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I need help confronting my parents about my marijuana use

Old 05-22-2015, 03:32 AM
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I need help confronting my parents about my marijuana use

I am 23, a post grad student and i have been using marijuana extensively for about a year. At first i felt it made me work better in college and the first semester was great, i topped almost all my classes. But then this semester went bad bad bad i say, i ended up flunking 2 subjects simply because i had not attended enough classes and really had to force myself to do any work in any other subject. Now the situation in college is tense but not unmanageable and i have been trying to look for a way to quit for a while. Things have really been slipping and slipping and slipping over the past 5 months

yesterday i was travelling to another town carrying a little bit of marijuana with me, and i got stopped and searched at the station. They found it, and i had to pay a substantial amount just to get the hell out of that fix. I am also financially dependent on my parents almost entirely. It was approximately three quarters of my bank balance, all money having been given to me by my parents. They have never questioned any expenditure on my part ever, and i have always been a good student at school until this last semester.

Now i could just manage to escape this situation if i lie enough and well, and borrow some money from my friends for now. This will involve a lot of lying to home though.

The alternative is if i just tell them everything now. I dont know what the hell is going to happen. My parents do care about me a lot and in a conversation 3 days ago about my finances my parents said that they trusted me completely, [Thats what makes it worse an worse and worse all the time.] but over the past 5 months i have taken their trust and thrown it to the dogs.

I am really scared about the fact that i will never be able to win their trust ever again. But i also want a weight off my chest. What should i do? Any advice is welcome.
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Old 05-22-2015, 03:44 AM
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Hi toomanymistakes - welcome

I think honesty is always the best policy - not just because it's the right thing to do but because taking responsibility for your own decisions is the first step out of addict hell and back to being a normal regular type adult.

I realise it's scary and I realise your parents may be mad, but I think anything else is just digging you a deeper hole, really I do.

D
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Old 05-22-2015, 04:02 AM
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Telling your parents brings the whole situation into the light. It gives you some accountability, you don't have a dark secret causing you shame and guilt and fear, you deal with it and move on. It's the right thing to do.

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Old 05-22-2015, 05:08 AM
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i just would not know where to start. or whether i should speak the whole truth, half the truth or just lie. my parents are also struggling financially now after a period of rather steady income. the context is just making it uglier the more i think about it.
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Old 05-22-2015, 05:14 AM
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I had to take up a job to support myself when I was postgrad - is that an option for you at all?

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Old 05-22-2015, 05:23 AM
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yes, but college schedule works a bit differently here, so it might be difficult. i do get a monthly scholarship but the payments are irregular, they come in once a few months, all months at once
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Old 05-22-2015, 05:26 AM
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I'm the parent of a 25 y.o. who has gotten in plenty of legal trouble over drinking and drug use. As much as it kills me to hear about the latest disappointment, I would be much more upset to find out through another source, e.g. mail from the court system, etc.
Please be upfront with them. They want the best for you and will support you no matter what, especially if this is the first time you've ever gotten in trouble with your use. Expect them to question you extensively and go through various stages of shock, denial, anger, etc. Be prepared to lay it all out there.

My best advice: make this a one-time occurrence. The more you repeat this cycle, the more bitter they will be and will eventually withhold support. You all deserve a happy, productive life.
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Old 05-22-2015, 05:43 AM
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Get a job. Pay your way. Whether or not you be honest with your parents is up to you.
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Old 05-22-2015, 06:26 AM
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I can do that. I can also get a loan to pay the rest of my college fees. But come monday, when i get back home (m on summer break now), i will have to make a choice, whether to lie about where this money has gone, or come clean.
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Old 05-22-2015, 06:48 AM
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it's really difficult.... but the very best move in these situations is to just come clean.

The consequences of trying to keep it secret are far more insidious.

It sounds like you're viewing this as a wake-up call and if you approach it that way, if you share this with your parents from a place of sincerity and honesty - then you will honor them and you will honor yourself.

If you try and hide it or otherwise deal with it out of fear of consequences, you do yourself and your parents a far greater dishonor and the way that it will eat at your soul and your conscience is likely to cause much greater damage than any consequence of being honest ever could.

Best of luck to you and may this be a turning point.
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Old 05-22-2015, 06:55 AM
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Come clean. You can start a life of honesty or a life of deception. Now.
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Old 05-22-2015, 07:50 AM
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(What I am going to ask sounds harsh but comes from my seeing parents spending their entire retirement/emotional savings bailing their kids out of substance created financial/legal trouble again and again and again.)

If you are going to ask your parents to bail you out of the is situation financially make sure you are actually going to be honest with them. Please do a inventory of your motivations. Do you really want to quit and improve your life or are you doing this just for a financial bailout so you can keep smoking it up?

