Weed and the Mind

[goldblum]

0a said:

goldblum said:

Total conjecture.What are you people talking about? The OP has suggested nothing that might indicate anything other than a teenager about to 'lose it.'

The OP states the lad wasn't let go until he'd 'calmed himself down',suggesting a degree of self control. BTW neither amphetamine or mephedrone have a side effect of bulging

eyes unless possibly associated psychosis caused by long term abuse.As this was the first time it has happened,that is very unlikely.

Alas it isn't conjecture from me. Anyway, this is as far as I go online.

!

[mft]

texasjohn said:

Likewise. Some form of stimulant I would guess, and a little too much in one go. Speed perhaps?

Or an angry adolescent with god-knows-what issues and limited ability to control himself?

My guess is that his behaviour, anger, use of drink and drugs and uncontrollability are symptoms of a problem, rather than the primary problem itself.

[surveyor]

Thanks chaps. Don't want to start an argument, and all of your observations are noted. Lad is away at his Dad's (hopefully with some supervision for change) this weekend.

I've just spent 30 minutes typing a response to delete it as it is too detailed for a format such as this.

I've known him since he was 5, and enough has happened over the years that it is quite possible that he has issues. I'm disappointed that he touched drugs, as his best friends brother is into these, and he has seen the effects.

[NoNeed]

Most areas have some sort of youth worker, usually attatched to a community centre, church or other organisation that will more than likely have a wealth of knowledge and experience in this area. It may be worth while locating such a person as they tend to have a knack of being able to connect with youth on a level most adults can't.
But as others have said a hobby or interest maybe a sport will help focus the mind in a different direction.

Hope it works out ok.

[Flip Martian]

My fiancee's boy is now 18 and started going off the rails around 15, apparently when his gran died. Gifted, can turn his hand to anything seemingly, he has smoked a lot of bad weed and some form of psychosis was triggered. She tried a lot to help him - when he was lucid he wanted help but always went back to the weed within a week or 2 and now doesn't see he has a problem. She has tried, his father has tried. He is violent and has bad anger management issues as a result. Nothing seems to have worked. He has had places to stay when he was finally told he was no longer welcome in either parent's home but seems to prefer to go on the street and then blame his mother for his problems.

He's been arrested several times for criminal damage to her house and reached the point where the family is scared of him. It got so bad she left her job and moved away (and is with me) but will not tell him where she now lives and no-one else is allowed to tell him. His sister has moved to the next town and won't tell him where she is, either.

He's now on remand for trying to rob a shop with a knife but at least he's locked up. He's been told he may go down for 5 years. While he's doing education things in there to keep occupied, he still doesn't see he has a problem.

I hope the OP's step son gets off the weed asap. For some people its harmless; for others it can change their lives for the worse.

[surveyor]

An update:

It's been an interesting few weeks. He seems to be off the weed as far as we can tell. He's accepted that it's not doing good things for him, and the fact that it's obvious seems to have helped. It took a couple of weeks to come out of the system, and we have seen no major blowups since.

His best friend is not very happy, as I did speak to his parents. This lad was sharing, which I obviously wanted to stop, and thought that they needed to know anyway. THe lad took the phone off the hook to stop me calling them, clearly not expecting the obvious next step, a knock on the door.

The school have been very supportive, and changed their initial 'hostile' suspension, to an informal week off. He has a counsellor who has been speaking to him. Doctors were useless and only input was to tell my partner that they would have to inform Social Services. Heard nothing more, and an informal chat from someone I know has told me that given we are dealing with it they would have no interest, that the school does have some issues, and are inexperienced in this area.

What's more frightening on speaking to him, is just how many kids are trying this stuff together with the very adult ways of getting it. They are very much older, and I cannot hide my loathing for this scum praying on lead-able teenagers.

[NoNeed]

Thank you for the update, it's good to know things are going well and I hope they continue to for you.

[anonymous-user]

Blaming weed usage for his attitude and mood is full bore, both barrel stupid in my humble opinion. He like nearly every single person who has done weed, coke, heroin or even alcohol picked up that spliff to get away from/find something. At his age I suspect it was to find something to do with a bit of piss poor parenting. I'm not sure if it's you, your partner, his father or his partner to blame but cannabis is nearly always a symptom not a cause of problems. And a damn find symptom at that.

Start looking at yourselves before you start blaming the weed or his friends.

[Flip Martian]

279 said:

Blaming weed usage for his attitude and mood is full bore, both barrel stupid in my humble opinion. He like nearly every single person who has done weed, coke, heroin or even alcohol picked up that spliff to get away from/find something. At his age I suspect it was to find something to do with a bit of piss poor parenting. I'm not sure if it's you, your partner, his father or his partner to blame but cannabis is nearly always a symptom not a cause of problems. And a damn find symptom at that.

