<p>" am not a medical professional by any means but i know the difference between alcoholics and stupid college kids. "</p>
<p>While many college kids drink and even use pot, most college students are not stupid enough to get caught 4 times for drug/alcohol use. The fact that she got caught so many times indicates she has a big problem.</p>
<p>Frankly, I’m surprised at your lack of concern over how many times she has ignored the college’s rules on substance abuse. One can assume also that she wasn’t caught each time she broke the rules. It really isn’t easy to be caught using on any campus.</p>
<p>I bet if you told her she must get a job to pay you back or else you wouldn’t be paying her fall tuition, she’d find some kind of job very quickly – as long as she knew you’d be standing by your word.</p>
<p>So far, it seems her infractions have gotten her just a slap on the wrist. Having to sit through group counseling sessions is no big deal.</p>
<p>This whole story is far from adding up. How is the parent “drug testing” the student at college? I suspect that this is really the daughter posting.</p>
<p>None of this adds up. About 80% of my son’s college would be in mandatory counseling if “drinking once of twice a week with friends” could get you there! A girl at his school actually went into the school’s addiction counseling center and they told her she doesn’t have a problem. (I believe she does)</p>
<p>i live quite close and i am sure 80% of your sons college do drink occasionally but 80% of your son’s college doesn’t get caught every other time</p>
<p>It’s not a matter of getting caught. There is no enforcement whatsoever at many colleges. I realize there IS enforcement at some schools, but if you get caught once, you would think you would be smart enough to not risk it.</p>
<p>my younger sib got a DWI when he was 20. He had to bring a family member/SO in for joint counseling part of his plea deal. I went with him, I was ignorant to what constitutes a drug and or alcohol problem. When asked if I thought he had a drinking problem,did it interfere with his life or other family members, I said no more than any other kid his age, and I didn’t think it interfered with his or my life. She said well, your here, he is here for something that is a problem. It IS interfering with both your lives,we had to do the counseling 2 nights a week for six months, admittedly, yes I then saw it was a drinking problem that saved his neck. As well as perhaps some innocent person he may have killed by HIS stupidity. He never did that again. If it is interfering with her life, and yes it surely is now, she needs the counseling.</p>
<p>Yorker, years ago, we buried one of my closest relatives who od’d. A few months ago, we buried his little brother whose heart was weak because of continued cocaine use. Months before the little brother died, the doctors said there was nothing they could do. Both of them were in their 30s and both of them would deny their use. Their mother and father will <em>never</em> be the same. Those were their only kids and their mom lived and breathed for those young men. </p>
<p>I would go into debt if I had to but my child would go to every blasted meeting, be on time and better not complain about it. It’s a small price to pay. </p>
<p>Oh… and another story you might be interested in… My coworker has a friend who was premed at a prestigious school and went to med school. I think it was near the end of med school or when the person was supposed to go to his residency that he was arrested with pot. He was kicked out-- no counseling, no second chances. That’s a huge price to pay and I don’t even want to add up the dollars spent on tuition that are gone. A person with even a possible drug/ alcohol problem does not need to be making life/ death decisions-- and there are too many people vying for a seat in med school and for residencies for them to be willing to take a chance. If nothing else, do the counseling so your daughter can tell a future school that she completed treatment. It will look far better for her.</p>
<p>I agree with others that none of this adds up. I suspect it’s a child or ■■■■■, not parent, posting here. It reads as such.</p>
<p>A LAC in Florida. But parent is testing every two weeks. An accurate home test for all drugs apparently (and forget about alcohol and other drugs leaving ones’ system much sooner than that…but I digress). A daughter who has job but parent believes daughter has no access to anything if she only has a credit card? And one has to pay out of pocket for all counseling but counseling only covers harm of drugs covered in handouts, week after week. But counselor feels more is needed and parent knows better? And parent is more worried about the relatively trivial cost of counseling (compared to say oh, an LAC, med school, or their child’s wellbeing?). None of it jives.</p>
<p>Im assuming that she is under 21.
Drinking /using drugs several times a week- is illegal.
putting substances in your body several times a week that have not been prescribed by your health provider- is not a social issue.
