16 yo Daughter knows of our drug use

[beecee]

Our daughter caught both of us using cocaine about 12 months ago and we now know she also read phone messages where we talked about drug use , very bad parenting we know . She is now at nearly 16 starting to push many of the usual boundaries and has mildly started to reference to what she know as a kind of blackmail/bargaining tool , I'm not sure how to go about this and any help with this would be great .

When you invent positions for people and then argue against those positions you are not actually addressing what they said. You are setting up straw men. You are making stuff up that you may want them to have said, but they didn't actually say what you say they said.

And you think they'll be bothered about/ influenced by your supposedly beneficial 'black and white' parenting perspective? Good luck with that!
I have five DCs all well on their way to adulthood in an affluent area that is awash in recreational drugs and the odd saddo who thinks there is something sophisticated about getting stoned or high well into middle age. My oldest DD is 24, a university grad, has an excellent job. Next DC is 21, entering his last year of university this autumn. Third is entering her second year in university and fourth and fifth are in school. My 'black and white' parenting has had plenty of chances to prove itself in their American high school and in the universities they attend. We live a fifteen minute walk from a devastated, gang-controlled city neighbourhood where junkies openly sell themselves for enough to get high and gangs open fire at each other all night and sometimes all day, all summer long. The violence and degradation and collateral damage associated with the drug trade is truly gobsmacking. All of the DCs have former classmates whose lives have been ruined by or forfeited to narcotics. Affluence can only cushion families up to a point from the reality of that.

You lose all your credibility with your children when you tell them that use of illegal substances and breaking of the law is a legitimate choice, which is what you are actually doing while deluding yourself that you are doing them a favour by presenting them your 'perspective of personal experience'.

It's amazing how you can prioritise your buzz in the face of the worldwide misery and murder and mayhem cocaine causes, and it's amazing how you seem oblivious to the law and believe your choice to break it has some sort of higher moral justification since you think it gives you credibility or more influence you feel you would not otherwise have. There are far better ways of influencing your children to make good decisions, and they happen to be legal as well as effective.

Get real. I didn't have a baby at age 14 but my advice to my DDs and DS not to consider that choice is still perfectly valid. Following that advice has worked out well for all of them. I have also told them all that they can forget about me bailing them out if they ever end up in a police cell. As far as I am concerned the law is the law. So far so good -- no delinquency, no teen pregnancies, and no drug use.

Oh and a big fat to the self-serving snobbery of 'Daily Mail madness'.

DaddyDaddy"cool" - let's just hope your casual drug taking doesn't mean you drop down dead from taking something that isn't what you think it is, and leave your daughters fatherless. What a twat.

I knew a family whose two small boys were orphaned as a direct result of so-called "recreational" drug use. The mother died after a bad reaction to ecstasy, and the father subsequently killed himself when facing prosecution. He could not deal with the guilt. Neither of them were regular users. Both were intelligent, respectable people from good, solid families. My heart still breaks when I think of those two little boys.

For me, there is no difference between occasional recreational use and regular use by those who are addicted. Either can kill. If you have children, it's a desperately selfish thing to do.

Sadly, I think there is evidence that the children of drug users are more likely to use drugs themselves. The damage is already done for the OP's daughter. I think the best thing you can do now is to talk to her as openly as you can about why you want her to do things differently, and watch her like a hawk.

I would personally rather discourage them from a perspective of personal experience until such time that they can make they own choices, rather than coming from no experience at all."

Certainly an argument. Not sure why you would have to keep repeating the personal experience though- do you think you might forget?

I grew up as this 16 year old who knew and saw their mother do cocaine. I didn't go off the rails or turn to drugs myself I just had/have absolutely no respect for my mother. She has very little to do with my life and therefore very little involvement with my children.

I then went on to get into a relationship with someone who also used recreational drugs whilst my mums partner spent three years in prison for drug related offences. It is very much the norm in the area that I live in. My sister has dabbled and my mother is still an active user and now a functioning alcoholic. I could name at least 5 dealers in my area personally.

To hear the phrase 'cocaine is the same as having a glass of wine' turns my stomach. Cocaine has damaged my life, my children's life without me ever sniffing a line and i feel sick to see people minimising it.

