TeenHealthFX - Answers - Trouble Getting My Old Friends Back Since I Stopped Using Pot

Friends / Question
Published: March 19, 2008

Dear TeenHealthFX,

I just recently stopped smoking pot and hanging out with a group of kids that were 5 years older then me. Iam 14 years old, i stopped hanging out with them becuase they where treating me like shit. I still want hang out with them but I won't. I was hanging out with these people everyday. I now am having trouble getting my old friends back. They don't believe me that I quit becuase i have told them several times before i did but i really didnt. What should i do?

Signed: Trouble Getting My Old Friends Back Since I Stopped Using Pot

Dear Trouble Getting My Old Friends Back Since I Stopped Using Pot,

This is a good example of a consequence to drug use that can occur for many people – the loss of valuable friendships. You are experiencing what many people who have started to use drugs, and gravitated towards a new group of friends who use also, have gone through – that the people they left behind might not always be there with open arms if they have felt abandoned, mistreated, or lied to.

If rebuilding friendships with this other, more positive group of friends is truly important to you (and FX is glad if it is), than we recommend that you work to keep on proving that you are no longer smoking and that you want to do whatever you can to earn their trust, respect and friendship back. Because you left them for this other group, and because you were not honest with them in the past about your drug use, it may time your friends some time of seeing real effort on your part before they are willing to open the door for you again. But if they really mean a lot to you, you’ll be willing to make whatever sacrifices or efforts that you need to in order to win them back.

Signed: TeenHealthFX