2008 -- The Beginning (or was it really?)

My wife had awakened our oldest son, 13 years old, for school.  Following waking him up, a horrific smell of something burning is smelled in his room.  She goes in and he tries telling her that he was just burning some paper.  The smell was not burning paper.  I went into his room as they were in the front room discussing what took place and found a bottle of Italian Seasonings, a pair of tweezers, and a partial burned "joint" of the seasonings rolled in a paper, all in a box.  I brought out the box and asked what this was.  He then admitted that he had been occasionally smoking marijuana, but that he was not a pothead.  Since he could not afford his own, someone told him that he could also get high by smoking parsley.  So he grabbed the Italian Seasoning to see if it would work.

I took him to school.. On the way to school, I talked with him about my childhood and the drug and alcohol abuse that I had seen in my own family and how it has caused so much sorrow.  Once we got to the school, I talked with the dean about what had happened.  She said that they will check his locker with the liaison police officer.  She also said that she would set him up to talk to a counselor that the school brings in.

Upon returning home, we took the door off of his room and went through his room.  In going through his room, we found a list of drug dealers and another list of people who wanted drugs.  I contacted the dean and she said she would notify the liaison police officer and he would get back with us.  The police officer never did contact us.

He occasionally met with the counselor.  She did tell us that his actions were still consistent with drug use and she would recommend that we test him for drug usage.  Not really sure why we didn't.  Were we not ready for the truth, could we not afford the test, did we not want to make him feel that we did not trust him, were we not sure how to go about with the test, were we not sure what to do if we found out.  Probably all of the above.

His grades were better, not great but better and he seemed to be better than he was before.