Life, One Day at a Time (22 months)

[adinva]

I'm all counselored out today but I thought I'd record this while it's fresh in my mind. I had IC today and most of it we talked about the subsequent appointment with the substance abuse counselor and S15. It was helpful. In addition to being polarized by my H I have some secret ambivalence about this issue too because of just what 25 said. If I was 15 and someone told me do NOT smoke ANY pot for the next three years, I'd have said, OK sure, and not believed for one minute it was possible to commit to that. And that's just what my IC said, the AA way is to just say I won't do it TODAY. That idea takes a weight off my shoulders. Every day's a new day, and S15 can grow and learn and make mistakes and learn, but he doesn't have to promise something for 900 days that would be a lie. I also do realize that pot is different than it was in my day, and we know things about it that we didn't know then. I do realize that. Anyway, I have to wrestle all the way through this to figure out reasonable demands to place on S. So far I've been faking it by not being too specific, that our expectation is that it will not happen. Guess what, it did anyway. We have consequences in place, and that's how the boy learns, but I still need to sort it out better in my own head before I get caught not having the answers (I'm kidding sort of).

So the other part of IC was that H still hasn't gotten back to me to discuss S in a scheduled conversation as I requested last Saturday. He said Sunday or Monday, then Monday at 8. Monday I sat with him at lax and I'm NOT having those conversations at a lax game. After the game I said we're on for 8 but it's 6:30, want to just talk now and maybe get some food? And he said no let's do it another day. That right there was the problem. I love avoiding conflict as much as the next guy, but I should have said you agreed, it is important, if not today at 8 then when? I did not. And so IC said #1 is to be more strong in holding him to scheduled events, #2 document, #3 when he asks why he didn't know before about S15 sneaking out of the house and also seeing a counselor, refer to #2. I'm not handling this with him via text message.

So then I raced to get S15 and on the way there I told him something that was really important to me. I told him he had 100% amnesty for whatever he said in this appointment. He was NOT in trouble with me, and nothing he said would go to the police, the school, anyone. I said, if you had a brain tumor we'd go to the doctor and he'd need to know what you were experiencing with your head. In this case, the counselor needs to know completely honestly what you're doing, in order to get a good picture of what's going on and what you might need. I said I would be no more mad if you said you did nothing and it's all your friends' stuff as if you said you're a strung out drug addict dealing on the side. (For this meeting that is true. Honesty and reality was the goal here.) I also told him people have told me it usually takes a few meetings for someone to open up and really feel comfortable to share information; I was hoping to ramp that up by reducing his potential fears upfront, since it would be easier if we could just be honest in the first meeting. Then we got lunch, and then we met the counselor.

So, she met with us both, and then with just S15. She had him do a self assessment, and a pee test. I'm glad I didn't know about that in advance. (I believe that is very intrusive and I just don't like the idea of it, but because we're at this point I think it's necessary. I just wish it were not.) It was positive, but I was assuming it would be anyway. Just for pot, not any of the other 10 things they test for.

After spending quite a bit of time with us she said her opinion was that treatment was not necessary at this time, but preventative measures were recommended. He is on the borderline between casual use and abuse. He thinks it's not much but she felt the frequency was more of a problem than he thought. We talked about how some people get addicted quickly and you just don't know which ones. We talked about the 100 or so kids she's seen from our county since she was contracted in November, all of whom have gotten caught by the school and gotten in big trouble. We talked about how the other kids know when you get suspended and have to go to the "alternative school" for 40 days. We talked about things he could cite as reasons for abstaining: his crazy wack-job mother, his asthma, etc. She said that the preventative counselor would be able to give him other coping tools and things to say, and practice saying them, if he's willing to meet with her.

I told S15 I see this just like I would a medical issue. I care and am concerned, and want to do what is needed to make sure he grows up healthy and safe. He's really not in trouble for the pot right now, but we need to find a way that is effective to get him away from it. The C said she definitely did not see this as an over the top reaction to what I cited was going on in our house. She wished more parents would bring their kids in at this stage.

I was really proud of S15 for how much poise and calm he had through this. I really would not have behaved as well when I was his age. But my IC pointed out that part of his thing is to be nice and charming in his oppositional/defiance; that makes it harder to catch, and I'll have to not be snowed by him. I would have had to be dragged in by the earlobe, and I would have cried and shut down, for sure.

I don't have to decide anything today, and I have more to think about. But I thought it went really, really well.

Tomorrow he gets off groundedness, and has plans to have a friend overnight.

In the car on the way back to school, he surprised me with a question: are we going to be moving to an apartment or something? I said, I didn't plan to do that but how did he feel about it? He said I don't really care. I said #1 financially it's cheaper to live in our house than to get a 2br apartment in our town, #2 we have enough complications in our lives right now I prefer to keep at least our home simple so I'd rather keep us in it, #3 I like our house but would be fine anywhere that the three of us were (5 counting the dogs), it's just a place for our stuff. We talked a little about trailers and people who retire and drive around in RVs, and my long term thought of moving somewhere more vacation-like once my S12 is out of college, and the fact that it takes me a long time to do much of anything. Except drive, he said, you drive way too fast. Hah!

One of the points I wanted S15 to get out of this exercise was that there are people trained to help with problems that come up in life, and there's no shame in seeking them out. I do hope he gets this.