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Episode 112
ABOUT THE EPISODE:
It's a question asked by so many parents, "Am I doing enough?"
In this coaching episode Susan shares how her almost 18-year-old son isn't in legal trouble, is doing fairly well in school, works, and also smokes pot daily, which has her worried. She wonders if she'll regret it down the road if she doesn't engage him in formal treatment before he turns 18.
It's a story many can relate to, knowing your son or daughter could be worse, and at the same time knowing they could be better. Susan talks about what she believes led to her son's substance use, including a divorce from her husband who was dealing with his own addiction.
She works on getting clear about what she most fears, and what she can and can't live with related to her son's substance use. We brainstorm communication tactics that might allow Susan and her son to have more real conversations and talk about the possibilities of more serious drug use.
I can't thank Susan enough for her vulnerability in allowing her coaching session to be used as a way to help other parents in the struggle.
This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
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Find us on Instagram: @hopestreamcommunity
Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol
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Brenda 00:37
It’s another coaching episode, my friends, these are really meaningful to me, because the moms you hear in these episodes are all members in the stream or online community. And over time, I get to know them and their situations. And we sort of form a really special bond. So to be able to talk through things that they want to work on is such an honor. And I’m guessing that many of you will be able to relate to the topic that we’re going to discuss today, several topics, actually. And one of those is what are some things that you can do when your child is almost 18, they are actively smoking a lot of weed also drinking, also potentially doing other things. And they’re not really getting into a ton of trouble. But also, they’re not really taking ownership or responsibility for they’re very quickly approaching adulthood. So Susan is someone who is incredibly conscientious. She is a mom, who I would describe as being really on top of things. She’s incredibly aware, she is always looking for opportunities to learn. She has been a member in the stream for over a year and a half. And she has made some really big changes in her approach to her son in the way that she thinks about what he is doing. And it was an absolute pleasure to talk with her to spend a little bit of time working through some things, I know you want to hear it. So we are going to get right into it. So enjoy this coaching episode with Susan. If you want to just share a little bit about enough context for me to get kind of where you are as a family and what’s going on and sort of your main reason for wanting to connect on a coaching call.
Susan 02:36
Well, I have three kids, single mom, three kids, my oldest is 17 and a half. And he is the reason that I joined the stream. He is a junior in high school right now. And then I have two daughters, a 15-year-old and a 12-year-old. And my son started I noticed he started using around seventh or eighth grade. At that time, his dad was struggling with an addiction of his own. And so there was a lot of chaos in our house. And the impact that had on me was I was you know, brain fog galore and couldn’t organize and just just kind of like trying to keep up day to day as well as I could. But it was just a very hard time for the family as a whole. And it affected each of our kids differently.
Susan 03:29
My son, I think went the route of escaping, you know, and, and that could be the age too, I always hear that that’s about the age, they start to kind of like band off with their friends. And if they’re gonna get in trouble, that’s when it’s gonna happen. So those two things happened at the same time. And I noticed him starting he dropped out of sports. So sports friends were no longer part of his life. The group of friends he was hanging around with were still kids that he knew growing up, they just were kids that he hadn’t been spending as much time with, I would find evidence of, you know, like pop cans in the backyard that have little holes punctured in them that firm for smoking and empty bottles in his bedroom and vaping cartridges and things like that. I knew so you know, the conflict was ramping up and up and up.
Susan 04:25
And he also was withdrawn and a lot of a lot more anger and pushing back on the rules a lot more and his dad and I got divorced when he was like toward the end of eighth grade. And it just was kind of like a downward spiral at that point too. He would do something get grounded and then leave anyway. So I felt like I had no control. I couldn’t take his phone because that was his contact his way of contacting his dad. And so having that be all new that was always thrown back at me like if you take me I found a way that I can’t contact my dad and you can’t take away my connection to my dad, you know, I felt like I had very little control. And I did not handle that, well, it just kept getting more and more ridiculous.
Susan 05:13
I took the screws off of his door and took his bedroom door away, this big, heavy six panel door, I hauled down to the garage, he put it back up while I was asleep. I took it down again, I came to get the screwdriver and take it down again. And then we got in a little scuffle. And we were I was on the floor and we were wrestling over a screwdriver. My daughters were watching that happen is just like, the conflict was just escalating like crazy. So we had a few sort of bad therapy experiences. And I, I brought him so it was like pulling teeth to try to get him to bring him to an assessment, pulling out every bribe or threat that I could think of to get him out of the car and into the building. And then only to find like, oh, no, this is just the initial screening. And we send you to a different place from here. You know, that happened twice. And it just made me want to die.
Susan 06:14
The second time it happened. It was a young therapist, and I could tell that she could see the fact that I was about to jump across the table and grab her when I yeah, I did it. But it was so that and then and then COVID happened. And I finally did get him to agree to do an outpatient program. But it was only on Zoom. And he lasted for 20 minutes and then cut out and said no, this isn’t for me. I’m not doing it. And then we had, we had another therapy attempt to where it was it was going to be assess an assessment at a new place. And the therapist right off the bat started, like shaming and just laying into him. And I was just like, oh my gosh, are we it’s just bad experiences with the people that you go to that you trust that you feel like should know what they’re doing. Yeah, if you’re going to them for help, and they just make it worse. And that made it worse, I could not get them to talk to anybody else.
Susan 07:17
After that for months, finally did get him to another place. And this was at a time when he was running away quite a bit. And he had just recently been picked up by the police and brought back home, just smoking pot in the park with a friend. And I grounded him, he ran away at this therapeutic clinic, the director told me, so he’s a runaway, so you have to call the police and bring them back. And it just felt like the insanity was starting again with these people. And I already lost trust with therapists. I used to just think that they knew it all. And I will just tell them what to do. And I’ll do it.
Susan 08:00
But after those bad experiences, I’m like, maybe this isn’t maybe I don’t have to listen to these people. Maybe I should just think through a little bit what is the best, really the best situation. And so I just called our city police. And I said, this is what I was told to do. Just out of curiosity, what would happen if I did call you to go if my son ran away, and you know, and it was kind of a? Well, he hasn’t been gone for 24 hours, and we can go track him down. But we can’t really do anything. I’m glad that I checked it out in advance before I made the call because it would have just I feel like it would have just taken us down this bad path to make it even worse, you know, yeah, like going back and picturing in my head struggling over the screwdriver going down that path again. And so I called you know, I did get the county had services.
Susan 08:53
So I called to get county services to come and just show up at our house. And it was just these two guys. And they’re very nonthreatening. And we’re just here to talk, your mom’s worried about you. And I explained to my son at that time that I was told to call the police to come after him. I thought he was going to just zip out the door right there. But these guys were very calming. And for some reason he stayed and listened and agreed to talk to a counselor who would come into our home once a week. We did that for a while and it kind of got to the point where he felt like he was being ganged up on. And eventually I I was kind of mentally breaking. And I had a meltdown in my doctor’s office at a checkup. And she’s the one that kind of encouraged me to look into like alternative models. Yes, you address this and that turned me on to a parent group that like a local parent group that was supporting it. folks before doing kind of like the beyond working through the beyond addiction book and kind of a nontraditional treatment center, they don’t treat adolescents. But she said that I could be part of the parent group. And so that helped a lot. And it was actually like, you know, eight other family concern family members. And we just talk through scenarios and work through kind of the different steps beyond addiction, to learn how to put those, those ideas into practice. And that actually was the first step into like me deciding, I do have some control, I can control how this plays out somewhat. And I’ll accept what I can’t control. For now. Do as much as I can, you know, that kind of started me on the path for that, where my son is at today is, he’s going to school. He does, all right, he shows up, he is well behaved at school. I know he’s, he smokes marijuana multiple times a day, still.
