Speaker 1: Welcome to Go ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Speaker 1: Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. Hi am Alli
Speaker 1: Wentworth and you're listening to Go ask Ali. Where this
Speaker 1: season we're asking the question how do you grow a
Speaker 1: teenager in a pandemic? We're talking all about teenagers and
Speaker 1: addiction in this week's episode. I personally don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of experience with substance abuse in my family or
Speaker 1: my close circle. But when I was a teenager, I
Speaker 1: experimented a little bit, And now years later, I have
Speaker 1: two teenage daughters of my own, and honestly nervous, I
Speaker 1: think other parents can relate when I say we don't
Speaker 1: want our kids getting addicted to prescription drugs, to alcohol,
Speaker 1: to vaping. I mean, first of all, dueling and vaping
Speaker 1: didn't exist when I was a kid um and certainly now,
Speaker 1: as teens stay indoors due to COVID nineteen and keep
Speaker 1: us out of the rooms, I have to wonder, how
Speaker 1: will we know if our teens are on drugs? Should
Speaker 1: we snoop through their stuff? How can we help them
Speaker 1: continue to be responsible even when we aren't around Today
Speaker 1: We're going to figure out how our kids are getting
Speaker 1: addicted and what we can do to stop it. My
Speaker 1: guest today is Janette Friedman. She's a clinical social worker,
Speaker 1: a family consultant, and a mental health and substance use
Speaker 1: disorder specialist. Before I speak to Jeanette, I once again
Speaker 1: have my daughter, Elliott Stephanopolis, who is my go to
Speaker 1: for all things teenager. She is a eighteen year old
Speaker 1: and wise beyond her years. And Elliott, I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you how rampant and you can be honest with me,
Speaker 1: how rampant is jeeling and baping in the teen world,
Speaker 1: because you know, when I was a teenager, the majority
Speaker 1: of my friends smoke cigarettes to be cool. I mom,
Speaker 1: me um, I would say, like every other person I
Speaker 1: know owns a jewel or like some kind of babe.
Speaker 1: Every other person you know, like if you put me
Speaker 1: in a room of five people, like three out of
Speaker 1: five will own some sort of nicotine electronic device. And
Speaker 1: I mean people do smoke cigarettes now because jewels and
Speaker 1: like the disposable electronic cigarettes are are harder to get,
Speaker 1: so people just smoke regular cigarettes. And it's also like
Speaker 1: and did people you just stop me? No to God,
Speaker 1: we are really demonstrating the parenteenager dynamic right now. My
Speaker 1: question to you is, um, did most of the people
Speaker 1: that are vaping and jeweling did they start because these
Speaker 1: companies introduce these jewels that are cookies and cream flavor,
Speaker 1: It has anything to do with the flavors, you don't?
Speaker 1: You think it's the high. I think it's like people
Speaker 1: are really stressed, and like you've talked about this with cigarettes,
Speaker 1: like having something in your hand. It's like for social
Speaker 1: anxiety or stress, it's something to do. So I don't
Speaker 1: really think it has anything you do with the flavor.
Speaker 1: I think it's more like who I'm a teenager and
Speaker 1: I'm an experiment. And also with the stress social anxiety aspect,
Speaker 1: having any kind of reliever, I guess was nice. So
Speaker 1: teenagers don't like to go to parties and just play
Speaker 1: with their stress ball, you know. But it's also like
Speaker 1: flavors don't matter. No one's like comparing flavors, want to switch.
Speaker 1: They'll just do any nicotine they have. Now I'm about
Speaker 1: to divulge something on this podcast, and you're gonna tell me, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: You're gonna tell me. First of all, if it's helped,
Speaker 1: I had you and your sister signed a contract every
Speaker 1: if you Glorious and my social circle, you guys signed
Speaker 1: a contract and basically, if you guys do not do
Speaker 1: drugs until you're twenty one, then you will be rewarded
Speaker 1: with maybe a trip or you know, a secondhand Honda
Speaker 1: accord or something but something, and you haven't so far.
Speaker 1: I'm clarifying that the contract is no no hard drugs,
Speaker 1: but no weed, not pot, no weed, no cocaine, no mushrooms,
Speaker 1: no LST, none of that stuff, right, And is that
Speaker 1: is that an incentive not to do drugs having this
Speaker 1: contract with me and your dad? I mean yeah, I
Speaker 1: think like both my sister and I have like pretty
Speaker 1: bad social anxiety. So I think it's one way to
Speaker 1: avoid the pressures to be like listen, listen buddy, like
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get money. Um, So it's like a good out.
Speaker 1: Even though there's I haven't really experienced a lot of
Speaker 1: peer pressure. I just also know myself like I'm very high,
Speaker 1: strong and tend to freak out and I feel like
Speaker 1: smoking weed or doing any hard drugs, but just emphasize
Speaker 1: that rather than diminish it. So yes it will. And
Speaker 1: I also hated my body is very sensitive because like
Speaker 1: I've already been on drugs prescription wise, and I've reacted
Speaker 1: really bad to it. Like I've taken adder all in,
Speaker 1: riddle in and all that stuff, and it made me
Speaker 1: feel sick. You also had major, major back surgery, a
Speaker 1: spinal fusion, and you had to take opiates and everything
Speaker 1: for that, and that also made you sick. So you've
Speaker 1: had bad experiences with drugs that you actually needed to
Speaker 1: take for And I've said that to people and they're like, oh, like,
Speaker 1: what do you How do you know if you don't
Speaker 1: like it? I'm like, because I've taken it when I'm
Speaker 1: in like severe severe pain or like my brain literally
Speaker 1: cannot focus and it does more harm than good. Why
Speaker 1: would I do when I'm non in pain. I know
Speaker 1: I'm still going to feel the bad effect, because yes,
Speaker 1: it did help with the pain, but yes I also
Speaker 1: had extreme side effects. Elliott. Yeah, thank you, Bye, thank you.
Speaker 1: I love you. And I will now turn my attention
Speaker 1: to Jeanette Friedman. She is a wealth of knowledge about
Speaker 1: everything surrounding teens and addiction. Let's get to it. I
Speaker 1: have so many questions for you, Jeanette. I got a
Speaker 1: lot of material real so, oh god. I love when
Speaker 1: I hear that. Um, So let's let me just start
Speaker 1: by asking a basic question, because I want to sort
Speaker 1: of talk about what substance abuse is, how it affects
Speaker 1: the brain, and then we're going to kind of branch
Speaker 1: out to why teens do drugs, what kind of drugs, signs,
Speaker 1: how do we find treatment? So, first of all, how
Speaker 1: do you define substance addiction as it relates to a disorder.
Speaker 1: So one good way that I think, I think to
Speaker 1: define it is to think of it something that is
Speaker 1: going to interfere with adolescent development, because virtually all addiction
Speaker 1: begins in an adolescence. And then if you go if
Speaker 1: you die a little deeper and you look at what
Speaker 1: happens in an adolescence, a lot of that is connected
Speaker 1: to early childhood. So really the people who need to
Speaker 1: be hearing this are the parents of young children, except
Speaker 1: that when you've got young children, you're not thinking of that.
