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Weed Addiction


Posts: 1
Joined: January 3, 2018


Posted: January 3, 2018, 8:17 PM
I was wondering if anyone has experience with a teen addicted to weed. We are trying to find a place for him to go to. In this connection has anyone had experience with Eliot Community Services in Mass or the Newport Academy in CT?


Posts: 1764
Joined: June 27, 2016


Posted: January 4, 2018, 2:12 PM
Hi - I do not have experience w weed addiction. Look to the tabs above - Find Treatment, Programs and Resources, Beyond Recovery, go to in person or call treatment or recovery centers in your area and ask questions or referrals. you may find what you are looking for close by and less expensive and if your loved one is an adult, he/she can use the government system for their care. might be better to get started on that road instead of using your insurance or out of pocket.

dealing w the community and government themselves, for their own care will keep that element off your plate, and give them the opportunity to deal w their own care as an adult. An important step in keeping your loved one independent and separate from you.

In hindsight, we used our insurance, sent our son away to rehab, it did not stick. paid out of pocket a year later, still did not stick, a year after that he is home, no insurance, I recently found a community recovery center where he can sign up for Medicaid and see dr's and counselors. I see this as a step in his independence.

He has not gone for treatment at this recovery center, but I have started with their family program.it has become my new 'go to response' when he complains about health care.

he is seeing dr's at a different mental health treatment center. my son does not currently have insurance, he did when he started at the other center. idk what they are doing for payment now. I have not seen any ins claims or bills. This is a bill that I will not take responsibility to pay. We have twice done that.

We take away their self worth and independence when we 'magically have all the answers and set up places to go' - they don't understand how they got there and what it takes to get there, and may just see it as 'you sent me to that place, I had no choice and it sucked' or " I lost 6 months of my life, I couldn't work'. etc.... This is my thought, in hindsight, after we did send him away. but, at the time, we needed a quick fix and a break from the chaos. And, we thought it would work.

Good Luck!










Posts: 640
Joined: April 4, 2016


Posted: January 5, 2018, 7:23 AM
Loving Welcome, Hy!! You found the right place for information, encouragement, support, strength and hugs. Sending hugs. So sorry that you are dealing with addiction . . . and so very sorry that you are battling it with a minor.

My daughter hated weed.. . but would smoke it if nothing else was available. She preferred pills and alcohol as a teen. At the age of 15, after running away, after a few local rehabs/IOPs/hospitals, we sent our out-of-control teen to a therapeutic religious boarding school 7 hours away in the hinterlands of rural West Virginia. (That's the "joy" of dealing with a young teen addict. As the parent, you can send them wherever you want. . . and they basically have to go.) Exactly what the school did remains a mystery to me. But she was there 18 months and came home "cured." She was off of her DOC . . . she was off of Adderall . . . she was excelling at school . . . she was calm, respectful, happy and focused. She was loving and lovely. She got scholarships to many colleges. I had my pre-addict daughter back!!!

My "mistake" was thinking that she was cured. That her addiction was behind her.

Wrong.

Please remember that getting clean is the easy part. Staying that way is 10,000 times harder.
Addiction is not only about the substance ingested. As a very wise lady who posts here . . . and is a recovered addict . . . has said (sending hugs Lolle): Addiction is more about how the addict perceives him/herself, how the addict deals with the world, and making the addict comfy in his/her own skin.

My advice is that if he goes to any program or treatment, he also will need long-term after care. Addiction is not cureable!!! Your son will need continued support and help to grow-up, mature and learn to deal with life without drugs.

Just to finish the story re my daughter . . . she was clean & sober for 2.5 years!! She went away to college and did fabulously her first semester. I remember her telling me that it was so very hard to recover from her pill/alcohol habit and that she never ever wanted to do rehab again . . . that she'd never try drugs again. I exhaled, figuring that her addiction was truly and finally behind her. That she treasured her sober life and would fiercely guard it. However, she refused to go to AA, to keep in contact with her sponsor or do any type of therapy while she was in college. (Guess it wasn't cool. And . . . at this time she was 18 yo. . . legally an adult. I could no longer force her to do anything.) She tried heroin her second semester freshman year. By the end of her sophomore year, she was hooked.

