Posted on 02/02/2015 12:28:23 PM PST by rfreedom4u
My daughter will turn 19 this month. She is our fifth child. She has also been the most worrying to us as she started using drugs a long time ago. She said she first smoked weed at age 12. Since then she has gone on the try many other drugs to include meth, cocaine, pills and LSD and a few others I can’t name. Last year she was in intensive care for 8 days. She has also been in jail about seven or eight times and gone through rehab twice. She is currently living with her mother and I at home but things are getting very tense. She broke up with her boyfriend and says that the stress of breakup makes her want to go get high and chill with her friends. Her friends are not true friends as they are also on drugs. Every time she hangs out with them she stays wasted for a couple days and I had to take her to the ER twice due to overdose on alcohol. Add to all this she has been beat up several times and raped twice that she has admitted to. When you add into this chaos the fact that my wife suffers from a mental illness which is made worse with stress it gets even more chaotic. Now I am at the point where I will soon have to make the choice of allowing my wife to be hospitalized because of her mental illness or I put my daughter out because of the strife she is causing. We’ve offered her all the help in the world and she continues to go on binges and tell us that what we offer won’t help. The last time she got wasted she told us all to “Go f***” ourselves. That night she left the house and was brought home by the police when they found her walking down the highway. As a parent I love my daughter endlessly. But I don’t see how (or why) I should continue to allow her to destroy the rest of the family. But at the same time I feel guilty for what I am considering. We can’t force her into treatment as she is an “adult” and I’m afraid that she will either end up in prison or dead. All this started I believe because she started smoking weed. The weed lowered her inhibitions and resistance and she started doing other drugs. So I truly believe that weed is a gateway drug and should never be legalized. If someone needs it for medicinal purposes they should have to go to a pharmacy for it just like we do with other prescription medications. It hurts me to do it, but I think I may be evicting her from the house today when I get home from work.
But she was never supposed to have access to it. Legal or illegal.
After all, everyone that smokes it is responsible and wouldn’t share it with a minor.
I play poker up in Blackhawk, CO and it is pretty common to see players who are so high they frequently need reminded of what is going on. They will openly talk about it and every now and then slip out of the game for a few hands to go smoke another one. Different then the drunks.
My guess is it won’t be long till some junky sues the casino for letting them lose all their money.
Was pot legal in her state 7 years ago?
Legalization has nothing to do with it... it's always been available, and always will be... legal or not. Addiction is addiction, regardless of the substance-du-jour. One needs to deal with the addiction itself.
Just about every one I have known in my 62 years of life has tried either alcohol or MJ. Guess what, 99% or more have led productive and outstanding lives with great families. It does not matter what you make illegal, if they want it, they will find a way to get it. If a person wants to kill, they will find a way to do it with or without a gun . You can not babysit someone for the rest of their lives, they are gonna do what they want to do, legal or not.
I am very sorry for your situation. I would be so angry that I might do something foolish like find out who the local drug dealers are and hunt them down.
They are probably low life scum and wouldn’t be missed anyway. And you would be doing the community a service and maybe save other little children like your daughter.
He’s already stated he would murder the supplier, and hide the body. Why waste your time talking to the greater of two evils?
Rational thought ain't yer long suit, is it?
My impression is that the drugs are the manifestation of your daughter's problem. Some type of counseling might be in order to discover the root of what she is trying to escape in all of that awful stuff. I don't know what goes on in rehab, and whether that delves deep enough into psychological matters.
“Since then she has gone on the try many other drugs to include meth, cocaine, pills and LSD “
Those are all illegal so don’t blame pot for it. She has a self abusing personality and would have tried those no matter if she had tried pot first.
Let me repeat, she was a little girl when she started.
And I guarantee that more little children will be exposed with the proliferation since legalization. Because there are many adults that are not as careful as yourself.
Most casinos let people drink right at the tables, so they don't have to "slip out" to take a sip on their drinks.
Legalization = shops where it is sold and ID's are checked.
Prohibition = street corner dealers who don't bother to check ID's.
What's your point, other than spreading BS propaganda?
