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addiction
January 2009 
A sad truth
Posted on Dec 14th, 2008
by 
Laura
Laura
This is so difficult for me to write about, in part because I don't want to believe it.
My 13 yr. old son is experimenting with alcohol and pot.
I don't know why it's been so difficult for me to see the truth, as I myself was a drug and alcohol user and abuser as a teen - starting even younger than my son.
Perhaps that's part of my own truth - my fear of my son going down that path has kept me in a state of denial. Even though I've questioned him repeatedly, I've chosen to believe the half truths and the deception.
On Friday night I picked him up from a friend's house at 10:30. He staggered to the door in a frightening state of inebriation. As I drove him home, he was passing out and vomiting all over himself. Concerned that he might be suffering from alcohol poisoning, I drove him directly to the nearby firestation. The firemen were so supportive - comforting me while they checked out his pulse, his blood pressure, stripping his vomit soaked clothing from him, dressing him in one of their old shirts.
We decided he'd vomited enough of the contents of his stomach to bring him home, rather than taking him to the hospital - he'd essentially pumped his own stomach.
I managed to wrestle his limp body from the car, guiding him into the house, and onto the couch, propping him on his side with pillows behind him. With tears streaming down my face, I found myself remembering propping him into this position as a baby so he wouldn't choke if he spit up after I'd nursed him.
How did we get here?
....and why am I feeling like such a failure as a parent right now?
The next morning I heard my son say all those things I said as a hungover teen, all those statements that so many abusers of substances have muttered while suffering the consequences of their choices the night before.
"never again, why do people do this, I'll never drink like that again...."
And as the day unfolded, more and more of his truth emerged - the truth of how much the teens in his social group are drinking, how much they're smoking pot, and how he's struggled with the peer pressure.
Now what?
What are my next steps as a parent?
How do I protect my son from the world? How do I keep him from making the same stupid choices I made?
It took me until my late 20's to wake up, smarten up, and to enter a program of recovery and self discovery. Between the ages of 12, when I began my substance abuse, and 27 when I entered recovery, I'd almost died several times from overdoses, had driven my car drunk, had sex with people I wish I'd never had sex with.
When my son woke yesterday morning, looking at his body and wondering how he ended up wearing a fireman's shirt, was this the beginning of a series of these kind of mornings, or is this his wake up call?
Can he, can we, shift the trajectory of his journey together?
Today, as he's over at his dad's (a recovering addict and an addiction counsellor) I'm shedding a few tears, grounding myself and preparing for him to return to my home tomorrow and to face the truth.
My 13 year old son is already experimenting with alcohol and pot.
Access: Public
Warm hug as you find your way and you support your son to find his.