Speaker 1: You've got other things on your mind. But in fact,
Speaker 1: when you go back and you do like a forensic
Speaker 1: evaluation on how does something really start, What what happened
Speaker 1: to make this all um developed in the way it did,
Speaker 1: you're looking at things like temperament, you're looking at the
Speaker 1: risk factors, which UH are not about substances at all
Speaker 1: in the beginning, They're about temperament. As I said there
Speaker 1: about personality development, how much of it is genetic, So
Speaker 1: genetics there is UH. There is definitely a percentage between
Speaker 1: twenty and of genetic link that will be that will
Speaker 1: affect a child. We try to go back about three
Speaker 1: generations and look at whether it's parents, grandparents, great grandparents, um.
Speaker 1: In terms of a biological connection. But you know, a
Speaker 1: genetic availability, it doesn't cause it. It makes it easier
Speaker 1: to develop. And one of the biggest reasons that it
Speaker 1: makes it easier to develop is that a kid who
Speaker 1: comes from a family where there's been addiction of any
Speaker 1: so art is going to like a substance more. They
Speaker 1: just naturally will respond more. Their brain is going to
Speaker 1: respond more in a pleasurable way than someone who doesn't
Speaker 1: have it in their family. So it's something that kids
Speaker 1: will say, why me, because somebody else uses substances more
Speaker 1: than me, even and they don't seem to have a problem.
Speaker 1: Once you are introduced to a substance that you like,
Speaker 1: that you respond to, it's pretty hard to forget what
Speaker 1: that feeling was and is this. Is it the same
Speaker 1: with alcohol and drugs. It's the same, yes, because alcohol
Speaker 1: is a drug and it's an addictive drug. It's just legal. Um.
Speaker 1: But but what we do find is that certain personalities
Speaker 1: are more attracted to certain drugs than others. Those certain
Speaker 1: personalities are more interested in hallucinogens. Let's say, marijuana smokers
Speaker 1: often are much more interested in an experience that is
Speaker 1: related to fantasy, whereas people who tend to be more
Speaker 1: anxious and irritable are more drawn to alcohol. That said,
Speaker 1: once you develop a ritualized use of any of those
Speaker 1: substances and you don't have them available anymore, it becomes
Speaker 1: easy to move over to a different substance. You can
Speaker 1: switch seats, even though your favorite let's call it your
Speaker 1: drug of choice, is one or the other. But generally
Speaker 1: there is a kind of personality that responds more to
Speaker 1: one than the other. And what about environmental stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: because you always read about um. You know, children that
Speaker 1: have gone through big emotional transitions in their life, like
Speaker 1: divorce or a death, um, certainly trauma. UM. How much
Speaker 1: do they factor into whether or not that child grows
Speaker 1: into an addictor right? So it factors in a lot
Speaker 1: in that. If you look at the major risk factors,
Speaker 1: they are mental health issues like depression, anxiety, personality factors,
Speaker 1: genetic factors, and then trauma and trauma comes in what
Speaker 1: we call little tea and big t. In other words,
Speaker 1: there are the small all kind of microaggression that everybody
Speaker 1: suffers starting at an early age that will affect some
Speaker 1: kids more than others. And then there are major traumas,
Speaker 1: major things like a natural disaster, like the death of
Speaker 1: an important person in the family that will really up
Speaker 1: end somebody's sense of equilibrium. So certainly, you know, what
Speaker 1: we know about trauma now is that what it does
Speaker 1: to the brain can be so debilitating for a young
Speaker 1: child because they just not equipped, They don't have that
Speaker 1: kind of resiliency. So we often overlook what happens with
Speaker 1: a child, a young child and trauma because they appear
Speaker 1: to adjust. You know, you'll have someone who talks about
Speaker 1: a five year old after a divorce and they'll say,
Speaker 1: you know, my five year old is just amazingly mature
Speaker 1: about this and really doesn't have a problem with it
Speaker 1: at all. Well, that's because at five, you're really interested
Speaker 1: in pleasing your parents and having no conflict at all,
Speaker 1: So you don't even access the depth of of your
Speaker 1: loss until you're a little older. And so trauma, for
Speaker 1: sure is it is a problem. So let me let
Speaker 1: me break down the brain a little bit. When there
Speaker 1: is trauma, let's say, or environmental factors, um that happened
Speaker 1: to you in your youth, when you get older and
Speaker 1: you're a teenager, in your frontal lobe hasn't completely developed,
Speaker 1: and you take risks and everything we know about teenagers,
Speaker 1: are you trying to numb the pain? Is it is
Speaker 1: the substance a numbing mechanism or an escape mechanism? What
Speaker 1: is it's all? It's it's all of those. It's it's
Speaker 1: all of those whatever works for you. So this is
Speaker 1: partly why it is really so important for parents to
Speaker 1: try to not have their child exposed to addictive substances
Speaker 1: at an early age, because, as I said, once you
Speaker 1: introduce that into a very fragile brain, which is what
Speaker 1: all kids have, uh, it is very hard to turn
Speaker 1: away from that when you want it to be numbed,
Speaker 1: when you want to escape, If you have a memory
Speaker 1: of what that felt like, you're going to be drawn
Speaker 1: to going back to that. If if you have access
Speaker 1: to it, so you know, once you discover it, once
Speaker 1: it's introduced to you, it becomes it's hard to discover,
Speaker 1: it's hard to undiscover it. So then it becomes a
Speaker 1: question of access and keeping kids away from it. But really,
Speaker 1: all as I said before, if we we have studies
Speaker 1: that have shown that if you could prevent kids from
Speaker 1: using any addictive substance until they're around three, you are
Speaker 1: eradicated addiction. It doesn't exist because rain, which is dramatic,
Speaker 1: because the brain is so much stronger and resilient when
Speaker 1: you are in your early twenties than it is when
Speaker 1: you're twelve or thirteen. So parents, well meaning parents who
Speaker 1: are thinking, I just need to teach my child how
Speaker 1: to drink alcohol during a dinner, for example, so that
Speaker 1: when they get to college they won't make a fool
Speaker 1: of themselves, Well, it doesn't work like that. If you
Speaker 1: have a brain that's really responsive to a substance, whether
Speaker 1: you start when you're thirteen or you're or later, there's
Speaker 1: there's likely to be a problem, you know. So it's
Speaker 1: not that we can teach kids how to use responsibly.
Speaker 1: There's kind of no such thing. So let me ask
Speaker 1: you this because another thing I hear a lot as
Speaker 1: a parent is, particularly with teenagers, that the idea of
Speaker 1: trying drugs or drinking binge drinking. Everyone says, well, it's
Speaker 1: a rite of passage um, which has always been kind
Speaker 1: of a strange um phrase to me. But people say, oh,
Speaker 1: it's part of being a teenager. Or you know what,
Speaker 1: I bought the kids lots of alcohol. They're you know,
Speaker 1: they're having a party and that's just what teenagers do. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know you have a lot to say. I could
Speaker 1: tell my face, well, you know, it's so interesting that
Speaker 1: whole that idea, which I know is very popular, I
Speaker 1: think is starting to change as people get more educated
Speaker 1: around what causes addiction to begin with, and that access
Speaker 1: is important. And if you have parents providing alcohol to
Speaker 1: underage kids, the kids automatically get the message that the
Speaker 1: parents are really okay with that. They're not okay with
Speaker 1: being drunk, they're not okay with drunk driving, but if
Speaker 1: you want to drink at home with us, there's an
Speaker 1: illusion of safety when the parents are included. So the
Speaker 1: parents have the feeling that they are protecting their child
Speaker 1: by keeping them at home, letting them get high at home,
Speaker 1: they're thinking is better than if they're out there. In
Speaker 1: terms of addictive process in the brain, the brain doesn't
Speaker 1: care whether you're at home, in your bedroom or out
Speaker 1: on the street or in college. It's that's a whole
Speaker 1: other experience. So the ways that parents who don't understand
Speaker 1: addictive process, the ways that they try to protect their kids,
Speaker 1: the well meaning ways often sort of feed into a
Speaker 1: mixed message about what what they're really trying to say.
