Re: Drinking, Drugs and Girls, Part 2
Ted Burton (ted.burton@MCCALL.ID.US)
Mon, 19 May 1997 08:32:38 -0600
At 20:49 -0600 on 5/18/97, Michael F. Bowman wrote Re: Drinking, Drugs and
Girls, Part 2:
>
>The young man tearing off is shirt as he burst through the door is a
>sympton of these reactions to change and indicates that he has started to
>deal, albeit poorly, with the change. The main thing is that he needs to
>get through it. You may not see the results immediately and his
>reactions for awhile may not be enjoyable, but the odds favor him
>learning from this experience and picking up on it later. Even so, not
>everyone learns well and it is possible he will not. But you have given
>him that opportunity at an early time when there is still some hope that
>he will change.
If the young man is into alcohol, marijuana or methamphetamines he will not
snap out of it very readily. They severely impact introspection,
anesthetize (sp?) any perception of problems, blunt rejection or feelings
of rejection. Some sort of personal bottom, or seeing someone else hit
bottom hard, may be required. With luck, this event is his personal bottom.
You should be ready to welcome his further participation if he shows up
clean and cautious.
>This is really going to be rough on the mom. She is right now a good
>candidate for counseling by someone familiar with dealing and progressing
>through tramatic change. If you are on good terms with her, it might be
>good to share your empathy for her and let her know that she's not alone
>in dealing with all that her son will go through before he straightens
>up and that counseling is available to help her.
She is potentially in the midst of her own denial. She may want desperately
to believe that you overreacted, and that her beloved son is 'just going
through a stage.' I would follow up quickly with the advice that she needs
counseling as badly as the boy does. Dealing with a chemically dependent
child is a bear. Ignoring or dithering about chemical experimentation is a
first step down a slippery slope to dependency.
My cynical $0.02 -- fresh from court with a mother (of a six-year-old and a
baby) who is a meth freak and 'has no problems,' it's just our town and her
child's teachers and the police and the judge and me and her lawyer who
fail to understand the injustices being done to her. We first met her as a
teenager who 'occasionally' used stuff or drank too much and according to
her we were just persecuting her then, she could stop any time she wanted,
and the police citing her was all'b- s-'. We got her for selling meth
(third buy by the c.i. and on videotape) but of course we entrapped her,
she sez. That she had commercial quantities of the stuff on hand and the
videotape was of a 'party' she was supplying for cash was somehhow just
kinda lost on her logic. I guess it's our fault we caught her.
Thank you for listening. Ted Burton
mailto:ted.burton@mccall.id.us
Terry Howerton Sakima Group, Inc. SCOUTER Magazine Kansas City |