It is a health issue.</p>
<p>Well, kid or parent, one thing that has not been mentioned on the replies is the pre-med concerns and the disciplinary action. My Dd is applying soon to med school and there is always some one on the SDN forums posting in a panic about alcohol discipline let alone drugs. Even HS MIP/drug issues are asked about, and from the responses I think it is a valid concern.</p>
<p>In fairness I have stayed in my DDs college towns and heard a lot of stories and there is no lack of drinking going on and there are some stories about everything from pot to cocaine, to meth for weight loss, to date rape drugs all involving kids who seem ‘normal’ on the outside.</p>
<p>My DDs saw a lot of underage drinking in HS, too, but the big lesson is if you are that person who gets caught, you are either fated to be that person (really just walked in the room, etc.) so just stay away, or you are behaving riskily and need to stop the actions.</p>
<p>The repeated citations to me is more of an issue than the actual taking of a drink. That is some one who thinks the rules don’t apply, and they may be seeing behaviour that agrees with that assumption, but once you have been caught, you had your chance, it is time to walk the straight and narrow path</p>
<p>I think she should stay in counseling. It has been said about things like this, that for every 1 time someone is caught doing something illegal they had done that thing at least 100 times before without getting caught. I do not know how accurate it is but I have seen it play out that way many times before. </p>
<p>I assume your daughter is underage for the drinking, and well pot is just illegal, it needs to be figured out why she decided to do these things and how to avoid those things in the future. </p>
<p>As for the she gets good grade so she can’t really have a problem. Well think again. There are many functioning drug addicts and alcoholics. In the public eye they do not look nor act like there is an issue but behind closed doors is a totally different issue.</p>
<p>Since late January. And it’s now February. So she’s been attending for one month. Yeah… a month might be a long time for a student, but isn’t for a parent, so this definitely sounds like a student posting, not the parental unit.</p>
<p>Whoever it is who is posting, the D needs to grow up, suck it up, and deal with the consequences of her actions. She’s not just “kinda stupid,” she’s also immature.</p>
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<p>Exactly.</p>
<p>I should think that at least six months of counseling would be needed, because there seems to be a lot of denial here.</p>
<p>As has been mentioned, it is entirely possible to fool drug tests and not all drugs are that testable. One month of counselling is insufficient. This looks like a student posting - I would hope that in this day and age, no parent is this thick.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I’ve had way too much experience watching family members battle addictions, mostly with alcohol. Please understand that alcoholism wears many faces. It is not just the unemployed bum passed out on the sidewalk. Addicts/alcoholics can be very high functioning and hold down very responsible jobs and yes, get good grades. Addiction/alcoholism also does not mean drinking/druggging from morning to night. Binging can be just as destructive. Members of AA or any other 12 step program have admitted that they’ve become powerless over alcohol and that their lives had become unmanageable. Maybe your daughter has come to this conclusion herself. Please, please let her continue with the counseling.</p>
<p>If you’re caught twice at my son’s school, you’re gone. So kids go to off-campus parties if they want to drink. There’s far less of that this year than last year - maybe it’s the economy.</p>
<p>Getting caught four times? I’d think about community college. Regarding the pre-med track - I personally wouldn’t want a doctor operating on me with a substance problem.</p>
<p>I couldn’t agree more with Mansfield. There is a history of binge/social alcoholics in my family and my husband’s family. A person like this seems very much together UNTIL they start drinking and then it becomes less about putting a little buzz on to an inability to stop drinking until they are blotto. These people are HUGELY high functioning, live in a world where cocktails are not only normal but often a prerequisite to the rest of the evening. We have told our son repeatedly that his gene pool is very dense when it comes to these things and we truly hope he has seen enough of this behavior first hand to know how destructive it is to the entire family.</p>
<p>Whether or not this poster is ■■■■■ or parent, I have seen very clearly that people who have near them this type of personality could benefit from some therapy as well. A lot of the time there is some dependent behavior that doesn’t allow them to truly see the situation in its full light. Secondly, I can’t imagine an insurance policy that doesn’t recognize that any kind of treatment usually lasts longer than a month or 6 weeks. Thirdly, if this is required by the college, don’t they have free counseling or an otherwise sliding scale for students?</p>
<p>My thinking here is that to get a citation numerous times on a college campus you have to be pretty F’ed up. Perhaps it isnt a daily problem in the least… at least not yet. But I have seen those recovering alcoholics in my own family go for 6 months to a year and more before going on a dangerous binge on some random weekend just when we all thought perhaps they had finally turned a corner. For one, it’s taken nearly a decade to finally get that he cannot drink. Actually, he says he can drink, but the problem is that he does it all too well and for all too long. So not drinking for a month? That’s hardly a test. And if they can’t seem to have a good time without it? That says something as well.</p>
<p>And it has been my personal experience that anytime someone uses money as an excuse not to get needed therapy, is the one that needs it most. Alcoholism is very indifferent to class and it is painfully insidious to the entire family. Do all you can to truly understand the depths of what is going on and perhaps why before you think it’s a waste of time or money now. Believe me, full blown rehab is a LOT more than 150 an hour.</p>
<p>I would have been THRILLED that they didn’t throw my kid out of college!!!</p>
<p>I would also be very happy to pay for this counseling service because it is a cheap deal in the long run. I would have no problem either asking my kid to help me repay the out of pocket expenses either and it would probably be a good thing in the long run anyway. I would also make it perfectly clear that one more offense & I would not pay for college.</p>
So not drinking for a month? That’s hardly a test. And if they can’t seem to have a good time without it? That says something as well.</p>