Weed quandary

[inkling16]

Interested in everyone's take on a conversation I had this evening with my dd17. I caught a whiff of marijuana smoke in her vicinity earlier today (not the first time) and when she came into view, I asked her what she'd been doing. At first she said "Nothing," but I told her I could smell it, and she finally fessed up. We know she smokes, and we have told her 1) not in the house (smoking, weed, paraphernalia, anything) and 2) we think it's a terrible idea (illegal, danger of dependency, not knowing what's in the weed, the usual). She knows we both smoked when we were not that much older than she is, so she can't snow us too much about the effects.

We have been trying to keep her from smoking by keeping her short on cash and tossing her room and belongings every now and then for contraband, which we dispose of. She's coming to the end of her junior year, and has been smoking since she was a freshman.

Well, after the day's encounter, she asks for some money because she's done a chore she needed to do, and I said, "You're not going to spend it on weed, are you?" At that point she started to get quite upset. She said she doesn't like hiding it from us, and the hiding is the main thing that makes her anxious and keeps her in her room all the time (i.e., the prospect that if she leaves, we'll search her room and throw away her stuff). She says she uses it like any of her other meds, a little at a time to calm anxiety, and that her psychiatrist and therapist are both aware of this. She wants to be allowed to do it without having to skulk around and worry about us finding her. She says it works better than her sleep med for helping her sleep and get up in the morning. (Like many of our kids, she has chronic problems with insomnia, and has for years.)

I'm going to run this all past her psychiatrist and therapist and see what they think. I am ambivalent. On the one hand, it is illegal (though our state is considering a very limited medical marijuana law), and nothing she says changes our minds about other the reasons we're opposed to her using it. On the other hand, it does seem to help her, and she is a much pleasanter person when she's had some. She claims it would be easier for her to get out of bed and do stuff if she were smoking a little bit of weed rather than taking clonidine. She hasn't been going to school for several months and has had a lot of trouble getting out of bed for anything except music lessons and therapy. I feel like if I can use some small measure of tolerance as a tool to get her to take her other meds reliably, and to get her up in the morning and doing something productive, we might be ahead of the game.

And it is also true that by the standards of our youth, the amount of weed she and her friends can afford at any one time is minuscule, which imposes a natural limit on what she uses.

We're very much one day at a time right now. For the time being, I've told her I won't hassle her about it if she takes her other meds when she's supposed to, and if she doesn't do it in the house. But that's pending a talk with her therapy team. My husband is all set to declare her an addict, which I feel would not be helpful, and I don't know that it's accurate either. She's a mess when she doesn't take her other meds, too, but I wouldn't describe her as addicted to them.

Any experiences or thoughts?

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[nickyg]

Hi there,

That is a quandary.  I smoked a lot of weed when I was younger to so it's pretty hard to judge when your kid does it.  My daughter is 23 now and has been smoking for a long time.  She's completely addicted to it as far as I can see though she says she doesn't smoke much  . 

The research that I know of says that before the age of 20 the brain is still developing and there are a lot more chances of having mental health issues and the likes if you smoke before you're 20. 

That said, your daughter is smoking and it seems like a good thing she's being honest with you, or should I say up-front. Honest might be stronger word. 

If you are able to be part of a conversation with her psychologist, that sounds great.  Whilst she may be self medicating, it can also take it's toll on mental health so it's a catch 22.  Some education by the psychologist about the possible effects might be helpful.

My brother was a complete stoner from a very young age and he ended up with bi-polar.  Who knows if it was the weed but it seemed like it was drug induced.  Sadly he went missing in January and we havn't seen him since.  I don't blame the pot completely but it definitely impacted his life, he ended up using it to deal with life really.

What a challenge it all is ha? 

[Being Mindful]

We did not support the use of pot for several reasons. Here is some of them... .  

1. You cannot engage in therapy fully aware and present when using.

2. It is not a healthy coping skill.

3. It could lead to dangerous people whoever her sources of the pot would be.

4. It is illegal.

5. It could lead to other dangerous chemical dependencies.

6. She is vulnerable already and we were concerned that this could lead to more vulerability.

7. She often does not make good decisions for herself and we were concerned that pot would inhibit that even more.

8. What message does this send to our younger child.

9. We had avoided the judicial system and wanted to keep it that way.

That said, we did see the calming benefit to her using it but stuck with the above.

