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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Help - DS paralytic

136 replies

OneHandFlapping · 10/01/2015 01:22

DH and I have got him home, and to bed. He's been sick, but is now either asleep or comatose in bed on his side, surrounded by plastic and bowls.

DH and I are going to take turns sitting up with him, but what do I need to look out for? Are there other dangers apart from inhaling his own vomit?

OP posts:
JennyBlueWren · 10/01/2015 20:36

Don't keep questioning him on what drugs he took! The first time I got drunk it was very bad! My dad was convinced I had taken something and asked what I'd taken in case he had to take me to hospital!

trufflesnout · 10/01/2015 21:14

this thread is yet another case of MN vs Real Life. Don't know anyone in real life who would get their knickers in such a twist over an 18 year old getting puking drunk ONCE!

MN vs RL is something that always gets pulled out on threads where opinion differs, but in this case I really don't think it applies since those with their "knickers in a twist" are in a clear minority.

And this:

I hope to god you don't have any children of your own, nor plan to.

Was just mean.

So wrapped's attitude may be very black and white because of her experiences with drunks, but I have had no such experience and I still disagree that this is just part and parcel of being a teenager.

StickEm · 10/01/2015 21:23

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

nooka · 10/01/2015 21:37

My children are still relatively young teenagers and just having their first experiences of alcohol. I hope very much that they never get as drunk as the OP's son, but I'd not be surprised if they did, and I certainly expect them both at some point or another to have too much to drink, probably to the point of throwing up although I hope very much that they would not get so drunk that they were seriously at risk.

We've had and will go on having discussions about drinking in such a way that you can have a good time but not become out of control or do stupid things. If they do then those conversations would ramp up, and if I thought it was becoming an issue I'd take stronger action. I'm sure no one wants their child to get into trouble and not realise that it was stupid and something to avoid in future, but surely it's better that if it's going to happen your child lets you know so that you can make sure that they are safe? Also so they know what to do if it's one of their friends.

A friend of mine at school discovered his mother dead, having asphyxiated on vomit. I don't ever want that to happen to my child (victim or witness).

RumbelowSale · 10/01/2015 22:10

Just to say I'm pleased to read that he's OK and also that you and your o/h did a great job keeping him safe. I've an uncle who choked to death on his vomit after downing ever such a lot of whisky with a medication overdose he took to control his asthma. He meant to kill himself that night, certainly, butI don't for a minute think he knew that he'd be choking to death.Sad

Anyone remember the elder Blair boy who was left rat-arsed on the pavement by his friends after a night out? Good to read that your lad's friends were more responsible.

Tobyjugg · 10/01/2015 22:54

she made my brother sleep outside in the shed

Not in my shed he wouldn't! Have you ever seen the damage and corrosion vomit can cause to metal tools. Bed linen can be washed.

WrappedInABlankie · 10/01/2015 23:29

My mother gets people In to change light bulbs. She doesn't own tools! It was a wooden Shed with a arm chair in that he'd used when he smoked.

Bulbasaur · 11/01/2015 03:44

I too think the op did a great job and am glad the boy is fine. But would point out its not an automatic right of passage to come home shitfaced as a teen. I'm one of five and we wouldn't have dared. My two older dcs are now 24 and 21 and have never done it either. I'm quite sure they have been shitfaced with their friends, they just haven't come home like that thankfully.

Agreed. I got sloshed out of my mind and blacked out at a party. I never would have come home like that, my parents would have killed me. Luckily I was with friends, and nothing questionable happened. Youth being on my side I suffered no hang over or vomiting, just a cloud of incurable fatigue all day.

I hope my daughter never comes home like that. If she did, I'd make sure she was ok first and foremost, but then we'd have a talk about unacceptable behavior and risk taking when she sobered up the next day. Oh, and she'd be cleaning up any mess. I'd never leave her in a shed where she could asphyxiate on her own vomit, that's just so messed up. Sad

There's a fine line between getting drunk and getting that drunk. Learning your limits is a right of passage in a way, but that doesn't mean it needs to be condoned or accepted as "one of those things".

SoupDragon · 11/01/2015 08:18

I'm quite sure they have been shitfaced with their friends, they just haven't come home like that thankfully.

So where have they gone? Thank goodness someone else was able to care for them.

Caring for a drunk child is not the same as saying "Yay! Good on you! Here's a bottle of vodka for next time."

dementedma · 11/01/2015 10:21

They have been at their friends house. I don't mean shitfaced in the street with nowhere to go.And actually, I'm only imagining that they have on occasion. I haven't heard any tales other than of them being tipsy, or being hungover so maybe getting rat arsed isn't their thing, thank fully.

depecheNO · 11/01/2015 11:23

I'm glad your son is OK, OP. You and your DH did a great job - exactly what my mother did for me. If anything, she was too kind by letting sympathy beyond the critical period become the normal order of things, but I have always been the type to fear her disappointment more than anything else. If your son's anything like that, I'd worry more about him at uni than at home, because in non life-threatening circumstances you'd have no way of knowing what a state he was in, and this is possibly, against all logic, a relief to him. I am now at uni (got my worst years out of the way before attempting it), teetotal, in what I would describe as a raging drink culture, and what I see around me isn't pretty - not that I blame people for having more or less the same experiences I had at eighteen. (For the record, I only stopped drinking because alcohol eventually became so incompatible with my mental health that I couldn't even have a couple without triggering suicidal crying fits.)

I would, for the benefit of the thread, like to give the example of my much younger friend. His parents are the type to take the piss in the morning and make him tidy up his own mess, but would have searched the town for him at any hour sooner than let him die of hypothermia. They also, such is my understanding, drank around him when he was a child, had him mix their drinks for them, and particularly his father will on occasion get paralytic. They didn't pick their battles, so now he won't listen to their advice because of the time they (smokers) well-meaningly forbade him to smoke, which did nothing to stop him and has made him view them as hypocrites. What might have been reasonably firm tactics mean nothing to my friend because the example his parents have set seems to him utterly inconsistent with their suggestion that he partake in moderation.

His brother didn't drink for the longest time, and thinks of heavy drinkers as idiots, but will occasionally have a couple. Friend has been injured drunk before, can be a bit verbal and at one point went through a phase of insisting on lying down "just" for a bit in freezing parks at night. (We looked after him of course, and I'm sure that students would be the same, but I know that Friend was the "baby" of the group starting at 15, that not everyone will put up with repeat offences from the same individual, and that alcohol makes me unusually tolerant.) We have a few mutual friends who are/were just as into it as Friend, but they are far more aware of their surroundings. I don't like to brand people as "survivor" or "not", but in the case of alcohol some people cannot stop once they have started (I am guilty of this) and do not have the sense of self preservation or social capital to ensure their own safety.

I really hope that the above does not come across as patronising. In response to posts about how much (if any) discipline the morning after, reactions to parents' own alcoholism, and teens "babysitting" each other, I just wanted to offer a "horse's mouth" account of my own fairly recent experiences and the frank justifications my friend gives me as a peer rather than a parent.

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