Question about alcohol abuse by son's best friend

[DADofTeen]

Our 16 year old started to withdraw from his long-time best friend and we could not understand what was going on. For years they would hang out together on weekends, then our son just stopped going over to his friend's house. We began to worry about what we perceived as our son's anti-social behavior.

Recently, we found ourselves in one of those rare moments where your teenager just feels like talking and wow what we learned! Apparently our son's best friend has started drinking alcohol. We are not naive, and realize that many teens in our son's school are also drinking. What we learned however is that our son's friend has been drinking daily (including before school) and even takes alcohol to school with him.

Neither my wife nor I drink nor does our son. We now understand why he has been so reluctant to go over to his friend's house on weekends (and cringe when we recall how we tried so hard to get him to socialize more with his friend). Boy, did we misread this situation!

This brings us to our question - we are VERY concerned about this friend, especially since we know he is also driving and drinking. We are very close friends with his parents and know they would be devastated to hear what is going on with their son. Our son has asked that we not share this information with anyone. We have anguished over what to do about this. On the one hand, we do not want to jeopardize our relationship with our son , which we would do by 'telling' on his friend (not to mention violate his trust). On the other hand, we know that we would want to be told if it were our son with the drinking problem. It feels very selfish to say we should just let the other parents be responsible for raising their son, yet he is clearly on a slippery slope and endangering not only his own health but that of others by his behavior. We struggle with our own son in getting him to "open up" with us and we both realize that if we do tell the other parents our son will never (in the forseeable future) confide in us again. Any suggestions???? Thanks!

[Carlene]

There's a great commercial on TV right now that shows a girl drowning while her friend stands on the dock and watches her go under. Then the voice over says, "wouldn't you help if you could?"

If you can't get your son to see his responsibility to help his friend, then you must teach him the lesson that there really are some things more important than keeping your word. Now that you have the knowledge, the safety of that boy, and the world around him are your responsibility.

Talk to your son, and then make sure the friend gets help one way or the other!

[Mike Bradley]

Dear Dad,
Take your son out for a Starbucks, and make them Ventis- you're both gonna need it.
Tell your son that this is "grow-up" time. That since his friend is drinking and driving, this confronts your son with having to struggle over what the essence of love is between friends.
Ask your son two questions. The first is, "How will you feel, son, if, God forbid, your buddy either kills someone or kills himself from driving drunk? How will you live with the fact that you decided not to tell his parents that he was drinking?"
As he ponders that, hit him with the second question: "Son, which do you love more? Your friend or the friendship? Because now you MUST choose one over the other. If you truly love your friend, you will rat him out and risk losing the friendship. If you love the friendship more, then you will risk losing your friend---forever."
If your son makes the right call, congratulate him and tell him how incredibly proud you are of him. If he refuses to call his friend's parents, (with you there to hear it), then you must make the call yourself. Your son will be furious with you for awhile, but in time he will understand that when you love someone there are some secrets you cannot keep.
Good luck and keep us posted.