Start looking at yourselves before you start blaming the weed or his friends.

Crock of st. I've got personal experience of this and that really is a crock of st sweeping generalisation.

[surveyor]

279 said:

Blaming weed usage for his attitude and mood is full bore, both barrel stupid in my humble opinion. He like nearly every single person who has done weed, coke, heroin or even alcohol picked up that spliff to get away from/find something. At his age I suspect it was to find something to do with a bit of piss poor parenting. I'm not sure if it's you, your partner, his father or his partner to blame but cannabis is nearly always a symptom not a cause of problems. And a damn find symptom at that.

Start looking at yourselves before you start blaming the weed or his friends.

Gladly I have read all of the posts on this thread with interest. Some of these people have clearly experienced far worse than I have, and it seems that you have just kicked myself, and them in the teeth. While you may have a point, (not much of one I feel from my now understanding), there are ways of putting it across.

I congratulate you on your maturity, and thank you for your informative and insightful post.

[anonymous-user]

Flip Martian said:

Crock of st. I've got personal experience of this and that really is a crock of st sweeping generalisation.

I'd like to hear your personal experience that makes my opinion more of a 'crock of st' than the "Weed and weed alone fked my little Johnny up' stories that you get in this type of thread?

Anyway, It is exactly this type of parenting, the type that where drug/alcohol usage/friends become the only and only cause of behavior/attitude problems and therefore absolves the parents of any wrong doing whatsosever is what causes fked up children from other wise 'well off' backgrounds 9 times out of 10.

[anonymous-user]

surveyor said:

Gladly I have read all of the posts on this thread with interest. Some of these people have clearly experienced far worse than I have, and it seems that you have just kicked myself, and them in the teeth. While you may have a point, (not much of one I feel from my now understanding), there are ways of putting it across.

I congratulate you on your maturity, and thank you for your informative and insightful post.

At the end of the day mate, it is your choice who you listen you.

You can either continue to listen to miserable, middle aged men who have probably never touched the stuff and are going purely off of what they've heard in the pub or what they intend to hypothetically do if/when the apple of their eye suddenly starts doing naughty things.

Otherwise you can listen to me, a young(ish) lad that has seen it happen to countless people surrounding him. A young(ish) lad with a few issues that also tends to resort to bullst vices to help them out in a rough patch. Your choice. If you or anyone else is interested in hearing my opinion or what to debate it further then I'm happy to do so, otherwise it is no loss to me .

[surveyor]

279 said:

I'd like to hear your personal experience that makes my opinion more of a 'crock of st' than the "Weed and weed alone fked my little Johnny up' stories that you get in this type of thread?

Anyway, It is exactly this type of parenting, the type that where drug/alcohol usage/friends become the only and only cause of behavior/attitude problems and therefore absolves the parents of any wrong doing whatsosever is what causes fked up children from other wise 'well off' backgrounds 9 times out of 10.

Perhaps you should go back to the lounge?

[anonymous-user]

surveyor said:

Perhaps you should go back to the lounge?

Perhaps you should pull your head out of your backside and appreciate that perhaps the split between his mother and father (and the inevitable fall out from that) hit him far harder and far deeper than you (or even he can consciously) comprehend? Or perhaps some other reason that you're either ignoring or looking over that is making your step son act this way. Don't dismiss it, think about it.

I've known some pretty angry people to smoke cannabis. Not once have I ever seen one of those people struggle to control their breathing in rage because of it. That is not a normal side effect by any stretch.

[Flip Martian]

279 said:

I'd like to hear your personal experience that makes my opinion more of a 'crock of st' than the "Weed and weed alone fked my little Johnny up' stories that you get in this type of thread?

Anyway, It is exactly this type of parenting, the type that where drug/alcohol usage/friends become the only and only cause of behavior/attitude problems and therefore absolves the parents of any wrong doing whatsosever is what causes fked up children from other wise 'well off' backgrounds 9 times out of 10.

I've already posted in this thread as to my own experience.

No doubt bad parenting is 1 factor that can make kids go off the rails but there is such a thing as personal choice. My parents split when I was about 17. Bad enough, but I was already old enough to cope. My younger brother was very young and was affected by it badly, and always has been. However. He's never been near drugs, from what I know, the worst he's done is drink a bit and he doesn't do that much either. Personal choice.

Attacking the parents straight off is just shifting the blame.

[surveyor]

279 said:

Perhaps you should pull your head out of your backside and appreciate that perhaps the split between his mother and father (and the inevitable fall out from that) hit him far harder and far deeper than you (or even he can consciously) comprehend? Or perhaps some other reason that you're either ignoring or looking over that is making your step son act this way. Don't dismiss it, think about it.

