@boomerang,
David wrote:Have u advised Mo as to drugs ?
boomerang wrote:Not yet. It hasn't become a real issue yet.
They get a pretty good anti-drug message at school
and he's still young enough that peer pressure on that topic hasn't reached him.
When the time comes I hope that I'll be honest with him.
Here 's my (humble) experience with it.
In the 1970s or 80s, my girlfriend, Marilyn,
& her 4 year old child, Nancy, were living with me.
Marilyn had fallen on destitution.
She 'd lost her job as an executive secretary, for drug related reasons (absenteeism).
She got on NY welfare.
One day, after drinking most of a pint of 161 proof Puerto Rican rum,
she told me that she was going to place Nancy in her car,
get her welfare $$ and drive to a crack house, for the day.
I pointed out that her driver's license had expired,
as had her NY license plates on her car, in addition to her state of
inebriation.
She was undissuaded.
I felt like she had (not quite, but almost) announced suicidal plans.
I did my impression of Gov. George Wallace standing in the door.
(I
KNOW that is not libertarian: MY BAD. Shame on me.)
She got upset and threatened to call the police.
I invited her to use the fone, present right there, to call the police
and explain the situation, of what I was preventing her from
doing.
For some reason, she decided against that.
While we were discussing this situation (arguing,
not quarrelling),
little Nancy pipes up something like:
"we are going to the crack house",
in support of her mother 's position, and resisting my interference.
I sat down next to Nancy and quietly explained the nature of addiction,
its
desperation, and violent crimes committed in furtherance thereof.
I explained the dangers of unexpected overdose and of abruptly losing her mother.
I explained the slavery to chemistry, of addiction.
I told her of sicknesses from dirty needles or from dirty drugs,
and of having her mother's life shortened. I explained that once the mistake (of fatal overdose)
was committed, the mistake coud not be corrected.
Marilyn was seated about 4 feet away, hearing this; she tacitly approved my quiet rant.
Maybe it worked; Nancy has since been married n divorced
with a child of her own, whom I have not met in Las Vegas.
She never became a dope addict, so far as her mom has informed me.
Marilyn has also informed me that after 2 hospitalizations,
she has ended all addictions except tobacco.
(I did not let her smoke in the house.)
My advice was based upon advice that I got from
MY mom
when I was about 8 or 9. She was brief n to the point qua the dangers of addiction.
In my mind, that stuff is poison (referring to opium derivatives, not to cannabis, whose odor I like),
unless used under medical supervision; (even
then, it has made me feel sick).
We all know that it has ruined many, many otherwise successful lives.
David
