Chatting to my son tonight and one thing led to another and he,tearfully, admitted how he felt left out during university because he did not drink.

Left out of things, because I, his mum, bought him up in a church neither us now believe in.

I feel awful.

Anyone else has similar, or have any words of wisdom

Leading our six children into the cult is the biggest regret of my life.

Advice? Move forward, don't dwell on the past. It gets you nothing but sadness. An equal tragedy to leading him into the cult would be to devote your time to dwelling on that mistake instead of enjoying and cherishing every moment you have left on Earth.

Thank you

Great advice applicable to us all in many situations.

We all did what we thought was right at the time. You did. I did. Your son did. Everybody has a regret. Not everyone learned a lesson though. You did. I did. Your son did. The future is bright for us because, well, now we know.

Thank you for this

WHAT???

Would you rather had him freeze to death outside his dorm because he was too drunk to open the door, or have him be killed in a traffic accident by his own DUI?

You can't be that cynical about college life, can you?

No,Drinking was more of a sociable activty where he was.He has always been Mr sensible. He was talking about not going to pub invites, wine tastings etc

A bit dramatic, no?

The one and only saving grace of the Mormon church is it's stand on alcohol.

Bullshit.

You mean it has other saving graces?

My advice is to look at the reverse, what if you both were still there? You only get so many years of this life, and he can now live them!

I'd drink Orange Crush in college and nobody told me I was an a-hole for it.

Lydia, please don't feel guilty. You did the best raising your children with the knowledge you had at that time in your life.

College is a brief period of time. Your son is capable of having a wonderfully life however he defines it. Very best wishes!

I knew guys in college (a state university) who abstained from alcohol, and not all of them were even religious. Some of them were quite popular and were not made to feel left out because they didn't drink.

You did what you thought was right at the time, so you brought him up the best way that you knew how to. Then, you realized that the organization was not what they said they were, so it's right to be out of it now.

I don't see any errors there.

Alcohol is a special case. Left the Church when our 5 children were in Jr High and high school. We still do not use alcohol. But 2 of our 5 children became alcoholics. One recovered, the other is currently end stage. Both started on alcohol for social and work related reasons.

Sometimes I wonder if we had stayed in the Church could we have saved them from the alcohol? Alcoholism runs in the family. I hate the stuff and I hate that it is so much a part of American life.

I'm with you. Alcoholism runs rampant in my family, and in my husband's too. We don't drink even though we are no longer Mormons. But one of my sons is alcoholic. He started drinking while we were still in, because he had found information on the internet long before we did and stopped believing. What was to stop him from taking a drink?

"he, tearfully, admitted how he felt left out during university because he did not drink"

"He was talking about not going to pub invites, wine tastings etc"

If I understand correctly, your son is (literally) crying about not being invited to pub crawls and wine tastings? Wow, does he ever need some perspective on what's important in life.

You do not need to feel bad about this. It's completely on him.

Thank you all for your different views on this. I really do appreciate the varing thoughts because it makes me consider different sides.

Even our new President, Trump, learned early on--by the example of a relative--that drinking liquor isn't a good thing to do. Trump is not ashamed or embarrassed by not drinking (with the boys, or by himself). Instead, he wisely sized-up the harm liquor does to so many---and didn't want to know if he would be one of those many, so he just abstains.

My brother learned the hard way, and almost lost his life due to liquor--but finally conquered it, in a vets. hospital. Still, to this day, he goes EVERY day to a recovering/recovered alcohol mtg.

Lydia, you got a lot worse things to worry about than that your son choose the right thing to do--stay away from liquor.

("Be careful what you pray for---you may get it!")

My bother drove himself (drunk), his friends, and his two little sisters (one was me) into a spectacular crash. Before seatbelts. I remember hitting the windshield. luckily, snow absorbed much of the momentum. My Dad drove up behind us.

It was the teenage culture where we lived.

But, seeing my brother so horriblly drunk from the time he was 14 is what kept me from drinking.

One of the friends in that crash died of alcoholism in his 30s. He could never get away from it.

The church kept my son from drinking. While on his mission, his GF went partying. Her date steadily drank until he laid on the floor and died. The others were too drunk to help him. Her comment was, "Ewwwe, he peed on us!"

She also said, "Well, XXX (my son on his mission) still loves me."

Think again.

I was one of those who felt "left out." My siblings drank (among other things) on the sly.

