Answer me this: do you really think the kid is going to do better if:
A. he fails on his own ( IF and that's a big IF ) and decides he needs to help himself
B. somebody says "you will get help for a problem I say you have or else"
If he fails on his own, that could mean death depending on what drugs we are talking about.
Could (highly unlikely). But he has a right to screw up his life if that is what he chooses to do with it.
He might not know that people are willing to help him at that point, or how or where to get help from.
Read my last post, second to last paragraph, Italics.
If you drive drunk and kill someone you are not charged with murder, but with vehicular manslaughter which has a greatly reduced sentence.
You got your law screwed up there.
Read up.
Involuntary manslaughter / negligent homicide does not require a person to be drunk (it only requires negligence... for a person to ignore traffic laws, speed, drive crazy, and kill somebody as a result). Driving drunk is reckless. Driving with a blindfold is reckless. Driving while watching TV, doing nails, and talking on a cell phone is reckless. None of that has the requisite Mens Rea of intent to kill. If driving drunk always resulted in a reduced sentence, I don't doubt somebody round here would have downed a bottle of vodka and run over a whole slew of program directors and ed-cons a long time ago (@FBI: that was a joke).
I'd say jail most likely, dead is the worst outcome. These things do happen to people who are addicted to drugs and never get help or change their behavior. Whether I'm right about the kid being addicted or not is irrelevant, because like you said it is up to a doctor to decide, which he will see if entered into a 30 day drug rehab. If he gets a free apartment for him and his friends to get high all day long in until the free money runs out, he will never see a doctor.
Oh come off it. I knew plenty of stoners in college who did just find on their own. I even knew one guy who was heavy (really heavy) into crystal meth but quit on his own accord (he was the first to suggest to me that NA was cult-like. at that point I defended it until I did more research). The "druggies" worked and went to college like everybody else. What they did in their own private home is their business (and certainly not yours). Whether or not any of them (or this kid) needed/needs help is their decision and their decision alone. If people are able to smoke pot/do whatever drugs and succeed in life, who are you, I, or anybody, to interfere with that. Most grow out of it anyway (unless, of course, they get coerced into some cult (and yes,
institutional AA fits the criteria for a cult) that convinces them they have a progressive disease that will fucking KILL THEM creating a self fulfilling prophecy spiral of death).
Steering is one thing. Saying "you will do this or else" is another.
How else can you get a person addicted to drugs to enter rehab? Drugs have a strong allure and if left to their own devices, a drug addict will choose drugs over rehab almost 100%.
Then that is THEIR
CHOICE!
Not because rehab is such a terrible thing, but because they want to keep getting high. Sure you can just let them be, but with that comes risks. In my opinion, the risk of entering a medically based 30 day rehab is less than the risks associated with doing nothing.
Ok.
Back that up with independent studies.
Again, assuming that the kid h as a drug problem.
Yes, because first off, it's not my body. Are you pro life or pro choice? why? Secondly, I could not predict the future and there would be no way for me to know whether he would succeed or not. Fear of the unknown is something that is part and parcel with parenthood. I've already covered my objections in terms of program success rates.
It is your house though as the parent. Are you going to let your kid steal your prescriptions and money from you and still do nothing? Let them stay out for days at a time, coming home only to 'crash' all the while holding steadfast to your ideological objections to 'coercive' drug treatment? For all we know this kid is addicted to meth, which would explain the staying out for days at a time and sleeping all day during crashes.
And for all you know, he just doesn't like being around his parents for personal reasons, so he switches his sleep schedule around. You are speculating. I offered a solution to teh stealing anyway. Read my last post, second to last paragraph, italics.
So you can tell the future? He will fail on his own, with such certainty. It's almost religious in nature. Tell me. Are you an AA/NA/Al-anon member? You are suggesting estricting somebody from having a chance to make their own decisions because you claim that if they do they will certainly make choices you disapprove of. Well. You don't know that. You really don't. In any case, the kid has a right to live as he wants on his own (the short term apt until he finds his job is a courtesy).
If the kid wanted a job, he could have one while living at home.[/quote]
Why would he if he has no reason to. Give him a reason: survival.
The poster said kid dropped out of high school. What makes you think the behavior of the kid will suddenly and miraculously change when provided with an apartment? I don't claim to see the future. I am claiming that a individual prone to using drugs will not stop all of a sudden because they are provided with the facade of a sober life. Yes this kid has a right to live on their own, but the parents are not required to pay for it. No I am not an AA member.
Not required, true. But to selectively withhold support would be to persecute against him for his personal choices about his body.
Read what this guy has to say about it. Please read it. It might change your mind.
I really hate to question your qualifications (I put more weight on your arguments), but it would help me to understand where you are coming from in this regard. It does seem you have a lot of pre-existing conceptions about this issue and i'm wondering from where.
Who says he will spend his money on a drug addiction?
