Caught Teen Using Drugs - Help
- Thread starter Mom of Teen Boys
- Start date
Littleboylost
Long road but the path ahead holds hope.
Ours hid his bong in the BBQ outside. And his weed in the sports closet in the garage. We looked everywhere.
I often say I smashed more bongs than cheech and Chong had on their movie set.
Look for water bottles with holes in them and pens with the ink fill taken out.
I often say I smashed more bongs than cheech and Chong had on their movie set.
Look for water bottles with holes in them and pens with the ink fill taken out.
Littleboylost
Long road but the path ahead holds hope.
The most recent creative inside a magic card box was a roll of bandage ....looks like a little first aid kit. Pull it apart inside the roll of bandage was a bag of weed.
Mom of Teen Boys
New Member
Ugh! If only I had a drug sniffing dog, the time it would save me!!!!
Littleboylost
Long road but the path ahead holds hope.
Unreal.
Sam3
Active Member
Hi. My brother was also a raging alcoholic with multiple near-death experiences, over a decade starting when I was 16. I realized when my own son went sideways despite my best efforts, that I had a sort of PTSD from my teen years that too greatly affected my parenting. It could not have been easy having me as a parent afflicted with unhealthy hyper vigilance and constant catastrophizing. Though at the time, I was agonizing about the very real dangers of addiction and thought I was imparting wisdom only I could have based on my experiences. Other than my genetic contribution, I certainly didn't cause my sons abuse, but my reactivity also didn't help his flagging self image and is the target of a lot of blame.
I'm sharing this not to discourage you from doing whatever it takes to stand between your son and substance abuse -- you should. But I wish I would have known at the beginning of my sons journey, what I now have come to realize after lots of individual therapy (including trauma work), family therapy, al-anon and parent support groups. Substance abuse is crazy making for the sufferer and their loved ones. It's just the nature of the thing. Despite the whack crap that will emit from his mouth, he isn't flawed and neither are you. Love him and set firm consequences for testing positive and follow through. Share your disappointments with the board and trusted adults. Don't make him responsible for your happiness. A substance abuse counselor can add perspective for him without demonizing. Try to reward non-use and better friendships. I know the more I chased trying to catch my son, the more he ran, and the faster both of us went down the rabbit hole.
I'm sharing this not to discourage you from doing whatever it takes to stand between your son and substance abuse -- you should. But I wish I would have known at the beginning of my sons journey, what I now have come to realize after lots of individual therapy (including trauma work), family therapy, al-anon and parent support groups. Substance abuse is crazy making for the sufferer and their loved ones. It's just the nature of the thing. Despite the whack crap that will emit from his mouth, he isn't flawed and neither are you. Love him and set firm consequences for testing positive and follow through. Share your disappointments with the board and trusted adults. Don't make him responsible for your happiness. A substance abuse counselor can add perspective for him without demonizing. Try to reward non-use and better friendships. I know the more I chased trying to catch my son, the more he ran, and the faster both of us went down the rabbit hole.
Mom of Teen Boys
New Member
Thank you Sam3. This means more than you know. I know living through and witnessing what I witness affected me in ways I cannot even gather words for, also for watching what it did to my mother was horrific. This board has helped me process a lot of my feelings, so thank you all. I will keep testing, watching his money, and keeping a close eye on what he looks like upon returning home from a night out. I wish he could see this choice isn't worth it, but I'm beginning to realize that I can't tell him anything, he has to find it out on his own. So if he gets busted at school or by the cops it's on him, and then he's out of sports, another major consequence that isn't my rule.
Mom of Teen Boys
New Member
Sam3 - curious, what is the status of your son now? How old is he?
Sam3
Active Member
He'll be 19 and should have started college next month. He was sober for almost two years after we put him in a residential program (unwillingly) for a couple months when he was almost 17, and then he willingly went to an outpatient follow up program and switched to online high school to stay with the sober crowd instead of his old peers. Long story, but he's now renouncing 12 stepping and hasn't been sober since the beginning of the year, with a lot of cheerleading from new peers, and sundry ill effects including stagnation and couch surfing for a few months.
He's recently back home and we're waiting and watching and thinking of next steps. In the meantime, he gets no money from us but we have made clear that we would back anything positive he wants to do to even if that doesn't mean 4 year college. Gym membership, meditation, detox, culinary school, job assistance. He has deferred college for a quarter. It remains to be seen whether he will finish up his high school credits and go back to therapy as he has indicated he is willing to do. This all sounds grim, I know, but I am thankful that he had all the treatment he had. He realized the benefits of CBT and DBT. He knows good support is out there and he can't defraud himself, even if he doesn't want to go back to AA.
He's recently back home and we're waiting and watching and thinking of next steps. In the meantime, he gets no money from us but we have made clear that we would back anything positive he wants to do to even if that doesn't mean 4 year college. Gym membership, meditation, detox, culinary school, job assistance. He has deferred college for a quarter. It remains to be seen whether he will finish up his high school credits and go back to therapy as he has indicated he is willing to do. This all sounds grim, I know, but I am thankful that he had all the treatment he had. He realized the benefits of CBT and DBT. He knows good support is out there and he can't defraud himself, even if he doesn't want to go back to AA.
