In this episode:
Preventing substance use in children starts earlier than you might think—right from kindergarten. In this eye-opening episode, I welcome Jessica Lahey, an educator, New York Times bestselling author, and speaker, who shares insights from her book The Addiction Inoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence. Jessica highlights the developmental differences in how young people respond to substances and provides parents, educators, and community members with the tools they need to have effective and informed conversations about substance use and safety. Discover how cumulative, consistent efforts are far more impactful than one-time discussions in fostering healthy habits and mindsets in children and how to find the courage to name the things that are happening as opposed to keeping things hidden.
Resources:
Follow Jessica Lahey on Instagram
World Health Organization’s Statistics on Alcohol Use
Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Classes, and Workshops
Jessica Lahey’s Book Recommendations:
High: Everything You Want to Know About Drugs, Alcohol, and Addiction by David Sheff and Nic Sheff
Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain by Daniel Siegel
The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity by Nadine Burke Harris
Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls by Lisa Damour
Transcript:
00:19 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Hey, everyone, it is so good to be back, especially after having taken a brief time away, and today we are discussing an incredibly timely and important topic, especially because summer is here and so you’ve got everybody home right, and that topic is preventing substance use in our kids, especially, again, like I said, everyone is home for the summer, but really focusing in on this topic with our families who have parents who are navigating recovery. So for today’s episode, I am super honored to have very special guest, Jessica Lahey. So, yes, it’s a double Jessica episode and Jessica is an educator and author and speaker whose work has really transformed folks’ understanding of addiction and resilience in young people, right.
01:05
So Jessica is the author of two books. The first one is a New York Times bestseller, the Gift of Failure how the Best Parents Learn to Let Go so their Children Can Succeed. And then the text that we’re focusing on more today is the Addiction Inoculation Raising Healthy Kids in the Culture of Dependence. So both are excellent breeds for parents, educators, the aunties who are seeking to understand and prevent substance abuse among children and teens, and so for today’s episode, we’re going to discuss what the risk factors are for substance abuse and also how parents, educators and other family members and community members, especially those who are in recovery, can help equip this generation of kiddos to handle these challenges. So Jessica will share insights from her book and, again, her extensive experience as both a researcher and a teacher, and also a mother. So listen along. I hope you enjoy the episode and take good care. Jessica, hi, welcome.
02:03 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
Thank you so so much for having me. This is just. This conversation is so much fun to have and I’m so grateful for those of us who are for the people who are sort of opening this up and making it less scary for other people.
02:15 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yes, cause talking to kids can be really scary. Teenagers and young adults are are an intimidation. I know that from having taught middle schoolers for many years and now working with college students. They are an intimidation. I know that from having taught middle schoolers for many years and now working with college students. They are an intimidating bunch, and so I’m so glad that you are here just to share your expertise. So my first question is if you could share, just for anyone listening, a little bit about the work that you do and the core message of the addiction inoculation, especially as it might relate to, say, high school or college age students. I know in your book you do provide frameworks, which I think is awesome for anyone listening. If you check out the text, there are even frameworks for how to talk to the littles about this. But yeah, what would you say is sort of like the core message behind the high schoolers and the college age students?
03:01 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
So in order to do that, I have to back up one second and just say so. I was a teacher for 20 years, and when I was teaching in middle school is when my first book, the Gift of Failure, came out, and it was also right. When I sold that book was the same moment that I realized that this sneaking suspicion that I had a major problem with alcohol for a while really got to the point where it couldn’t be ignored anymore and led to a whole I talk about it in the book sort of how I ended up there. But so the minute that I got sober and had this realization of, oh my gosh, like I was raised by an alcoholic and one of my parents was raised by an alcoholic, and so on and so on and so on. So is this just like? Are we doomed or is there what’s up? I have these two children, I have these two children in front of me and I don’t want them to have to go through what I went through. So how do I even begin to talk to them about what I’m doing now in terms of getting sober? But then, what the heck like? What’s myth? What’s reality, what’s evidence-based? How do we go, we as parents and we as educators go and mentors and people like that go about doing sort of best practices for substance use prevention in kids, and I just couldn’t find that book. So I mean, I have the coolest job in the world and I get to get curious about something and then I get to write it.
04:23
So you’re absolutely right, though, that the best substance use prevention programs that we know of start really early, like kindergarten, pre-k, kindergarten is where the scripts in the book really start, because there is nothing more maddening than you know a school who feels like they’re doing a really good job, for example, and they don’t even start talking about this until high school, for example, and that’s just too late. Middle school is too late. I mean, anytime is the right time to get started, but with really really little kids, you know we’re talking about things like bodily autonomy and about things that we put inside our bodies and things that we don’t put inside of our bodies, and then it goes developmentally up with kids and by the time we get them to high school, especially high school, them to high school, especially high school, these conversations should be a regular part of talking about your safety and how your brain is developing in particular, and that’s why I spent so much time on brain development, because I, you know, the substance use in kids is a completely different game than substance use in adults. The you know the brain art, the human brain is not done developing until the early to mid twenties and the damage that we do to our brains when we use any addictive substances while that brain is done developing does short and long-term damage. That is just not a thing as much when we get older. And helping adolescents understand that and giving them sort of all of the evidence they need in order to make the best possible decisions, and then giving them some refusal skills in order to make the best possible decisions for themselves, that’s sort of at the heart of what we do with the middle school, high school and even into college.
06:03
Because, you know, I almost didn’t even put a college chapter in this book because I, you know, I grew up, I’m 50, how old am I? 54. So to me, college was animal house, right. Everybody drinks, everybody drinks to excess. It’s just a big alcohol fueled, you know, whatever I was like. Well, why bother? Why put a college chapter in the book?
06:25
But it turns out, the minute I started digging into the research.