Speaker 1: Parents want their kids safe, and they often don't understand
Speaker 1: that you can't give addictive substances to a young brain
Speaker 1: without some sort of a cost involved. And the second
Speaker 1: piece of that is that a lot of parents get
Speaker 1: overly involved with their kids to begin with, and they
Speaker 1: are assuming that they know how to train a child
Speaker 1: to to be responsible with their their use. For example,
Speaker 1: they think they actually know how that child's brain works,
Speaker 1: and usually that's not the case. And then there's a
Speaker 1: whole psychological emotional level on involvement with a child's life
Speaker 1: and feeling close to a child. So you'll have people
Speaker 1: talk about getting high with their child as a bonding experience, right, Well,
Speaker 1: if it's a bonding experience, it's a problem. You see
Speaker 1: it a lot in film, the cool mom who comes
Speaker 1: in with margharita's for all the teenage girls, and you know,
Speaker 1: we sort of laugh at that, but there's there is
Speaker 1: something tragic about it, um, but also tragic about needing
Speaker 1: to drink a margharita with your daughter's friends. Well, yes,
Speaker 1: that's the other piece of it, is that what does
Speaker 1: that mean about? So yeah, I'm I'm still infantilizing my kids.
Speaker 1: So there I have an eighteen year old that I
Speaker 1: want to make cookies with and she wants, you know,
Speaker 1: she wants me to get out of her room. But
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny that our culture we assist, you know,
Speaker 1: we insist on seat belts and helmets when we bike,
Speaker 1: and you know, sunscreen and all the precautions one takes
Speaker 1: to keep your kids safe and healthy. And yet for
Speaker 1: some reason, the the alcohol and substance of you that
Speaker 1: seems to be something that people don't prepare their children
Speaker 1: for as much as everything else, which is somewhat disturbing
Speaker 1: and uh shocking to me. You know, I think if
Speaker 1: you've had it in your family, or you've you've been
Speaker 1: aware of it with let's say, one of your child's
Speaker 1: friends or a friend of yours and their family. If
Speaker 1: you know of it more firsthand, you have a very
Speaker 1: different approach, because that's the kind of parent who says,
Speaker 1: there's no way I'm going to allow my family to
Speaker 1: go down that path because I've seen where it goes
Speaker 1: and I don't want to even take the risk. If
Speaker 1: it seems to have not touched you, then you are
Speaker 1: more the way you described. You know, there's a more
Speaker 1: there's a more relaxed attitude and the feeling that, well,
Speaker 1: it couldn't happen to us, because we're not that kind
Speaker 1: of family. You know, we're not that kind of parent.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't happen to my child, because my child would
Speaker 1: never do X y Z. So, you know, addiction and
Speaker 1: accidents related to two substances, they are really accidents. They're
Speaker 1: not you know, no one waves up in the morning
Speaker 1: and says, how can I really ruin my future? It's
Speaker 1: so subtle how this develops, and and people really have
Speaker 1: trouble seeing what they don't want to see. We're going
Speaker 1: to take a short break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: Welcome back with more, go ask Galley. I would think
Speaker 1: that teenagers are very susceptible because they're dealing with, you know,
Speaker 1: mood swings and hormones and um, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: fit in and social anxiety. I mean I can understand
Speaker 1: how a drug could be so seductive, particularly at this
Speaker 1: time in life. Yes, yes, so you know, there used
Speaker 1: to be a joke about people in twelve step programs
Speaker 1: that um people would say, well, I you know, I
Speaker 1: have anxiety disorder. If you went to an A meeting,
Speaker 1: probably nine of the people in an A meeting could
Speaker 1: qualify as having a diagnosis of a generalized anxiety disorder.
Speaker 1: Because anxiety feeds a need for calm and a need
Speaker 1: for peace and alcohol. As I said, once you discover it,
Speaker 1: nothing is going to work as quickly as alcohol. You know,
Speaker 1: not talking to a therapist or reading a book or
Speaker 1: taking a bath or going for a walk, nothing is
Speaker 1: going to work as quickly as a mood altering drugs.
Speaker 1: So it becomes so easy to get in all and
Speaker 1: it is really accidental. It is. People are innocent victims
Speaker 1: until it takes hold, and then there's a whole other,
Speaker 1: you know, psychological emotional component in terms of shame and
Speaker 1: feeling like they did something wrong because they got dependent
Speaker 1: on this substance, but it happened so subtly they didn't know,
Speaker 1: and the families often don't know that's happening, and so
Speaker 1: and they can move from one to another, obviously, can
Speaker 1: they can go from something softer into something harder. And
Speaker 1: I think about like in California, where you know, marijuana
Speaker 1: is legal, there is one less barricade for teenagers in
Speaker 1: that sense too. And I've I've known friends that have
Speaker 1: had kids that have started with marijuana and then got
Speaker 1: more addicted to harder substances. You know, this is one
Speaker 1: of those things nobody wants to believe. If you have
Speaker 1: a child who is just getting high on weed, you
Speaker 1: don't want to believe that there is a greater risk
Speaker 1: for it becoming more serious with harder drugs. But let
Speaker 1: me just say that if you have an emotionally psychiatrically
Speaker 1: fragile kid, that kid is not going to do well
Speaker 1: with weed. Weed is enough. We does enough to cause
Speaker 1: a psychotic break, to cause kids to commit crimes, to
Speaker 1: do things they would never ever ever do if they
Speaker 1: were not psychotic. And that's there's a link there. It's
Speaker 1: not to say that we'd causes the psychotic break. It's
Speaker 1: to say that the kid who is fragile to begin with,
Speaker 1: once they start regularly using a substance, even weed, because
Speaker 1: people seem to think it's so benign, that's enough. They
Speaker 1: don't need they don't need heroin, they don't need cocaine,
Speaker 1: they don't need to homsin agen. That's enough. So, you know,
Speaker 1: from my point of view, we talked about really about
Speaker 1: ten percent of the population gets addicted. Of that ten percent,
Speaker 1: only about ten percent get some treatment. But even if
Speaker 1: it's only ten percent of the population that gets addicted,
Speaker 1: if it's in your family, it's not it's and so
Speaker 1: then then it doesn't matter. You know, the statistics don't matter,
Speaker 1: the anecdotes don't matter. You haven't in your family. So
Speaker 1: everyone is affected. You know, siblings are affected by all
Speaker 1: the energy that gets taken up by that one kid.
Speaker 1: You know, finances are affected. It's horrifically expensive to get
Speaker 1: really good treatment over the long haul, and most of
Speaker 1: the time treatment is a long process. It's not thirty days. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another myths that people think, oh, well, well right. You know,
Speaker 1: in my work, I always think if people understood how
Speaker 1: painful and heartbreaking it can get, they would work much
Speaker 1: harder on the front end to do some of these
Speaker 1: things that we're talking about, you know, to just protect
Speaker 1: their kids for a time. And as I said, you know,
Speaker 1: once they're twenty four there they can relax. Everybody can
Speaker 1: relax much more because they're not going to damage their
Speaker 1: brains like they do when they're younger. Now, this is
Speaker 1: a very hard message. If somebody is regularly using we
Speaker 1: they don't want to hear this. Yeah, they're not interested.
