A letter from a 17 year old girl, seeking advice - will you help?

I received an email, this morning.  It's from "Kelsey" who says she is 17 years old.  I admit that, at first, I wondered if this email is legit.  But, I don't want to take that kind of gamble.  The purpose of my blog began as a way to find my own advice, encouragement and support as I grappled with the fact that my son is a drug addict.  My blog cultivated a lot of wonderful people who understood me, because they had similar problems.  There are times when I received comments from people who are, themselves, drug addicts.  They have helped me, tremendously, to try and better understand my son's perspective on his battle of addiction. For that reason, I have decided to post Kelsey's email (without her email address, to protect her privacy).  I'm going to email her and ask her to check my blog, because I'm going to ask my readers/followers to leave comments for her to read.

Before I do, please know that my son appears to be staying clean, though he is still on methadone. I'll update more of that, but I'm giving Kelsey a spot on my blog. Kelsey, I pray that you will find guidance from those who will comment. I'll write to you when I have a chance to come up with my own response.

Hi, I came across your blog when I googled early signs of addiction. I googled that because I wanted to know if I would fall under the "addict" catergory. I don't really think I do, but my one sober friend thinks I need help. I'm not sure if she's the right person to go off of, but then I feel she might be because I'm so used to all of my other friends using more drugs than I do. When I say I use drugs I mean I only use like, coke, subs, acid, weed, and then these precription pills are the love of my life: adderall, xanax, ativan, percs, oxys. I don't use any of these daily, with the exception of weed, but I use one or more at least 4 times a week. When I'm not using I'm thinking of how I can get it, what I can get, etc. I just think about being high non stop. I didn't really email you so you can tell me if I'm a drug addict or not. I feel like it's not that simple when I am only text on a web page to you. I emailed you because I want help before it gets to the point where I'm having bad withdrawls and can't stop. I mean, I want that help, but then I don't because I'm not convinced it's a problem. I just don't know how to tell my Mom, and that is where I come to you for advice. Please excuse me if I'm not making sense, it's 7:11 in the morning, and I haven't slept in over a day. I think I may be delirius to everyone but myself. So here is my story, and I hope you can give me some insight on what I can do: I'm Kelsey. I'm a 17-year-old junior in highschool. I'm screwing up my life. I'm practically failing out of school, and I want to fix that but I don't care enough to. I'm scared to tell my mom because she is already going through a hard enough time, I don't want her to have to deal with my problems. That is, if she believes me. I have a feeling she'd tell me I just want attention. Or she'd just try to ground me or something like that. She's an alcoholic that is dealing with the death of my older brother and her husband is divorcing her. She's not very stable and she has no self-confidence. I also can't tell her because I am supposed to be the "good one", the one with "promise" in my family. You see, I come from a long line of alcoholics and drug addicts. I'm the only one of my cousins that actually has is together. I don't want her to be embarrassed because I know she's proud that I'm not a screw-up like her brother's daughter and her sister's son. We're all very similar in age, the girl is 19 and the boy is going to be 17 in a few months. I honestly don't even know if this little "addiction" that I may or may not have is even serious enough to tell anyone. Thank you for taking the time to read this. Sincerely, Kelsey

God bless you, Kelsey!