How did you choose to talk and handle Alcohol and Marijuana use with your children? My youngest is seeing kids fist time away from home go insane with getting their hands on both in such an extreme fashion.

In our home alcohol and marijuana was a subject that we started dialoguing about real early in their lives. Our family history includes drug and alcohol abuse and I wanted them to be informed as soon as possible.

Along with that open dialogue we eventually added peer pressure and self governing. I've seen many kids get swept up in the first semester in the whirl of college experimentation at the cost of their education. We have always been honest with them also, age appropriate but honest. In our house the mantra was always " handle your business first, then you can play".

I wouldn't say that this was easy - it's never easy to talk about how one son died and how the father fell apart. However, I did have a ready example of what happens to a person when they turn to drugs / alcohol to cope when something bad happens.

I never kept any alcohol in the house so neither one of us would be tempted to turn to it instead of dealing with a problem. My son will be 24 in 2 months and I still have problems (in my head) about having a bottle of wine in the house. Weird, I know.

I told my son that I chose not to have alcohol in the house because there were many family members - on both sides - that have had problems with substance abuse. He has seen classmates when he was in high school that drank until they threw up and they thought it was like a badge of honor to get that drunk.

I've never seen the appeal of that and neither did he. I know he drank in high school but he never drove while he was drinking so I count that as a semi-win. I learned later that his friend's mother was supplying the kids with the alcohol - and years later I still want to go over and kick her ass for doing that.

The perks of being forever alone