Katebcca,In reading your post, I wanted to say how important I found it to watch the peer group when raising my son! It is SO important. Who our children call friends, what kind of experience they are having in school with regard to the other children, are important, very important things.
I always said, "Watch the peer group and the rest will take care of itself." I still believe this.I have taught so many young people and many parents loose their children due to the peer group they "hang with," or how they are treated by peers!
Their lives are really about their peers, and school. If we really think about their reality, they don't have responsibilities we have, and nothing to really distract then from the peer group and school! They have only those things to obsess over and you can add a sport if they like one. That is a small world they live in and one that can implode on them easily if friendships are broken or if they are shunned by students for some reason! I tried to keep track carefully and secretly, of my son's friends and how he was accepted at school and tried to step in, in ways that were subtle to stop any sort of trouble on those fronts.
As our children grow older, I find they are like they always were: They run ahead and tell us they can do it themselves and then run back when they are afraid or need help. They do this as adults too! So, I always ask my son about his friends and how they are. I work our conversations around until I can get information on his social reality at college! I want to know so I know how his head is (and his heart.)

I'm glad, Katebcca, that your son found a group to accept him! That is SO important and it's great for moving forward. I hope he makes lasting and caring friendships so he can move further and make more progress trusting he will be liked and accepted! I wish the very best for both of you!

Please tell us how it's going, it must still have you a bit worried. I have a feeling that he might have crossed a point and is on a better road at this time.

dancer9

i also glde your son finds someplace he feels acccepted. Its important for us all with some sort of sences of belonging and understanding being extended to us. i belive more so with addicts who generallie are at odds with the world and with others. The lack of coping skills seems to be a common thread hence the 12 steap support groups AA and NA help with peer support, joint identificasion and acceptances, at lest thats the principles they were founded on, sometimes other addicts are not advanced enough in their recoverie to extend this to any great degree to another sometimes just to soare. Hopfullie theirs someone around long enough to have felt the changies that recoverie can bring to life and that they can share with the new additions to the group. As casie said its dowen to the addicted one wantting to stop and change their lives that makes the real diffrences. I think in combinasion avalibilitie of treatment of whatever kind has to be thir and then whatever motivates the addicted one, sometimes rock bottom, is right and necassarie for them, sometimes just the hope of being better that an example of someone recovering canb bring that tips the scales into the balances of the start of recoverie.
I know and reallie belive it isen't an easiething for someone A. to start recovering and B. to stay clean and recovering but it is possible.
I read a scarrie statistick that it is onlie 4% of addictes make it to and then stay in some type of recoverie, death and jail remains for the rest and off course long term psychiatrick care.

So kate following your storie with your son for over a yr now reallie warmes my hart to heer of him doing so well.

i don't know how your familie member is doing CASIE?

DANCER, i also read that food is the first substances that we can learn about that has the abilitie to change how we feel. for example, chocolate, brings about a feeling of a wee high and this is what start the first types of assosiasion between mood or mind alterasion proceding the taking of "something" progression eventualie onto drugs in some cases. yea we onlie talking about sweetie but its the leason learned between intake and resulting consiquinces, people who tend towards instant gratificasion could verie easilie find great plsure in instantness of drug use. maybee thats one of the manie predisposisional factors that can trip someone from going from occasional or recreasional drug user, to problem drug user right up to addicted user.

i don't know think casie said genetic plus circumstancial events can lead to addiction, i tend to agree their.
Still if we can alter the circumstancial with some type of educasional intervention, social skills, coping methods etc then maybee this is way we cut dowen the numbers of addicted people being left to that hell.
the addictes and their families together ends up with a big total of people being hurt within it all.

don't know how to round this off to end it lol so i just end their

Celtic, I think, because of the genetic predispostion to addiction, it's important to educate our children about the possiblility of their becoming an addict due to their genes and what to do if they find themselves obsessing over something. I know it can help if they do not ever TOUCH the stuff which a parent or a sibling became addicted to because I have a friend who is a dancer whose father was an alcholic. He refused drinking and drugs completely for his entire life so far and so far he has done well without an addiction himself. He was aware that it could happen to him and he was careful to stay completely away from what he feels ruined his father's life. I think this is a good way to approach an addiction genetic predispostion. To avoid any addictive behavior and be aware that it COULD happen is having one step ahead of the illness.
dancer9

Celtic,
My son is clean and sober for 2 years. He's in a program called Delancy St.

It's interesting that Kate mentions the lack of coping skills and impulse control that generally acompanies addiction. So true! In the program that Jesse is in, they don't leave the group complex without another buddy and frequently have a buddy with them even in the complex. Lot's of talking time going on.

Jesse says that he's gotten in the habit of talking something through with someone before he does it. He frequently finds that he's only halfway through telling someone his plan and he realizes what a bad idea it is!

Perhaps if we taught children to talk through what they were planning, listened totally and then walked them through the consequences instead of flipping out and telling them what a terrible plan it is and "how could they even think such a thing" they might learn the process.

Who knows!

Praying your son stays clean and sober for eternity. I still wonder if my youngest son is addicted to drugs, haven't seen him now for many years. All we can do as parents, is lead our children to the stream, but we can't make them drink the water.

Unfortunately like everything else in todays life, its hurry, hurry, no one wants to wait for anything, as in strength training, or dieting etc. Its take a pill or shot and get immediate results. That seems to be the mind set of todays youth and us too for that matter. Quick results with no regard for the consequences.

Anne, Being a pro athlete all my life, and someone who owned a health club for awhile, I can tell you that steroids, or "roids," as they are called, are in wide spread use!
There are tricks taught by doctors to "beat the tests," and these people have been using steriods forever! They KNOW they are bad for them and can cause all sorts of problems, even death, but the money paid for a good athlete is amazing and money talks to these guys! It's not only guys too!
I've never used them but I've been around literally hundreds of athletes who have or do! It's a nightmare!
They get aggressive, they cannot think straight, it makes them sick but able to preform because of "body memory," we all have for our sport! If really investigated, we'd find that most pro athletes have, at some point, tried steriods or use them regularly! It is getting all this press because now people are demanding answers as to why these guys are perfoming like super heros and getting awards for it. Athletes are turning in other athletes in fits of jealousy for the performances they see and know are added by steriods. I stay away from those who use because their temper is a hair trigger and I don't want to get in their way! It's a bad time when you are around some of these men's teams! I have met some, for example, the Lakers in their day, and I'm here to tell you that you can SENSE the steriods in use! There are also ways to even smell it in their body oder!
dancer with the goods!

back in the 80's, I worked out in a gym with both professional athletes and Olympic hopefuls. Even though no one admitted to taking steroids, when you see someone every day, you pretty much know. In addition to the above characteristics mentioned by Dancer, you can add: a certain tightness/squaring of the jaw in both sexes. Deeper voice and beard stubble on women. Also completely disappeared boobs and butts. On men, it was the perpetual second stringer who suddenly could do things he had never been able to before, despite no discernible change in his workout.

It was like the secret rhinoceros in your kitchen -- kinda hard NOT to see!

So, so true, Meredith, esp. those female lifters!
dancer9

From what I have seen in the past, I'd say yep!!!