Susan 11:06
And I am totally aware of all the concerns there with how strong marijuana has these days, versus how it used to be, I know that it’s not, it’s not a good thing for him to continue. I talked to him about it, we can occasionally get conversations, he has a job he will engage with. He talks to a school counselor, every about every two or three weeks, just kind of check-in and her thing is like he doesn’t want to be labeled with anxiety, for some reason that doesn’t bad word for him. So she says we’re just doing stress management. So that’s her focus with him. She does try to talk about drug use every once in a while and he doesn’t, he kind of shuts down, he’s very good at shutting down when topics get out of control for him, and or when he feels uncomfortable. So right now I am I’m sitting at a place where I feel like the clock is ticking because he’s 17 and a half. And if I ever was going to take an aggressive move, an extreme move that this is kind of my last chance to decide. And I just worry about regretting looking back and saying I wish I went up because I know a mom who says that, and I’m blessed her son says that. So that comes to mind all the time. That am I doing enough. I always will wait until I wait till actions are extreme on the part of other people before I before I step in, and step up and take action. So I’m all ears, Brenda,
Brenda 12:56
wow. So amazing that you can go through and sort of articulate all of that, that has happened. And you seem to have really good contacts, like you’ve been able to kind of step back and observe. And I’ve seen that in you since you became a member in the community a long time ago. And I’ve seen that really shift in you have not been less caught up in it. Like you said, less fewer screwdriver scenarios, more ability to observe and say this is what’s going on around me. And yeah, sometimes you get pulled in. And sometimes you do end up doing or saying things that you would prefer you didn’t. However, you’ve done a really great job of using those craft skills that you’ve learned. And I know we’ve talked about it in the past, sometimes it can feel like while not doing enough, you know, like, and that’s that can be true with craft because you aren’t yelling and screaming and kicking them out. And, you know, doing all of these things that typically from the outside looking in, people might go, Whoa, what is she doing?
Brenda 14:12
But I guess what I would say first of all, is you’re dealing with a full deck of cards because you’re a single mom, so you don’t have that support day to day of a partner being with you in your home, to support you to give you a break to say hey, go check out for 24 hours you don’t have that. You also have your ex-husband’s addiction and the impact that had on your kids and your especially your son. So there’s that and I don’t know what the current situation is with that but if that’s still going on, you know, causes issues as well. And then you just have the teenage guy thing, right?
Susan 15:00
And that’s kind of what I’m always trying to weigh like is this. This is kind of how I was in high school. I mean, I wasn’t a teenage guy. But as a teenager, I wasn’t super. As a junior. Yeah, I planned on going to college, but I wasn’t super engaged in planning my future and making a lot of money and trying to find internship or resume building quality jobs, you know, I kind of just wanted to hang out with my friends and work and work and just get a little bit of enough money to have some spending money. And you know, right, you don’t have a ton of ambition, either.
Brenda 15:39
So on the one hand, you’re looking at, like, what he’s doing and trying to assess, is this normal? Is this okay? Is it not? Okay? Does this warrant more action? So it’s a, it’s a very confusing thing to observe. And I’m glad that you are in that observation mode. A couple of questions, what is your communication with each other, like,
Susan 16:04
we’re pretty cordial to each other, it’s pretty surface, like we don’t get into a lot of deep topics, when I do try to try to press him for information and like, talking about next year and future plans. He’s only got, you know, one after first trimester, he’s got enough credits to graduate. And so what are we going to do with that open time, you know, he kind of just shuts down. And I don’t blame him. Because mom’s push, I’m definitely one that will push a bunch of ideas on them and kind of overwhelm. So I have to check that, but we have a pretty good relationship and that he knows, he can come and tell me things and that I won’t go crazy.
Brenda 16:47
Do you think that he sees you as a safe space to be able to say, Wow, if something bad’s going down, the lens I look at it through is they’ll either think I gotta make sure my mom doesn’t find out. Versus I gotta call my mom. And obviously, that is on the situation, right? And the severity of it, but in general, would you say that he feels like I gotta call my mom.
Susan 17:16
I think he does feel like that.
Brenda 17:18
Yeah, that’s huge. That’s huge. You’ve created that. And you’ve created that by not freaking out. Right and having a separate space. Do you have a therapist of your own?
Susan 18:33
I do. I I haven’t been talking to him very much. But I do. Okay. He’s helped a ton in the past.
Brenda 18:41
So at least, sometimes he feels like that. And I just want to recognize how huge that is. Because you you might not see that that is a big deal. That is a big deal for him to be able to talk with you like that. So his communication with you, at least you’re communicating. It’s not, you know, total silence or I hate you, mom. Kind of all of that.
Susan 19:09
Okay. No, like yesterday, he came in the kitchen in the morning, and I said good morning. And he’s like, what, what did I do? But I look at that kind of thing. As that’s just normal teenager, you know? Yes. Was just that’s a cranky kid. Yeah, if you want to go
Brenda 19:28
and especially if there is conflict sometimes and he knows that he’s doing stuff that he shouldn’t be doing. And so there’s he’s got that filter as well. Like, oh, wait a minute, you know, is this is a Citrix. So I think it’s so great that you’re doing that that you are recognizing just the day to day because sometimes what can happen is when our kids are struggling, our 100% of our focus just immediately like route goes right into that and that is all we talked about. That’s all we communicate about and I know we’ve talked about that a lot, you’ve done a lot of our workshops and, and so we really try to expand our conversations. So that’s amazing. The other question I would have is about, does he does it feel like he has a lot of anger? Does he express a lot of anger?
Susan 20:18
No, occasionally he’ll blow up. And he actually like retreats. More than anything, he’ll retreat to his room, he plays bass guitar, and is kind of obsessed with that. And so that’s always his, his sort of thing that comforts him. We’ve had a few explosions, probably in the last year, maybe two. And it’s really like yelling, being at a door, maybe, and then he’ll slam his door and Vinos room. And that was over things like somebody didn’t walk the dog when they were supposed to, or you know, little things that wouldn’t normally cause a huge reaction like that. In so that’s where I kind of think this has got to be something that’s like he’s in with either withdrawal or get a hold of something bad that’s not sitting well with him, or, you know, some kind of drug related thing
Brenda 21:13
could be, or it could just be if he’s a stuffer, when you stuff for so long, then there’s no more room. And so it just has to come out. Right. So. So that also could be or it could be a combination. So but it doesn’t sound like that is the norm, which is also a positive. So there, so there’s some positives, and you said he’s going to school, he is going to work. He’s seen a counselor, now and then. So obviously, I’m not a therapist, and I’m not a Ed consultant. So like, I wouldn’t be sitting here trying to assess whether he should go to treatment or not. But what I’d like to do is, figure out with you and do some brainstorming around, how can we get you to a place where you feel better about? Either I’m making the right decisions? Or I’m not or I’m moving in the right direction? Or I’m not.
Brenda 22:04
And so, kind of leaning into that. I’ll ask you two questions, and you can take time to think about these. The first is what would you most like to see happen? There change? And then also, what can you live with? They’re a little challenging to answer sometimes. So that’s why I’m saying feel free to take a few minutes to think. Because you, you know, because we’ve worked so much on this is that you can’t control him. And you know that, and I think you always have that lens. So given that it’s helpful to understand what can you live with? And then what would you really like to see change, and it’s more change in you, because you have control over that. versus changing him, which you don’t have control over, you have a little bit of control, because you still got these six months or so where you could make a decision to force treatment. And we can talk about that, too. I’m gonna talk about that in a few minutes. But let’s go back to the change and what you can live with.
Susan 23:20
Right? I’m just trying to think through because when you say what would I like to see different? My, my head always goes to Well, I want him to blah, blah, blah. And I know that it’s not for him to do something, it’s for me to do something. I mean, I guess I would like to see a conversation of a real conversation, where I’ve said this to him. I’ve said, I can never be okay, I know you’re smoking every day, I can never be okay with it. And I just I want you to think about what the downsides may be. And know that when you want to change, I’m here to help you. I’ll help you get the help you need. You know, and he just, you know, he just says, okay, just leave it at that. But like, at least I got that out to him. And what I would like to see is just my own, like kind of honing my own ability to do that in a less awkward way. You know what I mean?
Brenda 24:28
Yes, I know, those conversations are very awkward.
Susan 24:31
Yeah, it’s like crickets afterward. And yeah, it also kind of kills the mood. There’s very few opportunities where his sisters aren’t around, and it’s just me and him. And we have that time right now. And we’re driving to music lessons that I don’t like to ruin with mom lecture. Right? But at the same time, it’s it’s got to be woven in somewhere, somehow. Yeah. Again, So that’s one thing that I can control is just more practice with how to bring that up in a more natural way.
