drug problem with friends

LegacyUser

unreged for this one

Hey, recently i have been really concered about few of my friends due to drugs, and last week one of my friends had a massive phyco attack.

I had my friends over at my house, we were enjoying the night, had a few cans, smoked a bit of weed. But later on, one of my friends had a massive attack, and something in him snaped, he became very aggrisive and started to throw chairs around the place, it took us around an hour to 2 hours to calm him down.

What im worried about is that this kind of stuffed happened to me befor(not me snapping, but friends and family) and it always ends in bad terms. it happened to a family member of mine, which he is now in a mental hospital, and also 5 of my friends that i knew since i was 7 and now i cant talk to them, and they wont talk to me

But i can see that my other friends, who smoke weed alot, it will happen to them as well, like my friend. i tried to beg them to cut down. but they think that it is harmless, I smoke it myself but not on a regular bassis maybe, every month or 2. while my friends do it every day.

i myself can not handle losing more people over to drugs, this whole incident is driving me insane. I dont know what to do, i know that my friends will not stop using drugs, and the same thing will happen to them. i can already see some effect i seen with my other friends and with my family member in them.

I really dont know what to do, i tried talking to them but they dont want to talk. And if it does happen to them, I dont know what i can do.

I was thinking of trying to distance myself from them and try and become mre friendly with other people, but with that i dont think its the best thing to do.

Any advice on what i can do?.

Thanks very much

Shellie13

in short you cant make them stop no!
you can advise them, educate them about what you've seen etc but you can't change them!
The most persuasive technique you can use is to go straightedged yourself, cos if i was one of your friends seen you lecture and beg then go out and smoke yourself id franky get pissed off with you!


Although some people have a bad response to weed they don't all so it won't enivitably happen to each and every one of your friends. same way a group of lad who go to the pub together every night will not all end up alcoholics!

If you're really unhappy with the situtaion making new friends is an option, keep the old ones though if you can! Worst case senario if you cant bare to be around them when they're smoking stay away from them at those times and just hang out while doing other things!
You probably can't change what they do but it dosn't mean you gots to hate who they are!

Fysh

Having had a similar situation over the last few months, I have to admit it's a sucky one to find yourself in. My experience of it was that if someone doesn't want to admit that their intake might cause them damage, there's really very little you can do to convince them otherwise.

A former flatmate of mine ended up spending ten days in a psych ward under "observation" after an extended episode of paranoia and aggression that was compounded by marijuana use. He was released and prescribed medication, but within 2 weeks he'd secretly stopped taking the medication and started smoking again, so he had another episode and ended up having to go back home to his parents. It's been about 8 months since that happened, and the other guys I was living with at the time (who saw what happened to him) have if anything started smoking more heavily; according to them the episodes had nothing to do with the guy's smoking, but only a "latent mental illness" which it transpires has occured in his family before.

Unfortunately, there's really not much you can do if people aren't open to being helped, and after a certain point anything you do to try and help will be perceived as antagonism. Try to arrange some sort of proper discussion about it with a couple of them when they're not going to be smoking (so that they're clear headed about it; I'd also suggest keeping the numbers low so that you don't just get shouted down without being listened to) and explain the cause of your concern. Whether you want to find medical info on the subject is your own concern - it might come across as a bit heavy handed, depending on how you get on with them.

If they refuse to listen to you, cut your losses and start to distance yourself from them. You'll only get hurt if you continue trying to "fix" their situation despite their own wishes. I can't quite bring myself to believe that this is the ideal way of dealing with the situation, but its the only one that won't create an inmense amount of stress for you. And at the end of the day if your friends don't respect the fact that you don't want to just sit around getting stoned all day long, you're probably not losing that much by cutting down contact with them. I've done this with the guys I used to live with and if anything it makes it easier to get along with them when I do see them.

Good luck with it.

LegacyUser

Going unreg, as admitting to bad stuff on the net is a bad idea.

Fysh wrote:

It's been about 8 months since that happened, and the other guys I was living with at the time (who saw what happened to him) have if anything started smoking more heavily; according to them the episodes had nothing to do with the guy's smoking, but only a "latent mental illness" which it transpires has occured in his family before.

They're kind of right. From experience with mates, mixing hash/weed and drink leads to:
1)Falling asleep. If at pub, its a problem. If at home, meh. Put them on a couch, and throw a blanket over them.
2)Getting aggro. If in a pub, he gets thrown out/banned, if at home, we throw him out/bring him home.
3)Nothing.

5 mates. The 2nd, he doesn't seem to know his problem. The 1st, knows it, and thus if going on a session, doesn't smoke weed/hash beforehand. The other 3 (and myself) nothing happens. We get stoned, drunk, and go home. Well, except for myself. I don't get stoned as easy as the others, as I used to be a heavy user, but quit as I got bored smoking it all the time. That, and it and the tabacco was costing too much (you tend to smoke more, to stay high, I found).

The best I can say is to lose those who get aggro when they mix drink+drugs. If the rest ask, say your too old to babysit them when they go mental.

Most will know not to hurt their mates when they go aggro, but I've found that when some people go aggro, unless you're their "best mate", and not just "a mate", they'll lash out at you, for in their state of paranoia, your an "enemy".

dubrichie

ok man,

sit down, take a few moments, step back or whatever you want to call it.

think about it, try to see the situation in the widest context that you can.

may i ask how old you and your friends are?

under 25 perhaps?

anyway, regardless really, you have to be proactive about your life and who you want to spend it with.

we have friends for the good times. if you're worried about them all you can do is express your concerns to them in the best way that you can. hopefully they will appreciate this and engage with you on the issue. tell them where you stand on what's happening, how it makes you feel and that you cannot accept responsibility for their wellbeing, emotional or otherwise, if they are going to put themselves in that kind of state.

if you don't want to be around them when they are doing drugs or in any other situation you are not obliged to.

even if this results in you growing apart, or even falling apart rapidly then so be it, such is life. it will be a change in your life born of a positive, strong, independent action on your part. this is a form of standing up for yourself i suppose. anyway, if you want to do it you gotta do it and it will be good for you. life rolls on. you will pass through many groups of friends in your life. those with who you feel comfortable enough, who you respect enough, you will share responsibilities with for each others wellbeing.

don't worry about it too much. you can only stress yourself out about anything so much before it becomes entirely negative. stress is an instinct that is intended to motivate us to get off our arses and do something positive for ourselves, even if it is to do with something negative, ie your friends making you feel uncomfortable about the responsibility you feel towards them.

don't let yourself twist yourself into a knot, take the bull by the horns, life by the balls and do what you gotta do, all the while remembering with confidence why you're doing it and that it will naturally take your life in the right direction.

good luck,

regards,

richie.

Exon

I'm not advocating violence but I bet if you gave him a few hard smacks, he'd cop on!

jrey1981

weed can get you addicted and result in psychosis/paranoia/mental problems.

I used to live with a guy who used to sell it and smoke it every day. Whenever I got up in the morning, it was a gamble as to what kind of a mood he would be in, whether he might have a joke with you or have a go at you.

Most of the time he was ok - the rest of us living in the house had to adjust to how his moods could change, but one evening he lost it a bit and beat the hell out of a friend of ours, for no apparent reason.

Having a smoke now and then is no bad thing and I have nothing against it, but when it gets addictive it is a serious problem for a lot of people.

You are intelligent enough to realise what you need to do - maybe the time has come to have to do it - you cant change your friends behaviour, but you can change yours - and perhaps you need to take the touhg decision to do that.