Age really has nothing to do with it, How much you want to bet the first time she smoked it was with a classmate from school. MJ is a weed that grows wild, it occurs naturally in nature.Some kids go hunting mushrooms at that age to get high. Some sneak into their parents liqueur cabinet when they are not home. It is like saying to prevent suicide we have to make all guns and sharp objects illegal.
Really? More sarcasm here?:
She was given it at 12 years of age. Something that the proponents of legal use promised would never and could never happen.
She started when and where no pot was legal to have.
Your uninformed bloviating isn't helping rfreedom4u deal with his daughters problem.
I don’t necessarily believe in gateway drugs so much as I believe in gateway personalities.
I say this as a former drug addict, and the reason that I say it is that I have known many people who use drugs. Many of them kept themselves relatively under control and just stuck with weed, never really went any further.
Yet some do go further. I was one, and I knew others that went much further than me.
It really seemed that the key to what determined this was what was the root cause of addiction? How great was the problem that they were running from, real or perceived, by doping themselves up on a regular basis like this?
Some of the things that I have learned from my battle with addiction are these.
For whatever reason, some people are born into this world where it seems like their main purpose in life is to battle the demon of addiction, and it really is a demon, and those persons are the only ones who can defeat that demon individually.
They may have many others around them who love them endlessly and want to do nothing other than help them, but in the end it is only that person who can pick up their own sword and kill it. No one else can. God can help in this battle, but even then only so much. He can give them His strength if they ask, but then they have to actually use it.
The reason that only that person can defeat his demon is because that person is the only one who is with himself 24/ 7. No one else can do that duty. Much as their loved ones would like to try, they can’t. There will always one day be that moment of temptation, and the addict is the only one who can turn and walk away at that time.
It took me a long time in my life to learn that the things I did that made me cool when I was young, those things that made me fit in with others who did the same things are the things that also made me into an outcast as an adult.
Because as we age, the troubles of youth seem to settle and people move on and become responsible adults with jobs and families, and if you are still messing around being a drug addict, you will never have those things, and you will be on the outside of everyone else who does, and that hurts.
At the age of 19, she may be too young to learn these things yet. She may go on like this for sometime, and basically her loved ones can only hope and pray that she discovers the truth before she ends up hurting herself either legally or otherwise.
Recently, I have been watching an interesting program on Investigation Discovery called Breaking Point, which is about professional interventions.
That is a very moving program to me, because as a former addict, I see how the behavior of addiction just destroys those who love you. This is at times extremely sad to watch, but as I think back to the times of my addiction, I know that I was completely unable to perceive or even care how it affected anyone, including me.
It is also interesting to note that in some cases even when provided professional rehab and care and lawyers to deal with any criminal record, the addict can still not grab the hand that is reaching to help pull them from the water. They simply do not want to and remain oblivious to the damage they are doing.
I am very sad to hear of your troubles with your daughter. I will pray for you both, and if I may give one piece of advice. Tell her that only she and God can beat her demon, and the way to ask for God’s help is to pray to Him and ask Him for His help.
I am not even joking about that at all. On her darkest day, she will see His light, and He will lead her back to the path and out of the woods.
I apologize for the length of my post, I’ll stop it now.
Sounds as if your daughters issues are less about marijuana, or any particular drug really, and more about an addictive and compulsive personality disorder.
You mentioned that your wife has issues as well. Could be the same kind of thing.
It sounds like you’re doing everything in your power.
Hang in as best you can.
My deepest prayers for your situation. Some people react to drugs differently than others. Your daughter is an addict and apparently cannot cope. Sometimes there is nothing you can do but take your best guess. You are absolutely correct in that the most likely outcomes are jail or dead. A friend of mine enabled his son’s additions by allowing him to stick around and he turned up dead. I cannot tell you what to do - only that your situation is dire and something needs to be done soon. Pray, and take your best guess. Your daughter’s fate will be determined by her, not you. Don’t give her a dime of money, give her all of your love.
Really good post.
all drugs are bad, but you will be hearing all sorts of lame excuses for pot on this forum
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.