We all know it happens, in every walk of life from student forms to parliament I imagine but, it's wrong.
And threads like this really piss me off.....

The collective clamour for perceived justice and decency (my choice of words) clearly spirals out of control quite quickly here.

So, thanks for re-explaining the straw men analogy mathanxiety, I did understand the first time around but I didn’t agree with you, and still don’t. Let’s revisit what was originally said (not necessarily by you but it’s entirely related to your own response):

“Having a glass of wine is the same as taking cocaine is it?
What the fuck is wrong with you.
What a stupid comment to make !”

Where did I say that? If that’s not ‘strawmanship’ I don’t know what is.

“Um - well done on being a successful drug user?”

Um, the answer to the question is no thanks, I was neither bragging nor glorifying drug use. I was trying to give a balanced perspective (see below).

“What would happen if one of those ecstacy pill were a bad lot and you drowned from the inside or you had a heart attack from the odd line”

Ok, so the adult population (i.e. relevant in the context of the OP) in the UK is estimated to be around 50 million. According to the latest government data, around 2% of the adult population – so 1 million people - took cocaine over the previous 12 months, against 112 suspected cocaine-related deaths over the same period. That equates to around a 1 in 9000 chance of dying of cocaine use.

Obviously the frequency of use is a key factor and remains entirely unclear, but presumably the majority of these ‘users’ don’t partake once every few years or so like myself (i.e. note that I am not included in these stats as I haven’t taken cocaine in the past 12 months)… but having taken cocaine on one occasion in the year previous to that, presumably that puts me at entirely indeterminate - but probably pretty negligible - risk. In other words, the true likelihood of me “having a heart attack from the odd line” needs to be considered in context, and more proportionately than the direction of this thread has taken.

As for ecstasy (which admittedly I have taken once in the past year but probably won’t again for a number of years), the equivalent ratio is around a 1 in 60,000 chance of dying (1.3M users / 11 deaths). Again, I’m not a regular user so way less. So I don’t expect to “drown from the inside” any time soon.

Irresponsible parenting by exposing myself to illicit substances? I suppose anything that reduces your chances of living is irresponsible so hands up on that front, but compared with the risks of day-to-day functioning? We’re clutching at emotive straws in comparison with other more socially acceptable activities.

But again – and I’ve been quite clear throughout my previous posts on this – I’m not advocating drug use. My problem here is that I feel I (and maybe the OP who was seeking advice rather than vilification) are being disproportionately exposed for owning up to falling into a pretty significant proportion of the adult population every now and again.

It’s an emotive subject, but we need balance and I for one (literally it seems…) don’t see it here. Again (and again…) I’m not selling any benefits of drug use; least of all to my kids at any point in their own lifetimes. But perhaps they may want to discuss it with me down the line, and on the basis of this thread, rather me than you extremist bunch so far.

Which brings us onto the question of ‘black and white’ parenting perspectives on drugs. To clarify, I’m black and white on many things but not all (life’s not black and white after all) and I doubt my future perspective on drugs will fall into this category. I’d like to think that I will provide my kids with balanced advice, rather than simply suggesting that they’re on their own if they end up in jail, etc.

Mathanxiety – you provide a hard-hitting description of the issues faced in the vicinity of your neighbourhood (not your own, I understand that) but with respect, deprivation leading to habitual drug use is not news - much like overeating to obesity or extreme sports to injury isn’t news. I'm not trying to trivialise the subject but I am trying to maintain a sense of perspective, which I feel you lack.

Your children (adults) are evidently doing well for themselves, and you clearly feel that your own black and white approach towards drug use has influenced their success. Has it? How do you know? Do you really believe you know everything about them? That they never went out and got stoned with their friends without you knowing, either in the face of peer pressure or simply through personal choice, etc.? Do they compare their own lives with those in the deprived neighbourhood 15 mins away and, as teenagers, think “NO, I will NOT EVER because my mum and dad told me it was wrong and I may end up like that...etc.”? Perhaps they did, perhaps not, but it’s a snapshot so it’s largely irrelevant.

