Ask Hal - My Teen Son, Drugs, and Alcohol
Dear Hal,
my 17 year old son, who is a junior, recently went to a military school. It was his decision. He said that he needed change in his life. He and his friends were smoking tobacco and marijuana, drinking alcohol and maybe even some drugs.
We commended him on his decision to change. While at school his grades elevated to straight A’s. He was recognized as the “best new cadet.”
However, when he comes home on weekends the first thing he does is to hang out with the same old friends. We tested his blood alcohol and he was drunk just a week ago. He has since apologized and promised that he will change. He said that he does not like disappointing us. He has made promises in the past but they were soon broken.
This situation does not offer anything close to “ScreamFree.” I would be very interested in hearing what your advice is.
It sounds like your son is really trying to take control of his own life. That he would have the self-awareness to shun his familiar context for the new structure of military school, in order to give himself a more disciplined life, is rather remarkable. That he is actually thriving in that environment is again, rather remarkable. Your son sounds like a great kid making great strides.
But he’s struggling whenever he returns back home for the weekends. Fascinating. Probably not the word you would use to describe it, but I always find it fascinating when different environments provoke different behavior patterns.
What you’ve reported here is that “the first thing” your son does whenever he comes home for the weekend is run out to be with his friends. I’m curious to find out what your relationship is like with him. What’s the mood surrounding his visits? What are the conversations? It would become very tempting to make his drinking the centerpiece of your relationship, so that whether he’s drinking is the primary theme of all your thought and conversation.
Your son is struggling to figure out who he wants to be. This is a necessary part of adolescence, but unfortunately his struggle involves self-destructive decisions. Your responses to his struggles can make all the difference in the world. If you let his drinking dominate your relationship with him, then you have no more influence. If he is capable of making the choice to go to military school and succeed, then he is capable of making better choices when he comes home. The question for you is where you want to be when he struggles. If you position yourself as the barrier between him and his friends, making drug/alcohol tests a regular routine, then you’re eliminating yourself and your home as an encouraging resource. Your son is away each week in a highly structured environment, and yet even his weekends at home are spent away from you.
Now, of course, all teenagers want to spend more time with friends than parents. But that you all don’t spend time together during these weekends says that your relationship needs a lot of work. You are not responsible for his choices–you know you cannot control him. You are responsible to him, however, to refuse to let his bad choices define him to you, or your relationship with you.
Your son sounds like a great kid. Ask him what he would like from you. What type of relationship he would like to enjoy with you? Schedule time together when he’s home (not on Friday nights, of course, when he first gets home) and communicate to him that you care more about him than whether he drinks. Yes, you care about that, but you know he’s capable of making good decisions. You’re more interested in just continuing to get to know him better as he develops into a man.
(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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