Brenda 25:06
Let me just pop in there for a second. Because I think that’s so huge that you’ve been able to put that out there, even if it was only once and it was really awkward and it killed the vibe in that he was like whatever mom and walked away, it is out there. And he knows that that’s out there. And so that’s a really, really big thing. And I think what that also showed him is, again, you be in that safe place, like okay, this is a conversation I could have with my mom, because a lot of kids are like in a million years, I would never even utter the word weed to my mom, right? Like, that’s just so you’ve opened that door, and you did it in such a great way and saying I could never be okay with it. But I am here for you if you want to make a change and trying to get him to think about some of those things. So that’s a huge step. And it is just going to be awkward, because it just is until you get you know, until you do it a little bit more. And you’re taking advantage sometimes of those drives to music, which I know are precious, and you really don’t want to drop a bomb in the nose.
Brenda 26:17
So I’m just wondering, could you use those then as an opportunity to be very vulnerable with him? And just share what you just shared with me to say, I don’t do call them like, dude, or can I usually say, kiddo? Like, I really loved the fact that I that we could talk about some of this stuff. It’s really awkward for me. It’s really, really awkward for me as a mom, and I don’t want to kill the vibe that we have in the few times that we have together. Because that’s not my intent. I’m just wondering, would it be possible every now and then, for us to have a little bit of a conversation about this, if I promise that I’m not going to freak out and I’m not going to make it really heavy? And I’m not going to come down on you. And you’re really coming at it from that place of curiosity? Because what you shared with me sounded so like, oh, yeah, I totally get that. And he’s probably thinking the same thing. Honestly, he’s probably thinking, man, be kind of nice to talk to my mom sometimes. But it’s, it’s also like, I don’t know what her response is going to be right? What do you think would be his reaction? If you shared what you just shared with me?
Susan 27:30
Yeah. So it’s kind of like asking for permission to talk about it.
Brenda 27:34
Yeah, and just telling them the, the honest truth is, this is super awkward for me. And I really don’t want to kill a good vibe that we have one music. And he may say, well then do talk about it. And then, okay, then you come at it from another angle. But the way that you said that it was just so true and real, that it just feels like it could be an approach away in with him to just see what his response might be.
Susan 28:06
It’s gonna be like what you said. I do know that. But I also know that sometimes you say things, and you get that reaction, but it still sinks in somehow. And maybe in like, you know, six months. I try again. Yeah, sometimes.
Brenda 28:25
And if that is his response, ooh, do you know the dude bring it up? Then you can say, Okay, I respect that. Right. It’s that information sandwich. And we’ve talked about that in the workshops, too, you know, the asking permission, being really honest about it, and then also respecting his decision not to talk about it, then. And then you can say, Okay, this isn’t a great time, when would be a good time for us? Or could you create a different opportunity? So that you do have a couple of hours and, and you’re not kind of encroaching on that time going to music? You know, so just like, okay, got it. This isn’t the time, let me know when a good time would be because I really am curious about what’s going on with you. You don’t have to say I really want to talk about you smoking weed. I’m really curious about what’s going on with you. And I’d love to have a little bit of time with you. Does that sound doable?
Susan 29:23
Yeah. Yes, that does. And then just even getting a little bit of time to talk about, like life next year, his plans what his goals are, and kind of weaving it in that way. Maybe
Brenda 29:37
totally his music like What are you playing? I think it’s so great that you’ve and I know this, that you’ve really fostered and use his music and his guitar as a positive reward. And that’s such a great thing, such a great outlet for him to especially if, if he does have anxiety, it’s probably a real good way for him to just get some of that out. Yeah. So, yeah, I love that. What about when you think of a scenario of him? Let’s just call it for the next six months while he’s, you know, before he turns 18. What is a scenario? Other than he’s clean and sober. And he’s, you know, working volunteering at the animal shelter, like keeping it somewhat realistic, what’s the scenario that you could live with? With him?
Susan 30:32
I would love to have to see him, like, take initiative on at least setting up college visits a couple of college campus visits or looking into some kind of a post secondary plan, thinking beyond the next two weeks of his life. He’s what he’s planning. He’s planning his summer concerts that he’s going to go to this summer. So like, like thinking beyond that into something that’s acknowledging? Yeah, I do have to kind of progress a little bit and have some responsibility.
Brenda 31:09
Right. So I’m gonna switch that around a little bit back to you to say I couldn’t live with seeing him doing some planning. And you also know that the prefrontal cortex that’s not developed yet is the part of his body that is responsible for that.
Susan 31:25
Yeah. So yes, they do.
Brenda 31:29
Yeah, just setting expectation out of fantasyland. Yes. No, but that’s okay. Because what we’re trying to get to is something that you could then communicate to him because this is basically these are sort of your boundaries, right to say, I could live with you doing some planning, I can live with it. If you were smoking once a day, at the end of the day, or I could live with it if you were doing you know, THC gummies, instead of AB like, we’re trying to get to a scenario where what evidence do you need to see and him to say, I can live with this? Does that make sense?
Susan 32:07
Yeah. Yeah. It’s hard. It’s hard because it feels like or hard. It feels like you’re signing off on I’m okay with you smoking pot, once a day instead of
Brenda 32:20
in that, and that’s just 100% my example. But I’m not saying that. You’re should be.
Brenda Zane 32:25
But that’s, that’s always my struggle. But so what will I be okay with,
Brenda 32:30
like, what would have to be going on in his life to give you the confidence to say, okay, I can sleep at night, and I’m not freaking out thinking I should be calling a wilderness therapy company. That’s kind of where,
Susan 32:43
okay, what would be going on in his life, he’d be either working or taking classes through next year,
Brenda 32:54
even though he doesn’t need to.
Susan 32:57
Yeah, enjoy. They can take classes and then accounts for college credit. Something like that. Maybe if I saw him asking questions. About You know, how do you even decide? Or how do you go about scheduling a college visit? How are you even investigating, acknowledging it in some way that the future is coming? Whether you like it or not? adulting is is right around the corner? Yeah. Yeah. If I could take in some ownership, maybe ownership something Yeah, through, you know, just even looking, looking something up on our website, and then talking to me about it. He does not say, I can’t get that out of them.
Brenda 33:52
Does he want to go to college? Would that be a better place to start than expecting him to be looking at college tours?
Susan 33:59
Would it be realistic?
Brenda 34:01
you saying or would it be a better place to start a conversation with him around? Hey, what are your thoughts about college? Versus Hey, have you have you looked in scheduled college tours?
Susan 34:13
Oh, yeah, I do say that. And then he shuts down or walks away. So maybe the expectation is that he stays in the room and has conversation about it.
Brenda 34:24
Does he know that he has an option?
Susan 34:30
Yes, he does know that. Are you talking? Are you saying that? Like have we talked about it?
Brenda 34:36
Yeah, like Does he feel like if he says you know mom, I don’t think four-year colleges for me next year. Does he know that that’s going to be an okay conversation to have?
Susan 34:49
Yeah, I’m just encouraging trade school. I’m encouraging them to look into like a music intensive course or something, you know, just anything that interests him. And that counselor he meets with, that’s kind of a lot of the conversation they have, that I’m hearing from her as like, because he feels that that’s, that’s safer. If he’s sitting there with a therapist, it’s safer to talk to her about future options versus drug use. It uses up the time in a way where he doesn’t have to approach the things he doesn’t want to talk about. Right. So I know that he has his conversations, and he knows, he does know I’m okay with if he wants to take a gap year, or I think, probably what one thing I can do is just make it super clear what my boundaries are, because I haven’t quite figured that out with every new thing, because he’s the oldest kid, every new stage of life that comes along, I have to figure out how I feel about it. Where I’m gonna dig in and where I’m gonna be flexible.
Brenda 35:55
Yeah. So that’s, that’s great that he knows. Because sometimes kids don’t know that, right? They feel like wow, the only option that I have after high school is college, or my parents are going to freak out. So like you said, sometimes it takes some somebody else to have very extreme behavior before you will do anything or to respond. So it seems like this could be one of those opportunities to get ahead of that. And just like you said, Be really clear about your expectations about your boundaries. Because if, if you can, and we won’t get to it today, but if you can spend some time thinking about what is that scenario in which you and he
Brenda 36:43
are living together, and you are feeling okay, because you’re seeing these things go on in his life. He’s going to school He’s working. He’s, you know, he’s not sitting down and like planning out his PhD. But he is looking at what kind of music programs are out there. He’s taking some ownership and again, that prefrontal cortex is, yeah, is not there. But so that’s the kind of goal would be to get to a pretty clear picture of what that looks like, so that you could communicate that to him and say, Hey, kiddo, here’s, here’s what I really need to see. So that I am not nagging you, because that’s the goal is that you can live in harmony, right? That, yes, you can have that relationship. And if he’s like, Oh, I had no idea that that was like, I didn’t know you wanted me to do that, then it’s really unfair to be expecting that of him through osmosis.