I say this because I care and do not what to see this cycle start with any other family. Please make sure this is the last time.
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Old 05-22-2015, 09:04 AM
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Originally Posted by FreeOwl View Post
it's really difficult.... but the very best move in these situations is to just come clean. The consequences of trying to keep it secret are far more insidious. It sounds like you're viewing this as a wake-up call and if you approach it that way, if you share this with your parents from a place of sincerity and honesty - then you will honor them and you will honor yourself. If you try and hide it or otherwise deal with it out of fear of consequences, you do yourself and your parents a far greater dishonor and the way that it will eat at your soul and your conscience is likely to cause much greater damage than any consequence of being honest ever could. Best of luck to you and may this be a turning point.
^^^^^this^^^^
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Old 05-22-2015, 11:28 AM
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Originally Posted by gettingsmarter View Post
(What I am going to ask sounds harsh but comes from my seeing parents spending their entire retirement/emotional savings bailing their kids out of substance created financial/legal trouble again and again and again.)

If you are going to ask your parents to bail you out of the is situation financially make sure you are actually going to be honest with them. Please do a inventory of your motivations. Do you really want to quit and improve your life or are you doing this just for a financial bailout so you can keep smoking it up?

I say this because I care and do not what to see this cycle start with any other family. Please make sure this is the last time.
Its not that. . . . . . . . . I can manage the money now. I can get some of it back and whatever i tell them about where the rest went, they will most likely believe me. I dont need them to bail me out now.

but i am scared that if i lie now, i will not be able to come clean ever again. And i HAVE been lucky this time because i have been able to get out of this without any legal issues. If it ever happens again, i might not be lucky, then they will get to know from all these different sources.

I might just be able to get away with it right now. Honestly i am really really scared of quitting completely. But this time i have lost a lot of money and its because i did something really really stupid. I must stop now or i never will. I think they can help me.

I feel more scared of myself not being able to stop than anger from my parents.
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Old 05-22-2015, 11:48 AM
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As someone who lived in a web of lies built upon lies built upon lies and more and more lies for many years, I very much encourage you to come clean with them right now. The lying will only get worse and never knowing when that other shoe is going to drop is a HORRIBLE way to live life.

And I hope you take this as a wake up call to stop the pot smoking too. Just like the lies, the trouble your smoking can cause will only get worse. You got out of the legal jam this time but probably won't be so lucky next time.

My drug of choice was alcohol. I was coming home from a bar in September 2004 absolutely hammered out of my mind, having absolutely no business driving. A cop stopped me. Instead of arresting me, he gave me the option of leaving my car parked right where it was and calling someone for a ride home. I called a cab. That should have been a wake up call. Instead, three weeks later I was coming home from the same bar and crashed my car into the side of a house a few blocks from my own house. The arresting officer was the same one who'd let me off the hook three weeks earlier.
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Old 05-22-2015, 11:49 AM
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Just fyi... in case nobody has noticed, his stated location is India. This is why I've refrained from replying. I don't know much about Indian culture, so maybe I'm wrong, but from the little I know, I think parents are much more strict, and have greater expectations from their children than we generally expect in the West.

Telling your Indian parents you smoke pot is probably 50 times harder than telling your Western parents you smoke pot. In the West, it wouldn't really be a big deal, whereas over there it's probably more along the lines of, "how could you possibly do this to the family, after everything we've done for you?"

Just saying...
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Old 05-22-2015, 11:54 AM
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In my opinion living a life of lies feels horrible no matter where you are located.
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Old 05-22-2015, 12:07 PM
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Anyway, for maybe a helpful piece of advice. You seem to be concentrating on the fact that you're smoking weed, as if that's what caused your downhill slope in life.

Maybe instead concentrate on WHY you began smoking weed? In other words, don't solely blame the weed. Try to think of why you decided to go down that path in life, and try to figure out how you can change course from there.
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Old 05-22-2015, 12:14 PM
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Originally Posted by TroyW View Post
Just fyi... in case nobody has noticed, his stated location is India. This is why I've refrained from replying. I don't know much about Indian culture, so maybe I'm wrong, but from the little I know, I think parents are much more strict, and have greater expectations from their children than we generally expect in the West.

Telling your Indian parents you smoke pot is probably 50 times harder than telling your Western parents you smoke pot. In the West, it wouldn't really be a big deal, whereas over there it's probably more along the lines of, "how could you possibly do this to the family, after everything we've done for you?"

Just saying...

Yes that does make it harder.

Its odd though, i drink occasionaly, my mother knows, i told her, she has always taken it rather well, but my Dad, who drinks occasionaly, and smokes occasionally, and must have smoked pot in his own college time, (i once heard a few of his classmates talking about it) seemed to be pretty on edge.

I am not going to see my parents till monday and that waiting for the axe to fall is hard. Thanks for the replies guys, this makes it a lot easier.
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Old 05-22-2015, 12:18 PM
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I think you should be honest with your parents.

I think you should focus on sobriety and learning to deal with life without alcohol/drugs. That will give you a good foundation to build your life on.
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