December 2009

The phone rang just as I sat down to write this final entry of the 2009 Diaries, in these closing days of the year just after Christmas. It was a mother of four children who was ringing to say ‘thank you’ for setting up the web-site. She said that our stories were almost identical: we had similar values, similar family situations, similar problems. The site had been a haven, she said, and she had felt less alone since she had found it. Some of the letters on the site had made her weep, she said, they were so…

November 2009

It has been four years since we have all been at home as a family to celebrate our eldest son’s birthday, which was a week ago. Guy’s birthday is two days before. Last year, we met for a meal in Covent Garden between their respective birthdays – Guy was going to be 50 and William 21. We hadn’t seen Will for over a year; we had asked him to leave two years before that. We have all come a long way since then, and we are still together.

It has not been easy having our eldest son back…

October 2009

Last Wednesday I sat down to write the Appendix to the Cannabis Diaries. Georgina, the publisher, is keen to have a ‘facts about cannabis’ part at the end, along with information about what to do, as a parent or carer, if you find that your child is using drugs. I’ve had little time to work recently. Will and Jack have both been at home this month, every day, and it’s had an impact on how much I can do during the day. Will has transferred to a part-time course which starts soon. Guy has sometimes declared that he…

September 2009

Guy and I have just got back from a five day break in Liverpool. We used to go there regularly, (we’re both Beatles fans), but it’s now over four years since we have been there together. We needed the time away, both of us were not only exhausted but also in pursuit of a free space for each other, which opened up immediately we were seated on a train to Lime Street.

Unlike many parents who are helping their oldest teenagers prepare for their first years at university, we have all three children at home, ‘just like when…

August 2009

William has been back living with us for over a month, and things are going well. Today is the first day of the two-month plumbing course he has signed up for. Some weeks ago he began the distance-learning part of the course, but today he is beginning the practical training in Central London. He has also joined a Sunday League football team, and played his first match at the weekend. I’m learning just how central sport is to his life.

He rang today during his lunch hour, whilst I was in the park with Jack, who got back…

July 2009

William is back living at home after two years. It’s been just over two weeks now, and so far things are going well.

The curious thing was that on the 17th of this month I finished the conclusion to ‘The Cannabis Diaries’. This document, which I had decided to call ‘Closing Chapter – July 09’, before sending it over by email to the publisher, describes the baby steps we have been taking in having Will back in our lives and how we now have the beginnings of a good relationship with our eldest son, not a perfect ending…

June 2009

It’s been a busy month. I’ve sent off an edited manuscript of the Cannabis Diaries to the publisher, and now need only to write the conclusion which will deal with us taking baby steps to have him back in our lives. Will has written the foreword to the book, so it’s all coming together. And as a family so are we. It’s been two years since William has lived at home, and just over 18 months ago since we let him go into freefall and regrouped as a family. As I’ve said many times before the decision to…

May 2009

Last Friday William and I spoke at a conference in Buckinghamshire, organised by DrugFam, the charity set up by the author Elizabeth Burton-Phillips. As I drove over to collect Will, I began looking back to when I was merely thinking about setting up a web-site about cannabis to support other families. I realise suddenly that Elizabeth’s name was there from the beginning.

One chilly October evening in 2006, at a fortieth birthday party at the Avenue restaurant in St James’, I had talked to another guest – Baroness Joyce Anelay – about my (very) embryonic plans. I explained…

April 2009

At the end of March I made decision to step down as Director of the charity Talking About Cannabis. I had worked as a volunteer for 2 years, since setting up the Talking About Cannabis Parental Action Group in April 2007, just after publication of the ‘Cannabis Diaries’ in the Guardian and Daily Mail. My aim was to raise awareness of the devastating effects of cannabis on the young and on families. I didn’t seem able to ‘fix’ my own family’s problems with our own son Will, so out of desperation decided to see if together with other…

March 2009

At the beginning of March I read in the Daily Telegraph that Julie Myerson has given an interview to a trade magazine about her new book, detailing her son’s descent into skunk cannabis addiction. I was surprised that she had decided to publish the story. Jon Myerson had got in touch with me through my web-site, after the Guardian published extracts of the Cannabis Diaries two years ago, in March 2007. He had said that friends presumed he or Julie had written the Diaries, the similarities in our stories were so great. We got together soon after, they…

February 2009

At the end of January a journalist from BBC Breakfast News rang, to ask if I would be interviewed on film, about our family’s story, for a feature to coincide with the reclassification of cannabis. He asked if Will may be interested in giving his views too, and consequently both of us were filmed together at Will’s new flat in South London.

I hardly slept the night before. Experience had taught me not to trust too much where Will was concerned. I was unsure what I would say to the news crew if my son was not there,…

January 2009

We saw Will again for the first time in November. It had been over a year since our last meeting, and for all of us it is still hard to believe that this could have happened. Certainly, the intensity of the love that I felt for him when he was a child contained no warnings that one day we might part in such a desperate way.

In October 2007, as Will approached his twentieth birthday, we had decided to let him go. We had spent the previous 5 years trying to keep him from throwing his life…