Being Mindful

[mom2bkl]

Oh my... .  what I LOVE about this forum is the fact that you all put the words so often on paper that I am thinking... .  but too chicken to ask:) This is the EXACT issue we have with my DD18... .  and she has the exact same reasoning... .  I'm taking other meds... .  what difference does it make? We have made the same rules... .  not at home... .  no pipes, drugs, etc. and nothing in her car... .  which we pay for the insurance. We told her when she graduates we will start testing and that if this is they lifestyle she chooses she will need to find elsewhere to live. From what she says she plans on finding some girls to live with so guess we have our answer. Her cash is in short supply too so I don't think we have to worry about her using a ton... .  but I still worry She says it helps her anxiety and says she might ask her psychiatrist if they would give her a pot card... .  go figure!

I found a pipe in her car a couple of days ago... .  and always have tossed them in the past... .  but this time I'm hesitating... .  not sure why... .  except for the fact that at 18 I believe it is legal to have a pipe!

Thank you for putting my thoughts on paper and I'll look forward to all your replies and experiences... .  it helps give me direction!

[egribkb]

On the other hand, it does seem to help her, and she is a much pleasanter person when she's had some.

My 6 year old daughter would be much less fussy if I let her watch hours and hours of cartoons. I could go off and do my own thing and not worry she's going to do anything but stare at the TV. No conflict over homework, eating, bedtime, bath time, etc. Heck I'd barely have to parent, just order in some pizza because it's her favorite food, forget the veggies. Get the point?

When your daughter gets busted with an ounce of weed she was going to split among friends "just for personal use" you aren't going to feel too good about looking the other way. Probably on the day she turns 18 too, that will be a nice fun introduction to the criminal justice system.

If weed was legal (and I'm firmly in the camp that believes it should be) it would still be a monumentally bad idea for her to indulge the way she is. She is claiming she uses it as medicine. At 17 do you think she's qualified to make her own treatment decisions? This is the person who hasn't been in school for several months right, but she knows more than the two (2!) therapists she is seeing now?

Being Mindful's list is gold and I'll repeat. "It is not a healthy coping skill."

Don't enable this. Be a parent.

[sunshineplease]

Not only is it not a healthy coping skill, it may contribute to psychosis: www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2012/12/26/the-marijuana-psychosis-connection-goes-both-ways-in-teens/

I wish this potential aspect of pot use were on the table more. Ud18 had a psychiatrist who actually KNEW of her use and more or less condoned it! While some people don't seem to react poorly to pot, plenty do, and why take a risk if a) your brain's not fully developed  or  b) you already have a brain disorder?

(Sigh.)

[inkling16]

On the other hand, it does seem to help her, and she is a much pleasanter person when she's had some.

My 6 year old daughter would be much less fussy if I let her watch hours and hours of cartoons. I could go off and do my own thing and not worry she's going to do anything but stare at the TV. No conflict over homework, eating, bedtime, bath time, etc. Heck I'd barely have to parent, just order in some pizza because it's her favorite food, forget the veggies. Get the point?

When your daughter gets busted with an ounce of weed she was going to split among friends "just for personal use" you aren't going to feel too good about looking the other way. Probably on the day she turns 18 too, that will be a nice fun introduction to the criminal justice system.

If weed was legal (and I'm firmly in the camp that believes it should be) it would still be a monumentally bad idea for her to indulge the way she is. She is claiming she uses it as medicine. At 17 do you think she's qualified to make her own treatment decisions? This is the person who hasn't been in school for several months right, but she knows more than the two (2!) therapists she is seeing now?

Being Mindful's list is gold and I'll repeat. "It is not a healthy coping skill."

Don't enable this. Be a parent.

Actually, the day she can afford an ounce of weed is a day when I will stop worrying about whether she can support herself. Just kidding. It's not that I don't agree completely with Being Mindful's list. It's that our disapproval and our actions so far to curb her use haven't helped one iota. Now, I take everything she says about her usage with a grain of salt, but I feel it's just possible that if we chill out about this for the time being--making our disapproval clear, but not raising the roof about it, she will stop focusing on her resistance to our will (which is and start looking at the pros and cons more dispassionately herself. (Sort of like the old trick of not saying anything bad about a boyfriend you disapprove of, and letting the girl come to her own conclusions.) She has one steady friend left (everyone else has fallen away, bored her to tears, or gone to college), and this friend is very weed focused. (She's also depressed, not surprising.) From a conversation we had in the car just now, I gather that the friend has been giving my daughter a hard time about not being "chill," which puts her back up. She said outright that she was getting bored with the friend's insistence on doing nothing but smoking weed and trying to bottle up her feelings. This is an incredibly hopeful sign. It could all devolve again tomorrow, of course.

