Well, I sort of have a story. This boy in my grade is honestly one of the brightest minds in the school. He has so much promise, but this year, he has basically sunk into a reputation of being our school’s biggest pothead jerk. We used to be like sort of friends and he was soo brilliant. He scored a 35 ACT last year, had a straight A track record, and was captain of the boys varsity waterpolo and swim teams. He’s honestly so good at aquatics, that he could be recruited at national top D1 schools, but he’s thrown his life away Senior year. It’s honestly, none of my business, but it just makes me really sad thinking of how much he could achieve.
As I said, we used to be friends and I have Spanish with him, so I asked him if he was all right, like anything going on with his life that he needs help with and he said no. Then I asked him why he did it, why he completely changed with the drug abuse and he told me that smoking pot is fun…
Maybe there’s something going on with his life that isn’t any of my business, but does any parent on CC have advice for me? I really want to help him?
Thank you so much
All help is appreciated
I’m personally very familiar with this situation. There is nothing you can do about it. He needs to come to the realization that he is harming himself. He may be helped by others - parents, counsellors etc., but in the end, it is up to him.
Doc is right unfortunately. I also know from personal experience. There is a very good book about addiction called Beautiful Boy. You probably don’t have a lot of time for extra reading, but a few years ago it helped me understand addiction a lot better. Bottom line, it touches everyone regardless of background. If he doesn’t want help, then unfortunately there’s no helping him now.
The biggest lesson I learned from reading Beautiful Boy was the father’s regret at not intervening before the son turned 18, when the ability to force someone into rehab changes because they are no longer a child. It is a well-written, devastating account of the son’s descent from occasional pot smoker to addict who steals from his family, drops out of college and hits rock bottom as a homeless person.
As a friend, you can go talk to your high school counselor and let them know what you are seeing. Often a student’s friends know what is going on in someone’s life before any adults do.
We forced our son into rehab multiple times before the age of 18. He also went a number of times on his own after that age but then stopped. In the end, nothing worked.
I am sorry to hear what you went through. Our experience, with a family friend that we took in, was similar and similarly heartbreaking. Hard to talk about it even now.
My best friend’s son got into drugs during high school. Brilliant mathematics student, nationally ranked chess player, but bored in school. Said he liked the way pot made him feel, liked the money and risk that came from dealing. He was spiraling out of control, though managed to attend school enough to keep his grades up without doing much work.
At 17, his parents sent him to a “ranch” for addicts. He was smart enough to figure out that he could get out at 18 and played the game to earn rewards that gave him greater privilege, but not smart enough to know that he wasn’t the only kid who did this. His life there was fully scheduled, but with increasing responsibilty and leadership, he was so busy he wasn’t bored. He matured quite a bit during his 9 months, but left the day he turned 18. At almost 22, he is on track to graduate this spring in engineering. He hasn’t been an angel, but no trouble with the law.
What to do? Not much. Each kid responds differently. My friend says she should have sent him off earlier, but she and her husband were in denial and their kid was an expert liar. Plus, their son NEVER thought they would do it.
Many, many kids smoke pot without any issues whatsoever. Note: I am only talking about pot here. My guess would be that something much deeper is going on and pot is a way of coping with that deeper issue and not the actual root cause of anything.
If you’re not close with him, there’s nothing you can do. Not really. In high school, I watched several of my friends spiral out of control with drugs (including my high school sweetheart that I dated for all of hs and part of college). It is a terrible place to be and it is a powerless one.