Susan 37:46
Well, you’re supposed to, even though I haven’t figured it out myself, you’re supposed to know what I want. Right?
Brenda 37:50
Right. So if that feels doable to you, it seems like for you in the next few weeks, to just take the time to figure out what that is for you. Right? You don’t have to even start communicating anything to him necessarily. If you can, in little doses, maybe that’s great. You could even tell them, hey, you know, I’m really working on what I can live with, like, I’m working on myself. And then we’ll have a cup. We’re gonna have a conversation in a few weeks. But you know, just so that he sees like, oh, my gosh, my mom’s doing this work, too. Yeah.
Susan 38:27
And oh, what’s that gonna mean?
Brenda 38:29
Right. But, but that may be a little bit of a smoother on ramp for him to know, oh, my mom’s doing some work. She is trying to figure out some stuff about herself. And then that just makes it a little bit less like you telling him what to do. And it’s more of a we’re working through this together. You know, I’ve never been the parent of a 17 and a half-year-old before. Yeah, let’s do this together. Let’s figure this out. Yeah. Okay. You know, yes, that’s good. So, the change as far as you know, what you would like to see change, you talked about really wanting to be able to have those conversations. So does it seem reasonable in the next few weeks, just kind of open that conversation in the car, like we talked about, like, this is super awkward for me. And I don’t want to ruin this time. But I would love to have these conversations kind of using the information sandwich. Does that sound like something you think you could do?
Susan 39:29
Yes, I can do that. Kind of write it out to make sure that I know.
Brenda 39:34
And you can always practice too, with a friend or practice with when you’re girls or practice with, you know, whoever somebody in the stream like you can. Sometimes if you just talk through it also, verbally like get it. Yeah, words out of your mouth. That can help, isn’t it? It’s body language, right? And it’s like, it just helps the whole conversation. And then I would just encourage you spend a little bit of time coming up with that scenario of what you could live with. And I think that will really help you get crystal clear on Oh, these are my expectations. Kind of the bare minimum expectations too, right? Because, yeah, you, we have standards. And you can’t see me because my hands way up here. But if we have standards that are at our eyebrows, and we have expectations that may need to for a while, while we’re working on things be lower than that. I could live with this, I might not be thrilled. And I might not be you know, like writing to everybody about it. But I could live with this. And it would let me sleep better at night and not question myself. And then we can always move up from there.
Susan 40:51
I am already living with marijuana use can’t smoke in the house. That’s kind of the boundary that I that I have. But that is already happening. But the fact that I want that to change, I that’s where I’m kind of confused on where that comes in, like what can you live with? And what are you living with that you’re really not okay with that?
Brenda 41:15
Right? And so and that would be where you would just need to ask yourself, if he was taking ownership of some of the stuff for the future, if he was going to classes, if he was working, if he was still playing his guitar if he was participating in family events. Like if he was doing all of those things, and he had a good attitude. You know, for the most part, I mean, teenagers are teenagers, but for the most part, he had a good attitude. And he was smoking once a day. Could you live with that? And I know it’s hard because at a gut level, you’re like, No, I don’t want my kid putting that in his brain. And maybe one of the things that you need to see is that you are having conversations about it. You know, it’s like, okay, he’s smoking once a day, but we’re talking about it, and I’m understanding why he’s doing it. And, and it doesn’t have to be this big thing that we blow up about every time. So it’s it’s kind of finding the nuances of that as well. Yeah. Which is really tricky.
Susan 42:19
Again, like, you never know, I guess you never know if it’s enough
Brenda 42:24
And the other thing I would say, just from a practicality standpoint is if you at all suspect that he might be taking pills, then I would say work a drug test into the scenario for his safety. So you’re not saying, Hey, I’m gonna see if you’re smoking pot. Okay, you already know that’s happening. What I want to see is what is in that pot or what else might be in the system. And then if fentanyl shows up, if cocaine shows up, if any of those things show up, then that definitely becomes a different scenario. But if he truly is, and I hate saying this only smoked weed, which I know I hate saying that. It’s a different game, we just know that if he’s not getting it at a dispensary, which is probably not, there’s a good chance that there could be other stuff in it. So it’s, it’s less from a mom’s checking up on you to see if you’re doing drugs, it’s more about, I want to know what’s in what’s going into your body. Because, as you know, that is how we are losing kids. And so I, I would say if you’re gonna have that conversation with him to say, we’re doing this, it’s more like a product testing than it is anything else.
Susan 43:44
And let’s see what we can find. I know you did tell me that once before they didn’t follow through.
Brenda 43:49
Yeah, just because it’s Russian Roulette is a horrible thing. It’s not a are you a bad kid thing at all? It is you do not know what is going into the product that you’re consuming. If people were dropping dead from eating broccoli, we would test your broccoli. Right? Like that’s, that’s just where we are. Right?
Susan 44:13
That’s a good analogy.
Brenda 44:14
Yeah. So I would talk to him about that. Because if you are consistently then seen other things, then it would be, hey, let’s talk to an ed consultant who can really assess this because that’s what they’re trained to do. And to look at what resources are out there because then that might mean something else. But that would just give you a little bit of peace of mind as well, I think because that’s, I would imagine and I’ll ask you what the fear is like, what fear are you living with right now? And I’m guessing one of them is I’m going to lose my kid.
Susan 44:56
Yeah. I mean, that’s that fear is out there. For all of my kids knowing how, how prevalent fentanyl is out of the street drugs and the fact that they come in the form of things that look like candy. That is that’s always top of mind with him specifically, it’s, it’s also the much like, is he going to be irreparably burning out his brain? Right, you know, and trying to get him back on some healthier options for handling his emotions.
Brenda 45:34
Well, you have work to do. I know it’s a lot. I know, it’s a lot. Is there anything that sort of bubbled up for you while we were talking that you’re going to take forward or kind of sparked an idea that you’re like, oh, I should probably look into that more or just a takeaway comes to mind.
Susan 45:56
I think just being honest, just being straight up honest with why I keep bringing it up, you know, speaking from the heart that I’m truly worried. Yeah. And it’s not that he’s not a good kid. He’s a good kid. Yeah, I guess I’ll reinforce that too with him.
Brenda 46:17
Absolutely. I think taking it away from just because of fentanyl and everything that’s, that’s happening. They’re taking it away from a substance scenario like the broccoli or just something like that. So that he didn’t really understand this. Isn’t my mom coming down on me about drugs necessarily? It is this is such a poisonous substance that no matter what it would what it was impacting, we would test it. If it was your milk. Like if we knew that there was a 5050 chance that when you drink that glass of milk, you are going to die? Yeah, we would test it. Right? Yes, we would test it. And I would not feel guilty about it. Right? Like there would be zero guilt. So yeah, that’s what I keep trying to communicate to people is like this, there is no opportunity to not do this, it has to be done. Because it is just everywhere. And not to feel guilty about it. Because, you know, our member Elizabeth who did lose her son, and it wasn’t because she wasn’t testing or doing any of that, but it is real. It is so real. And so I know you feel that. And so I hope anybody would feel the empowerment to do that for our kids. For them. We’re not doing it to them. We are doing it for them.
Susan 47:44
Yeah. Yes. So that you can make smart informed choices.
Brenda 47:51
I mean, I’ve coached people who have told her 17 and a half year old okay, you know, for the next six months, we’re gonna get your if you can pay for I’m gonna go get it at a dispensary because that way I know it’s not going to have fentanyl in it. Right. So there’s harm reduction. So we can there’s lots of episodes too on harm reduction. But that is when I option if fentanyl is a fear, which it should be, then is there a safer way to at least start to make some change. Okay, well, at least getting pure product, would be a safer option. Then we can talk about stepping down and doing different things like that, right. So yes, it takes a lot of like, it’s a lot to think about. How are you feeling?
Susan 48:35
I feel good and having some steps that I can take.
Brenda 48:38
Well, we’ll check in with you. And you let me know how it’s going.
Susan 48:44
I will. Alright, thanks, Brenda.