Speaker 1: But it's also so interesting in what you're saying about
Speaker 1: having to kind of you know, front load all that
Speaker 1: focus because you know, I think a lot of parents
Speaker 1: are guilty of you know, not my kid, not my kid,
Speaker 1: and then their kid becomes addicted and then they go,
Speaker 1: oh god, now we have to do something. Um because
Speaker 1: like you said when we started, when you have younger kids,
Speaker 1: the last thing you're thinking about is that you know,
Speaker 1: you're thinking about, you know, potty training and all kinds
Speaker 1: of other things you're thinking to have preschool. And also
Speaker 1: parents blame themselves so much, you so you don't want
Speaker 1: to think that you could actually have that problem because
Speaker 1: you're gonna feel like you did it. You're gonna feel
Speaker 1: like it's your fault of course, Um, that's a whole
Speaker 1: other terrible thing that parents have to go through. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I have a friend going through it now, so
Speaker 1: tell me about um. When we talk about drugs, we
Speaker 1: have alcohol in one column. When we talk about drugs,
Speaker 1: it seems to me there's the marijuana and cocaine and
Speaker 1: you know, crack. I don't. I don't even know if
Speaker 1: people still do crack, but you know, they're all those
Speaker 1: kind of strong things. But we also have a big
Speaker 1: opiate addiction. And also one of the things I hear
Speaker 1: more and more is people are kids, teenagers taking prescription
Speaker 1: medication from their parents bathrooms. So I know somebody who
Speaker 1: a kid went into cardiac arrest because they had snorted adderall,
Speaker 1: which is an a d h D drug. So in
Speaker 1: terms of kind of what the landscape looks like, now,
Speaker 1: what are you what are sort of big red flags
Speaker 1: for you? Well, there's a lot of views of pharmaceuticals
Speaker 1: kids are getting from one another, They get them from
Speaker 1: their parents, they get them on the street, that kids
Speaker 1: are smart drugs In other words, adderall riddling to help
Speaker 1: kids study. And certainly we know that you can get
Speaker 1: much more alert, you can you know, do a lot
Speaker 1: more if you're running around on an anphetamine like adderall,
Speaker 1: but the kids who have been officially diagnosed with something
Speaker 1: like a d h D, for example, it does not
Speaker 1: rev them up that that you know, taking it appropriately
Speaker 1: will prevent substance problems later for most of those kids
Speaker 1: because they're appropriately medicated. But for kids who are using
Speaker 1: it kind of illegitimately or because they want to take
Speaker 1: a test, or all the different ways that people can um,
Speaker 1: they're getting it from a lot of different sources. They're
Speaker 1: using it selectively. They're thinking, I'll just use it for
Speaker 1: this test, or I'll just use it for this all night,
Speaker 1: or I have to pull to get this paper done.
Speaker 1: You develop a taste for it because you feel so
Speaker 1: energetic and there is a euphoria attached, and so that
Speaker 1: is that part of their recreational Like if somebody's at
Speaker 1: a party snorting adderall, what is that? All out? Amphetamines?
Speaker 1: If you take them, especially with alcohol, you get sort
Speaker 1: of double triple the effect. So adderall will increase the
Speaker 1: effects of alcohol um and vice versa, so you end
Speaker 1: up with a big buzz. So this is what happens
Speaker 1: with for example, zan X mixing xanax or any of
Speaker 1: the benzodiazepines. With alcohol, you get high, you don't just
Speaker 1: calm down, which is what you might use zan x for.
Speaker 1: Legitimately you you actually have a much bigger effect. By
Speaker 1: the way, this is one of the respectors with adolescence
Speaker 1: is they don't use like adults used. They use for
Speaker 1: a mood change, and they're interested in a mood change
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible. They're not interested in titrating slowly
Speaker 1: getting somewhere. They want to get there now. And so
Speaker 1: this is where you get the notion of several shots.
Speaker 1: You know, go to a bar and have several shots.
Speaker 1: They're not having one shot, they're having six or seven
Speaker 1: because they really just want the mood change. So it
Speaker 1: is very different end from a mature adult who decides
Speaker 1: to have, you know, wine with their fish. It's not
Speaker 1: or you can go or exan X on an airplane
Speaker 1: or azan X on an airplane. Right, it's a very
Speaker 1: different thing. I know a lot of parents don't understand
Speaker 1: that about their kids. They really think they're using it
Speaker 1: like they would use it, and the effect is very different. So,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a difficult thing to educate about because
Speaker 1: people don't want to they don't want to hear that
Speaker 1: are there. And there must be differences between a child
Speaker 1: who is smoking pot and taking mushrooms to a child
Speaker 1: that is abusing prescription man made, chemically induced pharmaceutical drugs
Speaker 1: a difference in terms of well, in terms of what
Speaker 1: they're doing to their body and their brain. For some
Speaker 1: reason in my mind, and this is just based on
Speaker 1: things I've read, that the the chemical the the opiates,
Speaker 1: the klonopins, the oxycon all those drugs that are completely
Speaker 1: synthetic are a lot more dangerous to a teenage brain.
Speaker 1: Then let's say, uh, plant based drugs. No, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: agree with that. I mean, obviously, if you're talking about
Speaker 1: an opiate, that has a very intense effect and so
Speaker 1: that's going to affect a teenage But again, don't forget
Speaker 1: we're talking about a teenage brain. So whether you're talking
Speaker 1: synthetics or whether you're talking plant based, the brain is affected.
Speaker 1: I think the difference. You know, most kids who have
Speaker 1: never used any drugs at all don't start with an opiate.
Speaker 1: They're not popping a couple of anything. Really, They're usually
Speaker 1: starting on something much milder or what they think of
Speaker 1: as milder. Uh so in terms of the difference, Uh, certainly,
Speaker 1: you know you're hurting your brain no matter what you're
Speaker 1: using if it has an addictive property to it, which
Speaker 1: all of those drugs do. Whether it's money or drugs
Speaker 1: or a pure group that has access. Access and supervision
Speaker 1: are two of the big, big hall marks to helping
Speaker 1: kids with substance problems. Once they have disposable money and
Speaker 1: you're not tracking it, you don't know what they're spending
Speaker 1: it on, they have access to kind of whatever they want.
Speaker 1: Two antidepressants um not the same, not to stay the same,
Speaker 1: but do they help it in terms of addiction. Well, so,
Speaker 1: here's the interesting thing is if you have a child
Speaker 1: who seems depressed and they're also, let's say, using a
Speaker 1: lot of marijuana, or they're using it several times a week,
Speaker 1: it's very hard to know how much of that presentation
Speaker 1: of no motivation, flatness, looking depressed, not being able to
Speaker 1: get out of bed, argumentative, irritable, moody. It's very hard
Speaker 1: to know how much of that is related to the
Speaker 1: drug and how much of it is actually real organic depression.
