striper

I'm not normally a board-type guy, but I have a teenage girl....

So here's a brief history: She's fifteen, so she's definitely in the window to have started smoking. Neither of her parents do, so there's no ambiguity about our position, however her favorite 31y/o aunt/role model does. Within the last six months, on rare occasion we've found matches in her jeans, but never pushed the issue. About a month ago, we had a talk, and she admitted that although she has smoked, she doesn't. I then practically begged her not to, as I strongly disapproved of the behavior, and she said she wouldn't do it in ther future.

So, of course, you can guess what happened next. About a week ago she had a friend spend the night. I was up late and smelled strange odors seeping out of her room, incense and uh-oh(!!!). Of course we confronted her about it, and she admitted that Brittany was smoking and she thought it would be okay for Brittany to do it in the house because it was so cold outside. (It's not, even for her aunt whom we love dearly.) We told that although we couldn't control Brittany, if she insisted on smoking, she would have to do it outside . There was no evidence that that later occurred.

So, two days later, matches turn up again in my daughter's jeans. This time we confronted her directly and the converstion deteriorated from "I have, but I don't" to "I've been smoking daily for two weeks, but it's no big deal, so I won't anymore."

Now I don't trust her. And now I have some questions, but I'm too emotionally attached to think them all through clearly:

Can I reasonably conclude from the evidence that she's addicted? I've read that addiction can occur immediately, but for teenage girls it's about a three week process. The two weeks she's admitted to leave me less than confident about her chances.

Either way, what can I do to discourage her? Will punishment work, or if she's addicted will that just increase the sneaking, which I hate even more? (She's an honor roll student, a competitive swimmer, and otherwise a good, caring, and compassionate kid. Oh yeah, and she knows smoking is bad on every level, and has at least temporarily decided it was okay.)

What kind of punishment might be effective? Whenever we try grounding her from privileges like her cell phone, computer and overnights, she counters with "I don't care, my social life is a mess anyway...nobody likes me." (She is both pretty and popular, with no shortage of potential male suitors.)

Finally, does it sound like she wanted to get caught? If so, why? If not, her efforts at concealing her behavior have been pretty dismal.

Anyway, her mom got her to promise not to smoke for the next six weeks, as this is crunch time in her swim schedule. That sounds logical, but it almost sounds a little too permissive on the back end. Implied is that it's okay to do it then, and I already have a pretty good idea which decision she will make at that time. But then, that's probably not much worse than my "I hate it, but if you're going to it, tell me so I can get used to it." (I want to get back to a position of trust, and I was thinking if she admits screwing up on occasion, then maybe I can believe her when she doesn't.) We've both told her repeatedly that it's not okay, that we're not financing the behavior, and we are going to monitor her lunch money a little more closely. But then again, she said flat out that since she's a girl she can just mooch any time she wants.

In short, I have no idea how to handle this situation.

Thanks for any help....