I don't recall what your situation is with your BPD kid (if you've posted it), but I've learned that there's no canned formula for parenting ours. Every instinct says, "No, you can't let her do even a little weed, and you have to move heaven and earth to see that she doesn't!" It's the same set of instincts that told us we had to make her go to school and do her homework and keep her room clean and do chores and all the rest of it. One by one, those things have fallen away as her illness has gotten worse. We can keep focusing on them, to our detriment if not to hers, or we can concentrate on helping her get better. I have radically accepted that she is going to walk a crooked path that could indeed include jail, homelessness, addiction, and successful suicide (not just the two feeble attempts we've had so far). We have dialed down our expectations to near zero, and our priorities are: 1) keep her alive 2) keep her on her meds and in therapy and 3) get her through high school somehow. The rest is on her, even though she has another seven months before she's 18. She has good days and bad days, but despite not going to school, I think she's made a lot of progress in the nine months since she was diagnosed. She's starting to allow herself to have plans, though learning how to stick to them and follow through is going to be the work of another several years at least. She no longer talks about dropping out--now it's between finishing out her remaining credits through her HS or getting a GED. So yay for that! We're slugging out the details of an IEP with her school, since a previous therapeutic school placement was a disaster all around. And I am extremely thankful that weed is her drug of choice and that she shows no interest in cocaine, meth, heroin or alcohol. We find our blessings where we can.

I watched my parents go through exactly the same thing with my brother. They did all the "good parent" things, too, to no avail. I realized recently that he was probably BPD, too. He did grow up eventually, but it took until he was probably in his mid forties. There wasn't a damn thing my parents could have done to speed the process, though I think some of the things they did probably slowed it down.

So yes, I am "being a parent." The job description just isn't what I expected.

[sunshineplease]

Hey, Inkling. I hear you on so much of this (including my brother, though he got his life together very quickly after "running away" at 17 and getting involved in stuff that must have scared him; the daily pot use stopped after that).

Your situation just keeps knocking me upside the head, it's so much like ours. We, too, kept narrowing our expectations, winnowing and honing until we had basically the same three you do. Things got so bad for us, though, that we finally had to give up even those. The list is now our "greatest hopes" list; we're trying to have zero expectations. (Ha. Not so easy.) Fortunately, the more we step back -- on all fronts -- the more she steps forward. But only after she tries to re-engage us or punish us. Grrr.

That doesn't mean that we don't have boundaries. So, for example: Ud18 smokes. It's pretty much killing us (she's a cancer survivor), but we're not saying anything, since she does not live in our home. She already knows how we feel about smoking, and engaging in a dialogue about it would be meaningless. That doesn't mean we will tolerate her smoking in our cars or our house when she is home. We have great hope that eventually she'll live up to her own (and not coincidentally our own) values about lung health. But regardless, I don't think anything we could say or do at this point would help. As someone said at Al-Anon this morning, "I need want to get out of the way."

The hard part is that these young adults are so dependent on us. It's when we get "invited in" to their dysfunction that things get messy. And boundaries are especially hard when we are helping financially. It's a struggle, for sure. The only way for me to get through the day is to remind myself, over and over, that I am not in control. For example, our daughter was coming home for a visit, having just turned 18, and my husband and I were afraid she'd run out and get a tattoo. She already has multiple piercings, which we find kind of pathetic, especially given her history of medical needles and cuttting. The family therapist reminded us: "You can't control what she does with her body, but you don't have to let her use your car to get to the tattoo parlor, or give her money for it, or take her to the doctor if it becomes infected. And later, if she regrets the 'ink,' you don't say 'I told you so,' but you also don't pay to have the tattoo removed."

I'm not in control. I'm not in control. I'm not in control.   

[inkling16]

Fortunately, the more we step back -- on all fronts -- the more she steps forward. But only after she tries to re-engage us or punish us. Grrr.

Yes, that's been our experience, too.  Sometimes it takes us backing off to get her to do anything, and then she takes baby steps in a good direction. The pace is excruciatingly slow. 

