difficult child picking up pot again

GuideMe

Active Member
Well, this is my first time posting in SA but I had to.

So difficult child has started smoking pot again occasionally. I overheard one of her phone conversations when I met her tonight to put gas in her car. I was inside my car and she was talking outside. She assumed I couldn't hear her. Yes, I can here you even with my windows up little girl. Anyway, I am hoping and praying it's just an every once in a while thing not the dependency that she use to have on it for the last 2 or 3 years. I truly feel it's because all of her friends smoke pot, that she feels like she has to. They were giving her a hard time about her quitting. I never had a problem with pot because when I was a teen , I only smoked it on the weekends for fun and had giggling fits. It was never a "I have to have it to cope with life" type of thing. Now a days, people seem to be so dependent on it. I just don't want to see her relapse in general.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Gm, I'm sorry she is continuing to make poor choices.

There isn't anything you can do besides making her leave, which you are planning on, and cutting off any money to her. I did not want my daughter on the road when I found out she did drugs so she didn't get a dime from me...or a car to drive.

I know you don't want to see her relapse, but it is her life and you can't control it. People who get dependent on drugs and/or alcohol tend to need to stay away from all drugs and alcohol or they do overuse and it affects their lives, but again you can't stop your daughter from doing anything. She will always need to be sober or she will use too much...of anything...or her life will not be good and it will be by her own hand. Isn't she moving soon? The distance will help. Don't bother talking to her about it over and over again. "Less is more." You'll go around in circles and just end up putting yourself in danger and nothing will change. Your daughter knows how to behave. She just is choosing not to do it.

Perhaps take a new path yourself since you are parting soon anyway. If she calls, say, for gas, you can say, "I've decided that you are now a capable young woman who can find a way to get around without my help." Of course she will then get abusive and you can then say, "I have to go. Please call me when you are calmer. I love you." You mentioned she can be dangerous. I hope she is leaving very shortly.

Good wishes in your direction from me.
 

GuideMe

Active Member
Good advice MWM. She is gone, remember? She moved in with my brother a few weeks ago. You're right. I will tell her that I can't even give her gas money if chooses to smoke. She needs to know that I am serious about it because in the past she always smoked weed without caring how I felt about it. She use to talk to me about it all the time and let me know when she was doing it, especially smoking in our home. That's the part I am concerned about the most. I don't ever want her to think it's ok with me ever again, not that it ever was.
 

2much2recover

Well-Known Member
Well just be cautious about the "trip before the fall", meaning she may smoke pot as she wants but as soon as things fall apart because of her lifestyle she will wanting to run back to you to fix it.
 

Kathy813

Well-Known Member
Staff member
As long as she is hanging around the same pot smoking friends, she really has no chance of a lasting recovery. Anyone in recovery would tell you that you have to break all contact with any drug using friends or acquaintances if you are serious about staying sober.

I would certainly stop providing her with gas money. She needs to get a job and take care of her own needs. I wish that my husband and I had taken that stand when our difficult child was 18. We would have saved ourselves years of enabling.

~Kathy
 
G

Gone

Guest
I agree with Kathy , if she was serious about quitting she would have to stay away from the friends who smoke it x
 

GuideMe

Active Member
As long as she is hanging around the same pot smoking friends, she really has no chance of a lasting recovery. Anyone in recovery would tell you that you have to break all contact with any drug using friends or acquaintances if you are serious about staying sober.

I would certainly stop providing her with gas money. She needs to get a job and take care of her own needs. I wish that my husband and I had taken that stand when our difficult child was 18. We would have saved ourselves years of enabling.

~Kathy

She has a job and I just help her out from time to time but I get your point. Thank you.
 

GuideMe

Active Member
I agree with Kathy , if she was serious about quitting she would have to stay away from the friends who smoke it x


Yeah, I guess easier said then done, right? When many people, especially her age smoke pot and find nothing wrong with it AND becoming legal in many states. If she stop hanging out with people who didn't smoke pot, she wouldn't have any friends. Complete isolation. However, I know how it effects her and I can choose not to be around her or support her habit in anyway. This is what she needs to know. I am HOPING it's only a once in a while thing. Fingers crossed.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Guide Me, your daughter is playing with your head. Complete isolation. Nonsense.

Alcohol has been legal for decades and not everyone drinks a lot or even at all. I was at my easy child daughter Jumper's college today and was just talking to her really nice friend about how the drinkers hang with the drinkers and that her group does not drink or do any drugs at all. Jumper has always spurned kids who get into trouble. Even cigarette smoking turns her off. Yet she has more friends than most people have in a lifetime. Everyone doesn't smoke pot or do other drugs, and everyone doesn't drink either, especially excessively.

Now when my oldest daughter who once used drugs quit using drugs, she quit drug users too. She had no friends for a long time because she is shy and that is who she was used to hanging around with plus she was living in a new state. But she did make some friends and met her really nice boyfriend who she is still with. If she had hung with even pot smokers, she would have gone back to drug use. One sure way to know if your kid is doing well is to see if he/she has changed his/her friends or not.