06:28
Far, far fewer kids in college drink than we think and the vast, vast majority of college students drink. The vast sorry, the vast vast minority of college students drink the vast majority of alcohol on college campuses. And the nice thing is, college students report that they still get a fair amount of their information on sort of safety and health from their parents, so they’re still listening, even when they’re in college. So sorry, very long answer to say. You know, we are still able to influence our kids and talk to them about healthy decisions. The problem is is for so long we’ve done it wrong. We’ve tried to scare them straight, and that doesn’t work. We’ve tried to, you know, give them the worst possible examples of everything that could happen, and that doesn’t work and just say no, doesn’t work. What works is giving kids really good information about their brains, about their bodies, about how alcohol functions differently in an adolescent brain and body than it does in an adult brain or body or whatever the drug is, and then trusting them to make some good decisions.
07:29 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, and you know, I totally agree with the college student part in terms of their parental influence. Now that this has been my first year and a half working on a college campus and working very close with college students, and they absolutely still go to their parents for everything and even like my strategies to manage my student staff that I would do with my middle school students have really worked with high school I mean college students, right. So I think that you’re absolutely spot on to include the conversation about college students for the parents, because I think that, yeah, their influence is still really, really big. So, you know, as I was listening to you speak, I was thinking about the parents, and I’ve heard many parents in my years of teaching say well, I’m the type of parent who wants to make sure that my kid knows how to drink, so I’m going to get them the alcohol. Their friends can come stay over, they can drink in the basement and I know that they’re all safe. What are your thoughts on that, based off what you mentioned about the brain?
08:26 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
Okay.
08:27
So, first and foremost, there are two main myths I hear. Which is? The first one is I want to teach my kids model for my kids what moderate drinking looks like, and modeling for your kids what moderate drinking looks like, that’s all great and wonderful, but hoping that giving them alcohol in order to teach them about moderation or to make it no big deal so they don’t freak out later these are all myths, and the other one is the whole. They’re going to do it anyway. So therefore, you know they can do it at my house and I’ll keep them safe by taking away all the keys, that kind of thing. Both of these actually raise your children’s lifelong risk of developing substance use disorder when they get older.
09:06
There are a couple of things to think about. Number one parents who have a consistent, clear message of no, not until your brain is done developing. Some people choose to go with no, not until it’s legal, except that for me is a for a lot of adolescents anyway is a because I said so kind of argument which doesn’t tend to go over too well. But if they understand how their brain is developing and the particular harms that drugs and alcohol can do in their brains, when you say no, not until your brain is done developing. That’s just not what we do in this family. You’re you know those kids have much lower rates of substance use disorder in their lifetime than kids who have parents with a permissive stance on drugs and alcohol before it’s legal for them or before their brain is done developing. The other thing is that, like attempting to teach moderation to a kid by letting them sip. The problem is is if they’re going to have a problem with drug and alcohol, like, for example, myself, I can’t learn moderation. It’s just not something that I’m going to be able to learn.
10:09
Number three the younger a kid is when they first try drugs or alcohol, the higher their lifelong risk of developing substance use disorder. So if you have an eighth grader and they have their first beer or their first whatever, they have almost a 50% chance over the span of their lifetime of developing substance use disorder. If they wait two more years, we can cut that in half to about 21%. And if we can get them to go another two years till they’re 18, then we can cut that in half again down to about 11%. So again, delay, delay, delay has to be the message here, and that happens best couched in the hole. Let me explain to you what’s happening in your brain. Let me explain to you why alcohol works differently in your body than it does in the body of an adult, that kind of stuff. So, yeah, I don’t have a lot of patience, for well, I have lots of patience, but I don’t have a lot of.
11:05
I don’t truck with those sort of myths about teaching kids somehow to be moderate. And the last one that I hear a lot is yes, but what about those European families, those European kids, where the kids are given sips and it’s not a big deal to them and they grow up being moderate drinkers? Well, the problem there is if you go to the World Health Organization and you look at their site on alcohol consumption and other statistics I’ll go into in a second in Europe, europe as a whole, has the highest rates of illness attributable to alcohol in the entire world. They have the highest rates of death attributable to alcohol in the entire world. They have the highest rates of death attributable to alcohol in the entire world.
11:46
And, depending on the country, you know, there’s a lot of variability across Europe and this is where people tend to scream at me but what about? What about Greece? What about France? What about Italy? You know they tend to yell at me, which is fine because I can break it down. I can break down Europe by every single country, because I’ve had to go into great detail in order to counter sort of those yeah, yeah, yeah, but in this country it’s totally cool and people are moderate drinkers. But as a whole, the European Union is not really the end all be all example that maybe we should be holding up.
12:20 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, that’s, that’s a really powerful example too, because, you’re right, I’ve always heard the whole European example for both alcohol and then just other habits, and it’s just like okay, like let’s, let’s look at the facts here. So I appreciate and I’ll I’ll definitely take a peek at the world health organizations on site, cause I’d be so curious, and I know you mentioned this also in your texts as well.
12:40 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
I also, by the way, if, if you want to get into the intricacies of it, if you go to JessicaLaheycom there’s a menu option for videos and under that is the addiction, inoculation or the gift of failure, and there’s almost 200 videos and they’re indexed by topic and I go into super deep detail about the European stuff and actually it’s really fascinating. And actually it’s really fascinating Even the countries that buck that tradition, that go against that sort of culture of having a lot of death and disease attributable to alcohol. It’s because those countries have a lower tolerance culturally for out-of-control drunkenness in public. So it just underlines the fact that we can create cultures around drinking and that can affect public health on a larger scale.
13:31 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Absolutely. So I’m adding that definitely to my notes for resources. And so, Jessica, now that it’s summertime, or you know, I know in the Northeast they’re probably still in school, like in New York City, I think. Like probably still in school until July, as all these kids start to come home for the summer and they’re just there, obviously there’s increased risk for all sorts of trouble that they’re going to get into. So, with regard to substance use, and again this idea of delaying, delaying, delaying, what strategies do you suggest for parents in the, with the summer being here and their kids just being probably unsupervised a whole lot more than they’re used to? It’s?
