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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Help- found ecstasy in dd’s room

354 replies

Potatopots · 30/11/2019 08:49

At a loss on what to do. Dd went out last night and took my house key with her (she lost hers)- I’m heading out now and couldn’t find my key on the hook so checked her jacket pocket and found my key as well as a baggie containing 2 ecstasy pills. She’s still asleep but what do I do? Wake her up and confront her? Wait until she’s woken up and ask her about them? Leave them on her bedside table for her to see when she wakes up and see what she does before I ask her?

OP posts:
Jinxed2 · 30/11/2019 23:08

I don’t think I meant you, I haven’t read the whole thread, people were basically saying it was a one off etc.

Same for me.... I was offered coke a few years ago back at a friends house after a night out. People who i had respected lost my respect that night, especially when I was hassled because i said no. They also couldn’t believe I’d never done it! I think it’s really sad. Snorting coke off their coffee table that their kids would play at the next day ☹️

TriciaH87 · 30/11/2019 23:49

If it was my child I would wake her up, make her watch me flush them and tell her if she ever brings drugs into my house again I will have her arrested. I would also take her arse to an narcotics anonymous meeting to show her what they can do to people or to the local hostipal and ask them to explain that the things those pills are cut with alone could kill her.

Madein1995 · 01/12/2019 00:09

tric I understand feeling concerned, worry, anger etc. But by having such an extreme reaction all your dd would learn would be to hide three things from you. And it's making a lot of conflict, which isn't necessary. As for the hospital - I understand the idea but to a young person death etc seems so far removed from reality.

The NA thing, well it depends how it works. There's a guy at a meeting I go to who brought his 15yr old daughter. The guy. Is 7yrs clean, and his daughter had been using drugs etc. The reason he brought her wasn't an attempt to warn her off - it was to show her that there was support there if she wanted it. And as an addict himself he knew the signs. He said that her use was recreational and she can put it down for now - but he's trying to work with her, to understand why it's happening, so hopefully she will either stop completely or just continue to use recdeatilnally. Doing it in that way - not making a fuss and being calm and reasonable about the using, and rather than shout or scream, show her there's support available - is fantastic and I wish my dad was understanding as hers clearly is.

However, taking her to a meeting so she could see what they do to people isn't going to be helpful. It isn't easy to identify in NA meetings, partly because you're looking for differences. Also because I doubt the dd would have a low anything like most in the room. I was a heavily addicted opiate addict, on 40pljs dihydrocodeine a day (you're meant to take 4 a day max), was stealing mams jewellery and getting loans to feed my habit.

I still couldn't really identify when I first came in. Because for most, their rock bottoms includes homelessness, jail, police, hospital, rehab, overdoses, fights, relationship breakdowns, bankruptcy, abscesses, pneumonia, jaundice... They're extreme but they're common in NA.. And if you're 17 and sat in a room like that you're going to be thinking how different you are.

SuperDonkey · 01/12/2019 00:24

Love this.

Like Leah Betts and the hundreds of others who have dies are going to be on here posting that they aren’t here to tell the tale.

You could say the same about alcohol though but people wouldn't be as ott about that

changeforprivacy · 01/12/2019 01:08

This constant comparison to alcohol is really tiresome.

Yes alcohol is dangerous AS WELL. It's not a case of putting drugs V alcohol. Both have the potential to do serious damage. The fact that alcohol is legal and drugs not doesn't make either one of them a better option.

TriangularRatbag · 01/12/2019 01:11

It seems like a highly relevant and inevitable comparison to me! They are both recreational drugs that teenagers use (sometimes for reasons of peer pressure) in social situations. But they each have different levels of risk.

StarClaws · 01/12/2019 01:13

Yes alcohol is dangerous AS WELL. It's not a case of putting drugs V alcohol. Both have the potential to do serious damage. The fact that alcohol is legal and drugs not doesn't make either one of them a better option

True, but there's just something very irritating about (for example!) someone whose username is a reference to an alcoholic drink ranting about how deadly MDMA is and how abhorrent it is that anyone would ever take it.

changeforprivacy · 01/12/2019 02:01

It seems like a highly relevant and inevitable comparison to me!

It's not a one or the other situation, if it were then comparisons would work.

Saying drugs are ok because alcohol is worse is flawed.

TriangularRatbag · 01/12/2019 02:19

I refer the honourable lady back to this piece of research which I cited a few hours ago!
www.ias.org.uk/uploads/pdf/News%20stories/dnutt-lancet-011110.pdf
It is one big comparison of the risks of drugs of all types, including alcohol and tobacco. I'm still at a loss as to why it isn't relevant. Those of us panicking about MDMA use might take a different view when we realise how much more risky alcohol is. We might relax about MDMA. Or we might stop drinking. Either way it seems relevant!

RonaldMcDonald · 01/12/2019 02:27

Ecstasy use is seen as medium risk.
Behind that of smoking
Having medical treatment
Drinking alcohol

Safest when tested, taken without other drugs and not a great deal if any alcohol
Stop with the everyone dies narrative- it’s nonsense

WaterOffADucksCrack · 01/12/2019 07:06

She would have been told she just lost the privilege to any privacy. It's really worrying that people think it's ok for their children to not have any right to privacy. My mum was similar in her views. I moved out at 16 to be with a much older boyfriend because she was going through my belongings daily looking for drugs. I hadn't even touched drugs at that point.

notfun · 01/12/2019 08:34

The issue is that loads of people think it's harmless, and it is for most people taking it.