The kid's actions tell us. He is willing to steal drugs and money from his family to support his habit.
No. That's speculation. You don't know why he is stealing, and neither do I. It could be for any number of reasons (pay for a GF's abortion... any number of things).
That means he is willing to compromise his own morals in order to feed an addiction.
That assumes he had issues with stealing from his parents in the first place. Again, that's speculation. How many kids nowadays you know who would do that anyway?
That shows us if he is handed money, that most likely it will go to the drugs.
No. It shows you're really good with speculating.
I'm saying the parents should pay for an apt for a few months, give him some cash to start off (if he chooses to spend it on drugs, that's his business) and let him on his own. That's not subsidizing anything explicity.
It's not just his business, since the family is subsidizing it. What if he overdoses in the apartment from the huge batch of drugs he was able to buy with his cash handout?
That would be a tragedy, but ultimately his decison. Again, I recommend you read that salon.com article I linked to above.
What if he invites his drug abusing friends to live in his apartment and one of them dies? The family would be responsible.
Not true. It would be the fault of whatever idiot put too many drugs in his body.
Instead of setting up such a failure-prone situation, why not use the same money and energy to help them enter into treatment. They can offer the apartment and money when the kid shows they want, and are ready to start a normal sober life. Until then, it would just be another setting for the same behavior to continue.
Of the kid, realizing he has to hit the ground running and has to get a job to support himself, could start looking at life from a more responsible perspective. He might land a decent job, get out, meet people, increase his self esteem, decide to quit whatever he is doing on his own. There are any number of scenarios here, but the kid is an adult and he should be able to choose how he wants to live his life, whether that be sober or not.
It's saying "here is an opportunity to make something of your life. Here is an apartment and some cash. Do with it what you will. This is the last you will get from us We will love you always and if you ever feel like you need comfort or aid, we will always be here to comfort and love you, but we can no longer have you in the house because of your theft. You have a right to put what you want in your own body, but should you feel you need help, will will support you in a rehabilitation program of your choosing.
I think that is a noble idea, but it has to happen after the drug rehab. Otherwise the drug abuse will continue in the new apartment, and he will spend the cash on drugs. Not because he is a horrible person, but because that is how drugs work. They are addictive and people choose drugs over a normal and stable life. You can't buy your way out of drug addiction, you have to work on yourself first, and then rebuild your life.
Again, I would have to strongly disagree with you on that, as well as on your concept of addiction (
see the article I linked to). I wonder where you got such concepts. Again, I would love to know a little more about your background in this area.
We really are saying the same thing, but disagree on the particular details of the method. Providing an apartment and money is coercion just as my advice earlier.
Well. Not really. I'm suggesting just giving it to him as a parting gift with no strings attached (something he can make a life off) and letting him go on his own from there, to succeed or fail.
You also say that it's okay to kick the kid out because of theft. Well then why not get them into treatment, and treat the cause for why the theft occured in the first place.
speculation
It's sort of like you want to ignore the drug component of the equation and fix the rest.
That's correct. Because I see blaming the drug as a scapegoat... a way to skirt personal responsibility. At the same time, I don't think it's anybody's business what he puts in his body. If he can use drugs and do well... more power to him. If he fails and feels drugs are causing him problems, he might want to quit on his own. Again, I know guys who have done that off some pretty hard drugs, but you never hear about that from the 12 step crowd since they claim it's impossible
as a matter of dogma.
I am saying the drug component is the cause of the rest, solve that, and the other problems will be no more.
It's not ignoring it. It's dealing with it. If he's not in the house he cannot steal from them. I am not suggesting asking him to move out because of what he chooses to put in his body. I am suggesting the parents ask him to move out because of the stealing. that is it. What he chooses to put in his own body is irrelevant to his actions.
What he puts in his body is the cause of his actions.
Again, read
this article on that, if you haven't clicked on my links yet. The guy interviewed more or less has very similar views to mine.
You say it's okay to kick him out for stealing, but then say it's necessary to provide an apartment free of charge and cash for a couple months. This doesn't make any sense to me.
Well. Throwing him out on the streets is unfair and guarantees failure. I think that's cruel of a parent to do. I believe when a kid leaves the house, he should at least have a chance at success. That's why I suggest the apt.
Giving him money will stop the theft, only because you are paying him off. That's sort of like paying money to street-living heroin addicts so they don't steal from the surrounding citizens and businesses. It solves the problem of theft and crime, but does nothing to solve the underlying problem of why the individual was required to steal in the first place. They can't work because they are addicted to drugs, but they need money for drugs, so they steal. You remove the drug component from that equation and the other problems solve themselves.
Coincidence does not mean causality. The crime/drug relationship is not as simple as you describe. I'd be glad to debate you on that, but in another thread. For now, if you haven't yet read the salon article, I highly recommend reading it as the author being interviewed says what I am trying to say with far more eloquence.
http://archive.salon.com/health/books/2 ... index.html