14:10 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
a fantastic point. It turns out that transitions are. When you look at risk factors for kids with drinking, there’s all sorts of. There’s a whole bunch of different risk factors we could talk about, but one of them is transitional periods. Whether that’s you know, parents are getting divorced and we’re going through a transitional period and it’s uncomfortable and it’s emotionally challenging. Or the transition summer is a transition or the transition from middle school to high school, or the transition moving to a new place. Transitions in general can be risky times for kids just because they’re, they upset the apple cart kind of thing.
14:44
So and here’s where I run into big problems, because I wrote my first book was called the Gift of Failure how the best parents learn to let go so their children can succeed and learn from their mistakes. And, on the other hand, we know for a fact that kids tend to. If they’re going to pick up drinking or drugs, it’s going to be more often during the summer, because kids tend to congregate with other kids and have more time unsupervised in the summer. However, the answer is not well, I’ll never, ever let my kid be unsupervised and hang out with other teenagers. I mean, that’s just ridiculous. My husband is a physician. And his joke in response to that is you know we could. We could prevent a lot of skin cancer if we just never, ever let our children go outside. Right, but that can’t be. That’s not a realistic response.
15:32
So the idea is really pick up the conversations before summer about you know the best practices, stuff that’s in the gift of failure and or, sorry, in the addiction, inoculation, and it would take up a ton of time to sort of go through all of that.
15:46
But pick those conversation up a little bit more before summer starts and have your kids have ways to check in with you and I’m not implying that you survey, surveil them more, whether on life 360 or you know all of those apps that you can like, trail your kids, but come up with a good, healthy medium where your kids feel like they have some independence and they have some of your trust and at the same time, you’re having more frequent conversations about what’s going on with your kid, what’s going on with their friends. Knowing the parents of your kids’ friends, that’s a major protective factor when it comes to substance use. So there’s a whole bunch of tips in the book, but I just amplify all of them right before summer starts. It’s just a time when kids yeah, they are at more risk, but if you’re having and it’s not something that you can prevent by having like one conversation in June about here’s what you need to do over this summer, it’s part of a big cumulative effort.
16:44 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, I mean I feel like a lot of what I’m hearing is that it really has to become almost a practice on the part of the parent, like practice of being transparent with your kiddos and I know for some families that can be really hard Like if you’ve been kind of raised to, I’ve got to be strong. We don’t talk about those things here and now.
17:01 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
Suddenly it’s like, well, the only real way to delay the start of any substance use is to really have these tough conversations that can get really uncomfortable for a parent. It’s so uncomfortable. I mean, the first time I had to talk about the fact that I am an alcoholic with my kids was I wanted to throw up, I was. It was so scary. But on the other hand, because they have a grimp, actually they they have multiple relatives who are have issues with substance use disorder.
17:30
We’ve had multiple conversations like one year Christmas went down the toilet because there was a relapse with one of their relatives and we pretty much had to not do Christmas the way we were planning on doing Christmas. So we didn’t make something up to explain away why Christmas blew up. That year we said your relative who has issues with alcohol, you know, just decided to start drinking again and it’s my job as your, as your mom or as your parent to keep you safe from that, because I grew up with a lot of that and it’s very upsetting and so we’re just going to do something slightly different. So you know, being transparent and also keep in mind I was raised in a home where we were never, ever allowed to talk about it Like my sister and I would tag team like okay, whose turn is it to try to bring it up with the other parent.
18:19
We think our parent might have a problem, and then the other parent would gaslight us and say no, no, no, no, no, it’s just a headache, or they’re just taking a nap or whatever. So I think, in reaction to that, I’ve become one of those people that names things as what they are and euphemisms drive me crazy. And gaslighting kids is so incredibly dangerous and so incredibly emotionally challenging for kids that you’re better off having some honesty with them about what’s going on. And you know, from a kid’s perspective, it’s really important if they know that, for example, heart disease runs in their family or they know that type two diabetes runs in their family or whatever that thing is. That’s important information to have so they can make good decisions about that. My oldest admitted during high school that one of the things that rattles around in his head when he’s deciding whether or not to have a beer is Ooh, you know my mom and my grandparents and my other grandparents and all that, all those people, and that just became a part of his calculus of decision-making, which is important.
19:21 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, yeah, and I mean that’s how we’re equipping I almost said students, kids to make, I mean, and students, right, for anybody who’s an educator. This is how we are equipping kids to make the best choice. You know, because I think about, I’m not a parent, but I sure as hell know kids, right, like with all my years of teaching and I really do think that what really helped me the most with the toughest students and everything was just being really open, honest and transparent. Like they, they eat it up and they really respect the hell out of an adult who can just be honest, right.
19:51 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
So it’s amazing the minute I admit that I I am so sorry. I promised I would look this thing up for you last night and it completely escaped me. I won’t make that mistake. Same mistake again, like that’s how you earn the trust of adolescents and admitting that you don’t get it right all of the time is and modeling how you react to that is so important. So I’m so glad you said that.
20:12 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Well, and actually and that brings me to one of the questions that I had prepared for you as well, because one of the things that has come up as an issue sometimes with other sober parents that I do know is if they have had a relapse right, and so their child was aware of their problem with drinking, the child was aware of them stopping, and then the child witnesses that they’ve relapsed right, and how do you come back from that with your child in terms of rebuilding trust and just even approaching that conversation, Because I know that that has been really, really difficult for some families. So if you could speak to that, that would be great.
