My DS18 went out to a pub last night with a group of about 12 friends from his 6th form college, some girls but mostly boys. He's known half of them since junior school and the rest from secondary school.
Going to the pub is a relatively new thing for him as he's only just turned 18, so until recently most of his evening socialising was having friends in his room or at the odd party. Most of his friends and acquaintances though have had fake ID for at least a year, so have been going to pubs and clubs for a lot longer (my DS said he couldn't justify the cost of the ID as he was happy as he was).
I was expecting him to be out quite late last night or bring some friends back, but he came home alone at about 10.30 saying that everyone was ordering cocaine and he didn't really want to do that. It then came out that at a recent 18th party he was offered and took some cocaine as well as MDMA which made him feel physically and mentally unwell for about four days afterwards.
I live in a big city which I grew up in and in my youth a lot of people took a lot of drugs on a regular basis, but a lot of people, including me, didn't really take part. The ones who did drugs however, typically tended to start a 30+ year long addiction that they're only just coming out of as they reach middle age (with varying success).
Cocaine is the very worst drug IME and turned so many formerly decent people into permanent a*holes that they never really came back from.
I just feel sad and concerned for my DS now - he must feel as if he has the choice of either walking away from the people who've been a part of his life for years, or be forced to join in in order to have a social life. IME it's impossible to have a good time with a crowd high on cocaine if you're not.
I just wondered if any other parents out there were experiencing this with teenage DCs, or
had managed to work through it successfully. I should mention that these are mostly bright high achievers too.