"Birds of a feather stick together." It's so true. I can't stand drinking and drunkenness so hubby and I avoid parties and drinkers (and smokers too for that matter). We don't even know anybody who smokes pot, although, ridiculous as it seems, some babybommers are still overgrown hippies, I suppose. And drinkers? They find the party lovers, the drinkers, and sometimes those who also use other substances. Julie found drug addicts to hang out with until she decided seriously to quit. And when she gets serious, she gets serious. She knew what she had to do and did it. Now she is a quiet homebody and really is happy with just a few friends and drugs is not a part of her life. Jumper absolutely will not hang out with drug users or heavy drinkers. Yet everyone, and I mean everyone, loves her. She will talk to them, but she won't hang out with them.

It is simply not true that if your daughter stops smoking pot or doesn't hang around with pot smokers she will have no friends. That is a false belief. I suspect it is HER talking. Making pot legal won't increase or decrease it's use, just as alcohol use would stay the same if it were illegal. Even though it's legal, many people don't drink much or at all. I know, as a non-drinker. We find each other. There are plenty of us having fun together in our right minds. We're the ones at home, not partying with the neighborhood party club. This is a choice we all make. Either choice does not assure us friends or make us have no friends. There is no up side to using drugs, even pot, especially if you are prone to addiction.
 
Last edited:
G

Gone

Guest
Too true and having no friends is better than having friends who are bad for you!

There are 3 family members who don't drink at all , my difficult child does NOT choose to ''hang out'' with us , the rest of the family and all her friends DO drink and smoke weed and those are the people who she STILL chooses to hang out with

I would take her 'sobriety' more seriously if she said ''Mum I've decided not to hang out with so and so for a while at least as I do not want to be around drinkers at the moment as am taking my sobriety SERIOUSLY''

As it is she THINKS she can still hang out around them and NOT drink , at all , ever , unrealistic expectation to be honest!

She is going to a New Years Eve party at her friends house who is a heavy drinker and there will be TONS of drink around , do I trust her to come home sober? HELL NO!!
 
G

Gone

Guest
I'm not sure if my difficult child likes it when the non drinker family members are around her - I think she feels we are ''watching'' her and we ARE lol but out of love and concern and the good thing is she wouldn't DARE drink in front of us 3 but I think deep down she actually LIKES the discipline of that and feels secure in it for some reason and at least she knows we CARE more than the ''anything goes'' crowd who KNOW she is an alcoholic with her son in care yet still invite her to house drinking parties , wild holidays etc , some friends THEY are to be honest!!!

I know she could just sneak off and have a drink in the toilets if she really wanted to , but that RESPECT she has not to drink in front of us , plus knowing we have her best interests at heart and would not tolerate it , knowing we love her I suppose with the DISCIPLINE which goes with that there is a bit of her which seems GRATEFUL for it and she seems to feel secure in it anyway xx

Her 'friends' and even some family members who joke about hiding bottles of drink in the wardrobe from social services , are they REALLY her friends with the full knowledge of her situation , it is not a joke to ME or MOST of the other family members , believe me! lol x
 

GuideMe

Active Member
To be honest, it's just so hard when it comes to weed. Any other drug and alcohol, I would totally and 100% agree with you all. Weed is just so hard to treat the same as other addictions. I know what you are going to say MWM, but you know. It's going to be hard to deal with this. When I grew up , weed was just something I looked at as having fun, not an everyday thing. It's ingrained in me to think harmlessly about it. It wasn't until I was a lot older that I realized that a lot of my peers were becoming major potheads. Pot heads were one in twenty when I was younger. Now they are fifteen in twenty. I don't know how to navigate this problem. One one hand, I know my daughter was seriously dependent on it but I don't know how it exactly it effected her other than harassing me for money for it. She had all the same problems before she started getting high. Then there is the other hand where most of the American population does not think it's a big deal and most of them think it's ok to get high daily. I'm like a yo-yo, I go back and forth on this all the time because I don't see how I am going to win against this, for me to demand of her never to smoke weed again.
 

GuideMe

Active Member
but that RESPECT she has not to drink in front of us , plus knowing we have her best interests at heart and would not tolerate it ,

Yes, THAT is what I am looking for right now. She did not have that respect before. She did it front of me, in her room, totally open about it. On top of that hounding me for money for it or her anxiety wouldn't be clam. WOULD NOT LEAVE ME ALONE FOR IT. This went on for a little over two years I believe, maybe three. The straw that broke the camels back when she was scrounging around my whole house for change to buy it because I didn't have any money left to buy her some. Yeah, it got really bad. I told her she is acting like a crack head for crack.

THAT was the worse part of her smoking weed which was HOUNDING me and getting me involved in her addiction, putting all the pressure on me. You don't know how much money she got me to give her for pot. In the thousands. See this is why I need to talk about things, because me writing this right now has reminded me of why I need to be very strict about this. It's amazing how fast you forget about the bad times, no matter how long they lasted.
 