20:49 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
Oh my gosh, relapse discussions are the scariest. And there’s the problem is is you know, add, take the shame and stigma and guilt that we have from having an issue with alcohol in the first place and then compound it when you come, when it comes to like relapse place, and then compound it when you come when it comes to like relapse. But understanding, especially especially if we put our heads in the in the, in the space of what, what recovery is like for kids. Relapse is a part of younger people going through recovery and a relapse is a very big part of a lot of adults recovery as well, and so I’ve felt that it’s really, really important that our response be okay. But what did we learn from this?
21:29
And when you share that with kids as well and you say, you know, sometimes when people get better, sometimes they’ll get better for a while and then they’ll kind of not, and this happens with lots of illnesses, sometimes people will get better for a little bit and then they’ll have a little, they’ll step back for a little bit and then you can start getting better again, because you learn what happened from that little period where you weren’t getting better, and I’ve learned some stuff, and now I’m even more prepared to be healthy and for a lot of people.
21:58
A friend of mine relapsed during COVID and she now says that she doesn’t think that she was ever really truly sober that first time around, like she wasn’t drinking but her headspace was still in a very sort of just a hair away from drinking the whole time. And it wasn’t until she relapsed and really learned where her head is when she’s in that place, where she’s using drinking to compensate for other things, and so that’s the way she talked about it with her kids. You know I’m I’m even stronger this time around because of the things I learned from when I had a misstep.
22:34 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, and I think that that that is so important again, both to break down the stigma, because I think there there can be the stigma that if you don’t have this perfect linear sobriety where I’ve decided to stop and stayed stopped for years, that there’s something wrong with how you are recovering Right. And I think that being able to recognize like, hey, I’m learning something from this and I’m going to do even better, moving forward, I think that that can be really powerful for kids.
23:00 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
Absolutely.
23:01 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
And what about with children, though, who maybe you haven’t had any slips or any setbacks? But your children hold your drinking against you or your previous drug use against you, and it’s just like it’s really angered them and they. They don’t trust you, they haven’t let it go and they don’t believe that this is real. Any suggestions for parents like that?
23:21 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
Oh, I would have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m just joking. So my mom has. I haven’t really talked about this publicly, but my mom feels appropriate to share, so I’m going to go ahead and share.
23:34
My mom has dementia and to me dementia short-term memory loss feels a lot like drunk right the forgetting, like not being able to hold a train of thought. So when my mom first got dementia I used to get angry with her and I had no idea why. I could not figure it out. Like why am I getting mad? It’s not her fault. And then it just sort of I realized it in the middle of the night one time and the next morning I went downstairs and I said you know what? I had no idea I was doing this, but I realized I’ve been getting angry with you because when you forget things it makes me feel like a little kid. When you were drunk it feels exactly the same for me and I’m so sorry and I’m so grateful to you for having gotten sober, because it means more to me than I can ever express. And we’ve not. It’s. What’s so weird is I’ve never gotten mad at her again about forgetting things.
24:25
It was like that got out there, so having, I think, that openness and being able to talk about things, the more my mom and I or whatever I have lots of relatives who are in recovery as well and lots of relatives who aren’t the more we talk about it, the less freighted, the less weighted the whole entire conversation is, and the more the anger can slip away and the more the distrust can slip away.
24:50
And you know, I think the best thing to do is say you know, we can never 100% trust anybody that they’re not going to hurt us or that they’re not going to be, because we’re not perfect beings it’s just not what humans are. But I promise you that I love you and I love myself enough that I’m going to show up and I’m going to try every single day to be the best parent that I can be for you, and part of that is is not drinking or not using, and that’s just something I have to do every single day is having that conversation gives your kids opportunities to reflect back to you things that they may not be able to write at first, but my kids are old enough now that they reflect back to me, now that they know people who have parents who are active drinkers or active users, how appreciative they are that I show up for them as a parent, and how different things could have been if I hadn’t. I don’t know that I’d be alive if I hadn’t, so that’s a very clear line right there.
25:52 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Absolutely, and I think that that’s incredibly helpful. Again, just that reminder that we’re not going to be perfect and it might be having to have that conversation with our kids, right, like I’m not going to be perfect, I’m going to do my best every single day, and you, like I’m not going to be perfect, I’m going to do my best every single day, and you know, I just think that that’s a really important reminder because, again, recovery it really isn’t linear and there’s sometimes people think that you, you decide to stop drinking and you’re magically done forever, and that’s not necessarily the case for many people. So that’s a really great reminder.
26:22
Coming back to sort of the summer idea, in chapter two of your book, the Addiction Inoculation, there was one line where you mentioned that it was addressing the why behind the first might stop kids from telling the story of their worst day, and I thought that that was really really, really powerful, like the addressing the why. I’m coming to that because another conversation that I have a lot with fellow sober adults, especially with kids, we talk about adverse childhood experiences, right, and sometimes what I notice is that we can totally fixate A on the ACEs that we went through, but then also again on the ACEs that we put our kids through, so to speak. But you also talk a lot about positive factors for children, and so could you speak a little bit to that, like, what are these positive impacts that parents can make for them?
27:17 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, what was so interesting in writing this book is I started seeing all the risk factors I was going to possibly heap on my kids all over the place. So like, as I mentioned, summer and the gap between middle school and high school is a really risky time for kids and my daughter. We moved my daughter in between middle school and high school and and she’s also queer, so like I was seeing like risk factors all over the place. We moved her during this delicate transitional time and she’s and she’s on this, she’s LGBTQ plus T, all the things plus and there. And I’m just heaping all this risk on my kid.
