Teenagers and Death - How to help them cope?

Tweet

My son attended the funeral today of a friend of his who died from alcohol and a drug overdose. This young man had 2 groups of friends. His good, straight-laced friends who did not drink or do drugs and had goals in life - and then there was a whole different group that he hung out with which consisted of kids who partied, drank, did drugs, got into trouble etc. In recent month's my son had not really seen this young man on a regular basis. The kids out here have a tradition of going to a local taco place on Tuesday's for what they call "Taco Tuesday" and they would often see this kid there but that's about it. My son didn't really like the way this young man was becoming. It was the complete opposite of everything my son believes in. This young man had been having issues with drugs for awhile now and his parents had kicked him out numerous times hoping to force him to shape up - but it didn't. They finally got him into therapy and they thought he was doing well, that's what the kid said but it was all a lie. The whole time he was fooling the therapist while still drinking and doing drugs. Anyhow, I guess he was at a party the day before Christmas Eve and had been drinking and also drank something called "Purple Drank" which is basically cough syrup mixed with Sprite with a Jolly Rancher candy thrown in for color. A lot of rappers and celebrities talk about this drink as if it's the "thing" to have when you want to mellow out and relax. The rapper who invented the drink also died from it - ironic. So this kid drinks a bunch of alcohol and drinks a bunch of the cough syrup - then goes to sleep at the party. The next day around noon his "friends" try to wake him up and can't because he is dead. So they put his body in the trunk of their car and drive around with him trying to decide what to do. Finally one of the girls in the group calls her mother who in turn calls the cops and meets up with them. The funeral was today and my son went with all of his friends. He came home pretty down and sad. I wish there was something meaningful I could say to him but what can you say in a situation like this? A lot of the good kids feel like they could have and should have done something to prevent this but I know better. You can't make someone do something they do not want to do. I feel so bad for his friends who cared about him and would have never supported him and his recent deadly behavior. It's all just so sad :(