Brenda
Thank you so much for listening. If you’d like to go to the show notes, you can always find those at www.brendazane.com/podcast, each episode is listed there with a full transcript, all of the resources that we mentioned, as well as a place to leave comments if you’d like to do that. You might also want to download a free ebook I wrote called hindsight. Three things I wish I knew when my son was addicted to drugs. It’s full of the information I wish I would have known when my son was struggling with his addiction. You can grab that at www.Brendazane.com/hindsight. Thanks again for listening and I will meet you right back here next week.
It’s another coaching episode, my friends, these are really meaningful to me, because the moms you hear in these episodes are all members in the stream or online community. And over time, I get to know them and their situations. And we sort of form a really special bond. So to be able to talk through things that they want to work on is such an honor. And I’m guessing that many of you will be able to relate to the topic that we’re going to discuss today, several topics, actually. And one of those is what are some things that you can do when your child is almost 18, they are actively smoking a lot of weed also drinking, also potentially doing other things. And they’re not really getting into a ton of trouble. But also, they’re not really taking ownership or responsibility for they’re very quickly approaching adulthood. So Susan is someone who is incredibly conscientious. She is a mom, who I would describe as being really on top of things. She’s incredibly aware, she is always looking for opportunities to learn. She has been a member in the stream for over a year and a half. And she has made some really big changes in her approach to her son in the way that she thinks about what he is doing. And it was an absolute pleasure to talk with her to spend a little bit of time working through some things, I know you want to hear it. So we are going to get right into it. So enjoy this coaching episode with Susan. If you want to just share a little bit about enough context for me to get kind of where you are as a family and what’s going on and sort of your main reason for wanting to connect on a coaching call.
Susan 02:36
Well, I have three kids, single mom, three kids, my oldest is 17 and a half. And he is the reason that I joined the stream. He is a junior in high school right now. And then I have two daughters, a 15-year-old and a 12-year-old. And my son started I noticed he started using around seventh or eighth grade. At that time, his dad was struggling with an addiction of his own. And so there was a lot of chaos in our house. And the impact that had on me was I was you know, brain fog galore and couldn’t organize and just just kind of like trying to keep up day to day as well as I could. But it was just a very hard time for the family as a whole. And it affected each of our kids differently.
Susan 03:29
My son, I think went the route of escaping, you know, and, and that could be the age too, I always hear that that’s about the age, they start to kind of like band off with their friends. And if they’re gonna get in trouble, that’s when it’s gonna happen. So those two things happened at the same time. And I noticed him starting he dropped out of sports. So sports friends were no longer part of his life. The group of friends he was hanging around with were still kids that he knew growing up, they just were kids that he hadn’t been spending as much time with, I would find evidence of, you know, like pop cans in the backyard that have little holes punctured in them that firm for smoking and empty bottles in his bedroom and vaping cartridges and things like that. I knew so you know, the conflict was ramping up and up and up.
Susan 04:25
And he also was withdrawn and a lot of a lot more anger and pushing back on the rules a lot more and his dad and I got divorced when he was like toward the end of eighth grade. And it just was kind of like a downward spiral at that point too. He would do something get grounded and then leave anyway. So I felt like I had no control. I couldn’t take his phone because that was his contact his way of contacting his dad. And so having that be all new that was always thrown back at me like if you take me I found a way that I can’t contact my dad and you can’t take away my connection to my dad, you know, I felt like I had very little control. And I did not handle that, well, it just kept getting more and more ridiculous.
Susan 05:13
I took the screws off of his door and took his bedroom door away, this big, heavy six panel door, I hauled down to the garage, he put it back up while I was asleep. I took it down again, I came to get the screwdriver and take it down again. And then we got in a little scuffle. And we were I was on the floor and we were wrestling over a screwdriver. My daughters were watching that happen is just like, the conflict was just escalating like crazy. So we had a few sort of bad therapy experiences. And I, I brought him so it was like pulling teeth to try to get him to bring him to an assessment, pulling out every bribe or threat that I could think of to get him out of the car and into the building. And then only to find like, oh, no, this is just the initial screening. And we send you to a different place from here. You know, that happened twice. And it just made me want to die.
Susan 06:14
The second time it happened. It was a young therapist, and I could tell that she could see the fact that I was about to jump across the table and grab her when I yeah, I did it. But it was so that and then and then COVID happened. And I finally did get him to agree to do an outpatient program. But it was only on Zoom. And he lasted for 20 minutes and then cut out and said no, this isn’t for me. I’m not doing it. And then we had, we had another therapy attempt to where it was it was going to be assess an assessment at a new place. And the therapist right off the bat started, like shaming and just laying into him. And I was just like, oh my gosh, are we it’s just bad experiences with the people that you go to that you trust that you feel like should know what they’re doing. Yeah, if you’re going to them for help, and they just make it worse. And that made it worse, I could not get them to talk to anybody else.
Susan 07:17
After that for months, finally did get him to another place. And this was at a time when he was running away quite a bit. And he had just recently been picked up by the police and brought back home, just smoking pot in the park with a friend. And I grounded him, he ran away at this therapeutic clinic, the director told me, so he’s a runaway, so you have to call the police and bring them back. And it just felt like the insanity was starting again with these people. And I already lost trust with therapists. I used to just think that they knew it all. And I will just tell them what to do. And I’ll do it.
Susan 08:00
But after those bad experiences, I’m like, maybe this isn’t maybe I don’t have to listen to these people. Maybe I should just think through a little bit what is the best, really the best situation. And so I just called our city police. And I said, this is what I was told to do. Just out of curiosity, what would happen if I did call you to go if my son ran away, and you know, and it was kind of a? Well, he hasn’t been gone for 24 hours, and we can go track him down. But we can’t really do anything. I’m glad that I checked it out in advance before I made the call because it would have just I feel like it would have just taken us down this bad path to make it even worse, you know, yeah, like going back and picturing in my head struggling over the screwdriver going down that path again. And so I called you know, I did get the county had services.
Susan 08:53
So I called to get county services to come and just show up at our house. And it was just these two guys. And they’re very nonthreatening. And we’re just here to talk, your mom’s worried about you. And I explained to my son at that time that I was told to call the police to come after him. I thought he was going to just zip out the door right there. But these guys were very calming. And for some reason he stayed and listened and agreed to talk to a counselor who would come into our home once a week. We did that for a while and it kind of got to the point where he felt like he was being ganged up on. And eventually I I was kind of mentally breaking. And I had a meltdown in my doctor’s office at a checkup. And she’s the one that kind of encouraged me to look into like alternative models. Yes, you address this and that turned me on to a parent group that like a local parent group that was supporting it. folks before doing kind of like the beyond working through the beyond addiction book and kind of a nontraditional treatment center, they don’t treat adolescents. But she said that I could be part of the parent group. And so that helped a lot. And it was actually like, you know, eight other family concern family members. And we just talk through scenarios and work through kind of the different steps beyond addiction, to learn how to put those, those ideas into practice. And that actually was the first step into like me deciding, I do have some control, I can control how this plays out somewhat. And I’ll accept what I can’t control. For now. Do as much as I can, you know, that kind of started me on the path for that, where my son is at today is, he’s going to school. He does, all right, he shows up, he is well behaved at school. I know he’s, he smokes marijuana multiple times a day, still.
Susan 11:06
And I am totally aware of all the concerns there with how strong marijuana has these days, versus how it used to be, I know that it’s not, it’s not a good thing for him to continue. I talked to him about it, we can occasionally get conversations, he has a job he will engage with. He talks to a school counselor, every about every two or three weeks, just kind of check-in and her thing is like he doesn’t want to be labeled with anxiety, for some reason that doesn’t bad word for him. So she says we’re just doing stress management. So that’s her focus with him. She does try to talk about drug use every once in a while and he doesn’t, he kind of shuts down, he’s very good at shutting down when topics get out of control for him, and or when he feels uncomfortable. So right now I am I’m sitting at a place where I feel like the clock is ticking because he’s 17 and a half. And if I ever was going to take an aggressive move, an extreme move that this is kind of my last chance to decide. And I just worry about regretting looking back and saying I wish I went up because I know a mom who says that, and I’m blessed her son says that. So that comes to mind all the time. That am I doing enough. I always will wait until I wait till actions are extreme on the part of other people before I before I step in, and step up and take action. So I’m all ears, Brenda,
Brenda 12:56
wow. So amazing that you can go through and sort of articulate all of that, that has happened. And you seem to have really good contacts, like you’ve been able to kind of step back and observe. And I’ve seen that in you since you became a member in the community a long time ago. And I’ve seen that really shift in you have not been less caught up in it. Like you said, less fewer screwdriver scenarios, more ability to observe and say this is what’s going on around me. And yeah, sometimes you get pulled in. And sometimes you do end up doing or saying things that you would prefer you didn’t. However, you’ve done a really great job of using those craft skills that you’ve learned. And I know we’ve talked about it in the past, sometimes it can feel like while not doing enough, you know, like, and that’s that can be true with craft because you aren’t yelling and screaming and kicking them out. And, you know, doing all of these things that typically from the outside looking in, people might go, Whoa, what is she doing?