I learned that going against my sense of morality, whatever that might be, was inauthentic and led to mental/emotional consequences for me, and sometimes others.

Your son chose not to drink, not only because he was raised not to drink, but because he was being true to himself. Feeling left out has proven to be a minor consequence when compared to the consequences of not following my conscience, of being inauthentic in my behaviors and choices.

His youthful sorrow, he (and you) will learn, is misplaced sorrow. He may have felt left out of certain social activities of varied and sometimes dubious and/or disasterous outcomes, but you can both rejoice that he was a young man of strength and character. His ability to resist to social pressure to choose immediate gratification will serve him well.

In other words, he was not a "follower."

I hope that you can share with him a different way of thinking, one which enforces his good qualities, rather than any "fault" ( :/ ) you bear in helping to raise a leader.

You made choices, so did he.

Help him to understand that regardless of his rearing, he chose as he did for his own reasons, his own benefit. You could not have prevented him from sneaking around, even if you had wanted to, had that been his choice. He chose to be trustworthy. It is about more than "the freedom" to drink, and no cause for sorrow.


FWIW, my siblings, followers all, had very poor outcomes in their choices. I eventually caved (college age) for a short time, but it definitely was not worth the personal price(s) that I paid. I try now, in all that I do, to be trustworthy.

It sounds like you both have laid down your "morality" arms against drinking, and have a more balanced view on the matter, as do I.

Have another discussion with him. :) He has a right to his feelings, but you can help to mature his thinking on whom owns his choices.

The thing I hate about my kids having been in the cult as teens is that in Mo world, when teens want to rebel, what's the easiest way to get a rise out of parents? Smoking.

All my kids are in their 30s now and two out of three still struggle with their smoking addiction. Gee, they really showed me, didn't they? I think one of them is mostly vaping now, but had trouble stopping during her pregnancies which were troubled as it was. The other one now has a life-threatening illness and it is aggrivated by smoking. He's trying like Hell to stop and has on again-off again success.

Maybe they would have done it even if it hadn't been such an easy way to rebel. Or maybe I'd have approached it differently--as I now know I could have handled it differently. But most of their non-mormon friends grew up without becoming smokers.

I don't think you should take this on as your fault. As parents, we want our kids to be happy and we do our best to teach them well and provide them with positive experiences. But we can't control what they actually do, or how they experience life. We aren't that powerful.

You taught him not to drink, which was what you believed in, at the time. But HE, as a young adult, chose to go along with those beliefs, even when you weren't there to enforce. He may have missed out on some experiences. Many of us here missed out on life experiences because of our Mormon beliefs. All we can do is go on, and change what we do in the future.

It could have gone the other way. So many college students party way too much, some when they are underage, and get into problems with the law, or flunk out of school, or end up addicted. I think that college students are better off without the alcohol, even if they miss out on some stuff.

There is so much more to life than what we did or didn't do during college.

Your son mourning what he didn't do in the social scene at college is akin those whose "glory days" were their high school years. Neither should have lasting relevance in one's life after graduation.

My memories of both high school and college are a merciful haze. My life as an adult has been so different, and so much better, than my days in school.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2017 12:56PM by GregS.

Encourage him to see someone to help him reshape his perspective on a horrible college experience. I am sorry he felt lonely and left out. A lot of the people who didn't befriend him lost an opportunity to get to know someone and experience a satisfying friendship with him. It's not his fault. He didn't do anything wrong. He was just living by his principles and character.

I have a different perspective.
Left out. Hmmm. How many college students drunk moderately and responsibly? Don't most of them drink to excess, and take photos to prove it? He was left out of drunken parties, DUI's, put on suspension, waking up in strange places, not remembering where he was or what he did, and on and on and on because he didn't drink in college?
Personally, I'm very glad my college kids refrained from drinking and doing all the stupid-stuff that goes along with it. High school included. And so are the ones that have told me it was one of their best decisions. They had a reason not to drink. It served them well. Very well!

Rather than focus on what was wrong about the past, making it about hate for a religion, etc., how about focusing on what was good, right, beneficial, productive, etc. Nobody ever developed a positive outlook by being negative.

One of the best lessons I ever learned was: Regret is self sabotage! It brings nothing but sorrow over the past, and nothing can be done about that. It's over. We do not live there anymore. Keeps the psychologists in business, though! :-)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2017 07:54PM by SusieQ#1.