy is a choice and people won't admit their failures without scapegoating something in this case marijuana. I still don't understand why people here and everywhere want to tell people how to live their life. If someone wants to do something let them do what they want. Just because some people choose to be stupid and not think about what they're doing shouldn't mean the responsible ones get to miss out too. As for me I love marijuana. I don't think there's anything wrong with getting high. I don't think anything is wrong with using it daily. I know it's not physically addicting and can be put down anytime. I think the smoking probably damages lung tissue but I don't think it will cause a fatal disease or cancer. I think it probably affects short-term memory as it does mine but brain damage I think that's a stretch. I also look at the fact that no one has died from marijuana. No one has suffered from a respiratory illness or brain damage as a result of it. You would think they would have after the baby boomers made it popular. So cut marijuana some slack it's not going to kill you or anyone. And don't go crazy if you find your kids with it, it's really not that big of a deal.
Avatar for bookwormmom
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Registered: 07-22-2003
Fri, 08-10-2007 - 8:50pm
Maybe you don't think it's "not that big of a deal" and if I catch my kids with it I will keep what you say in mind and let them know how wrong you are about so many things. I will take it seriously if I catch them with it, since they know their uncle who has fought a terrible drug addiction to heroin for years started with pot in high school. He was in prison for a good majority of his life, has been in and out of rehab and the hospital. When he is in pain, he just has to suffer. When he has medical procedures and tests that are usually made easier when you are given meds, he has to suffer. He recently had a test done (I won't go into detail)that was extremely painful. All because he can't be given the meds because of his past history, if he is given them they will 1) probably not do much good in the normal doses and 2) may start him back into his habit. And guess what? He always said pot wasn't a problem too.
If I do find my kids have tried it, no I won't condemn them, I know people make mistakes, but they better not try it again and do it on a regular basis. I actually don't know what I would do if I had a kid that talks like you. That would be a very tough thing and very unlikely since they both are drug free, alcohol free and smoke free and proud of it.
Kristie
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Registered: 08-07-2007
Wed, 08-22-2007 - 11:09pm
I hate to say this as it may come off as rough but it's your brother's own fault for his problem's with heroin. He may have started with marijuana and probably found heroin because if you can find marijuana you can usually find other sources or the same source that have other legal or illegal drugs. Marijuana does not contain any sorts of chemicals that give you a desire to do other drugs that's just an excuse. It's the individual's choice. Heroin ruined his life not marijuana. And you're probably right we wouldn't be much of a match as parent and son I probably would rebel and not listen and do it anyway. Luckily I have leniant parents who are M.D.'s by the way and they think it's pretty safe. They don't really approve but they know they can't really stop me and don't think of it as too big of a deal.
Avatar for bookwormmom
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Registered: 07-22-2003
Wed, 08-22-2007 - 11:24pm
No I don't think what you say about my BIL is rough, it is the truth. It is his own fault that he is an addict, it is his fault the he got involved in the drugs at all. It is who he is and I accept that, he has an addictive personality and doesn't do anything to change that. If it's not drugs it's something else. But anything is better than the drug route. And I never said that he got involved with harder drugs, because he smoked. But since he found that the pot no longer did what he wanted it to, he tried other things. And ended up a junkie. I think he just had problems that he wanted to get away from and this was the way he did it, instead of rationally trying to solve the problems and change things he turned to drugs to block it out. I think a lot of pot smokers and people who use harder drugs are doing this. That is too bad, because when they come down the problems are still there.
Like I said if I found out my kids had smoked I wouldn't condemn them, but I just don't think it is a good thing to be high all the time. I also don't agree with drinking so don't play that card.
I have done some reading lately though and must say that I do think that marajuana should be legal for medicinal purposes. Some of the things I have found out recently have really reinforced that belief in me. But I am still against smoking just for a high.
It's just who I am and I'm not changing that and I know you won't change what you think or do either. So I think we need to call a truce and agree to disagree.
Kristie
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Registered: 07-21-2007
Thu, 08-23-2007 - 4:27am

Todd,

If you have been reading these forums for a while, you know that I have been working with teens and young adults for lots of years. What you might not know is that I was a 1970's hippie. I got out of the Air Force and right into hippiedom. I was a regular pot smoker. I never missed a day's work. I was stoned every night. It was a lot of fun. There were a couple of down sides though that eventually convinced me that it wasn't quite the tea I thought it was. I had always been and still am a very active type. I am a doer. I always have projects and stuff I am working on. I realized at some point, that all I was doing was going to work and then partying. I can remember when I finally had this revelation. It was the end of summer. I was living in a resort community on the end of Long Island, N.Y. (West Hampton Beach). I had all these things that I was going to do that summer. Here it was Labor Day and my catamaran never got into the water, I never built the dune buggy, I hadn't even taken off the winter storm windows and replaced them with the screen windows. I found that I was very happily treading water.

What finally convinced me that pot was bad news for me was what was happening to my lungs. I had quite smoking cigarettes many years before. I had smoked them from 10 – 21 years old and stopped because I couldn't breathe very well and was coughing all the time. Between 21 and 29, when I started smoking pot, I had no breathing problems at all. It didn't take long before I my lungs were back to being a wreck. I am sure that that happened because there are a lot of tars and burnt particles that are being inhaled and with smoking pot, I was inhaling them way, way deeper than I ever did with cigarettes.