Brenda 14:12
But I guess what I would say first of all, is you’re dealing with a full deck of cards because you’re a single mom, so you don’t have that support day to day of a partner being with you in your home, to support you to give you a break to say hey, go check out for 24 hours you don’t have that. You also have your ex-husband’s addiction and the impact that had on your kids and your especially your son. So there’s that and I don’t know what the current situation is with that but if that’s still going on, you know, causes issues as well. And then you just have the teenage guy thing, right?
Susan 15:00
And that’s kind of what I’m always trying to weigh like is this. This is kind of how I was in high school. I mean, I wasn’t a teenage guy. But as a teenager, I wasn’t super. As a junior. Yeah, I planned on going to college, but I wasn’t super engaged in planning my future and making a lot of money and trying to find internship or resume building quality jobs, you know, I kind of just wanted to hang out with my friends and work and work and just get a little bit of enough money to have some spending money. And you know, right, you don’t have a ton of ambition, either.
Brenda 15:39
So on the one hand, you’re looking at, like, what he’s doing and trying to assess, is this normal? Is this okay? Is it not? Okay? Does this warrant more action? So it’s a, it’s a very confusing thing to observe. And I’m glad that you are in that observation mode. A couple of questions, what is your communication with each other, like,
Susan 16:04
we’re pretty cordial to each other, it’s pretty surface, like we don’t get into a lot of deep topics, when I do try to try to press him for information and like, talking about next year and future plans. He’s only got, you know, one after first trimester, he’s got enough credits to graduate. And so what are we going to do with that open time, you know, he kind of just shuts down. And I don’t blame him. Because mom’s push, I’m definitely one that will push a bunch of ideas on them and kind of overwhelm. So I have to check that, but we have a pretty good relationship and that he knows, he can come and tell me things and that I won’t go crazy.
Brenda 16:47
Do you think that he sees you as a safe space to be able to say, Wow, if something bad’s going down, the lens I look at it through is they’ll either think I gotta make sure my mom doesn’t find out. Versus I gotta call my mom. And obviously, that is on the situation, right? And the severity of it, but in general, would you say that he feels like I gotta call my mom.
Susan 17:16
I think he does feel like that.
Brenda 17:18
Yeah, that’s huge. That’s huge. You’ve created that. And you’ve created that by not freaking out. Right and having a separate space. Do you have a therapist of your own?
Susan 18:33
I do. I I haven’t been talking to him very much. But I do. Okay. He’s helped a ton in the past.
Brenda 18:41
So at least, sometimes he feels like that. And I just want to recognize how huge that is. Because you you might not see that that is a big deal. That is a big deal for him to be able to talk with you like that. So his communication with you, at least you’re communicating. It’s not, you know, total silence or I hate you, mom. Kind of all of that.
Susan 19:09
Okay. No, like yesterday, he came in the kitchen in the morning, and I said good morning. And he’s like, what, what did I do? But I look at that kind of thing. As that’s just normal teenager, you know? Yes. Was just that’s a cranky kid. Yeah, if you want to go
Brenda 19:28
and especially if there is conflict sometimes and he knows that he’s doing stuff that he shouldn’t be doing. And so there’s he’s got that filter as well. Like, oh, wait a minute, you know, is this is a Citrix. So I think it’s so great that you’re doing that that you are recognizing just the day to day because sometimes what can happen is when our kids are struggling, our 100% of our focus just immediately like route goes right into that and that is all we talked about. That’s all we communicate about and I know we’ve talked about that a lot, you’ve done a lot of our workshops and, and so we really try to expand our conversations. So that’s amazing. The other question I would have is about, does he does it feel like he has a lot of anger? Does he express a lot of anger?
Susan 20:18
No, occasionally he’ll blow up. And he actually like retreats. More than anything, he’ll retreat to his room, he plays bass guitar, and is kind of obsessed with that. And so that’s always his, his sort of thing that comforts him. We’ve had a few explosions, probably in the last year, maybe two. And it’s really like yelling, being at a door, maybe, and then he’ll slam his door and Vinos room. And that was over things like somebody didn’t walk the dog when they were supposed to, or you know, little things that wouldn’t normally cause a huge reaction like that. In so that’s where I kind of think this has got to be something that’s like he’s in with either withdrawal or get a hold of something bad that’s not sitting well with him, or, you know, some kind of drug related thing
Brenda 21:13
could be, or it could just be if he’s a stuffer, when you stuff for so long, then there’s no more room. And so it just has to come out. Right. So. So that also could be or it could be a combination. So but it doesn’t sound like that is the norm, which is also a positive. So there, so there’s some positives, and you said he’s going to school, he is going to work. He’s seen a counselor, now and then. So obviously, I’m not a therapist, and I’m not a Ed consultant. So like, I wouldn’t be sitting here trying to assess whether he should go to treatment or not. But what I’d like to do is, figure out with you and do some brainstorming around, how can we get you to a place where you feel better about? Either I’m making the right decisions? Or I’m not or I’m moving in the right direction? Or I’m not.
Brenda 22:04
And so, kind of leaning into that. I’ll ask you two questions, and you can take time to think about these. The first is what would you most like to see happen? There change? And then also, what can you live with? They’re a little challenging to answer sometimes. So that’s why I’m saying feel free to take a few minutes to think. Because you, you know, because we’ve worked so much on this is that you can’t control him. And you know that, and I think you always have that lens. So given that it’s helpful to understand what can you live with? And then what would you really like to see change, and it’s more change in you, because you have control over that. versus changing him, which you don’t have control over, you have a little bit of control, because you still got these six months or so where you could make a decision to force treatment. And we can talk about that, too. I’m gonna talk about that in a few minutes. But let’s go back to the change and what you can live with.
Susan 23:20
Right? I’m just trying to think through because when you say what would I like to see different? My, my head always goes to Well, I want him to blah, blah, blah. And I know that it’s not for him to do something, it’s for me to do something. I mean, I guess I would like to see a conversation of a real conversation, where I’ve said this to him. I’ve said, I can never be okay, I know you’re smoking every day, I can never be okay with it. And I just I want you to think about what the downsides may be. And know that when you want to change, I’m here to help you. I’ll help you get the help you need. You know, and he just, you know, he just says, okay, just leave it at that. But like, at least I got that out to him. And what I would like to see is just my own, like kind of honing my own ability to do that in a less awkward way. You know what I mean?
Brenda 24:28
Yes, I know, those conversations are very awkward.
Susan 24:31
Yeah, it’s like crickets afterward. And yeah, it also kind of kills the mood. There’s very few opportunities where his sisters aren’t around, and it’s just me and him. And we have that time right now. And we’re driving to music lessons that I don’t like to ruin with mom lecture. Right? But at the same time, it’s it’s got to be woven in somewhere, somehow. Yeah. Again, So that’s one thing that I can control is just more practice with how to bring that up in a more natural way.
Brenda 25:06
Let me just pop in there for a second. Because I think that’s so huge that you’ve been able to put that out there, even if it was only once and it was really awkward and it killed the vibe in that he was like whatever mom and walked away, it is out there. And he knows that that’s out there. And so that’s a really, really big thing. And I think what that also showed him is, again, you be in that safe place, like okay, this is a conversation I could have with my mom, because a lot of kids are like in a million years, I would never even utter the word weed to my mom, right? Like, that’s just so you’ve opened that door, and you did it in such a great way and saying I could never be okay with it. But I am here for you if you want to make a change and trying to get him to think about some of those things. So that’s a huge step. And it is just going to be awkward, because it just is until you get you know, until you do it a little bit more. And you’re taking advantage sometimes of those drives to music, which I know are precious, and you really don’t want to drop a bomb in the nose.