Re tattoos, I don't particularly care. She is an arty type, and I kind of understand the body decoration impulse, even if I don't share it. I actually paid for her to get one on her wrist a few months after she got out of RTC, because she said it would be a reminder to her not to self-harm. It was the logo of her RTC facility, which I thought was kind of adorable. And I think it has worked more or less the way it was supposed to. I don't think she's self-harmed at all lately, though her life has been such low stress that she might not have felt the need. I promised her I would foot the bill for another one, as long as it was relatively small, in good taste, and easily concealed if necessary, when she graduates from high school.  After that, she's on her own.

I draw the line at facial piercings. I told her that if she got any, I wouldn't be able to look at her, because I find them revolting. I know she dearly wants them, but she has held off. Again, small blessings.

[qcarolr]

The hard part is that these young adults are so dependent on us. It's when we get "invited in" to their dysfunction that things get messy. And boundaries are especially hard when we are helping financially. It's a struggle, for sure. The only way for me to get through the day is to remind myself, over and over, that I am not in control.

I'm not in control. I'm not in control. I'm not in control.   

I have really struggled with all this. When our D came home a couple years ago she had her medical mj license. Our rule was nothing illegal on our property, no smoking in the house. But we indirectly supported her use of pot, beer... .  as such an ineffective means to manage her emotional dysregulation. She ended up getting a DWAI for pot - even though it was legal for her to have the pipe in the trunk of the car. The courts and police have low tolerance for pot use. And now it is legal in Colorado. DD has started growing her own plants --- I have told her they have to move out of the house. She needs to find a friend that can keep them for her.

Feels like our 'easy' attitudes are now biting us back. She expects us to accept more and more of her bullying behaviors -- and we are now consistently enforcing our boundaries -- she is ferociously resisting them.  I think back and can see many places over the past two years we could have stepped up with more courage, taken the heat from her back then, and not be in so deep now.

When DD was able to monitor her pot use to just manage her anxiety, she was easier to get along with. When the heat turned up on her stress from multiple directions (probation, bf recycling, loss of SSI appeal,... .  ) her use increased and has become one more problem area. She cannot do without the pot, and it is forbidden on her DWAI probation so she skips doing her UA"S. Not sure how all this will catch up with her.

I have to keep working day by day right now to accept that  I HAVE NO CONTROL OVER THE OUTCOMES IN DD'S LIFE.  Only can give her suggestions for where she can get help that is not from me.

qcr  

[egribkb]

Hey sorry, didn't mean to sound so rude with the 'be a parent' remark, I meant it as a 'stay strong brother' kind of thing. I know it's hard and every situation is different. My take is that BPD's crush boundaries with a vengeance so we as the non's have to be particularly vigilant about keeping our boundaries rock solid. You can't control her ultimately but you can control yourself and your environment and where that overlaps with her she needs to be shown where the limits are. Again, my take. I think the added wrinkle of illegality in your situation can have serious repercussions for you and your family in a myriad of ways.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[inkling16]

Hey sorry, didn't mean to sound so rude with the 'be a parent' remark, I meant it as a 'stay strong brother' kind of thing. I know it's hard and every situation is different. My take is that BPD's crush boundaries with a vengeance so we as the non's have to be particularly vigilant about keeping our boundaries rock solid. You can't control her ultimately but you can control yourself and your environment and where that overlaps with her she needs to be shown where the limits are. Again, my take. I think the added wrinkle of illegality in your situation can have serious repercussions for you and your family in a myriad of ways.

That's OK. I hear you on the illegality thing, although the reality in our town and environs is that weed is so endemic that the cops don't even bother unless the kids are dealing or DUI, or unless it's so obvious that they can't ignore it. My own therapist said I shouldn't sweat it too much because weed use is "socially normative" with local high schoolers. In our adjoining large city, smoking weed has recently been downgraded to a ticketable offense. I sometimes worry that if she did get caught, she'd make matters worse by raging at the cops, but I believe she would have the sense to turn on the charm instead.

One way that DD's anxiety works in our favor is that she's afraid to learn to drive (and rightly so, in my opinion, given her emotional instability and difficulties with attention span). So at least we don't have to worry about her driving while high, although I do worry about her getting in cars with drivers who do. She knows she can call us for a ride anytime, though.

[pessim-optimist]

What I observe here and appreciate on the board is that guys tend to see things more clear-cut keep it to the issue itself, and gals tend to get all the emotions and circumstances involved. I really like both approaches! It balances us out I think.



We did not have to deal with the weed issue so far, but what worries me in general is the info that today's weed is so much more potent than the weed of decades ago. But it is what it is, we can't go back in time... .