Remove discord from the home if he’s on it.
And encourage him in finding purpose.
Like many boys his age, he’s lost, bored, and searching for meaning.

Help him discover a passion or interest or skill and invest time in building him up to pursue that thing. Take him to a retirement community to meet with a social worker or event planner there and find out how he can connect and be helpful to the elderly. Explain to him that his life is valuable and he can find deeper meaning and purpose in using his gifts and talents to help others. He does have gifts and talents and may just need some guidance in unlocking those and nurturing them.

Depression grows from feeling useless and gazing inward. If all the therapies and counseling services have t made that big of a dent, why not break the cycle and try something new? If he’s busy pursuing greatness and helping others, he may become less interested in nurturing the disease of self that so often consumes young men who are floundering.

Thanks for everyone's responses- yes we made mistakes in letting him smoke when he was younger- it actually seemed to help his mental health for an extended period when he was a casual user. He is definitely self-medicating. He has been on psychiatric meds for awhile and this preceded the drug use.

With his mental health issues he may be trying to self medicate with marijuana. The concern as a parent is the risk of psychosis that is higher than it used to be with pot use and I think a 3x higher risk of schizophrenia. My kid was grounded until he peed clean, almost a month. He could be at school functions, but we dropped him off. He had a friend who od'd and thought he died that he had been hanging out with. That cleaned up those friends pretty quickly. Did tests whenever we asked. He later said he realized that the drug use was not a good idea and interfered with his motivation. His father also talked to him about his life experiences- that may have been helpful. Being firm and caring at the same time is important.

So you let him use marijuana at 15? Or you didn’t know?
Marijuana use has nothing to with whether he is gay/trans. He needs to figure out who he is without drugs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here- He has been in therapy since he was little. He has been irresponsible about his use (using before work, before wanting to drive, etc.). I dont know much about addiction treatment- which is why I've been reading about the different approaches.

Could it be that therapy has made all of it worse?

+1. What a heartbreaking story. I’m sure there is a lot of background that OP can’t share here. But would be interested in hearing how all of this started and why he has been in therapy for so long.

Anonymous wrote:DS is 17 and his drug of choice is marijuana. He has a drug treatment counselor who we just had him start seeing, a psychiatrist, and a regular counselor. DS has a lot.of mental health issues related to his gender identity/sexuality. He has a lot of emotional dysregulation and feels the marijuana relaxes him. However, he went from being a casual user to a heavy user over the last 2 years. Is the best approach harm reduction or total abstinence? The drug counselor is on board for harm reduction while my extended family feel like we should push for abstinence.

This is abnormal and dysfunctional behavior. Most people are not dealing with teen substance abuse.

For most normal people it would be total abstinence for their teens - no drugs, no hook ups, no stealing, no drinking, no vaping, no gambling, no acting in porn, no sexting, no sex work, no breaking the law, no shooting other people...

OP, I'm sorry your family is going through this. It's a lot to handle, and I can't imagine the stress you're managing.

I don't have this problem with my teen, but I have had addicts in my immediate family. As a menopausal woman who doesn't sleep well, I use cannabis occasionally, so I'm not a teetotaler-type. However, I would be concerned if my teen was using it. As another commenter mentioned, there is a correlation between cannabis use and psychotic disorders in teens and young adults. I would be particularly worried about their cannabis use triggering schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. I strongly believe that cannabis and other drugs used at a very young age--coupled with other factors, including trauma--triggered my sibling's schizoaffective disorder.

At the very least, your child's cannabis use is dangerous, because they're self-medicating, and it's unregulated. Given that you've tried therapy and other avenues of managing their issues, I would be inclined to try inpatient treatment at this point, especially since you'll have even less control once they turn 18.

Again, I'm sorry. I hope the best possible outcome is achieved for them.

The therapist told my parents my brother's teen
marijuana use was normal. He became addicted to alcohol and died of alcoholism at age 50.