Speaker 1: And so it's it's just tough to diagnose. So if
Speaker 1: you end up with taking an antidepressant and you're also
Speaker 1: medicating yourself with we again, we don't really know whether
Speaker 1: the antidepressant is working. To get it. To to really
Speaker 1: do an accurate study on that, you'd have to have
Speaker 1: them off of the weed. And by the time your
Speaker 1: child is presenting as depressed, if they're a regular weed smoker,
Speaker 1: they don't want to stop the weed because that has
Speaker 1: become a ritualized, favorite, go to thing that they do
Speaker 1: that brings them relief all sorts, that's connected to their
Speaker 1: peer group. So it's not so easy to have somebody
Speaker 1: stop using something like weed because you want to get
Speaker 1: a trial of antidepressants going and see if that would help.
Speaker 1: So then you have a whole social construct involved in
Speaker 1: the mix that again makes it harder to make a change.
Speaker 1: Let's look at how you can tell if your team
Speaker 1: is on drugs, because, uh, there are some of the
Speaker 1: signs that you just mentioned, Um, they are skipping school,
Speaker 1: they're sleeping late, they're not well groom their argumentative Like
Speaker 1: you said, what are what are some other signs that
Speaker 1: may not be as obvious, so you it can be
Speaker 1: hard to know. There are a lot of parents who
Speaker 1: will say they have no idea what their child looks
Speaker 1: like when they're high. And then you have some parents
Speaker 1: who say, oh yeah, I know, I know when it's happening.
Speaker 1: So the signs of things like as you as you
Speaker 1: pointed out things like lethargy, you know, no motivation, seeming depressed,
Speaker 1: dropping activities that they used to love, losing a kind
Speaker 1: of joy and a kind of enthusiasm for a lot
Speaker 1: of different things. Sports go by the wayside often, like
Speaker 1: really good athletes who start to get involved in a
Speaker 1: substance will lose interest um their Their peer group often changes,
Speaker 1: so they will drop the kids from what they used
Speaker 1: to be friends with, or they will see them less
Speaker 1: and they'll go more towards this other group. Parents often
Speaker 1: don't know this other group because they might come from
Speaker 1: a different school. In high school, it can be hard
Speaker 1: to trace because kids are high school are drawing from
Speaker 1: a lot of different places. You don't always know their parents.
Speaker 1: So that change in pure group can can be an
Speaker 1: indication money. You know, money that's missing, money that's getting spent,
Speaker 1: but you can't really account for it. Speaking of you,
Speaker 1: did I know you did a podcast? On social media
Speaker 1: as well as the body image one and you know
Speaker 1: this falls right into the same They all can really
Speaker 1: coincide all these different issues because there are a lot
Speaker 1: of there's a lot of social media now that is
Speaker 1: very drug related, and there are a lot of ways
Speaker 1: to get money for kids to get money, but they
Speaker 1: that their parents don't know about that is connected to
Speaker 1: social media or connected to an app for example selling something.
Speaker 1: So so you mean selling something like my Kashmir sweater,
Speaker 1: used Kashmre sweater, like a picture or like a picture
Speaker 1: of you. Uh, you know, there's a lot there's a
Speaker 1: lot of that going on right now that didn't exist
Speaker 1: a few years ago, and so parents are discovering that
Speaker 1: their child has all this money all of a sudden
Speaker 1: that they they can't understand, and it's because they're involved
Speaker 1: in some sort uh, you know, clandestine social media. So
Speaker 1: are you talking pornography? It can go there, you know,
Speaker 1: there's certainly there's certainly that, uh, and then several steps
Speaker 1: before that, so where you can really get a very
Speaker 1: naive young adolescent who just wants some attention, who doesn't
Speaker 1: really understand much else that's going on about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's funny that you say that, because I had a
Speaker 1: bunch of teenage girls were over at our house the
Speaker 1: other day and one of them said, um, oh my god,
Speaker 1: somebody d m me on social media and said they
Speaker 1: would give me um if I sent them photos of
Speaker 1: my feet. And everybody was kind of laughing, and I thought,
Speaker 1: that's doesn't sound very good, you know, but they to
Speaker 1: them it was like, how easy is that? I sent
Speaker 1: him some photos of my feet and I get money?
Speaker 1: So well, so that's where that's sort of where it starts. Okay,
Speaker 1: it starts with the feet, Okay, yeah, I get works
Speaker 1: the way up and then it works is so that is, Yes,
Speaker 1: that's a that's become a popular the site that again
Speaker 1: parents have no clue A lot of this is going on.
Speaker 1: You know, when I talk about access in supervision, that's
Speaker 1: the piece about supervision is especially during the pandemic, where
Speaker 1: everybody is on top of everybody else and everybody needs
Speaker 1: some privacy and should have some. But there's also the
Speaker 1: naivete of a young adolescent who is, you know, with
Speaker 1: their computer in their room. You don't know what is,
Speaker 1: you don't know who is the creditor in there, and
Speaker 1: you're trying to keep them safe, and yet you want
Speaker 1: them to be able to make their own decisions. It's
Speaker 1: just very tough on parents. Yeah, all right, so let
Speaker 1: me let's go through a scenario. Let's pretend I have
Speaker 1: a teenage boy, which I don't. Um, but that way,
Speaker 1: neither of my teenage girls goes are you talking about me?
Speaker 1: I have a teenage boy named Timmy, and Timmy is
Speaker 1: sort of skipping school. Now we are in a pandemic,
Speaker 1: and so he spends a lot of time in its room. Um,
Speaker 1: I start to suspect that he's taking stuff. He's just
Speaker 1: he's not the Timmy he used to be. Um, do
Speaker 1: I snoop? Do I rifle through his stuff? Do I
Speaker 1: look for evidence of drugs? Is that the first step?
Speaker 1: So you know, it's a tough it's such a tough question.
Speaker 1: Parents are generally horrified at the suggestion that you might
Speaker 1: have to look in somebody's room because they are so
Speaker 1: um focused on the idea of trust. You have to
Speaker 1: think about who's losing who's trust in a case like that.
Speaker 1: In other words, you wouldn't probably feel the need to
Speaker 1: look unless there was some secrecy that was making you nervous,
Speaker 1: And so that really becomes that's sort of on the
Speaker 1: child is why is why is he being so secretive?
Speaker 1: What's he hiding? If he denies it repeatedly and he
Speaker 1: yet he seems withdrawn, he seems different. Some parents that
Speaker 1: you know, depending on the degree of fear they have,
Speaker 1: will start to look. You know, I'm not I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying one should look or one shouldn't look.
Speaker 1: I'm saying or you have It's a double edged sword
Speaker 1: because on one hand, it is you can trust your
Speaker 1: gut that you basically probably know your kid, and you know.
Speaker 1: You know whether they're anxious, you know whether they're insecure,
Speaker 1: you know whether they have troublemaking friends. You know that
Speaker 1: there tend to be argumentative or defensive, and that they
Speaker 1: can't take feedback, or that they're just uncomfortable in their skin.
Speaker 1: That you know, you don't necessarily know whether they're using anything,
Speaker 1: but you know enough about their risk factors to be worried.
Speaker 1: And then they're secretive and you start suspecting things. It
Speaker 1: usually doesn't come out of nowhere. I mean, most parents
Speaker 1: are not that paranoid about They are accused of it.