At 40, I am the youngest of 4 siblings that have all dabbled with drugs intermittently throughout our lives in social situations, and all of us continue to lead successful lives without our parents knowing (little or) anything about what has gone on behind past scenes. We’re all fine. And many of my friends, as well as theirs, have travelled the same path and have either chosen to move on completely or partially from drugs. We were all fortunate enough to receive solid upbringings, and brought up to understand the consequences of our actions without reverting to clichés, or scaremongering, or unrepresentative analogies.

Am I simply ‘lucky’ in that I don’t know of anybody personally that has been the recipient of a lasting negative drug experience? I doubt it.
Your kids will enter adulthood (at 16 in the UK) and by and large, you will all say that drugs are a bad thing and that they shouldn’t go there. On the basis of probability I will say the same – except I expect that they will ignore me and do what they do regardless. And that is my fundamental point – if and when they do ignore me, and subsequently seek advice from me or simply get found out, I personally feel I am better placed to relate to their experiences than simply saying,

“I told you so but you ignored me, it was illegal so you pay the price as we’re not paying your bail, inevitable death and destruction, heart attacks and internal drowning, deprivation and so on...”

(whoops, straw man accusations incoming)

It happens whether you like it or not and if and when it does, then there’s little on this thread to suggest that it’s being dealt with constructively.

If you (in general) were a child entering adulthood and sought the advice of your parents on drugs issues (whilst inevitably receiving constant 'noise' on the subject from your peers) would you lose respect for your parents if they were open to debate?

That's an open-ended question, not a closed-ended summary by the way...

Daddy daddy"cool" - you can dress it up with as many stats as you like, but you'd still prefer to place you life at risk by taking something you have absolutely no certainty where it came from, what's in it, what it's been cut with or what effects it will have on you.

Someone has to be that tiny percentage, be it a first timer to an experienced drug taker. That's the thing, it's indiscriminate.

But yes, the thread has taken a different turn and the OPs original question has been lost in amongst emotion. But for some people, continuing to take drugs recreationally in he manner you do whilst being responsible for their children, and presumably not wishing them any harm is purely reckless and, I refer to my previous term, twatish. You're clearly an educated person who writes well, but your argument to me, personally, is a load of bollocks.

Round of applause for sleepy. I agree daddy's comment was aload of bollocks

Sleepyfergus

Taking each of your points in turn:

• You're being sarcastic about my user name which is fine, but I don't claim to be "cool", it's just the name of a disco song by Boney M (I'm sure you know them and they're not particularly cool). I just chose it because I'm a father and I like disco music. Evidently I'm uncool.

• I didn't 'dress it up' with stats, I just stated what the available stats were. Feel free to challenge them but they're correct, I promise. Why would I dress them up? I'm not advocating drug use. The stats are either bad or good depending on your perspective - and which is why I purposefully didn't compare them to any others.

But it's the first mention of numbers anybody has made thus far and it's important to do so. Read into them what you will.

• "but you'd still prefer to place you life at risk by taking something you have absolutely no certainty where it came from, what's in it, what it's been cut with or what effects it will have on you." Once every few years from a source that (truly) tests purity/contamination levels? This isn't akin to a scenario of buying random shit from some ne'er do well down some dark alley. And when I talk about once every few years, I mean that in literal terms. Certainty is almost always lacking in any aspect of life but probability isn't. To put it another way, I often go mountain biking on fairly extreme courses, and frequently run down country lanes, and occasionally swim in open water. All this to prolong my life...but in doing so I'm exposing myself to greater risk than if I just went down the gym....

• "But for some people, continuing to take drugs recreationally in he manner you do whilst being responsible for their children, and presumably not wishing them any harm is purely reckless and, I refer to my previous term, twatish. You're clearly an educated person who writes well, but your argument to me, personally, is a load of bollocks."

My 'argument'? What argument is that exactly? I state consistently that I don't advocate drug use. My own choice is made on the balance of (im)probability and would never knowingly impose that choice on anybody else, nor use it to influence others.

Let's take a specific scenario, e.g. that my daughter at aged 15 says to me

"Daddy, my friends are smoking something called pot and I don't know what to do. Part of me wants to get involved because they're my friends, but deep down I'm not sure I want to and I'm scared of losing my friends if I say no".

Assuming I'd taken the aforementioned 'black and white' line, she's unlikely to have broached the subject in the first instance as it's already a done deal. In which case I'm 'out of the loop'.

