It was suddenly quiet in the living room where my 15 year old son and his friends were playing video games. I wondered in and asked two of the boys sitting and playing a game where my son was. He is outside with James. James is here a lot. He is one of two of my son's best friends. He spends at least one night a weekend here and has done so since he was 9 years old. He is like another son to me. I go outside to find them smoking pot.

I tell my son to get back in the house and annouce to the other boys that they have 15 minutes to clean up get their things together and head home. Realizing it was already past midnight and the 2 boys inside had not been participating in smoking the pot I decided they could stay. Going home at that hour would have caused them some problems with their parents. They had done nothing wrong. I told them they could stay but head home first thing in the morning and I told my son we would talk tomorrow.

The boys were concerned for James and with my permission went out to see if he was okay finding his way home. I wasn't worried because he has been on his own for almost a year now and wanders around freely at all hours is not foreign to him. I see them head out the door with James backpack and let them do what they need to do.

I hear the toilet flush again and again and again and voices in the bathroom. Finally the flushing stops and I call my son and ask him for an explanation. He said they just flushed the pot down the toilet. They talked James into giving up his pot and letting them flush it. My first thought was that he was in the house and this was suppose to soften me to let him stay. But no, James went home and according to the boys he is not going to smoke pot anymore.

I congratulated them. I asked my son if he had been part of the disposal of the pot and he said he was. I said he was part of smoking it too but hoped he would be more inclined to follow the way of these 2 boys in the future instead of the way James led him earlier.

I knew my son was drawn to pot and alcohol for that matter. We talk about it alot. Our talks have sometimes included James and another of my son's closest friends who is here almost as much as James. I have a history of abusing pot and he is not too young to forget how it impacted all of our lives. Still he wants to be part of the party crowd and for the most part by allowing him to have boys here over the weekends I have managed to keep him from joining the partying scene. I ousted a older brother who came by with alcohol a month or so ago and that led to talking to all of the boys about the rules around here.

Now its pot and again the rules were set down and the consequences were made clear. James will return and we will talk about what went down and what is expected of him in the future. For now he is grounded from hanging out here.

Is there more I should, could be doing to try to steer my son in the right direction? I am so afraid I am going to loose him to drugs or alcohol when my hold on him is gone. What will he choose when he hasn't got me stopping him from making a bad choice?