Cocaine - is this weird?

[Creamofthecrop12]

I'll start this with I'm a drugs virgin, don't take them and never have done.
But I do know people who have in their 20s typically and then stopped as they hit 30ish, children or not. They weren't prolific users: weekends only.
I've become friendly with a group of long-term friends (early 40s/late 40s) who seemingly have it all.
They're friendly, good, well-paid jobs, lovely children, nice homes etc. The kids seem well-cared for.
But - f* me - they LOVE drugs. And in a way I'm really uncomfortable with but if I raise will almost certainly see me ousted from the group (I know this happened to a person before me).
There's been multiple occasions on a weekly basis where the children (toddlers and newborns) are kept in the care of both parents at 'family-style' events in the early evening and mum and dad are both doing lines.
Or they are kept up very late while both parents are high.
They also take other class A drugs (not heroin) regularly and the dads will do coke 2/3 times a week - even in the days/weeks after the baby was born.
I think this is odd but I value their friendship.
I guess I'm looking for an objective point of view that this behaviour isn't the norm.
Thanks.

I would be really uncomfortable with this and wouldn't give a duck if l got ousted. Poor kids.

That’s because they fell for the nah it’s great. It probably is great for a time but they know deep down that this isn’t how they expected their life to be. When I was a teenager there was the first anti drugs public information film shown on tv and I always remember one line from it that your friends have probably used “I can give up at any time” and yet they choose not to.

This.

I live in a city and there is a big problem with working class primary school age children being used as couriers. Before they are in double digits they are being 'paid' in drugs. They are carrying knives and stabbing innocent people by the time they are fourteen. They are in gangs and killing rival gang members when they should be in school. The prison has a revolving door and they seem to see it as a badge of honour to be locked up for a very short period before they are back on the streets terrifying people.

Very recently a cleaner who was on her way to work at 7pm in the evening got killed. Delivery cyclists are harrassed and knived so regularly it isn't even reported anymore. Absolutely senseless murders being carried out by out of control drug groomed kids.

The people who had a chance in live, who were educated, are supporting the above. It makes them as bad and worse as the gang members because they choose this life when they have other options open to them.

I'm going to chill for a bit but thank you everyone for knocking sense into me. It's much appreciated. I think they've normalised it and I know it's not normal.

if I raise will almost certainly see me ousted from the group

Either raise it pronto, then, or just ditch the lot of them. And yes, register some safeguarding concerns with schools, etc.

I would not be friends with these people, and I'm not a drugs virgin etc. But this is so wrong.

Drug users are funding the absolute worst people in society. People smugglers are almost always involved in drug importation too, but people seem to condemn one a lot more easily than the other.

Not to mention the fact that the majority of shit people are putting into their body is mixed up with crude oil in a fucking jungle. Absolute madness. It wouldn't matter to me one bit if those people were my only "friends", I would be reporting this to the police and social services.

This first post nailed it really. I'm not a prude about drugs, I've taken drugs, my friends took drugs, but taking lines with children around is unforgivable, disgusting and warrants reporting to someone tbh... no matter how 'upper-class' and 'in control' these evenings are, that's so incredibly low

As you are fully aware of the situation the children are in you have a duty to report this situation to Social Services or contact NSPCC for advice.

It’s insufficient to distance yourself (although do that too), but to act to safeguard children you know are at risk.

I promise you this sort of behaviour once you have kids has a price. Even if the adults are fine the kids will be living with the after effects the next day, the parents "under the weather" and inconsistent parenting.

We had friends like this. The Dad was a pain the proverbial the day after using and got quite violent on the come down. Their kids grew up with massive issues - was not good and we ditched them soon after they started using again.

I used to socialize with people who did this when I was in my 20s and didn’t have my own children. I thought it was a bit off then when I was doing the same, but the child angle never sat well with me. Now I have my own kids I wouldn’t dream of it and wouldn’t take them into an environment where other people were doing drugs even if I wasn’t. It doesn’t matter if you are partaking or not, you shouldn’t expose your children to that environment (if you have DC there, perhaps you don’t).