Please remember the 3 Cs: you didn't cause his addiction; you can't control his addiction; and you can't cure his addiction. Regardless of his age, he . . . and only him . . .is responsible.

Hope something in here is helpful.

Sending more hugs . . . God knows that it is hard dealing with any addict child. . . but a high school addict???? Sending strength and prayers, too . . .

Lynn
xoxo

This post has been edited by hurtingmom on January 5, 2018, 7:37 AM

--------------------

I forgot to read the fine print, when i signed up to be your Mom. I thought it would be smiles & hugs and quite a lot of fun.

I didn’t see the part about addiction, mental illness, pain, hopelessness or despair. I didn’t know life could be so flipping unfair.

But I now see something in the fine print that I didn’t see before. It also says to survive your addiction, I must love me more.


In Loving Memory of my angel, J. #forever21 #ihateaddiction #foreverloved


Posts: 733
Joined: October 5, 2015


Posted: January 6, 2018, 12:39 AM
Hi, Over to the left is a list of different message boards that you can click on. Where it says “Marijuana” is the one I’d read on as well as here. “Weed” is said to be the gateway drug to harder drugs. People get high off it and then want it to be stronger so they start to lace it with other drugs to get a better high. I listened to a recovered addict who has turned preacher talk about this on tv just last week. Trying to get him away from drugs now would be great,especially with it being “Marijuana” before it gets where he wants to try the harder stuff. I’m sure if you call around you’ll find a place for him. Getting your son to go will be the hard part! Good luck to you and take care. Mary.

This post has been edited by Mandm on January 6, 2018, 1:27 AM


Posts: 48
Joined: December 25, 2017


Posted: January 7, 2018, 5:26 AM
Sorry to hear your family is going through this.

Potentially very serious problem that is still hugely underestimated in my own country (uk).
My own son started at 15 and was directly enabled by a close family member and remained addicted for 10 years and has only stopped now he is on herion.

During that time we tried many things but one conclusion i came to was that unless they undertake a comp!ete lifestyle change including who they hang around with and where they socialise etc the risk of relapse (or worse, a progression onto other substances) will still be there. Obvious i know but worth mentioning as we can sometimes loose sight of the obvious when we are submerged in this kind of problem.

Our son eventually spent a brief period in prison but came out clean for the first time in 8 years. He was a totally different person in that he was calm and relaxed and even his ADD didnt seem to be troubliing him. For the first time in 8 years he was normal again. I am not religious but i am sure i thanked god as NOTHING else i tried to do had worked.

Sadly he returned to the same circle of friends who were ALL doing weed and other drugs and was back on weed in a week.

6 months ago one of his partners parents let him try herion and he is now smoking this instead of weed. As you can imagine, this was always our worst nightmare and was a truly devastating turn of events.

So my advice is to also look at the wider picture, my own son was let down by some really terrible poeple in his life who should have known better, i hope nobody elses child experiences the same thing.

(We did not know his aunty did weed so didnt see his initial introduction to weed use coming. Sadly other family members covered for her too so the truth was kept from us and by the time we discovered it it was too late. Being ADD he became addicted very quickly as he was self medicating his condition with the weed.

We DID try VERY hard to stop all the other subsequent bad influences in his life including trying to get him to leave his partner (his primary enabler) and her locally notorious famiily that was riddled with crime and drug issues so our son had plenty of warnings but sadly in a poor mental state and with 10 years of heavy use of drugs (mostly weed) the outcome was no surprise when heroin was put in front of him)

i wish you all the best with your own sons recovery from his addiction.

This post has been edited by Jet0912 on January 7, 2018, 5:49 AM
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