Brenda 26:17
So I’m just wondering, could you use those then as an opportunity to be very vulnerable with him? And just share what you just shared with me to say, I don’t do call them like, dude, or can I usually say, kiddo? Like, I really loved the fact that I that we could talk about some of this stuff. It’s really awkward for me. It’s really, really awkward for me as a mom, and I don’t want to kill the vibe that we have in the few times that we have together. Because that’s not my intent. I’m just wondering, would it be possible every now and then, for us to have a little bit of a conversation about this, if I promise that I’m not going to freak out and I’m not going to make it really heavy? And I’m not going to come down on you. And you’re really coming at it from that place of curiosity? Because what you shared with me sounded so like, oh, yeah, I totally get that. And he’s probably thinking the same thing. Honestly, he’s probably thinking, man, be kind of nice to talk to my mom sometimes. But it’s, it’s also like, I don’t know what her response is going to be right? What do you think would be his reaction? If you shared what you just shared with me?
Susan 27:30
Yeah. So it’s kind of like asking for permission to talk about it.
Brenda 27:34
Yeah, and just telling them the, the honest truth is, this is super awkward for me. And I really don’t want to kill a good vibe that we have one music. And he may say, well then do talk about it. And then, okay, then you come at it from another angle. But the way that you said that it was just so true and real, that it just feels like it could be an approach away in with him to just see what his response might be.
Susan 28:06
It’s gonna be like what you said. I do know that. But I also know that sometimes you say things, and you get that reaction, but it still sinks in somehow. And maybe in like, you know, six months. I try again. Yeah, sometimes.
Brenda 28:25
And if that is his response, ooh, do you know the dude bring it up? Then you can say, Okay, I respect that. Right. It’s that information sandwich. And we’ve talked about that in the workshops, too, you know, the asking permission, being really honest about it, and then also respecting his decision not to talk about it, then. And then you can say, Okay, this isn’t a great time, when would be a good time for us? Or could you create a different opportunity? So that you do have a couple of hours and, and you’re not kind of encroaching on that time going to music? You know, so just like, okay, got it. This isn’t the time, let me know when a good time would be because I really am curious about what’s going on with you. You don’t have to say I really want to talk about you smoking weed. I’m really curious about what’s going on with you. And I’d love to have a little bit of time with you. Does that sound doable?
Susan 29:23
Yeah. Yes, that does. And then just even getting a little bit of time to talk about, like life next year, his plans what his goals are, and kind of weaving it in that way. Maybe
Brenda 29:37
totally his music like What are you playing? I think it’s so great that you’ve and I know this, that you’ve really fostered and use his music and his guitar as a positive reward. And that’s such a great thing, such a great outlet for him to especially if, if he does have anxiety, it’s probably a real good way for him to just get some of that out. Yeah. So, yeah, I love that. What about when you think of a scenario of him? Let’s just call it for the next six months while he’s, you know, before he turns 18. What is a scenario? Other than he’s clean and sober. And he’s, you know, working volunteering at the animal shelter, like keeping it somewhat realistic, what’s the scenario that you could live with? With him?
Susan 30:32
I would love to have to see him, like, take initiative on at least setting up college visits a couple of college campus visits or looking into some kind of a post secondary plan, thinking beyond the next two weeks of his life. He’s what he’s planning. He’s planning his summer concerts that he’s going to go to this summer. So like, like thinking beyond that into something that’s acknowledging? Yeah, I do have to kind of progress a little bit and have some responsibility.
Brenda 31:09
Right. So I’m gonna switch that around a little bit back to you to say I couldn’t live with seeing him doing some planning. And you also know that the prefrontal cortex that’s not developed yet is the part of his body that is responsible for that.
Susan 31:25
Yeah. So yes, they do.
Brenda 31:29
Yeah, just setting expectation out of fantasyland. Yes. No, but that’s okay. Because what we’re trying to get to is something that you could then communicate to him because this is basically these are sort of your boundaries, right to say, I could live with you doing some planning, I can live with it. If you were smoking once a day, at the end of the day, or I could live with it if you were doing you know, THC gummies, instead of AB like, we’re trying to get to a scenario where what evidence do you need to see and him to say, I can live with this? Does that make sense?
Susan 32:07
Yeah. Yeah. It’s hard. It’s hard because it feels like or hard. It feels like you’re signing off on I’m okay with you smoking pot, once a day instead of
Brenda 32:20
in that, and that’s just 100% my example. But I’m not saying that. You’re should be.
Brenda Zane 32:25
But that’s, that’s always my struggle. But so what will I be okay with,
Brenda 32:30
like, what would have to be going on in his life to give you the confidence to say, okay, I can sleep at night, and I’m not freaking out thinking I should be calling a wilderness therapy company. That’s kind of where,
Susan 32:43
okay, what would be going on in his life, he’d be either working or taking classes through next year,
Brenda 32:54
even though he doesn’t need to.
Susan 32:57
Yeah, enjoy. They can take classes and then accounts for college credit. Something like that. Maybe if I saw him asking questions. About You know, how do you even decide? Or how do you go about scheduling a college visit? How are you even investigating, acknowledging it in some way that the future is coming? Whether you like it or not? adulting is is right around the corner? Yeah. Yeah. If I could take in some ownership, maybe ownership something Yeah, through, you know, just even looking, looking something up on our website, and then talking to me about it. He does not say, I can’t get that out of them.
Brenda 33:52
Does he want to go to college? Would that be a better place to start than expecting him to be looking at college tours?
Susan 33:59
Would it be realistic?
Brenda 34:01
you saying or would it be a better place to start a conversation with him around? Hey, what are your thoughts about college? Versus Hey, have you have you looked in scheduled college tours?
Susan 34:13
Oh, yeah, I do say that. And then he shuts down or walks away. So maybe the expectation is that he stays in the room and has conversation about it.
Brenda 34:24
Does he know that he has an option?
Susan 34:30
Yes, he does know that. Are you talking? Are you saying that? Like have we talked about it?
Brenda 34:36
Yeah, like Does he feel like if he says you know mom, I don’t think four-year colleges for me next year. Does he know that that’s going to be an okay conversation to have?
Susan 34:49
Yeah, I’m just encouraging trade school. I’m encouraging them to look into like a music intensive course or something, you know, just anything that interests him. And that counselor he meets with, that’s kind of a lot of the conversation they have, that I’m hearing from her as like, because he feels that that’s, that’s safer. If he’s sitting there with a therapist, it’s safer to talk to her about future options versus drug use. It uses up the time in a way where he doesn’t have to approach the things he doesn’t want to talk about. Right. So I know that he has his conversations, and he knows, he does know I’m okay with if he wants to take a gap year, or I think, probably what one thing I can do is just make it super clear what my boundaries are, because I haven’t quite figured that out with every new thing, because he’s the oldest kid, every new stage of life that comes along, I have to figure out how I feel about it. Where I’m gonna dig in and where I’m gonna be flexible.
Brenda 35:55
Yeah. So that’s, that’s great that he knows. Because sometimes kids don’t know that, right? They feel like wow, the only option that I have after high school is college, or my parents are going to freak out. So like you said, sometimes it takes some somebody else to have very extreme behavior before you will do anything or to respond. So it seems like this could be one of those opportunities to get ahead of that. And just like you said, Be really clear about your expectations about your boundaries. Because if, if you can, and we won’t get to it today, but if you can spend some time thinking about what is that scenario in which you and he
Brenda 36:43
are living together, and you are feeling okay, because you’re seeing these things go on in his life. He’s going to school He’s working. He’s, you know, he’s not sitting down and like planning out his PhD. But he is looking at what kind of music programs are out there. He’s taking some ownership and again, that prefrontal cortex is, yeah, is not there. But so that’s the kind of goal would be to get to a pretty clear picture of what that looks like, so that you could communicate that to him and say, Hey, kiddo, here’s, here’s what I really need to see. So that I am not nagging you, because that’s the goal is that you can live in harmony, right? That, yes, you can have that relationship. And if he’s like, Oh, I had no idea that that was like, I didn’t know you wanted me to do that, then it’s really unfair to be expecting that of him through osmosis.
Susan 37:46
Well, you’re supposed to, even though I haven’t figured it out myself, you’re supposed to know what I want. Right?
