DEAR ABBY: My best friend, “Bette,” is one of the nicest, smartest teens you’ll ever meet. I enjoy her company, we get along great, and we have a lot in common. She’s also my role model, since I’m two years younger than she is. (I skipped a couple of grades.)

Recently Bette has been smoking weed and encouraging me to try it. I’m very against smoking. I’m afraid Bette might be doing the wrong thing. She says it’s OK because she does it only a little bit.

How can I persuade her to stop? Should I even try? Will I be ruining a great friendship? NEEDS HELP IN GEORGIA

DEAR NEEDS HELP: You appear to be more mature than your older friend. Not only is pot smoking generally unhealthy, it impairs your judgment. Marijuana can affect memory and the choices smokers make while under the influence. It is also illegal, with all that implies.

It is important that you understand that people change as they mature—or fail to mature. If Bette continues on this path, she may eventually begin spending more time with other kids who smoke pot. It could affect her grades and her participation in sports and other interests. You may have less and less in common. So start developing friendships with other students whose interests and goals are similar to yours and continue moving forward on your own wholesome path.

By all means, try to persuade Bette to stop; as her friend, it’s the right thing to do. But she is ultimately responsible for her own behavior—or misbehavior—and you have to protect your own future. —Abby

Gabby's Reply

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HI NEEDS: Your friend is revealing what’s next for you in your leadership-communication skills curriculum. Go back in time to the first day you found out she had smoked. What/how you communicated then (verbally and non verbally) sanctioned and rewarded her behavior. It’s called enabling. It was supposed to have been the turning point in the relationship. How did she know, with absolute certainty, that you would continue interacting with her? How did she know that you wouldn’t communicate,

“Have you told your parents? I’m uncomfortable with you smoking, but even more so with you deceiving them, and, in you not valuing me enough to not do it. Will you stop doing it as of now? If not, please call when you have not smoked for 6 months in a row.”

What she has done is tantamount to lighting up a cigar in front of the Pope. It's a powerful communication. It reveals that there are dozens of withheld thoughts between the two of you. Thoughts withheld serve as barriers to the experience of love and respect. The concept of love is there. What's missing is the experience.

Now here’s what it’s really about for you; if you don’t get this, you’ll be writing again, telling us your new spouse is either smoking or cheating on you. How do we know? We know because you don’t communicate your expectations and standards up front in your relationships.

"By the way, I'm not into drugs and I am unwilling to sap my energies with the kinds of problems drug users create.  If this is a problem for you, now would be the perfect time to say so. —What are your thoughts about this?"

Because you weren’t willing to be honest, up front (zero drugs) with your friend you’ll have to present your ultimatum now. My sense is that you won’t—that you’ll continue interacting with her, supporting her deception with her parents, so that you don’t have to experience the pain of aloneness. That is to say, you are addicted to being invalidated (it’s called abuse). To support another in deceiving (abusing) another sets life up for others to support others in deceiving you. In this case your non verbal communications to her parents are powerful, they are having powerful consequences. It could be said that she has set you up to support her in recreating the experience of integrity with her parents. It could also be said that you unconsciously set her up to set you up to have a choice, to go for it or to opt for a life of mediocrity.

You need communication skills coaching. We know this because you don’t yet know, at the level of natural knowing, that communication only takes place in space.

Two examples:

You: How do you feel about abortion?

Friend: I don't know. Sometimes I think it's OK and at other times I don't.

With such a person there is space for communication to take place.

You: How do you feel about abortion?

Friend: It's wrong. It's murder.

With such a person there is no space for communication to take place. The space is occupied by a concrete self-righteous position (anyone who disagrees is wrong).

You attempted to communicate into a position. Her position is, [I have smoked. I will smoke. Nothing you can say will cause me to stop now]. At some point in time you'll realize that you unconsciously intended her to be doing this, for you, in support of your growth, your maturity.

The truth is you offer her no intelligent mind-expanding game to play. No alternative except for more mediocrity. She, like many, has succumbed to the futility of it all. She sees what’s happening in the world, the hypocrisy, including your hypocrisy, and the hypocrisy she succumbs to when in your presence. She can’t find anyone who tells the truth, who inspires her to play at the level of excellence. She's had a few experiences of being in communication with another and it invalidates her to know that she can't create the experience with you, her parents, or even one teacher. Smoking is a way to check out, to go unconscious. For some it’s a necessary path. Most people need to hit bottom before choosing to have life work. If you get in the way, it delays their process. 

FYI: I know of no one who smokes who is making a positive contribution to his/her community (most are irresponsible complainers). I've seen some awesome minds start out as activists and then peter out after one or two projects. Smoking eventually takes one inside the mind, as opposed to out into the world of mastering personal relationships, organization relationships, community relationships, and societal (the world/international community) relationships, each with its own communication model to master. Weed supports one in putting up with things. Don’t be fooled by the supposed “expanded experience of love” benefits of smoking grass. The “love” that is experienced is at the expense of the support of others. A stoner consistently "forgets" to call his/her friends frequently to see what they are up to, what their goals are (Did you finish doing your taxes yet? and what other tasks they would put off except for their mutual support) and therefore it is not an expandable supportable mutually satisfying love. The vast majority of smokers are somewhat estranged from their parents.  That is to say, they do not have a mutually satisfying supportive relationship with their parents; to this day they have dozens of withholds, deceits, and unacknowledged perpetrations with their parents. Although smoking may cause one to have the thought to call those they have ignored, abused or deceived and clean things up; they are still missing the communication skills to do so, so most don’t even try. Their mind has invented a good reason to not. Most smokers are unconsciously committed to having their parents fail and to not feel proud and accomplished.

Yours is a valuable letter for others to read, thank you, Gabby

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