My 23 year old and his older brother (25) have smoked cannabis since they were both 14 years. They smoke it evenings and weekends at the bottom of the garden. Let's call them D & C.
I've always known they dabbled in other drugs as they occasionally went to clubs. My husband found a bag of white powder in the house in late 2019 and they said it was MDMA which was left over from when they went clubbing months back. He made it clear he NEVER wanted class A drugs in the house otherwise they were leaving.
I've always suspected they did cocaine, but I naively thought it was a social thing when you were out with other people. I didn't realise people did it at home on their own.
Last month I found a bag of cocaine on the kitchen floor at 8.30 am on a Tuesday morning. We spoke to my eldest first who said it was his brother's and he was really concerned about him.
We spoke to D. He immediately came clean, no arguments or denials. He said he'd been doing it with alcohol for the last 5 years, but more worryingly we know he's been doing it on his own and even before lockdown if he did go out he would come home with more alcohol and sit downstairs and take it. During lockdown he was drinking the equivalent of 20 units on a Friday and 20 on a Saturday. We thought it was a drink problem only and tackled him about it regularly.
He admitted to suicidal thoughts, heart palpitations, hallucinations and said his story was similar to that which has been on TV/the press recently re Arg from TOWIE (I had to google who he was). I've noticed for the past year that his breathing is very heavy even sat down for a meal and I'm sure now this must be heart related, due to cocaine use.
He said he would give up and I gave him the number of a local drugs agency for support. As alcohol is a trigger we decided to remove any alcohol from the house and stop drinking ourselves, if it would help.
He didn't drink or take drugs for 2 - 3 weeks - I told him we would do random drug checks of his room. He said no worries there wouldn't be any drugs as it was linked to alchol. On Friday night he said I've had enough of this and I'm off out to see one of my friends. He went at 9.30 pm and didn't return until 12.30 am in the early hours of Sunday morning - 27 hours later.
I have been absolutely raging since then and me and my husband are constantly arguing. It's brought us straight back to the teenage years with drugs when our house was a war zone.
I've told D I want him out of the house by tomorrow night. As well as more than 24 hours on cocaine and alcohol he came back with gas cannisters in his pocket. We also found packets of codeine in his room. I know I have never bought codeine so what's he doing with 5 packets of that?
He's now saying he doesn't have a problem, it's nothing to do with us and we are not going to spoil his fun.
I've read everything possible on cocaine this week, read all the chat forums, and I know after 5 years he's addicted and is unlikely to change. I know all about the dangers of mixing huge amounts of alcohol with cocaine and the risk of heart attacks/seizures.
A drug support worker I spoke to told me not to be reading stories like that, the reality is if he continues like this he will end up sad and alone for life, never able to build up any relationships.
They've immersed themselves in drugs since they were teenagers and C our eldest went to prison for drug dealing so we've had over 12 years of dealing with this shit.
We only allowed them to smoke cannabis in the back garden after C came out of prison. We didn't want D smoking it on the streets and getting arrested. I've regretted allowing it ever since as I thought cannabis dominated their lives and they've done very little besides that and I'm sure have social phobias.
C who is 25 has given up alcohol and cannabis since just after Christmas with no prompting from us so even though we knew he had been taking cocaine too my husband doesn't think we should throw him out as he said he wants to continue and there will be no drugs in the house ever again.
It's not a problem for D to move out financially as he has just got a new job and is earning nearly £30K, but we've had all the usual crap like you are just throwing me out as I've stayed out all night , it's just like you drinking gin or wine at the weekends and alcohol would be a class A drug if it was brought out now!
I don't start drinking at 5 pm and continue until 3/4 the next morning. I don't drink all day and I don't drink before work (he changed his shift patterns last week and I caught him smoking cannabis at 10 am in the morning just before work).
I think he has really screwed up his mind with all these drugs and that was whilst living at home - it can only go massively downhill from hereon in and I fully accept it.