I don’t think they are your people to be honest. It sounds like you have completely diffeeent values and priorities. If they dumped someone that wasn’t happy with it I wouldn’t think they are very good friends in general and honestly I wouldn’t want to be around that. It’s very sad really and if the kids are being kept up while they do it it’s even worse. They sound like an awful bunch.

Ok. Please dump them immediately. They are horrific!

Maybe you could make friends with the ousted member of the group? The one who was also uncomfortable with the drugs use?

I find this kind of thing awful but equally quite fascinating to be honest. I live in an affluent area and most of the parents at my DS’s school are professionals, chances are at least some of them are like this but I just wouldn’t have a clue. I’m a complete drugs virgin myself and wouldn’t know where to get them even if I wanted to!

I'm not a prude about drugs

What does this even mean? That its somehow 'cool' to be involved with drugs. Filthy shit laced with whatever crap they can get hold of financed by burglaries and crime such as running brothels and gangs killing each other and people injecting shit into whatever veins they can get a needle into? Coke being 'white' doesn't make it less filthy or mean it isn't surrounded and handled by the above before going up your nose. Why on earth wouldn't you WANT to be be anti drugs?

And I was in the situation where I had my boy young-ish and my friends were experimenting, and I would too sometimes. But my son was never present and always in the care of someone who loved him.

Parents sitting around and having a few drinks and maybe a joint while kids are tucked up... super

Parents sitting around and having a few drinks and maybe a line of coke while kids are tucked up... not okay

I know these people as I was an integral part of the group in my 20s but since did a full cleanup. I am amazed you got let in! In my group there hasn't been an addition in 25 years. I see them from time to time but we have very little in common. They are so incestuous, can't leave the extended group for anything so they all end up getting married to their sister's ex or something. It's like a soap opera.

Bizarrely they all have committed marriages, kids and run successful companies. They do nothing to look after their health beyond refusing to stress about anything.

I used to have a lot of love for them - saw them as a lovely warm bunch of kind people that led a different life to me but those feelings have really diminished for me. They seem nothing but hassle, really rude, disinterested and impossible to relate to. I also suspect the boys' holidays involve sex workers along with piles of drugs.

You need to calm down

Nope. You need to read up about the effects drug lords and drug users have on our society.

Why are you questioning your own instincts? Why do you value the friendships of adults who seem neglectful of their children, and who engage in activities which most people morally disagree with?

For me as soon as it became apparent that their values were totally at odds with my own, I'd be seeking a different friendship group. I think most people would. So yeah, maybe try and figure out why you insist on hanging out with this group of morally dubious people.

I take drugs occasionally. Usually mushrooms or LSD. I would never, ever take drugs in front of my son. Won't even have more than a glass of wine in front of him. This isn't OK. Feel how you feel about adults taking drugs, whatever, but when kids are in the mix it becomes a huge safeguarding issue.

I used to work with county lines kids, some of which deliver to my village regularly and I find it utterly infuriating.

I'm afraid I can't see past the manipulated, terrified children, dragged off the streets, made to cram kinder eggs full of coke up their arses & deliver to these 'fun' people. Themselves or their families threatened with knives or worse if they try to get out.

I wouldn't care how nice a group of friends were. If they were prepared to support that then I wouldn't want to pass the time of day with them.

'Value their friendship', 'dont want to be outsted' how old are you, 14?. Dont worry OP , you can look after their kids when one of em has a bad batch of their gear.
Selfish bastards

I have zero involvement with drugs, but I gotta question. Various posters have implied that users can just stop... i.e., that cocaine, heroin, etc, are not addictive.

Can users just stop?

And in a way I'm really uncomfortable with but if I raise will almost certainly see me ousted from the group (I know this happened to a person before me).

No need to raise concerns. They are adults and it doesn't matter what you say.

More's to the point, you need to decide if you want to waste your time mixing with a bunch of losers or not.