Drugs - at our wits end

[pbs]

My son will be 16 in a few days. He has been suspended from school 4 times for weed and alcohol. One more offense and he will be kicked out permanently. His school has been very patient because my son is likeable, gets good marks and appears remorseful. He has also been in trouble with the law and had to perform restitution for being drunk and damaging a persons car.

My husband and I are very clear that drugs and alcohol are not tolerated and our son has promised not to do them. However he is constantly lying and has been caught several times. He now takes the attitude that weed is ok and we are making a big deal of nothing.

I have searched his room and found weed twice within the past month - yesterday a couple of baggies. I read in your book not to search but my son is on the edge with being kicked out of school and could get in trouble legally so I feel I need to - especially when I find something. I am so worried about his future. My husband and I went to a counseling session with my son. The psychologist said she didn't think my son had psychological problems and she noticed that we seem to have a bond and influence with my son. I agree as we can still talk to him (we stopped yelling a while back). However he thinks weed is ok and we should let him do it. The counseler suggested that my son needs to be put off balance. She suggested we get my son to agree to a contract not to do drugs and kick him out of the house if he doesn't agree. We live in a small town and she felt he would be safe and just move around kids houses until he wears out his welcome. She also did not want to see him again as she felt she could not influence him. Your book counsels against kicking a kid out and quite frankly I don't feel comfortable throwing a 16 year old out. How do we get him to stop doing drugs? I know he needs to want to stop but what is next? Thanks for any help you can give we are at our wits end.

[Mike Bradley]

Dear Mom,
You need to find another counselor (preferably male) who sees his job not as "influencing" your son, but as facilitating the discussions between you and your son. Your position must be that drugs (alcohol is a drug) are not OK, and that there are two parts to your expression of this. The first is that you must get the data in front of your son which show weed to be very dangerous and addicting (yes, addicting) for teen brains. Find a counselor who is familiar with the weed research. Be open to talking endlessly about this with your son.
Your second expression is to offer a deal where you will give him rewards for staying clean. Find things that he really wants to have, things that might be a financial stretch for you. If he refuses this deal note to him that his drugs must be really, really important to him to outweigh any other reward he can think of. Then say that if he cannot give you a trustworthy word that he will stop the drugs, then, yes, you must stoop to searching his stuff and possibly instituting drug tests in return for the barest of privileges. Tell him that you hate those measures at least as much as he does, but that you see this as a "saving his life" scenario.
For, indeed, that is just what this might be. He is showing signs of a serious drug issue that you need to powerfully confront. Ultimately, you might end up asking him to leave, but try every other trick first, under the guidance of a counselor.
Please keep us posted.

[pbs]

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[Esprit]

Dear PBS,

I just wanted to respond to you as another concerned parent. Your post made me very sad as I can only imagine the fear and pain you are going through. I have no answers, but just some thoughts that I can pull from my own experiences when my son was using weed.

First, one thing I was told by a few counselors was that it was a good thing this was happening when my son was still at home so that he did still have his usual supports around him and that we could perhaps influence his action. I was also told that values and beliefs that we have are firmly in place in our teens, just maybe not visible for a time.

It really, really scares me that he's living away. I can't imagine that he would have the resources or life experience to manage living on his own and he has clearly been making bad decisions even prior to this. Without your house as a safety net, I think he is at great risk. And when the school year starts, I think his chance at success would be very low.

The tough part of course is what to do. I think that he must be scared out there on his own. I bet too that he feels in way over his head. And he probably won't back down. The only way I see him coming back is if you drop the focus on the Weed for a bit and, use Dr. Bradley's apology technique (even if you don't mean it at all!), talk to him about how this has to be hard for him and that maybe he is in over his head and that this is his home and he needs to come back. I don't know....it's just so hard to know what the extent of his drug activity is and whether he can extricate himself from the course he is on.

The things that have helped for me is viewing my son when he's out of control in the way that I would have when he was a toddler having a tantrum. I find it very hard not to personalize, but I do see that it doesn't help to do that.

I also know that when my son stopped using Weed he talked about what a huge effect it had on him and how he didn't care about anything including our feelings or what he said and did when using it. He also said that the people he was with who were heavy duty users had no concern about being respectful and talked terribly to their parents. It was a shock to him how that world was. But he only got out by hitting rock bottom. I hope that maybe THIS is the rock bottom for your son and that it can be used to turn things around. Be aware that he may be very angry about this turn of events as well and that between that and using Weed, he's going to be tough or impossible to reason with.

Finally, I think you need all the possible supports you can get to deal with this....I'd recontact the counselor who was working with you. I'd also research drug intervention programs in the community and see if someone could go out and talk with him or assess him. You will need to be in very close contact with his school as well and maybe with drug intervention that is run through the school.

I sure hope it works out. Please post an update. I know how horrible this must all be for you. It's like a nightmare isn't it? I hope you have some supports for yourself. Just know that posting on here and all that you have done in the past means that you are actively parenting and desparately trying to improve the situation.

My thoughts are with you!
Esprit
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