Brenda 37:50
Right. So if that feels doable to you, it seems like for you in the next few weeks, to just take the time to figure out what that is for you. Right? You don’t have to even start communicating anything to him necessarily. If you can, in little doses, maybe that’s great. You could even tell them, hey, you know, I’m really working on what I can live with, like, I’m working on myself. And then we’ll have a cup. We’re gonna have a conversation in a few weeks. But you know, just so that he sees like, oh, my gosh, my mom’s doing this work, too. Yeah.
Susan 38:27
And oh, what’s that gonna mean?
Brenda 38:29
Right. But, but that may be a little bit of a smoother on ramp for him to know, oh, my mom’s doing some work. She is trying to figure out some stuff about herself. And then that just makes it a little bit less like you telling him what to do. And it’s more of a we’re working through this together. You know, I’ve never been the parent of a 17 and a half-year-old before. Yeah, let’s do this together. Let’s figure this out. Yeah. Okay. You know, yes, that’s good. So, the change as far as you know, what you would like to see change, you talked about really wanting to be able to have those conversations. So does it seem reasonable in the next few weeks, just kind of open that conversation in the car, like we talked about, like, this is super awkward for me. And I don’t want to ruin this time. But I would love to have these conversations kind of using the information sandwich. Does that sound like something you think you could do?
Susan 39:29
Yes, I can do that. Kind of write it out to make sure that I know.
Brenda 39:34
And you can always practice too, with a friend or practice with when you’re girls or practice with, you know, whoever somebody in the stream like you can. Sometimes if you just talk through it also, verbally like get it. Yeah, words out of your mouth. That can help, isn’t it? It’s body language, right? And it’s like, it just helps the whole conversation. And then I would just encourage you spend a little bit of time coming up with that scenario of what you could live with. And I think that will really help you get crystal clear on Oh, these are my expectations. Kind of the bare minimum expectations too, right? Because, yeah, you, we have standards. And you can’t see me because my hands way up here. But if we have standards that are at our eyebrows, and we have expectations that may need to for a while, while we’re working on things be lower than that. I could live with this, I might not be thrilled. And I might not be you know, like writing to everybody about it. But I could live with this. And it would let me sleep better at night and not question myself. And then we can always move up from there.
Susan 40:51
I am already living with marijuana use can’t smoke in the house. That’s kind of the boundary that I that I have. But that is already happening. But the fact that I want that to change, I that’s where I’m kind of confused on where that comes in, like what can you live with? And what are you living with that you’re really not okay with that?
Brenda 41:15
Right? And so and that would be where you would just need to ask yourself, if he was taking ownership of some of the stuff for the future, if he was going to classes, if he was working, if he was still playing his guitar if he was participating in family events. Like if he was doing all of those things, and he had a good attitude. You know, for the most part, I mean, teenagers are teenagers, but for the most part, he had a good attitude. And he was smoking once a day. Could you live with that? And I know it’s hard because at a gut level, you’re like, No, I don’t want my kid putting that in his brain. And maybe one of the things that you need to see is that you are having conversations about it. You know, it’s like, okay, he’s smoking once a day, but we’re talking about it, and I’m understanding why he’s doing it. And, and it doesn’t have to be this big thing that we blow up about every time. So it’s it’s kind of finding the nuances of that as well. Yeah. Which is really tricky.
Susan 42:19
Again, like, you never know, I guess you never know if it’s enough
Brenda 42:24
And the other thing I would say, just from a practicality standpoint is if you at all suspect that he might be taking pills, then I would say work a drug test into the scenario for his safety. So you’re not saying, Hey, I’m gonna see if you’re smoking pot. Okay, you already know that’s happening. What I want to see is what is in that pot or what else might be in the system. And then if fentanyl shows up, if cocaine shows up, if any of those things show up, then that definitely becomes a different scenario. But if he truly is, and I hate saying this only smoked weed, which I know I hate saying that. It’s a different game, we just know that if he’s not getting it at a dispensary, which is probably not, there’s a good chance that there could be other stuff in it. So it’s, it’s less from a mom’s checking up on you to see if you’re doing drugs, it’s more about, I want to know what’s in what’s going into your body. Because, as you know, that is how we are losing kids. And so I, I would say if you’re gonna have that conversation with him to say, we’re doing this, it’s more like a product testing than it is anything else.
Susan 43:44
And let’s see what we can find. I know you did tell me that once before they didn’t follow through.
Brenda 43:49
Yeah, just because it’s Russian Roulette is a horrible thing. It’s not a are you a bad kid thing at all? It is you do not know what is going into the product that you’re consuming. If people were dropping dead from eating broccoli, we would test your broccoli. Right? Like that’s, that’s just where we are. Right?
Susan 44:13
That’s a good analogy.
Brenda 44:14
Yeah. So I would talk to him about that. Because if you are consistently then seen other things, then it would be, hey, let’s talk to an ed consultant who can really assess this because that’s what they’re trained to do. And to look at what resources are out there because then that might mean something else. But that would just give you a little bit of peace of mind as well, I think because that’s, I would imagine and I’ll ask you what the fear is like, what fear are you living with right now? And I’m guessing one of them is I’m going to lose my kid.
Susan 44:56
Yeah. I mean, that’s that fear is out there. For all of my kids knowing how, how prevalent fentanyl is out of the street drugs and the fact that they come in the form of things that look like candy. That is that’s always top of mind with him specifically, it’s, it’s also the much like, is he going to be irreparably burning out his brain? Right, you know, and trying to get him back on some healthier options for handling his emotions.
Brenda 45:34
Well, you have work to do. I know it’s a lot. I know, it’s a lot. Is there anything that sort of bubbled up for you while we were talking that you’re going to take forward or kind of sparked an idea that you’re like, oh, I should probably look into that more or just a takeaway comes to mind.
Susan 45:56
I think just being honest, just being straight up honest with why I keep bringing it up, you know, speaking from the heart that I’m truly worried. Yeah. And it’s not that he’s not a good kid. He’s a good kid. Yeah, I guess I’ll reinforce that too with him.
Brenda 46:17
Absolutely. I think taking it away from just because of fentanyl and everything that’s, that’s happening. They’re taking it away from a substance scenario like the broccoli or just something like that. So that he didn’t really understand this. Isn’t my mom coming down on me about drugs necessarily? It is this is such a poisonous substance that no matter what it would what it was impacting, we would test it. If it was your milk. Like if we knew that there was a 5050 chance that when you drink that glass of milk, you are going to die? Yeah, we would test it. Right? Yes, we would test it. And I would not feel guilty about it. Right? Like there would be zero guilt. So yeah, that’s what I keep trying to communicate to people is like this, there is no opportunity to not do this, it has to be done. Because it is just everywhere. And not to feel guilty about it. Because, you know, our member Elizabeth who did lose her son, and it wasn’t because she wasn’t testing or doing any of that, but it is real. It is so real. And so I know you feel that. And so I hope anybody would feel the empowerment to do that for our kids. For them. We’re not doing it to them. We are doing it for them.
Susan 47:44
Yeah. Yes. So that you can make smart informed choices.
Brenda 47:51
I mean, I’ve coached people who have told her 17 and a half year old okay, you know, for the next six months, we’re gonna get your if you can pay for I’m gonna go get it at a dispensary because that way I know it’s not going to have fentanyl in it. Right. So there’s harm reduction. So we can there’s lots of episodes too on harm reduction. But that is when I option if fentanyl is a fear, which it should be, then is there a safer way to at least start to make some change. Okay, well, at least getting pure product, would be a safer option. Then we can talk about stepping down and doing different things like that, right. So yes, it takes a lot of like, it’s a lot to think about. How are you feeling?
Susan 48:35
I feel good and having some steps that I can take.
Brenda 48:38
Well, we’ll check in with you. And you let me know how it’s going.
Susan 48:44
I will. Alright, thanks, Brenda.
Brenda
Thank you so much for listening. If you’d like to go to the show notes, you can always find those at www.brendazane.com/podcast, each episode is listed there with a full transcript, all of the resources that we mentioned, as well as a place to leave comments if you’d like to do that. You might also want to download a free ebook I wrote called hindsight. Three things I wish I knew when my son was addicted to drugs. It’s full of the information I wish I would have known when my son was struggling with his addiction. You can grab that at www.Brendazane.com/hindsight. Thanks again for listening and I will meet you right back here next week.