But if it's your son or daughter who dies, the fact that you are in a minority isn't much of a comfort.

Seeing all the flowers on what should have been my friend's DC 18 birthday was heartbreaking.

notfun · 01/12/2019 08:37

Also due to my own experiences prior to this child dying, I wouldn't have been overly concerned.

I would have put it down to a phase and just expected them to have a bit of fun then grow out of it like I did.

Now I tell everyone who will listen what happened as I think people should understand it's not like it used to be.

GiveHerHellFromUs · 01/12/2019 08:41

OP I know someone who took a pill very similar to the one you've described.

They ended up in a coma for 3 days and almost died. She was 16.

People are basing their comments on 'properly' manufactured drugs - what about the ones that aren't made properly and contain god knows what?

Potatopots · 01/12/2019 08:46

Thought I’d update.
Dd came home after storming out at around 4pm and began a story on how she had bought them because all her friends were doing it and she wanted to try but didn’t go through with taking them. I’m not sure- seems like she bought herself time to make a story by leaving the house. I didn’t persist with her but told her that she wouldn’t be in trouble if she had taken them and either way we have to talk as she did have the intention of doing it. After a talk about what her ‘friends’ have been doing and the dangers of taking drugs we watched a documentary I had found which showed a dealer cutting his pills with rat poison and all sorts. A bit upset that she still hasn’t told me the whole truth- I don’t think I believe that this was a case of her buying 2 and then deciding not to take them

OP posts:
GiveHerHellFromUs · 01/12/2019 08:50

@Potatopots I think she could be telling you the truth. If that was me I wouldn't want to try them alone so she might genuinely have backed out.

Potatopots · 01/12/2019 08:51

giveherhellfromus she wouldn’t have been alone as she had been out with her friends at a party the night before I found them

OP posts:
PhilCornwall1 · 01/12/2019 08:54

This isn’t shocking at 17.

My son is 17 and bugger me, I'd be shocked and just a little worried!!

Meganc559 · 01/12/2019 09:02

I think it would be more beneficial to tell her about the risks of taking them, this could be her first time and she's just tried them so ask her about them first before you go mental at her,
She's 17 she ll be able to find some again if this isn't her first time.
I went to music college and I don't think there was one person there that didn't take some kind of drug, not one person got addicted and then went on harder stuff.
They mostly just used it for nights out and unfortunately it's the norm when your out now a days.

I can understand you may be upset especially if you have never tried anything before but if all her friends are doing it then it would be hard to assume she won't keep doing it

airedailleurs · 01/12/2019 09:07

People are basing their comments on 'properly' manufactured drugs - what about the ones that aren't made properly and contain god knows what?

@GiveHerHellFromUs this ^ is the key point.

rarejuicegoose · 01/12/2019 09:15

I don't have any real advice as my kids are still really young. But I am one of the rare people who have never taken drugs.
The reasons being that when I was 10 a family member died of a drugs overdose. They had gone from taking drugs recreationally to being a full blown heroine addict. She had a very respectable job before and was 39 when she died.

What did it for me was reading her autopsy (I read it without anyone knowing) and it has haunted everyday since.

Obviously I have a personal connection to this so it's very easy for me to say no.

I do recommend a book called 'go ask Alice'

It's an incredibly powerful book about a young girl who dabbles in drugs and alcohol because her friends do only to have a tragic end.

Again no real advice but sending you well wishes, this must be really difficult for you

Meganc559 · 01/12/2019 09:17

I agree with that point that you don't know what's in it however a dealer will very rarely sell dodgy drugs that could potentionally kill someone
If they did they would loose everyone they sold to as word would get out that the person that died got it from them. It very rarely happens

Goatinthegarden · 01/12/2019 09:48

The DD is a young adult, posters who are saying they’d threaten and shout and be controlling are on a hiding to nothing. No teenager in the world ever agreed with an angry, shouty parent. Young people have been proven to be more likely to risk take because their brains are still developing. You’d be far better to educate her and hope that she makes good choices.

I never took drugs until I left home - I wouldn’t have dared do it whilst I lived at home, but only because of my parents. I have never spoken to them about drug taking because they are so disapproving, which is a shame in some ways because I feel like I’m hiding a part of my youth from them and we are otherwise very open.

I took various drugs in my early 20s, but we were informed, planned and tested anything we took and ran it like an occasional ‘event’. Of course that didn’t make it ‘safe’, and now in my 30s, I’m a teacher and it’s totally off the cards.

Some of my best memories though involved a bit of MDMA. It’s called ‘ecstasy’ for a reason....

airedailleurs · 01/12/2019 09:52

I agree with that point that you don't know what's in it however a dealer will very rarely sell dodgy drugs that could potentionally kill someone
If they did they would loose everyone they sold to as word would get out that the person that died got it from them. It very rarely happens

@Meganc559 but the dealer does not necessarily prepare the product they are selling! The problem is that as the product is illegal, the whole supply chain is unknown and subject to corruption!

Goatinthegarden · 01/12/2019 09:54

Oh and I’m not trying to undermine how scary it must be to sit at home and wonder what your teenager is up to... the constant fear and worrying about what they might do to themselves is One of the reasons I don’t have children. Flowers