28:00
And I was on the phone interviewing Dan Siegel, who is, if you want to read a book on the adolescent brain, his book is absolutely the Teenage Brain is or actually that’s not what it is, but Dan Siegel’s book on the teenage brain is fantastic. And he said you know, you could view everything as a risk factor and all this bad stuff you’re heaping on your kid, or you could sort of reframe that and start thinking about some of the opportunities that you’re giving your kids. So, for example, the adolescent brain is just craves, novelty craves, new experiences, because that’s the function of the adolescent brain right Is to try new things and to figure out who they are in the context of all these new life experiences, and moving presents your kid with all these amazing new experiences. That and moving presents your kid with all these amazing new experiences that they can learn how to master. And, by the way, mastery and developing competence gets the dopamine going in the brain and helps build self-efficacy, which is one of the other most amazing protective factors for kids against substance use.
29:02
So there is this tendency to look at all of the whether it’s divorce and separation or you know, some of the really really common adverse childhood experiences that are on the list, whether it’s the CDC’s list or the list that Nadine Burke Harris put together for the Deepest Well, which, from my in my opinion, is one of the most important books we could read about adverse childhood experiences is that if we look at those and we say, yeah, those are challenges and that’s important that we do early intervention for those challenges and it’s important we talk to our kids about those challenges. But here are all the opportunities that the stumbles, the difficulties, the risk factors that happen to kids as they get older can present as well and to help kids learn to reframe. Lisa DeMora does a beautiful job in her book Under Pressure helping give scripts to help adults reframe stress for kids, because kids are like they like to blow the stress up. So it’s all toxic stress, it’s so much.
30:08
But Lisa has this great way of talking about the fact that stress some stress is really really positive. It helps motivate us, it helps us moving forward, it helps give us drive. You know, as a writer I impose self-imposed deadlines for myself because having deadlines makes me a better writer, even though it puts more pressure on me. All of these things that we can do to help kids reframe some of the difficulties in their life and help use those and become more competent in the context of those is going to be really, really great for kids. There’s a lot of really great books about that. Dopamine Nation by Anna Lemke is another book where she talks about that as well.
30:49 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
And you know, reframing is so important for us as adults as well, because it can be so easy to look at a setback and go down a whole spiral and make ourselves convinced that our lives are absolutely miserable and like, yes, life is. But I think being able to look at incidents and reframe them and see what can we get out of these situations, versus what are these situations just taking away from us, can be really powerful, and building that skill up in a child is going to help them so much more just as they grow.
31:14 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
So I when you were talking about relapse. By the way, one of the things that I meant to add on and then this, this question, segues beautifully into it which is I talked to my kids about why I drank and the the quote that you gave about talking to kids about that first drink, that’s from Chris Herron. He was a Boston Celtic. He was addicted to opioids for a long time. He’s also a substance use prevention speaker. He’s fantastic. But you know, what I do is I have anxiety disorder, I have social anxiety, and so does my daughter, and so one of the things I say to my daughter is you know, one of the reasons I drank was because it was so freaking scary for me to go out and like, go to a party and not feel imposter syndrome and not worry that everyone thought that I was, you know, stupid or an idiot or shouldn’t be there or whatever. But when I and so I drank at it because I didn’t want to feel that or you know things that made me feel bad, I drank at those things and my anxiety was a big one. But when I stopped drinking, I had to actually develop tools, actual tools, to help me with that anxiety, and now I have actual tools that really help me and in having those conversations in addiction and inoculation, for example, I talked about like mindfulness practices and my daughter totally had disdain for the mindfulness practices that I tried to get her to engage in, that I talked about in the addiction inoculation. But she has, on her own, figured out that she does need mindfulness practices of her own, the ones that she has selected in order to help her with her anxiety as well. So that’s been talking to them and saying you know, I didn’t just drink because it was fun, I drank because I didn’t want to feel these bad feelings. And it wasn’t until I stopped drinking that I actually learned how to manage those bad feelings instead of just drinking them away. And that doesn’t actually make them go away. If anything, it makes them get worse.
33:10
So that’s another thing that my daughter or my son, both of my kids have in their quiver back here that when they need to take out evidence about like, okay, when should I choose to drink here? Should I choose not to drink here? They can say, oh yeah, why am I drinking? Oh, cause I’m feeling some anxiety and I have some tools to deal with that. You know it’s not always quite that linear and logical. But they listen to us and they, they watch us, and so when parents say like, oh, does this mean I can’t drink in front of my kids? I never said that, but what I will say is that the reasons we give for why we drink when we do drink in front of kids, if you say things like oh, this was the worst day at work, I need a drink, or Thanksgiving at grandma’s house is going to be there. Better, be enough wine there. This is going to be a long day. When we say things like that to kids, what we’re telling them, what we’re showing them, is, if I have emotions that are unpleasant to me, I drink at them.
34:08
So we need to talk first about that messaging that we’re sending kids about why we drink and why we drink in certain situations, and that all kind of hangs together with having healthy responses to the bad emotions that we feel.
34:22 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
I love that and I love that that. Just that question to ask yourself like why am I considering drinking right now? So, with that being said, I love those examples of the context, right, the context in which it matters what would you say would be an example of choosing to drink, that would again, I know we’re both sober, but if this was a person who did not have a problematic relationship with alcohol they wanted a model to their kids Like this is drinking. That is likely not going to take me down on a downward. What might be an example of an okay reason to drink for an adult who is not struggling with addiction.
35:02 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
Yeah, so there’s evidence to show this is in the college chapter. There’s evidence to show that when people drink in order to not feel the bad feelings, or they withdraw and drink, or they drink alone, or they’re drinking because they’re depressed or they’re drinking because they want to isolate, those sorts of that kind of drinking is more likely to result in a problem. So, for example, in women and anxiety, we know that women who drink and have anxiety are actually more likely than not to have an issue with that alcohol over the long term. If you are drinking because you’re already happy and you’re with other people and you’re drinking to sort of elevate that experience, then that tends to be less problematic just over the long term. And that’s, you know, it’s always.
35:51
I always hate saying stuff like that because then I give my. I would have given myself all kinds of ammunition for places that it’s totally cool for me to drink, and it wasn’t until I saw that there were no contexts in which it was cool for me to drink, that I sort of got that through my head. But I think that’s a really great question. That’s a really good question.