Sam3
Active Member
Also, I can't resist adding my own little gallows humor to the thread on genius tactics these kids use. Running up to residential, we were testing my son at home. He banked or borrowed clean pee, put it in a juicy drops candy syringe he hid is his pants and squirted it into the cup when his back was turned to my husband monitoring the bathroom process. It sounded just like someone peeing! A mom spidey sense went off one day, and sure enough my husband found it out when he peered around to the front! Drug counselors have a million stories but can also do that service for you, which can be an important buffer to depersonalize the process.
Mom of Teen Boys
New Member
Did he know when you were going to test him? When we test my son it's always right when he wakes up and heads to the bathroom as normal, then I say oh and fill that cup up. I don't go in with him, but have the strips to monitor temp & ph, etc. to be sure it isn't tampered with (like adding water) and I put those blue tabs in the toilet so the water is blue and he can't use that to add to.
Mom of Teen Boys
New Member
Sam3 - sounds like a rough road.
For all of you. I hope that he gets and stays clean/sober. I don't know if I'll be able to let my son live here once he's 18, I told my hubby he causes me so much stress. That's 2 years from now so we'll see.
Littleboylost
Long road but the path ahead holds hope.
You have done an amazing job! We are in the throes of this. Presently waiting in limbo for a long term rehab bed. This is not an easy path.
Littleboylost
Long road but the path ahead holds hope.
I am reading a great resource
Don't Let Your Kids Drive You Crazy.
It is a great help. I often forget to deal with my AS with compassion. This has reminded me to do that.
Don't Let Your Kids Drive You Crazy.
It is a great help. I often forget to deal with my AS with compassion. This has reminded me to do that.
Albatross
Well-Known Member
I could go on and on about hiding places for drugs. I think the worst was when we set the condition that my son had to be breathalyzed twice a day to stay with us and passed his breathalyzer with flying colors. Basking in his father's praise, but I could see he was going downhill. Son eventually took off in a nonsensical decision to bike cross-country and we found hundreds of poppers in the trunk of his car. He had been inhaling them to get high yet test clean on a breathalyzer.
I did want to say one thing about wishing we had done it differently. I have wished so many times that we had come down like the Hand of God on him when he started. We too hoped it was just a phase, so we tried to keep the lines of communication open. When we saw that he was different from other teenagers and came down hard on him, we didn't get much support from his "cool" aunts, who thought that a little pot and beer were no big deal. We should have stopped that too.
I have so many regrets about not giving him what he needed. I SO wish we had been more like parents and less like friends. At the very least, I SO wish we had made it so (#M* hard for him to experiment that he would have turned to other things instead of drugs.
But we never know how things would have worked out.
My son's ex-girlfriend, at the same age, got caught smoking marijuana. Her parents put her in drug "boot camp," random drug tested her, put her in the strictest Christian school they could find, took off her bedroom door, searched and stripped her room, enrolled her and them in individual and family counseling, and took away her cell phone.
That ought to do it, right?
The last we heard, a couple of years ago, she was addicted and homeless on the West Coast.
I will never understand an addict's way of thinking, but I do believe that we can only do the best we know at the time and hope they make the right choices. There aren't any easy answers.
I did want to say one thing about wishing we had done it differently. I have wished so many times that we had come down like the Hand of God on him when he started. We too hoped it was just a phase, so we tried to keep the lines of communication open. When we saw that he was different from other teenagers and came down hard on him, we didn't get much support from his "cool" aunts, who thought that a little pot and beer were no big deal. We should have stopped that too.
I have so many regrets about not giving him what he needed. I SO wish we had been more like parents and less like friends. At the very least, I SO wish we had made it so (#M* hard for him to experiment that he would have turned to other things instead of drugs.
But we never know how things would have worked out.
My son's ex-girlfriend, at the same age, got caught smoking marijuana. Her parents put her in drug "boot camp," random drug tested her, put her in the strictest Christian school they could find, took off her bedroom door, searched and stripped her room, enrolled her and them in individual and family counseling, and took away her cell phone.
That ought to do it, right?
The last we heard, a couple of years ago, she was addicted and homeless on the West Coast.
I will never understand an addict's way of thinking, but I do believe that we can only do the best we know at the time and hope they make the right choices. There aren't any easy answers.
Sam3
Active Member
I agree there are not any easy answers, and we can only do our best and hope the best, and work hard to understand ourselves and them, and their motivations and the sh--t we brought to the table, and what is innate and what is environmental-- what they're truly capable of and what is sincere and what is manipulation, and on and on........
But it seems at the end of the day that the outcomes are just as often happy or tragic turns of events. That's so hard to accept, but I'm trying to find a certain peace in it.
It helps me to think they want to win and have good lives even though they have ridiculously myopic views, that seem self destructive, even. And that we parents are playing the long game, with hope -- which sometimes means only grim acceptance so that we can survive another day to hope. And that both generations can sense the others' intentions, even when we can't see them. All of which means we are doing our utter best without any guarantees. That's scary and courageous.
But it seems at the end of the day that the outcomes are just as often happy or tragic turns of events. That's so hard to accept, but I'm trying to find a certain peace in it.
It helps me to think they want to win and have good lives even though they have ridiculously myopic views, that seem self destructive, even. And that we parents are playing the long game, with hope -- which sometimes means only grim acceptance so that we can survive another day to hope. And that both generations can sense the others' intentions, even when we can't see them. All of which means we are doing our utter best without any guarantees. That's scary and courageous.
