Please or to access all these features

SN teens and young adults

Here are some suggested organisations that offer expert advice on SN.

How discuss drugs and alcohol with teen aspi who's desperate to experiment

5 replies

Singlemumofteen · 15/06/2020 15:24

Hi my daughter just turned 16 and in her totally logical world had decided she must drink a bit of vodka every day and try quarters of ecstasy because she needs to build resilience and it's more sensible to do all of this with me her mother in the safety of home 🤦🏼‍♀️ this has replaced reptiles and rats as her new obsession and she's being equally single minded and exhausting in her logic. Furious with my refusal to enable this experiment. She's high functioning so appears to others as a smart highly articulate if sightly eccentric and isolated teenager but she really has very low maturity combined with off the scale special interests. Other than getting a letter from the prime minister excluding her for easing lockdown does anyone have any advice? This feels like a ticking time bomb and I've got no idea how to guide her through this. Can't believe I'm missing the rats and reptiles arguments!! It's really getting me down I feel like whichever way I turn I'll make it worse and I just want to protect her.

OP posts:
BlankTimes · 16/06/2020 15:21

Despite her faultless logic, emotionally she's likely to be two thirds of her chronological age so experiencing altered states of consciousness at 16 isn't a great idea IMO.

Both are illegal at her age, if she's a rule-follower.
The alcohol she couldn't legally buy in a shop, so you could tell her she can try it when she can legally buy it. That gives you a 2 year leeway as shops are really hot on ID for youngsters buying alcohol.

Where is she going to buy the Ecstasy or other pills she's interested in? Because wherever she'd get it from, both she and the seller are doing something illegal.

How would she know it's the real stuff and not something made in someone's kitchen with drain-cleaner? It's not as if the suppliers have a Customer Services section, or pages on Revoo is it?

I'd be concerned as to where she's got the idea she needs to build resilience to different substances because it's a bizarre.
People in Rome or the Middle Ages (at least in some novels) used to do this sort of thing if they were royalty or politically active targets for being poisoned by their power-hungry enemies.

If she's thinking ahead to maybe her drinks being spiked in a social setting, that's usually done with date-rape drugs like rohypnol, not a common street-drug.

Get clued-up yourself on all the modern trends and terminology and find out how addictive or not some things can be. www.talktofrank.com/

Explain that the 'what goes up must come down' philosophy also applies to drink and drugs. Everybody will tell her about the nice effects, not many will talk about the comedowns, the shakes, the paranoia, the irrational fear and panic attacks.

Also explain that as her brain's wired differently, she may experience the effects of drink and drugs very differently to an NT peer.

I'm not for a moment advocating this approach, but in my generation, if parents found you'd been drinking, they gave you enough alcohol to make you throw up several times and have an almighty hangover and splitting headache the next day, that cured a lot of kids from wanting to over-indulge.
Cigarette smoking, my friend's Dad made her brother chain-smoke 20 cigs even when he'd started to be sick, he grew up to be a non-smoker.

Hope some of that helps, Flowers

Namechangex10000 · 16/06/2020 15:25

Wow I really have no advice but didn’t want to read and run because this sounds stressful, I don’t want to insult your daughters intelligence here but could you give her an alcoholpop and have a paracetamol?! And then say “see they aren’t all their cracked up to be” 🤦🏻‍♀️

Singlemumofteen · 16/06/2020 16:15

😂 I love both approaches. Thank you 🤗 I have no doubt she will find a way to get booze and drugs regardless, she would get a unicorn if she put her mind to it. She developed her current mad strategy based on the talk to frank website that she has been using to inform her extensive research following a talk at school. She wants to build resilience because she wants to experiment with booze and drugs safely. I'm trying to find research on ASD risks to counter the bonkers logic. I just want to lock her up for ten years, hug her close and strangle her all at once. I loved chemicals in my youth but was a lot older than 16 and didn't have aspergers - she's really going to be playing with fire. Maybe the other evidence based approach is indeed a quarter of an aspirin 😆

OP posts:
BlankTimes · 16/06/2020 19:22

I'd namechange and ask on the main Chat section of MN for adults with ASD to describe their experiences with the effects of alcohol and different drugs. You'll have to have quite a convincing 'line' as they often suspect people are journos or trolls, but there are a LOT of autistic mums who post on MN.

I just want to lock her up for ten years, hug her close and strangle her all at once
Been there, no doubt will be there again Flowers

Singlemumofteen · 16/06/2020 20:26

Thanks for the advice. I've never used this before, will change my name and try and figure it out! Xxx

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

This thread is closed and is no longer accepting replies. Click here to start a new thread.

Swipe left for the next trending thread