36:10 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Right For sure For those of us in recovery, we know, but you know there are the folks who aren’t might be listening to this and it’s just you know they’re like, well, what about? What about me? So another part of your text that jumped out at me, and again, this, really, this is really more the teacher in me. So in chapter seven of the addiction inoculation, you are talking about kids and their friends and just how important, right these relationships are and I mean, oh my goodness, they sure are.
36:39
One of the things that you brought up is that sometimes children might have to break up with certain types of friends. And I guess my question because I have never in my life seen a good like friendship breakup with an adolescent. So I was just kind of curious how would you support that? Like, let’s say, when a friend, when there’s two friends and one of them is just needing the space to protect themselves from the other one, how do we support our kids and having those conversations? Because so many of us as adults can’t even. I mean people ghost each other all the time because they don’t know how to have these conversations. So how does a kid make space for themselves so that they can be safe?
37:22 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
You’re asking such good questions. This actually extends back a little bit further. I’ve done when I used to write for the New York Times and the Atlantic and somewhere in there I’d written an article about the fact that, you know, the function of friendship sort of morphs over time. You know, when kids are really little it’s because our parents are friends and so it’s just proximity. You know they want us to be friends, we’re friends, and then as you get older it has to do with sort of trying out different identities, like, oh, that person seems new and interesting and might have some things about them that I might want to take on. And then you hang out with them for a while and you realize, oh, some of that is for me and some of that’s not, and stuff like that, as your kid is going through that, because that trying on identities things freaks parents out right, because if suddenly your kid is hanging out with a kid that seems dangerous or reckless or has tattoos or whatever you want to say like do not, you can’t hang out with that person. And of course we know when we tell a kid that that’s the one person they’re going to want to hang out with. But if you’re constantly talking to your kids about what makes good friendships and I’m talking about for myself as well, like when I talk to my kids a lot about the fact that one of the things I love about getting older is that my friendships are about supporting each other and making each other better, and I don’t have any friendships now that are about tearing each other down. I want all of my friends to succeed and to be better people.
38:48
And if you find that I, if I were to find that I’m, you know, friends with someone who sort of took some delight in my screwing up or not doing so well that I might have to say, huh, that doesn’t seem like a really healthy relationship. And on the other side, what you say to your kids like if they’re going out with if you find that a particular relationship is weighing on your kid, you can say you know what, when you go to so-and-so’s house, you know you just come home kind of sad and I’m wondering what it is about that relationship that makes you feel that way. Or going to that person’s house and having these conversations from a really young age about what makes for good relationships that make us better and what makes for bad relationships that make us sad. That is a great entry point to these conversations. So if your kid has to break up with someone especially when it’s a positive move although we do want to keep our judgment out of it as much as possible Supporting them and saying you know, if this friendship is making you unhappy, then I am so proud of you for drawing that line and saying I can’t be a part of relationship that’s bringing me down.
39:55
I’m so proud of you for that. And even if someone is not going down the right road with someone, find moments that you can say to them you know, you know it just seems like you’re having trouble with this person and maybe taking some space from them is a really good idea. And I’m really proud of you for sort of having the wherewithal to think about a little bit of space from this thing that seems to make you really sad. Because you know if we put our judgment into it then that can really make things go in the wrong direction really quickly. But when we’re saying how proud we are of the way they’re managing the parts that make them healthier and make them better, then they’re usually pretty responsive to that.
40:36 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
And so and then there might also be the case and I’m curious about how do you support a child in this case. Like, let’s say, there’s two kiddos again and one of them might actually be struggling with substance and the other one wants to still be their friend and be supportive, how do you help that child still be present for the friend who’s struggling with an addiction?
40:59 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
Well, as you know, that is very much what chapter seven is about. My son who’s now 25, wanted to stay friends with a kid who was really struggling and had been kicked out of school and was having to go to rehab. And it was really scary for me as a parent, because I know the statistics are clear that if your kid’s friends use, your kid is more likely to use, and so I said, okay, well, I’m so proud of you for wanting to support your friend because he’s going to need support and this is a really hard time for him. On the other hand, I know that if your friends use that, you are going to be more likely to use. So we’re going to have a lot of conversations about this.
41:39
I’m going to be checking in with you more often and in a way, it made it easier to have those conversations because we could talk about his friend, brian, who is so generous to give us his story in the book. That’s his real name. We can talk about what’s happening with Brian, and my son then could use Brian as a proxy for things he wanted to work out. So in the, in a sense, it was almost easier because we were able to talk about the friend. You know, like I have a friend too and you know Ben could stick some things in there that maybe maybe were about him and not about his friend Brian.
42:16
But it made it easier because I had said from the beginning I will 100% support you in this relationship. But because the statistics are so clear, it makes me really scared and it’s my job to keep you as safe as possible, and so we’re going to be talking about this more often. And he was okay with that, yeah, and in the end, as you, as you see in that chapter, in the end, um credits the support of those friends as the factor that made recovery finally really settle in for him. He saw what he had to lose and he’s doing great now, by the way, that is so awesome to hear as a continued follow-up from the book.
42:58 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Um, and I guess, like my other question for you too, is, well, as a parent, as a person, I know like what I had to tap into in terms of to find my courage to be so open and honest about my story. Where did you, where do you get your courage to just be so, to be the cycle breaker? You said in your family nobody talked about anything, and so you know now you want to name things and have these conversations. How do you find this courage? How do you encourage parents, educators, to find this courage within them, to have these courageous conversations?
43:34 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
You know that’s a really good question. I think a lot of it came from being angry that I was not allowed to name things for what they were, as I say in the book. There was like this elephant stomping on our whole family and none of us were allowed to point to it and say that’s an elephant and that was. I got very angry about that and being gaslit was really horrible. No, no, no, that’s not what you’re seeing. I want you to replace your reality with my own and having substance use disorder be at the root of a lot of family chaos. It was exhausting and for me I’ve always been.
