The First Day

“Yes, it’s mine.” 

That’s not the answer we expected to hear, when we showed him the light bulb pipe. 

We thought he would ask us what it was and where we got it.  Then, we thought he would get really mad at his friend “throwing him under the bus” to protect himself.  We were 90% sure that it belonged to the friend, not our son.

But, he said that it definitely was his. 

A marijuana pipe. 

Belonging to my son. 

This was one of the last times that we would hear the truth from him about drugs. 

If your child is using drugs, then your child lies. 

We just didn’t realize that at first.

He assured us that he and his friend had smoked marijuana one time and only one time.

Why did he smoke weed “that one time”?  According to him, we had a big argument and he left the house angry and just decided to go smoke pot. 

If your child is using drugs, your child will blame you, everyone else, and everything else for his drug use. 

We have had more than our fair share of teen/parent arguments in the last few years and we were actually going to family counseling to try to get help with our communication problems, but I didn’t know that there was a possibility that our arguments might have revolved around this unrecognized background activity going on in his life.  I just thought our arguments and conflicts had a lot to do with his oppositional defiance.  He has always had a need to feel like he is in total control of his life and has never liked being told what to do. 

We had a long talk that night about the dangers of marijuana and drugs.  He assured us that he didn’t like it, that he had never done it again, and was never going to do it again.    He said it didn’t really do anything for him, just that it made him feel a little different for awhile.

We were disappointed in him, but we believed him.

Sort of.

I ordered drug testing kits from Amazon that night.