Chiang Mai Family And Drugs

[grin]

I have an older friend who is fairly new here in Chiang Mai. He is dating Noi, a Thai lady in her forties who is having a big problem with Joe, her oldest teenage son. My friend is not very computer literate and basically knows how to use a browser and web based email at Internet shops. He reads Thai Visa but has been unable to post for some reason. Yesterday I set up a guest account for him on my laptop and we tried to register him on Thai Visa but never got an email confirmation. He still cannot post so I am helping him out here. I also know Noi and in fact I introduced them so it didn't take a lot to persuade me to help him out by posting this for him. She is not aware that we are doing this.

Some background:

Noi's Thai husband died when the children were young and she has basically raised them by herself. Fon, a young woman in her twenties, stays with the family and helps feed the kids and gets them to school and back. I think Fon is Noi's younger sister, or maybe her dead husband's younger sister. Her kids are never left unsupervised. In particular she has them all in private schools and they are driven to school in the mornings and picked up in the afternoons. They are not allowed to go school on their own. These are not the best schools in town as my best guess is that she can barely afford them as I don't think she really makes all that much money with her business.

I am deliberately obfuscating this information and trying to only put enough here to describe the problem and make it so that neither my friend nor Noi can be identified. In particular she only opened up and confided this to him a couple of days ago. I think she would not be happy to know that he has discussed this with me. Also threats have been made against her son and her family. As an aside I previously dated her myself and think that she is one of the nicest and most gracious ladies that I have ever met on this planet. The only reason things did not work out between us was my lack of patience.

Literally I was lucky to go out with Noi once a month and occasionally she had one or two of her kids in tow. When she did not bring any of her kids she always brought a friend along so we never had a date with just the two of us. Her kids themselves were not the problem as they are very well mannered and brought up properly. The problem for me was that she really had no time for an outside relationship. Many dates were cancelled or delayed due to something going on with the kids. I was really torn because I liked her so much but it was clear to me that any time she spent with me was time that she was giving up spending with her kids. I would have loved to have spent more time with her and her kids together but she kept her distance. I mention this only to show how much I was impressed with her devotion to her kids.

Current situation:

My current information is from my friend and he got it from Noi and a lot of it comes from her son Joe so I have no idea if he is telling the complete truth. He had always been a good kid and she trusted him enough to let him to go out with his friends on occasion. His best friend and part of the problem is the son of a respected public person. This friend would show up on occasion in the evening and ask if Joe could go with his friends for an hour or two. She has known this kid and his family for a long time so she trusted them as well. When she let him go out he always had a strict time to be back home and she required that he take a cell phone and answer it whenever she called.

The problem started a month or two ago in that Joe did not always come home at the time he was supposed to. Noi would call him and he always had some excuse and she believed him. Then a couple of times he did not answer the cell phone and did not show up at home until the next morning and was late for school. Each time she reprimanded him and he would cry and say he was sorry and would never do it again. Then two weeks ago he disappeared for three days. He didn't answer the phone and she was devastated until he came back. His excuse this time was even less believable. At that time she suspected that he was smoking and drinking with his friends and admonished him even more and he promised to be good.

After that things only got worse. His friends showed up every evening at the house to pick him up and intimidated Fon into letting Joe go with them. He started missing a lot of school. When Noi was there she wouldn't let him go out and he got extremely agitated. He told her that if he didn't go with his friends that they would kill him. Now this is where the timeline gets murky. I cannot figure out what was known when because I can only rely on what I hear from my friend.

Essentially Joe told Noi that he was no longer a good person and that had been doing drugs with his friends. He didn't tell Noi everything but later told Fon that he had been forced to do the drugs. It seems that his so called friends were really a gang. Joe is really mild mannered and soft spoken. He does well at school and the teachers all like him. I have only seen him a couple of times but I can see how it might be easy to intimidate him.

Fon told Noi what Joe had told her about the drugs. This is about the time Noi confided in my friend. At his suggestion she got her older brother to come and talk to Joe because Joe looked up to him. Joe told him that he was beaten by his friends until he agreed to do the drugs. There were over a dozen boys in the gang including some older guys in their twenties. It is not clear if his friend, the son of a public person, is the gang leader or what.

He said that they had got him hooked on the drugs and he confessed that he was selling drugs every evening. They threatened to kill him if he didn't. They told him that he should not be afraid of the police because the police would not kill him but that he should be afraid of the gang because the gang would kill him if he didn't sell the drugs. They also threatened to kill his family if he said anything to Noi or to the police. Also he said that they took his cell phone every evening and only gave it back when they let him go home. After Noi's older brother got all of this out of him Joe finally opened up and told Noi everything as well.

This week Joe was expelled from his private school. Noi normally would turn to her extended family for help with Joe and send him to live with one of them. The problem is that none of them live very far way and it seems that his friend, the son of a public person, has been around the family long enough to know where to look for him. Joe living with other family would only make problems for them. The other options she has considered are to turn him over to the police but it is unclear to my friend whether this would be for protective custody, rehabilitation, or what. The other is to send him to live at a Wat somewhere outside of Chiang Mai. Naturally Joe doesn't like any of these ideas.

My friend and I have discussed this for a couple of days now. We have been doing web searches for family services, juvenile counseling, drug rehabilitation, and anything else we could think of. Everything that we can find in English indicates that these kinds of organizations exist here in Chiang Mai but we could find little specific contact information. We got no answers at the few numbers we found. I'm guessing they were old. More contact numbers probably exist on Thai websites. One restriction of course is that this needs to be a Thai solution. Neither my friend or I believe that Noi would trust non-Thais with help in this delicate situation. It also seems unlikely that she would want to go outside of the family for help but they obviously have limited resources.

We are looking for specific information about anyone or any organization that we can contact for help. I don't how how badly Joe is hooked but he needs help, be it counseling or rehabilitation. It also seems that he needs to spend some time elsewhere so that his friends cannot reach him.

Please, no comments from the Peanut Gallery, if you know what I mean.

Edited September 2, 2009 by grin

[shiatsuman]

From what u say Joe really needs to get out of Chiang Mai

The Pier group pressure looks like it will lead to possible addiction or some other disaster.

The Wat idea sounds like the best option for him

Wat Thamkrabok is famous for extreme detox , but that might be a final option.

Many good temples around Chiang Mai but they might be too close to pier group influence.

Monk for a month is a scheme mostly for younger falang to try the monastic life.

The chance of meeting a new wholesome international pier group could be a major draw for Joe.

I think the group operate from a Wat near Chiang Rai ,

I think a strict agreament of no mobile and n contact whatsoever with former friends during the monestry stay would be necessary,also agreament would need to be 1-3 months

http://monkforamonth.com/

hope this helps

private mail me if you need any more advice / info on the Wats

[grin]

Thanks for the info on the Wat.

One problem I see is that I don't know how trustworthy Joe is in that he could just walk out of a Wat whenever he feels like it. However, if he were far enough away with no cell phone and no money then maybe he would stay put.

When I checked the novice monk web site, it occurred to me that it might be on the other side of the ID checkpoints that you hit when you go up north. If his ID were left in the custody of the monks then he might not get very far if he tried to leave without it.

I do not have any new information as I haven't talked to my friend since the original post. I did find out that one thing I did not know before. I thought that Noi was being overprotective of her older kids in that she didn't let them walk or bicycle to school. It turns out that it is a requirement of the schools that the kids be dropped off and picked up by a parent or a relative.

I am wondering if this post would get more responses if it were moved to the Chiang Mai forum. Is there any way for me to do that or is it allowable for me to make a post on that forum with a link to this one?