44:15
I’m better at holding myself accountable when I’m as honest as possible with as many people as possible, and it was really scary, especially at first. I was still teaching. I thought I’d get fired. I you know I didn’t. I had done some not great things to the people around me and I had. I had a lot of amends to make.
44:36
But being as honest as possible not just whether that was in recovery meetings or with my friends and, you know, letting them know that I needed their help and that I was really sorry All of that stuff sort of has made it easier and easier and easier for me, like there’s no anxiety in me whatsoever when I tell people that I’m in recovery or that, you know, I just celebrated 11 years and that’s something that I’m in this position now where, because I’m public about the fact that I can’t drink, lots of other people talk to me about being scared about their friend or being scared about themselves or being scared about their mom, and I get to be a resource for people.
45:19
And there are people who are now sober, who weren’t when they first started talking to me about this stuff and like that’s. That is way more important in terms of a legacy that we leave to our kids than you know, than just about anything else I can think of in terms of like work and all that stuff that we think is so important, but, you know, than just about anything else I can think of in terms of like work and all that stuff that we think is so important. But you know, some of the people that are sober now, that weren’t before, have families and those are their kids aren’t going to have to do. You know, there’s there’s just so many dominoes that fall when one person gets well, and I just see that as an incredible privilege, and I never, ever take that for granted. So I think that’s a big part of why I talk about it so much.
46:03 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely Right. Like we, we never know who we’re impacting when we, when we speak openly about our, our journey. So congratulations on 11 years. That’s awesome, Thank you. And so when we have somebody who we are suspecting, like, let’s say, if we are suspecting that there is, our child has a problem. I guess what might be some of the signs for a parent again, summer’s here, kids are home around more what might be a sign that there is a problem, versus say it was just like a one-time use, and what might be the best way for a parent to approach that conversation with the child. You know, I I’m aware of say, like different rehabs and things like that.
46:42
But you know I feel like I’ve read mixed things about like how rehab can be a very traumatizing experience for a child. I’ve gone as an adult so I can only imagine how scary it would be for a teen. So just any thoughts that you have about that.
46:55 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
Yeah, this is a big big. There’s so so much to talk about here. What’s so scary about treatment for kids is that treatment for kids does not look the same as treatment for adults, and it’s the places that have figured that out that do a really, really good job at that, like Hazelden, for example, in Minnesota has its own adolescent treatment center. That’s just fantastic, because they’ve figured out that the same tools we use for adults don’t necessarily work for kids as well. So if you’re worried about your kid, the big baseline question for all the like when should I get concerned? Questions whether that’s you know, for any reason is change like change from baseline sleep, less sleep, more sleep, like change from baseline less sleep, more sleep, mood changes, appetite changes, all of those things, and that includes for the positive.
47:46
So if you have a kid who has been really, really depressed and then suddenly they’re just happy as a clam all the time and your temptation would be to look at that and go, oh, don’t question that gift, that’s fantastic. But there are a whole lot of reasons that a kid can have big mood swings and one of the reasons could possibly be and there are lots of other ones, you know using addictive substances. But, like the sleep thing is a big issue. You know, appetite, mood changes, things like that. Anytime we see a change, then it’s important to start asking about. You know, sweetie, this is interesting because for a while you seemed really down and and suddenly now you seem like really really up and really happy. What are these? What are the reasons for that? You know what’s what’s got you, you know, headed in either direction, one or the other, and talking about that, you know, in a relaxed way, maybe around dinner, that kind of thing.
48:38
And then if you really do think that your kid a really great resource for your kid, you need look no further than your child’s primary care physician. So a lot of primary care physicians now pediatricians, you know, rns, that kind of thing use these screening tools. A big one, for example, is called SBIRT Screening, brief Intervention, referral to Treatment. So when your kid goes to the pediatrician or whatever, you could even front load that conversation with the primary care physician and say I’m a little worried about my kid and substances, could you make sure you hit that on your screening questions? You, you know, make sure you hit that on your screening questions. And physicians, these screening tools have become so important that the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended that they’re used for all kids and there and physicians can be really really great resources for helping figure out where you are on that line between like, is this, you know, experimentation or is this becoming problematic? And they’re they’re well-equipped to handle those questions as well.
49:44 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
That’s really great and I actually remember now in your text you suggest also like giving your child a little bit of privacy when they’re having that yes. So the provider can ask them those questions without your child worrying that you’re going to be there like eyeing them down.
49:59 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
Often it’s on like a tablet and they’ll. It’s the same thing Like. I just went to the physician recently and I had a whole page on. You know, do I feel safe at home? You know what are my drinking habits? That kind of thing. Give your kid a little bit of privacy when they answer those questions and, especially as your kid gets older, they do need time alone with that physician, especially as they hit puberty, to start asking questions about things that they may not want to ask about in front of you. Just give your kid the opportunity. Is there any, you know? Do you want me to go and so you can have some time to talk with your doctor all by yourself and you don’t need to make it a big deal, but it’s going to be increasingly important as they get older.
50:37 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, yeah, no, super, super, super helpful Cause I think like I wouldn’t even have thought about using a physician to help doing to help do a screener. So that’s super helpful. Well, I mean, jess, my last question really is because, again, I think a lot of parents who I know and adore, um, they, they really do feel that they’ve just caused this irreparable harm.
50:59 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
Yeah.
51:00 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Right. And so what? What hope can you give someone who’s listening to this so that they know that you know, I mean, I know that as long as we have breath we can change, but you also are the master of research and data, and so what can you share with anyone listening who’s really worried that they’ve just like screwed up their kid and like they don’t know that anything could go right moving forward?
