I think my 14yr old ds is smoking dope........

[IsItMe1957]

my 14yr old ds has changed from a polite jolly lively lad, who went fishing with his dad every weekend, to a moody, snappy rude ignorant rat who lives in his bedroom and spend every waking moment on msn chatting to mates, has lost all interest in anything except going out with mates at night, a few weeks ago i found out, by spying on his msn i'm ashamed to say, that he had got drunk and had smoked dope. i was devastated to say the least, and when i tackled him about it and he saw how upset i was he was totally remorsful and crying and promised he would never do it again, he said that he had been so drunk he did'nt even remember smoking it. I decided not to make a big thing out of it, and i believed him when he said that it was the drink that clouded his judgement, afterall we all make mistakes and i wanted to beleive him, so i restricted the times he went out and made sure he did,nt have enough money to buy alcohol. but now i think he might still be doing it, and i dont know what to do, shud i ground him, scream at him, tell his dad, cos he would kill him, i want my son to socialise with his mates but if that means he going to turn into a drunken doped up yob, then I wud rather he stayed in every night. I'm scared that this is the tip of the iceburg eith him and if i dont do something now, things will just get worse. please help me, what should i do, how shud i deal with this.

first of all i think you should tell your dh so you can both tackle this prob together

teenagers drinking and smoking is normal
it is part of the gowing up process
but you can make it look alot less attractive by say for example if his dad has a few beers over the weekend
can your ds have one or two cans under supervision with him
i know this cannot be done with the pot

but it suddenly seems less attractive if he can have a drink with his dad
reasons are
he will not have to go scrounging for pennies with his mate to club in for drink
your house is warmer so he wont get cold
nor he will be hanging off street crners and getting pulled by police if they cause a racket
he will soon get bored with the drinking, if he can do it at home
he will see these mates as immature

the only other suggestion ican think of is to ground him permantly

I took the top option as being a teenage mum, I could still remember what is was like growing up.
I gave my 3 dd,s the odd alcopop if I knew they began drinking with their mates and i would of rather them done it in front of me than out in the streets where they could get into allsorts of trouble
and it stopped quickly as they became bored with it.
dont know what to do with the pot but hope he will grow out of it
good luck
xxx

Thanks for that , and yes i agree, i have always allowed a small amount of drinking for both ds and my dd who is 17, as i think it takes a lot of the mystery out of it for them and makes it less of a novelty, but what worries me with him is the dope/pot, no-one in our family smokes, and my mum died from lung cancer because of smoking so this is somehting that my kids have been brought up to believe can and will kill you eventually, so i am at a total loss as to how i stop him from smoking dope. the drinking i can handle but drugs are a mistery to me.

Seems to be the curse of lots of teenage DS's mum! My DS wasn't so lucky and got charged with possession of dope (he was 15). It was a horrible, horrible time and I still haven't got over it. I grounded him for a few months. If I ever thought he was using it again I would ground him (he's 16 now). The experience frightened him and hopefully he's learned the hard way. Apparently most of his mates were smoking dope. They're kids he's grown up with and are normal, decent lads. It's just ashame dope's become such a trendy habit for teenage boys.

I smoked dope as a teenager, I still passed my GCSE's. Then I just stopped smoking it! It's actually a very very boring drug, and apart from the cancer risk it can cause mental health problems.

\link{http://www.talktofrank.com/azofdrugs/C/Cannabis.aspx\FRANK}

Quite informative!

The way my mum tackled this with me was....
She would allow me to experiment at home if I wanted to, explaining that a conviction for possesion would ruin my career.She also asked that I kept it to Fri and Sat nights incase of any side effects which would affect my homework and schoolwork.
She actually smoked it with me, she also obtained it rather than risk me getting caught buying it and to ensure quality.
I smoked it on and off until age 22 and when I say on and off I mean 2-3 x a year
I finished school with good marks and think they way my mother handled it saved me from making huge mistakes.
She said if I behaved within the guidelines then my life would be sweet - if I trangressed, she'd shop me and tell all of my friends parents, then the cops!
Oh and she would sell my pony... You could always threaten the internet perhaps.

I would suggest all out honesty re drugs. if you do the "drugs are bad" lecture you loose credibility and trust. you need to find some honest literature that he will believe in and trust. I would also recommend not making a big thing of the dope thing right now. he's probably only dabbled - the old - can't even remember it, probably means he might have had one toke and was trying to sound hard when he was on msn. ie provide him with information about drugs in general - all drugs - dress this up as treating him like a grown up, tell him it's because he is growing up that you need to talk - not because you are bollocking him for a possible toke and/or because you don;t trust him - tell him it's because you do trust him, and you want him to trust you. If he was upset and remorseful, then catch him now with the info. You might feel in two minds but also give him some get out clauses for practical help - when i was 14 I was told that if I was ever in trouble or faced with the choise of getting in a car with someone who had been driving, I had to call my Uncle Jack - the deal was he would turn out and pick me up and would not say a word. I also had on older broother who I knew would always help me out of anything in a non-judgmental way. I never used these get out clauses and I think that's because they made me realise the gravity of al this stuff, made me realise that everyone's sole motivation was love. It made me feel that they deserved to be treated with the respect they were treating me.

that's meant to say someone who had been drinking!