You are quite right in saying that pot never physically killed anyone. If you include driving while stoned, there are very good stats that show lots of accidents including fatal ones. There are real good studies of the difference in both concentration and reaction time between smoking even a small amount of pot and none at all. I believe that I already posted links to these studies earlier in this thread. I am sure that you can easily find them by using Google if you want.

You copped to having less short term memory. That, too, is backed up by studies. It is probably an O.K. trade off for the euphoria experience, as long as one's job or schoolwork is not dependent on remembering things, like for a test.

You are also correct about it not being physically addictive. The problem is that physical addiction is never the problem even with drugs that are actually physically addictive. Two to three weeks in a detox will end all physical addictions, yet most people leave detox and fairly quickly go back to using. It is the psychological needs that the drug is fixing that is the real addiction. In my years of assisting kid, I have found that marijuana was one of the hardest drugs for those who really wanted to stop, to successfully leave alone. There are a couple of reasons. The first is that because it never brings folks to their knees like harder drugs almost always do. Second, the part that would like to keep on smoking can always point to how wonderful the experience was and how it didn't do any harm.

If you do not think that it is psychologically addictive for you, you might like to do a little experiment with yourself just to make sure:

For a period of a month, abstain from all mind-altering substances; drugs, alcohol, poppers, all of them, while you carry on your life as usual. Go to work or to school, your first dates, your cocktail parties, do all the sex-type things you normally do, go dancing and any regular socializing that you usually do. The only thing that will be different is that you will be doing everything without alcohol and/or drugs.
If your use of drugs and/or alcohol was strictly a recreational want and not a need or dependence, then you will have found no difference in your stress or tension level when you did all those activities drug and alcohol free. If you experienced increased stress the tension, it is a sign that, for the activities where the increases where noticed, you have been relying on those substances to get you through. The more stress and tension noticed, the more you were relying on them and the greater the risk of becoming dependent on them. This gives you a way to decide for yourself what level of usage is right for you. I am not saying "don't use", just keep your eyes open to what is going on and then make your decisions.

If you could not stay alcohol and drug free for the entire length of the test period, you either are, or are about to be in serious trouble. Incidentally, if you are actually someone who is using mind-altering substances addictively and has been denying to yourself that fact, your mind will come up with all sorts of good reasons why it is O.K. to stop this test prematurely or, maybe even why there is no need to even take it in the first place. So, for the purposes of this test, there is no valid reason to start using your mind-altering goodies again before the entire period you committed to before the test started, is over. If you will not even consider taking the abstinence test, you might already be in deep water.

I never tell folks not to use pot. It wouldn't do any good because everyone needs to make those choices for themselves. People never change for very long just because someone else wants them to. People only change when to not change will cause them to lose something they do not want to lose. I can report, though, that for those teens that decided to stop using pot, there lives dramatically changed, just as mine did. They started getting to do the things they always dreamed about instead of endlessly, happily dreaming about things they were not doing.

Jason

My website: http://TheParentsCoach.com
My parents blog: http://blog.TheParentsCoach.com       &nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-16-1999
Fri, 08-24-2007 - 6:31am

Interesting thoughts Jason, and right on as usual.


I especially find the story of summer at West Hampton interesting... Pot may not be physically addictive, but it definitely can be psychologically addictive.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-07-2007
Tue, 08-28-2007 - 12:43am
It's hard for me to answer questions as to why anyone does anything. Personally I cannot wait to have kids so your guess is as good as mine as to why mom would say and or think that. Everyone is different I guess and reacts to things differently. As for grades yeah I'll admit kids who smoke marijuana or do any drugs can always have bad grades but there are plenty who don't let their grades slip. I personally have better grades now than I did my first two years in high school when I didn't do that. But that's purely coincidental. As for addiction of course it's an addiction. A very strong psychological addiction. I simply love marijuana, I think that would define psychological addiction. But it's a happy addiction. Most addicts of hard drugs say their addiction is a sad addiction but mine's not. It's a hobby of mine, I'd be bored otherwise. But I can put it down very easily if I had to without any withdrawal symptoms. I just simply have no desire to. As for lung damage, I'd agree that smoking causes damage to lung tissue. You are breathing in the carcinogens from the smoke you're creating by using the lighter, even with a device that filters the smoke you still bring some in. However, I don't worry too much about lung cancer or a bad respiratory illness because It's not smoked as often as say tobacco. I think it takes decades of smoking too. And the simple fact that no one has contracted it yet not even the baby boomers who made it popular again have felt the effects. But I myself would rather avoid even minor lung tissue damage that's why I'm going with the vaporizer. But it's still a hobby of mine and I wish it weren't so demonized and trashed everyday. It's something that can be enjoyed by all recreationally like alcohol and cigarettes are and it is less harmful. I'm sick of it being illegal it makes everything that much harder in every way. It's sad when the kids get in trouble either by the law or by the parents and their lives are miserable. Especially because I think it's a pretty harmless substance. My generation is going to get marijuana use to sky-rocket I think and when we are parents I think it will be very common to see that the parents are the users more often than the kids. So parents and the rest of society should spend less time persecuting their kids and marijuana and legalize it instead so we can all enjoy it without having to worry about going to jail for nothing, for something that won't hurt or kill you.