That's only the start, but I'll leave it there for now.

MamaDoGood - at what point did I say having a glass of wine is the same as taking cocaine?

I've got to say, hell is being stuck at a party with a bunch of arseholes who have taken cocaine.

TheBogQueen - absolutely. No doubt the biggest bunch of pseudo-arrogant / narcissistic pricks you're ever likely to meet.

YABU for taking cocaine, full stop.

Are people really still doing coke?!

daddy sounds very reasonable and realistic imo.

i am not a fan of Coke but think the Op has to justify her behaviour honestly to her DD. her DD will respect her if she isn't a hypocrite but it will be delicate balance to strike.

So here we go again with the making stuff up and arguing about it, or putting words in people's mouths and then arguing about it....

'The collective clamour for perceived justice and decency (my choice of words) clearly spirals out of control quite quickly here.'
Who is clamouring for justice?
Is the claim that cocaine is illegal something you are contesting here?
You are being told what the law is. The law says cocaine is a Class A controlled substance. There is no 'perceived' to that. Either it is or it is not illegal to use cocaine.
You break the law when you buy it, possess it and use it.
There is nothing emotive about this.
The law is black and white.
Breaking the law is unacceptable, full stop. Not 'socially unacceptable' or to be understood as being in some way relative to other 'recreational choices' that are 'socially acceptable'.
There is a difference between legal and illegal. It's not a matter of socially acceptable vs socially unacceptable.

Are you contesting the proposition that obeying the law is a good idea?
Do you think there is some sort of grey area when it comes to what the law says about Class A controlled substances?

Do you have some sort of a bee in your bonnet about 'decency' too -- is it obeying the law that you disparagingly call 'decency'? Is the concept of 'decency' middle class or Daily Mail-esque for you?
Or is it parents showing children a good example by obeying the law that you disparage here?

Your frequent assertions that balance is needed, and that there is some sort of clamour on the part of everyone but you that is spinning out of control is patronising, and self-serving bollocks.

Same goes but X 1000 for your execrable assessment that because I find appalling the sight of a devastated neighbourhood that functions as an open air market for controlled substances and prostitution, my opinion is somehow lacking in balance. You seem very averse to acknowledging the underbelly of what you are involved in here, and to the proposition that the trade is a criminal activity and to the idea that what you are supporting is a very sordid enterprise.
Do you think the stuff you put up your nose is prepared in sterile labs by professional technicians in white coats and latex gloves?
Or is it possible it gets prepared in less than sanitary surroundings, by less than scrupulous individuals?
And are you really able to turn a blind eye to the massive criminality of it all and the fact that the profits are used to give power real political power to people who climbed to the top of their organisations over piles of dead bodies and on the backs of the misery of multitudes of innocent and usually very poor and powerless people?
Your aversion to the reality of drugs, the trade and the effects on individual users and on communities, does not constitute a balanced opinion.

The blame for the blight 15 minutes away from me on foot lies squarely with the big business that has managed to get a toehold in their neighbourhoods. It is highly organised drug selling, protection rackets, vice rings, corruption of police and intimidation of solid citizens who stand up to the criminals that drive business out, prevent business from setting up, and suck profits that might otherwise go into expansion or more hiring, that cause poverty (and ruin morale in the police force). If you are trying to assert that dire poverty is going to inevitably result in drug use then what is your excuse for using?

You are entirely wrong in your understanding of statistics about risk of death from cocaine. You have the same risk of death by misadventure when you put a mystery powdered substance into your nose each and every time you use it, whether that is once a week or once a year. Frequency of use is not a key factor. Use is the only factor. You play Russian roulette every single time. Same goes for ecstasy.

I know for a fact that it is my parenting approach that has yielded the excellent results I see, and in more aspects of life than merely avoiding drug use, which to me is a very low standard to set for one's children - a basic and fundamental thing to avoid that is a given for my family in the same way that taking a daily shower and brushing teeth is something done without pausing to consider the pros and cons. They have heard the message about drug use since they were knee high to a duck. They are not going to come to me at this late stage of their moral development to ask for my advice about drugs because they know what my answer is going to be, and they demonstrate by their habits and attitudes that they have accepted the wallpaper I have created for their lives.