51:22 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
Yeah, so my kids, great kids, so many risk factors. You know there’s um, but here’s the cool thing about prevention. So I, when I talk about getting to a place where you know when, when you start to have that sneaking suspicion that you may need help, and, um, when you finally get to the place where you’re able to ask sneaking suspicion that you may need help, and when you finally get to the place where you’re able to ask for help, that I think of that as like a 100 piece puzzle, right, and my dad happened to be piece 100. That fell into place at the right time, when I was in the right headspace when he said, you know, I know what an alcoholic looks like, and you’re an alcoholic and you need help. And I was like, yeah, I do, that was my 100th piece. But in order for the 100th piece to slide into place and we are hardly ever the 100th piece, we’re often like piece 37, piece 62, piece 81. All of those pieces need to be in place in order to get that piece 100 in place.
52:16
And this prevention stuff are pieces. So many pieces come through the prevention stuff, whether that’s about, like I said, about how the adolescent brain works, what we put in our bodies all that sort of stuff, and so I can’t guarantee. I’m like an expert on this, an expert on substance use prevention in kids, and yet I cannot guarantee that my children will not have a problem with substances once they get older. But I do know that I’ve put a lot of pieces into their individual puzzles, and so we talk all the time about the difference between occasional use and looking forward to it at the end of the week just a little bit too much, and maybe when the end of the week becomes Thursday, and then when the end of the week just a little bit too much, and maybe when the end of the week becomes Thursday, and then when the end of the week becomes Wednesday, and all that sort of stuff that is a little scary to talk about with kids.
53:06
I have to because my kids are at an elevated genetic risk. Genetics is about 50 to 60% of the risk picture. My kids are at elevated risk. My kids have other risk factors on top of their genetics. I can’t afford to not have these conversations because I need my kids to have as many pieces of their puzzle in place as possible to a either prevent they’re having a problem in the first place, or B to help them get to a place where they need help. They know they need help and can ask for it If they do go down that road. I just don’t want that to suffer as long as I did.
53:40 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, absolutely, and that’s for any young people in our lives, right, like whether or not we have kids again, I don’t, but I have my nieces and these really open, honest conversations make a huge, huge, huge difference.
53:52 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
Being the auntie, by the way, that is one of the greatest pleasures of my life. My sister has two children. My sister does not have a problem with alcohol. She got very lucky, came from the same genetics, but she got lucky. But her daughters are still at elevated risk and so I am. I’m just the addiction auntie, like I talk to them about it all the time.
54:12
When my oldest niece moved to Los Angeles, I helped her find resources for harm reduction. I helped her find naloxone. I helped her find naloxone. I helped her find fentanyl test strips, not because I want her to go out and use drugs and think she’s going to need a fentanyl test strip, but because if she’s going to be around people who are using drugs, these are the tools that she needs. She may never use them and that’s fine. But I want her to have Narcan in case she goes to a party and someone uses an overdoses. Then she has it. So having a having another adult in their life who can talk about this if you find it too difficult to talk about, that’s great too. It doesn’t have to be always you. It could be auntie Jess, or it could be uncle Peter, it could be. You know, there are lots of people who can be resources for your kids.
55:00 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
For sure it takes a village. You know, when I was a classroom teacher, right Like there was my, my parents and then my impact and like together we really did have to work to to help the kiddos. So, yeah, well, jessica, it has been amazing. Yay, I’m so glad that you made it again. I love books and a lot of people who listen to my podcast love books, and so I hope that everyone will check out the addiction inoculation. I actually listened to it and listening to it was really fun because I can. Obviously, I can totally tell you’re a teacher, so you read it Like it’s listen. Um, so really, whether someone checks it out like on audible or grabs a hard copy, um, definitely check it out. There’s just so much to it, and so, whether you’re a parent and educator or you just have, like young people in your life that you want to take care of, and I give you one more recommendation that one of the questions I get most often is is there a book like the addiction inoculation, but for adolescents?
55:56 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
And while I would absolutely love to write that book, I don’t need to, because there is a wonderful book out there and it’s called High and it’s by David Sheff and Nick Sheff. David Sheff was the guy who wrote Beautiful Boy about his son, nick, who is the beautiful boy who became a movie with Steve Carell and Timothee Chalamet, and that book is specifically geared toward adolescents. It’s got it’s. Even the adolescents that I taught in recovery centers, who were so cynical about these things, really liked this book. So get the book. Do not get your parents stink all over it by like handing it to your kid and say, sweetie, read this book for me, would you leave it around? It’s brightly colored, it’s really cool looking, it does not talk down to kids and hopefully they’ll pick it up and read it themselves. So it’s called high. It’s really brightly colored. You can’t miss it. David chef, nick chef fantastic resource.
56:52 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
That’s so awesome. I’m going to grab that book too. Thank you for the recommendation, for sure, absolutely.
56:58 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
Well, although I’ve I’ve heard from a lot of parents who have listened to the addiction inoculation in their car and that they didn’t think their adolescent was listening, but their adolescent was listening and then brought up stuff from the book later. So there are definitely parts that could benefit your adolescent if you’re listening in the car.
57:14 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, for sure. And I mean, I think a lot of times they like to hear what we’re talking about, you know, without acting like they’re actually interested. Yeah, well, awesome, well, jessica, thank you. Thank you so much.
57:28 – Jessica Lahey (Guest)
So welcome. Oh, I’m just, I’m so. I love having these conversations so much because the more we talk about it, the more we all talk about it, the less shame, the less stigma. That we don’t have time for that, it’s just. This conversation is too important. We have to get rid of all that stuff.
57:51 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
So thank you so much for raising the whole conversation in the first place, but also go to my website, bottomless to sobercom, and find out other opportunities to work with me, from free workshops to writing classes to one-to-one life coaching opportunities. You can schedule a free consultation for that. Everything is available at bottomless to sobercom. See you then.
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