Speaker 1: They're always accused of being paranoid, but they're not wanting
Speaker 1: to find this. It's more the opposite. It's more that
Speaker 1: it's around them and they they have trouble seeing it
Speaker 1: because they don't want to see it. So I think,
Speaker 1: based on your fear, you follow your your instinct to
Speaker 1: do what you need to protect your child. They are
Speaker 1: not going to like it, you know. It's another problem
Speaker 1: in terms of trust. What I see is people do
Speaker 1: it when they get very desperate and they're, you know,
Speaker 1: just very afraid that they're missing something, and then once
Speaker 1: they do discover it, they feel stupid that they should
Speaker 1: have looked earlier, that they so, And then nobody ever
Speaker 1: says I'm glad I didn't know all that. They always
Speaker 1: say I wish I'd known earlier, because intervening earlier is
Speaker 1: so much easier then later. And with substance use, the
Speaker 1: more you do it, the more deeply involved you get,
Speaker 1: and the more deeply your brain is affected. A good
Speaker 1: way to think about Selsin's us is that it's a
Speaker 1: thinking problem much more than an actual drinking problem drug problem.
Speaker 1: It changes the way you think, and it changes the
Speaker 1: way you use your defenses, the way you deal with people.
Speaker 1: So that in itself, if you have a child who's
Speaker 1: becoming really defensive and argumentative, and seems to always be negative,
Speaker 1: excessively negative. There's something going on with his thinking, right,
Speaker 1: and that's enough to help you maybe get him some help,
Speaker 1: not even specifically drug related, but just more mental health,
Speaker 1: emotional health, too much stress, what's going on. And I
Speaker 1: find that that's a really good gait for parents to use.
Speaker 1: Is is speaking from the idea that you're not dealing
Speaker 1: with something. There's something too stressful in your life. You
Speaker 1: seem really upset, you seem sad, you're not yourself. So
Speaker 1: it's a mental health issue. We look at it. It's
Speaker 1: a mental health issue. It's always a mental health issue.
Speaker 1: There's no such thing as an isolated drug problem. Now
Speaker 1: a quick word from our sponsors, welcome back to go
Speaker 1: ask aali. Let's get back to the discussion. Have you
Speaker 1: found that in the pandemic because of the uncertainty of
Speaker 1: the world, there's an increase in drug take, an increase
Speaker 1: in addiction. Well, certainly it's easier to find because everybody's
Speaker 1: living together. It's a little easier to uncover. It's not
Speaker 1: so easy to hide. H I think that the stress
Speaker 1: of families, when kids are subjected to the stress of
Speaker 1: their parents and see how their parents handle things, in
Speaker 1: addition to their own stress and how they're managing It's
Speaker 1: a lot, yeah, I would assume, to with with the
Speaker 1: parents being stressed and families being fractured because they've lost
Speaker 1: jobs or somebody's died in the family. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: COVID's really you know, Yeah, it's an overwhelming situation for
Speaker 1: normal minds to manage, much less somebody who's more vulnerable.
Speaker 1: I would assume adult adults are probably taking more duds
Speaker 1: and drinking more us. Oh. Yes, And what do you
Speaker 1: say to um parents, uh who see other children that
Speaker 1: they suspect to have a drug problem. Do you tell
Speaker 1: those parents? If I see a friend of my daughters
Speaker 1: maybe who I think is as an addiction problem, is
Speaker 1: it my place to say something? I mean, I'm terrified
Speaker 1: of doing that, but well, you know, if you go
Speaker 1: back to the idea of it takes a village, which
Speaker 1: I do believe it does, we all need to watch
Speaker 1: out for everyone's children, one another's children. I would want
Speaker 1: that for mine, and you'd probably want somebody to go
Speaker 1: to you and say something, even if you don't like
Speaker 1: the message. You'd rather know sooner. It's a terrible feeling
Speaker 1: to know that the whole town knows about your child,
Speaker 1: the whole school knows, and you don't know. So I
Speaker 1: think depending on you know, what you're on, the peer
Speaker 1: group that you're in. You know, a lot of parents
Speaker 1: get together at the beginning of the school year of
Speaker 1: parents of teens, and they will talk about these things,
Speaker 1: and they'll say, Okay, do we want to kind make
Speaker 1: a pact that if we hear something, if we notice
Speaker 1: something about one of our kids, are we all okay
Speaker 1: with us talking about it and and bringing it to
Speaker 1: the forefront um as a way to kind of jointly
Speaker 1: own this problem and really take care of one another
Speaker 1: instead of being so isolated and feeling as though there's
Speaker 1: there's a lot of shame in there that you're trying
Speaker 1: to protect. So I think that's a really good way.
Speaker 1: Does it actually, yeah, Oh it works, It does. It works.
Speaker 1: It works because I will have kids say to me,
Speaker 1: you know, everything was fine until my parents started talking
Speaker 1: to everybody, all the other parents, and now I can't
Speaker 1: get away with anything. And they say it with a
Speaker 1: combination of irritation and also pride that they're yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Because the other thing to keep in mind is a
Speaker 1: lot of kids getting situations but they don't really want
Speaker 1: to be in and they don't know how to get
Speaker 1: out of. We don't teach good refusal skills with our kids.
Speaker 1: We don't teach them how to say no in a
Speaker 1: way that is tactful enough that they don't break off
Speaker 1: a relationship. That's hard for adults as well as for kids. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I actually think there should be strategies for parents. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know that we've sat down with our kids and
Speaker 1: we've said, look, you don't particularly like to drink. You
Speaker 1: don't like the taste of alcohol, so hold you know,
Speaker 1: a red plastic cup of ginger ale. Nobody needs to
Speaker 1: know what you're drinking. Um or you know, we've gone
Speaker 1: through all the scenarios. If you're at a party and
Speaker 1: your best friends really drunk and her parents are strict
Speaker 1: and you don't know what to do, call us, call us,
Speaker 1: call us. But you know that was sort of um.
Speaker 1: That was not the case of my childhood. So it's
Speaker 1: not like somebody instructed me that it felt like an
Speaker 1: intuitive thing to say to my daughters. Just call me.
Speaker 1: We can handle anything. We can deal with anything. I
Speaker 1: just don't want you to be in danger in any way.
Speaker 1: So the so the other thing you will see with
Speaker 1: a healthier family is an ability to talk about these things.
Speaker 1: An ability for kids to come on from a party
Speaker 1: and say it was this, it was that, and you know,
Speaker 1: I was a little worried about so and so, but
Speaker 1: here's what happened. That's a real opportunity for the parent
Speaker 1: to respond in the right way, so they encourage the
Speaker 1: conversation instead of shutting it down. So if they're shocked,
Speaker 1: if they're saying, that's such a that kid, you can't
Speaker 1: ever see that kid again. You know, this is terrible.
Speaker 1: They're bad, I e were good. Any of that sort
Speaker 1: of judgment is a disaster. But but you can really
Speaker 1: engage your kids in a conversation where there's no judgment,
Speaker 1: but you're just interested. You're interested and you're curious about
Speaker 1: them and how people cope with things. Another really good
Speaker 1: thing to do is sort of role play with them
Speaker 1: that you're the best friend and you're the wasted one,
Speaker 1: or you're the same one and the other one is
Speaker 1: it and help them practice scenarios. What would they do
Speaker 1: at a time like that, You know, how do they
Speaker 1: have a particular code word if they're calling you, that
Speaker 1: means this is trouble, Come get me out of here.