I know for certain that they have never got stoned or high while still living at home. I know who their friends are and I know how they spent and spend their time together. Most of their time outside of school was/is spent doing homework and studying -- all those now over 18 are in highly selective US universities (or have graduated from same) that require consistent and astronomically good grades and a completely clean record to get into and through. You can't take a night or a weekend off homework or study to party if you are a serious student in a GPA system. My children also all played team sports in school where zero tolerance of any alcohol or drug use was the policy and agreement to random testing was a condition of playing. They have all been tested multiple times, and have also submitted to random locker searches. This MO is one of the necessary infringements of personal freedom that happens when you live close to the hub of a very aggressive and constantly expanding business that sometimes hands out free samples and recruits salespeople using all sorts of manipulative tactics. Maybe think about the lives of people living close to the thick of the battle when you are ensconced in the comfort of your own home or in some expensively decorated club with a nice pristine line on the table in front of you, and the cost they pay for your 'recreational choice'.

Your parents were derelict in their duty to supervise you, and you and your siblings took advantage of their dropping of the ball by deceiving them. I would not consider this a solid family background. What you seem to have learned from your upbringing is a sense of invincibility and personal privilege that puts you above the law and makes you immune from the statistics, and blind to the suffering caused by the business whose product you buy. You can deride my approach of letting my DCs deal all by themselves with consequences of criminal activity should they choose to engage in it, but I suspect they stand to learn a lot more useful and realistic a lesson from my stance than you have managed to absorb from your parents' approach, and certainly more than your children stand to learn from yours. I think your children are going to need more luck and innate good sense than mine need.

It is your choice to be a slacker and to deal with the necessary equivocations and hairsplitting that arise when you try to give good advice to your children from a moral midden. Pretending that your drug use forms part of a responsible parenting strategy is beyond ridiculous.

I agree with every word you wrote mathanxiety. I think that you made many excellent points.

Wow, well said again mathanxiety.

As an aside just thought news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/7200749.stm is interesting; a few years ago Alex James investigated production of cocaine.

Hello again mathanxiety - never the twain shall meet and all that jazz.

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."

I'm not here to justify if Plato really said that several thousand years ago (look the quote up yourself), but the principle is sound enough for me.

May your 'Mini-Fockers' bring you much happiness ;-)

[wonders how she can respond to daddydqddycool's last post without getting deleted. Decides she can't, so merely cringes with a mixture of embarrassment and contempt and looks for some grown ups to talk to]

So your point is:
No laws are needed?
The law is some sort of an ass?
The law doesn't apply to you if you think it's stupid?
The law doesn't apply to you if it interferes with something you want to do or are unable to stop doing?
Reality is for other people?

I didn't say you said that daddy, it was a previous poster who has since had their post deleted.

I am very interested in the response to this thread..

I'll start by saying that I am not in favour of drug use and I hope that what has happened has given the OP a wake up call, and that she can sort things out with her daughter

However, some of the responses to it have been rather hysterical to say the least. I think what is very interesting is people who have a 'holier than thou' attitute towards certain substances simply because they are illegal.

I often have discussions about this with an acquaintance who is a rather 'avid' drinker but very disparaging towards anyone who uses illicit drugs. Alcohol is has the potential to be at least as destructive as drugs, and is certainly much more damaging to society. Yet we seem to think that getting trashed on booze is a 'bit of fun'. It is completely normalised in British culture.

I went to a talk a few weeks ago by a clinician. He started off with an exercise called 'would you take this drug?' and listed the undersirable side effects, long term effects etc. The 'drug' in question turned out to be alcohol. There is no question that if alcohol had only been recently 'invented' then it would be a class A drug.

littlepeasmummy you are absolutely right, alcohol is also very destructive. As previous comments have mentioned....not sure if you had read all of them?

But the issue is with cocaine....who knows where it came from, who knows how it was made, who knows what's in it, how cleanly it was made...I could go on and on - plus it's illegal. It's such a gamble every single time!

Like I said with alcohol, it's produced hygienically, we know what's in it, we know what the recommended intake is, we are not risking anything by having a glass of wine...you are however taking a HUGE risking by snorting a line of coke.