GuideMe

Active Member
I think once she has been living some where else for a while, I will look back with fright of all the things I was manipulated into doing, more like forced to be honest.
 
G

Gone

Guest
She has to see it as harmful for herself

If she sees no harm in it she will see there is no reason for her to stop doing it

It is portrayed as a harmless , even helpful drug , but I do believe it interferes with mental health and can trigger other mental health problems

''drugging and driving'' is illegal in UK even after one spliff the penalty is the same as for drink driving and they can lose their license / hefty fine ETC

People argue the point it is a good substance and a natural one , tobacco is natural and opium comes from the pretty poppies , does not mean it is good for us or non addictive etc

Being clean from everything is of course the best way to function at your best , clear headed , rationally thinking etc , naturally calm when calm not artificial calm

My difficult child reaches for a spliff when stressed rather than deal with the stress itself or find other ways to destress and unwind , but I think it is a reflection of other things going on inside her she needs to sort out or come to some sort of peace over xxx
 
G

Gone

Guest
Glad you are putting the boundaries in place ... I am learning....and learning....and learning to do that! lol

I was too ***** soft with her I have realised as well and let her manipulate me , but no more is no more and even if I slip I can get right back on track again and say NO

I wonder if I ''didn't do her any favours'' by being too soft with her when she was growing up / in her teens and all this 'be their best friend' rubbish they NEED discipline and boundaries whether they rant , rave , get abusive etc no is no and if you don't like it TOUGH!!! ;)

This is the HARDEST time I have ever had with my difficult child and it def could get WORSE BUT I am HOPING she looks back one day and sees it actually WAS for her own good after all! :) xx
 

GuideMe

Active Member
Yeah, I'm just confused by the whole thing. I can't believe I am having this sort of problem in my life. It actually really angers me that my daughter has this problem of all problems because I don't know how to deal with this. As I said before, it's weed, not heroin , crack or meth. However, I am coming to the point where, if it consumes your life and it's all you are thinking about day in and day out and all times of the day, then it's an addiction, I don't care what the substance is. And that's what it was for her. It consumed her thoughts all day long , every day. I actually just found someone else's story online just 20 minutes ago and it matches her story. It's called Mommy Was Doing Drugs (Weed). Now of course, my daughter is not a mom yet (Thank the dear Lord) but the author described the first half of her life (pre-children) and sounds exactly like my daughter. Here it is if you want to read: https://www.marijuana-anonymous.org/book/our-stories/mommy-was-doing-drugs

I should make clear that as far as I know, difficult child has not been abusing weed since she got out of the psychiatric hospital. This is the first or second time I've heard of her doing it, and it was on a weekend as a "fun" thing. I am hoping it does not get out of hand again.
 
G

Gone

Guest
My difficult child does weed and alcohol and has a child in care

It is no joy ride believe me , but I hope she finds her way too xx
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
To be honest, it's just so hard when it comes to weed. Any other drug and alcohol, I would totally and 100% agree with you all. Weed is just so hard to treat the same as other addictions. I know what you are going to say MWM, but you know. It's going to be hard to deal with this. When I grew up , weed was just something I looked at as having fun, not an everyday thing. It's ingrained in me to think harmlessly about it. It wasn't until I was a lot older that I realized that a lot of my peers were becoming major potheads. Pot heads were one in twenty when I was younger. Now they are fifteen in twenty. I don't know how to navigate this problem. One one hand, I know my daughter was seriously dependent on it but I don't know how it exactly it effected her other than harassing me for money for it. She had all the same problems before she started getting high. Then there is the other hand where most of the American population does not think it's a big deal and most of them think it's ok to get high daily. I'm like a yo-yo, I go back and forth on this all the time because I don't see how I am going to win against this, for me to demand of her never to smoke weed again.
GuideMe, whether it's seen as harmless or not every person doesn't smoke it or agree. Just like not everybody thinks it's cool to drink.

You can't tell your daughter not to do anything. She is going to do what she does. But to allow her to disrespect your house is asking for her to disrespect YOU. It's allowing her to do so. Your house/your rules.

You can not change your daughter. You can only change yourself and how you react to her. You can make her leave if she lights up a joint in your house. You can refuse to talk to her about her pot use if she throws it in your face. You can do anything you want to take your power back. But you can't make your daughter do anything when she is not around you. Once they are eighteen, we have no legal power over them anymore.

Your daughter is the one who will have to decide to change if she changes. She hasn't done that yet. It is good she is with your brother because she can no longer be a threat to you. To me, the violence is more frightening than smoking weed, but, again, SHE has to get help for that. It's very hard to admit, but we don't have any power over another person. We can only set boundaries and change our reactions to them. But they have to do the hard work. It's on them. Yes, yes, I know you wish you could share the burden...all of us do...but you can't.

Hugs.
 
Top