Wow...just...WOW. Thank you all so much for your kindness and support. More meaningful than you know
We've always encouraged everyone in our household to be open and honest - no topic is taboo. Home needs to be the "safe place". Yes, I wish my son had told us sooner that he had a drug problem. But I'm incredibly grateful that he told us at all and when he did. It gave us a starting point to help with his treatment.
Deborah and Diane - I do strongly encourage you to open the discussion with your children when the time is right regarding drugs and mental illness. I shudder to think what could have happened had we not been able to broach the subject and make it ok for our son to tell us the truth.
Rachy - you are very correct - mental is physical also. There's wiring and chemical levels involved.
Suz - I couldn't agree with you more. There is much self medication going on the teenage years sadly. As you recall, our son had been severely bullied in his early adolescent years and it left a tremendous scar regarding his self esteem. No matter how much we tried to "lift him up" he always felt like he wasn't good enough. In his own words, dope made him relax and less anxious about those sorts of feelings. So now part of his ongoing therapy is working through his self esteem problems so that he doesn't feel the need for drugs.
I wanted to say that we also have completely involved our son's best friends in EVERYTHING. As an only child, our son's immediate group of best buds (there are four of them) are extremely important to him. They have hung out with him and at our house for probably 5 years now. In fact, two of them were witness to his psychotic break. When we brought him home from the hospital, we sat at the kitchen table (hubby, me, son and friends) and laid out what had occurred and why. We told the friends that we needed their help in keeping our son "clean" - don't offer anything, don't smoke around him, that sort of thing. We're not their parents and I have no right to ask them not to do things but I do have the right to ask them not to do it in front of my son. Well they made me cry when they all put their hands in the middle with my son's and said "don't worry bud - we got your back". And they have indeed. My son's biggest worry was that he would lose his friends because, as he put it, "I'm crazy and I'm broken". But not at all. For this, I am eternally grateful.