my 17 year old Son is drinking alone

I have a 17 nearly 18 year old Son, our only child that has Aspergers but only recently diagnosed in the last month.  Is it normal for him to sit in his room on his own drinking alcohol or should we discourage this, he spends most of his time in his room even eating meals.  He also smokes canabis, he says it slows his brain down as he thinks to quickly, we absolutely do not want or agree to him doing this and is not allowed to smoke it in the house, but does anyone know if canabis does actually help with an autistic brain ? sorry i know this is a controversial question but canabis is hitting the media a lot at the moment. He does work as a builders mate so brings in his own money but says he has no proper friends

  • I developed a drug dependency at uni (ecstasy and cocaine) to cope with the social pressure. I have suffered with a lot of MH issues including paranoia and I now suffer from psychosis when stressed. I believe these issues were made worse, and the psychosis may have been caused by, the drug use. At my autism assessment, the assessor did mention that a lot of autistic people abuse illegal drugs as a way to cope. If I had my time again I wouldn't take drugs and wish I had someone who helped me to develop healthy coping strategies.

  • Hi thanks for response I am now worried he is becoming reliant on canabis to function and socialise, don't really no how to discourage him, he says we just nag him all the time and that we are making things worse for him, do we ignore it or keep nagging

  • I'm 28 and do mostly the same, although I stopped smoking cannabis when I left boarding school in 2006. It definitely helped. It calmed anxiety, and made me giggle. I just didn't like the risk of being caught by the law, and/or family members condemning me.