I've known some pretty angry people to smoke cannabis. Not once have I ever seen one of those people struggle to control their breathing in rage because of it. That is not a normal side effect by any stretch.

You do to be honest have a way about you that gets up my nose. You would not be so insulting (I hope) to my face, so why does a keyboard grant you the right to be quite so unpleasant?

I do not and will not accept that the split has caused any issue to the lad - he was one! I do accept that there have been issues between his mum and dad that have not helped over the years, not least being two different styles of parenting. We are very much more 'strict' in that there are boundaries, whereas there are none at his dads. He accepts this, and is intending to go to College 'up north' with us, of his own choice, rather than run riot at his dads.

Although the side affect is not normal, having taken advice and also through independent reading, it was believed to have been very much one. Some people are affected in different ways. The proof is in the pudding, and these 'mood attacks' have now stopped.

He tells us that he has useful discussions with his counsellor. That's his business, and we are hear to listen if he needs or wants it.

[pacman1]

I sense angst. Were you a troubled teenager 279?

[Loopyleesa]

So what about parents that DON'T split up and their kid smokes weed?


Or even parents that split up before baby born or very young and have been brought up by a step parent?

I believe that parents break up __CAN_ be a reason while the kid smokes/drinks, but I really do think that the OP knows his child better than anyone else!

There are many reasons a kid does these things. I know personally of a very wealthy perfect loving family that did everything together as a family, child had private schooling, top of class of everything, straight A student, never had a detention....get my drift and he started smoking, went on the coke, and after many months of tears, he has finally got himself clean! Ask him why he started.......Because his mates did!

[anonymous-user]

surveyor said:

You do to be honest have a way about you that gets up my nose. You would not be so insulting (I hope) to my face, so why does a keyboard grant you the right to be quite so unpleasant?

I'm not doing the internet tough guy thing, I've come in this thread trying to help and give a slightly different perceptive as someone who would be willing to put a small wager on being the closest person in this thread to your step son age wise. It might be worth noting that I'm a 6ft Black guy built like a fortune 500 Company director with un-dealt with anger issues. If I were an ahole I'd say that given enough provocation I'm fairly confident I could get my fist so far up your nose I could mine for brain matter, but like I said, I'm not an ahole and am hear to help .

surveyor said:

I do not and will not accept that the split has caused any issue to the lad - he was one! I do accept that there have been issues between his mum and dad that have not helped over the years, not least being two different styles of parenting. We are very much more 'strict' in that there are boundaries, whereas there are none at his dads. He accepts this, and is intending to go to College 'up north' with us, of his own choice, rather than run riot at his dads.

I would say the experiences of my parents fighting after they had split up had a more profound effect on me than when they split at 7. Different parenting views would compound issues even further making one parent the 'favored' one, and if his dad is as laid back as you say, it isn't going to be the house you live in, regardless of what college dreams he has.

surveyor said:

Although the side affect is not normal, having taken advice and also through independent reading, it was believed to have been very much one. Some people are affected in different ways. The proof is in the pudding, and these 'mood attacks' have now stopped.

I won't quite go to the length of calling it out and out rubbish, but instantly developing mood/personality issues solely down to weed sounds a bit (actually, make that a massive way) off to me. Vices "help" in unearthing underlying problems, creating them I'm not so sure about.

As for his moods, I'd say that feeling that his mother and step father truly do care about him (which you obviously do) has far more to do with his moods than a bit of puff.

surveyor said:

He tells us that he has useful discussions with his counsellor. That's his business, and we are hear to listen if he needs or wants it.

That's all you can (and should!) do at this point. I'd love to have a step father as caring and loving as you and I mean that. Having a look back and seeing if any 'warning' signs weren't

I'm not blaming parents all of the time, everytime, but it seems to be a habit (certainly among this type of thread on PH) that weed is the cause of all teenagers issues. In most case it is only the (arguably short sighted) answer. Finding the initial questions is what is vital.

pacman1 said:

I sense angst. Were you a troubled teenager 279?

Yes. Next question.

[surveyor]

279 said:

and if his dad is as laid back as you say, it isn't going to be the house you live in, regardless of what college dreams he has.

Lets see if I have buggered the quote system up!

His dad is anything, but laid back. Ultimately he's happy being the best mate and does not appear to care. Whatever goes and his fix is to sort the lad out with a girl... Lad is not daft, and really does appear to appreciate some boundaries (with teenager rebellion built in obviously) and really does intend I believe to stay up here.

There are other issues at work with regards to his dad, which I know have upset him, but ultimately are only in his dads control. That's a difficult one to work around as my partner really is not going to get involved (it would only lead to a row in any case), and neither am I - it simply is not worth the agro. We've had years of abuse over the phone, together with about of violence before we moved away. His troubles are just that, but when they link to the lad, it gets more complicated....