Speaker 1: All of those kinds of preparations make people feel safer,
Speaker 1: and practicing um is a is a great thing to do.
Speaker 1: It's just that I find it in a lot of families.
Speaker 1: They're afraid to do that. They're afraid that they're going
Speaker 1: to encourage something that their their kids are going to
Speaker 1: take something away that they didn't mean. But becoming comfortable
Speaker 1: with open conversation is is a kind of protector because
Speaker 1: anyway you want them to go to you, you don't
Speaker 1: want them to be stuck in a situation. You know,
Speaker 1: I should say everybody should instruct their kids that if
Speaker 1: they're with a friend who passes out from an alcohol
Speaker 1: or drugs, they have to go straight to nine one
Speaker 1: emergency room. They can't presume that it's just they just
Speaker 1: need to let them sleep it off, or that it's
Speaker 1: not a big deal. I'll put them in and over right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there's one other thing besides social media that I
Speaker 1: didn't grow up with that I do not understand, but
Speaker 1: I'm scared of it is vaping and jeweling. My kids
Speaker 1: had to teach me the difference between vaping and jeweling.
Speaker 1: But also, you know, everything we've read is they are
Speaker 1: also gateways to drug They are another way to get
Speaker 1: your system addicted. How do we stop that? That seems
Speaker 1: to be something everyone's doing in every bathroom and every
Speaker 1: school all the time. You can't smell it. It's a
Speaker 1: huge it's a huge problem because the industries that are creating,
Speaker 1: that have manufactured these products know that they have a
Speaker 1: huge population, a huge um sale on their hands because
Speaker 1: they're really targeting kids. You know, they will say that
Speaker 1: they're targeting adults, they're targeting kids, and so when they
Speaker 1: taste like cookies and cream, it's not for adults, right,
Speaker 1: So you know, again, I think it's the same message
Speaker 1: as before with nicotine. Um, a lot of families I
Speaker 1: know are just as upset about nicotine as they are
Speaker 1: about marijuana or anything else because they see it as
Speaker 1: so addicting. And it's true. And studies will show that
Speaker 1: the earlier a kid is smoking cigarettes, for example, or
Speaker 1: getting a nicotine fixed, the earlier the bigger risk factor
Speaker 1: for later drug use. So it's it's a big problem.
Speaker 1: And I can remember a few years ago having parents
Speaker 1: early on in the vaping subject who were adamant that
Speaker 1: wanted their child to not vape, and you know, the
Speaker 1: child was serious because all of his friends were doing it,
Speaker 1: and they just kind of struck to their guns about
Speaker 1: this because they felt so strongly they had addiction in
Speaker 1: the family. They were really determined and paid off in
Speaker 1: the end. But it was very tough because a lot
Speaker 1: of his friends were doing it, and so he was
Speaker 1: feeling like an outsider um that his parents weren't allowing it.
Speaker 1: These are the things in our culture that are very
Speaker 1: difficult to really sort of separate out. Who's who can
Speaker 1: really be a mature adult and see something as a
Speaker 1: third eye versus someone who gets overly invested in their
Speaker 1: kids success and is afraid to see what's there so
Speaker 1: then they can't help them. It's funny because I was
Speaker 1: I went away to boarding school at thirteen and survival
Speaker 1: and boarding school was smoking cigarettes that sort of separated
Speaker 1: the men from the boys. So I started smoking for
Speaker 1: survival so I could be in the butt room with
Speaker 1: the cool girls. And that started at thirteen fourteen, and
Speaker 1: I didn't quit until I got married in my early
Speaker 1: thirties and got pregnant, otherwise I couldn't. I mean I
Speaker 1: smoked a pack of camel lights a day. And what's
Speaker 1: interesting is that my kids think it's the most disgusting
Speaker 1: thing they've ever They cannot believe that I smoked cigarettes
Speaker 1: and how gross was I And they can't wrap their
Speaker 1: head around it. I mean, they really they turned into
Speaker 1: my parents and they're very judgmental, and which is which
Speaker 1: is interesting to me. But yet nobody was watching me
Speaker 1: at thirteen. No one cared, you know, and it was
Speaker 1: and what about and what about the vaping that they see?
Speaker 1: They saw the cigarette smoking. It's really disgusting, but not vaping. No,
Speaker 1: they think vaping and jeweling is disgusting too, thank god,
Speaker 1: but they certain, but they've but they've told me that,
Speaker 1: you know, everybody does it. And the great thing, or
Speaker 1: not the great thing, but the positive thing for people
Speaker 1: that are vaping and dueling is you can't detect it. Now.
Speaker 1: When I smoked cigarettes, and even when I first married
Speaker 1: my husband, you know, I could take three showers and
Speaker 1: brush my teeth and eat a green apple and he
Speaker 1: could immediately smell that I had a cigarette. But you
Speaker 1: can hide the other stuff so much better. And that's
Speaker 1: why the rate of addiction goes up so so quickly
Speaker 1: with them because they can because in the old days
Speaker 1: you did it, you had to hide it because it
Speaker 1: did smell, and so you could only do it at
Speaker 1: certain times and you had to be very careful how
Speaker 1: you used it, so that automatically limits your use. Now
Speaker 1: there's no limit to the use. You can use it
Speaker 1: all day long and no one really knows. So that
Speaker 1: means that the addiction rate goes way, way, way up,
Speaker 1: So it doesn't take long to become really addicted to nicotine.
Speaker 1: Le say, by the way, jewel and and uh, you
Speaker 1: know pods you can there's marijuana in there as well.
Speaker 1: You can switch things out. So whether they're getting nicotine
Speaker 1: or whether they're getting weed, there's there's something that they're
Speaker 1: getting and it's being ingested in the law. So I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm sure you've seen all the recent studies
Speaker 1: on trying to alert people to the dangers of they
Speaker 1: being with COVID Y and the high risk factory. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know young people again, they they're not their
Speaker 1: brains are not developed enough to even believe that that
Speaker 1: could happen. So I think as apparent you just have
Speaker 1: to say, you know, in terms of dueling and vaping. No,
Speaker 1: absolutely not. You have to say no, and I think
Speaker 1: you have to explain why, and you have to ask
Speaker 1: that they trust you that you know a little bit
Speaker 1: more because of your advanced age or all of your experience,
Speaker 1: that you're hoping that they can trust that you're out
Speaker 1: for their best interests, because the message would be mixed
Speaker 1: if you said, well, you can do it a little bit,
Speaker 1: but just don't do it too much. That's where parents
Speaker 1: get in trouble. They try to be reasonable, and what
Speaker 1: the kid is hearing is it's okay. You know, if
Speaker 1: they're saying I can have one vodka UM on a
Speaker 1: Saturday night, basically what they're saying is it's okay to
Speaker 1: have vodka. That is how it's an adolescent translates that message.
Speaker 1: So the parent means just a little and don't get
Speaker 1: out of control. The kid doesn't hear that because their
Speaker 1: brain they're they're thinking, is not evolved to that point yet.
Speaker 1: So a lot of this is about how do you
Speaker 1: translate between the generations. You know, are you sure you're
Speaker 1: delivering a message that they can actually hear versus what
Speaker 1: you think you you're doing just scare to scare tactics
Speaker 1: work with parents. No, No, scare tactics don't. Showing showing
Speaker 1: them a picture of lungs after vaping is not going
Speaker 1: to have a big effect on them. Well, in effect,
Speaker 1: it certainly may. It certainly had an effect on me,
Speaker 1: but I don't think it has that much of an effect.
Speaker 1: All the studies have shown that scared straight and those
Speaker 1: techniques aren't really that effective. But the great thing about
Speaker 1: adolescence is if they're very sensitive to hypocrisy, so they
Speaker 1: can spot something disingenuous very quickly, and once they spot
Speaker 1: it in their parents, especially, then they're out for blood.
Speaker 1: Then they will debate you to the end because they
Speaker 1: have found your weak spot. Again, it's part of their
Speaker 1: own moral development is being able to fire it out.
Speaker 1: What's hypocritical, you know why, unfairness, you know justice. It's
Speaker 1: why debate teams are so popular in high school because
Speaker 1: really the brain of that adolescent stage is primed to
Speaker 1: argue and to research your point of view and to
Speaker 1: fight for what you want. So it's it all kind
Speaker 1: of works together. But when it comes to drug use, um,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's humorous in a way, how much, how
Speaker 1: very passionate they can be with their research, which of
Speaker 1: course is self selected because they went to certain sites
Speaker 1: to get their research, they need go to the other sites. Um.
Speaker 1: But that's all right. It's still part of their their
Speaker 1: own intellectual development. Which I think is a really great
Speaker 1: thing about talking about something with kids at that age
Speaker 1: is they have they have a way to see right
Speaker 1: through to something that's fake, so scared straight. Even though
Speaker 1: it's of course true that people can have horrific experiences
Speaker 1: because of it, they see as a manipulation and you know,
Speaker 1: they're not wrong, right. So I in terms of taking
Speaker 1: Timmy through all this, and we've we've uh, he has
Speaker 1: a problem. I've gone into his room, I found the drugs.
Speaker 1: There are innumerable treatment centers, there's all kinds of hotlines,
Speaker 1: um for people who need help. But I want to
Speaker 1: just end this podcast by emphasizing a few of the
Speaker 1: things that you said which I think are really important,
Speaker 1: which is to h to educate our kids even before
Speaker 1: the age where they would probably start experimenting with drugs. Yes,
Speaker 1: but I think it's more important to educate the parents,
Speaker 1: you know, I think I think the parents. If the
Speaker 1: parents feel confident in a point of view, then it's
Speaker 1: much easier for the kids to follow. If the parents
Speaker 1: are ambivalent, they're not sure. They had a wild childhood
Speaker 1: and they turned out fine. Be in your particular case,
Speaker 1: it's almost a problem because you look at you and
Speaker 1: yet you can say you had this this experience when
Speaker 1: you were younger. So it would be easy for kids
Speaker 1: like yours to say, well, you're fine, but their fin
Speaker 1: it's their father. Their father was perfection, never did anything,
Speaker 1: so I always we emphasize him. So but you can
Speaker 1: see how it's important for the parents to know what
Speaker 1: they're doing, to have a policy of their own. It's
Speaker 1: not easy to do, but that is I think the
Speaker 1: key is with the parents. It's and also to be
Speaker 1: very clear and concise about what their thoughts about. Like
Speaker 1: we talked before about you know, not a drink here,
Speaker 1: maybe drink there, or you know not to wish to
Speaker 1: be clear right because you know, kids will get help
Speaker 1: when the parents are ready for them to get help.
Speaker 1: If the parents aren't ready, it's not happening. So I
Speaker 1: do think the power, the center of power is with
Speaker 1: the parents. Even though they might feel disempowered, they might
Speaker 1: feel as though no one's listening to them. They have
Speaker 1: so much more influence on their kids than they might think,
Speaker 1: and then when they are in those adolescent years, to
Speaker 1: communicate with them, to to be able to talk with them.
Speaker 1: And if you're really worried, you know, if you think
Speaker 1: there's a problem, to be able to say, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm too worried as your mother or your dad, I'm uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: You might be comfortable, Johnny, but I'm uncomfortable with this,
Speaker 1: and I think we need to go see somebody and
Speaker 1: just get a get an assessment and see what somebody else,
Speaker 1: what a professional thinks. Um, not a problem. Let's just
Speaker 1: do that and then we'll take it from there. So
Speaker 1: you really try to not raise a flag of panic.
Speaker 1: You try to not you definitely don't start accusing somebody
Speaker 1: of you know, being a drug addict or anything inflammatory.
Speaker 1: You try to take it from the point of view
Speaker 1: of we see your struggling and we want to get
Speaker 1: you help, and help is available, and we don't stop,
Speaker 1: we don't give up. So it's lots of opportunities to
Speaker 1: model that. Um, how do you handle a problem in
Speaker 1: a family. UM. So, yes, there's stigma, Yes there's shame.
Speaker 1: But if you I think, if you're really well educated
Speaker 1: about it. You can rise above that. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of great help. There are a lot of parent groups,
Speaker 1: there are there's a lot of support. Um, but it's
Speaker 1: a it's a tough initiation. It's a lot you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of information. I can never but it's
Speaker 1: just you get me started. I can't stop. No, But
Speaker 1: that's what's so great about it. But also you know,
Speaker 1: that's why I wanted to emphasize, you know, or punctuate
Speaker 1: the things that you were saying, because I never would
Speaker 1: have thought too sort of look look at younger kids
Speaker 1: at all. I never even you know, talked about alcohol
Speaker 1: with my kids until they were of the age. You know, right,
Speaker 1: no one, no one does. But you know, if you
Speaker 1: ask a kindergarten teacher or preschool teacher, you know, can
Speaker 1: you spot the kids in your class that you think
Speaker 1: would be at risk of like emotional problems later? Um,
Speaker 1: they can tell you that's what I mean, But no
Speaker 1: one wants to do it because if they're these adorable
Speaker 1: little children and you have the impression that they have
Speaker 1: their whole lives and it's all going to be you know,
Speaker 1: sweetness and unicorns, But you can spot the children who
Speaker 1: are fragile. This happens more to children who are fragile.
Speaker 1: It's fragile kids who often develop a drug problem. And
Speaker 1: so it's such a great injustice that we do when
Speaker 1: we label them in the ways we do, because it's
Speaker 1: not it's not their fault, you know, when it's not
Speaker 1: their fault that somebody introduced them to a joint when
Speaker 1: they were twelve or a cigarette when they were twelve.
Speaker 1: They got this feeling and it made them feel better
Speaker 1: than they normally feel. It is awful to go through
Speaker 1: a childhood feeling not normal, not good, not smart, not whatever,
Speaker 1: you know. So the shame that they start to carry
Speaker 1: speeds that need for a mood change. So it's all
Speaker 1: it's all innocent, and they're fragile kids and misunderstood big time.
Speaker 1: M hmm. Thank you so much for this welcome, welcome,
Speaker 1: my pleasure. Have educated me in in such tremendous ways,
Speaker 1: and I hope everybody that just listened to it too
Speaker 1: got a lot of information and helps. So thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Well, you're welcome, Thanks for having me, Thank
Speaker 1: you for tuning in to go ask Ali. Be sure
Speaker 1: to subscribe, rate and leave a review, and follow me
Speaker 1: and my undoctored posts on social media. I'm on Twitter
Speaker 1: at Ali e Wentworth and on Instagram at the Real
Speaker 1: Ali Wentworth. Go ask Ali the production of Shonda Land
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