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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the

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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.

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Speaker 2: Now, there are a lot of kids who are turning

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Speaker 2: to drugs and alcohol because they just don't know what

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Speaker 2: to do with the pain that they're not getting any

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Speaker 2: help with.

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Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, My mum

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Speaker 1: and dad.

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Speaker 3: Hello, it's doctor Justin Coilson, the author of six books

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Speaker 3: about raising happy families and the founder of Happy Families

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Speaker 3: dot com dot au. Today's podcast contains themes that include addiction, abuse,

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Speaker 3: and suicide. While not rated explicit, the content may not

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Speaker 3: be suitable for some people. I'm joined by Kylie say Hi, Hi,

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Speaker 3: my wife and mom to our six daughters. We are

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Speaker 3: so excited to be developing a wonderful relationship with somebody

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Speaker 3: who has got so much to offer mums and dads

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Speaker 3: around the world. Her name is Jessica Lay. Jessica is

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Speaker 3: a New York Times bestselling author. She wrote The Gift

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Speaker 3: of Failure, How the best parents learn to let go

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Speaker 3: so that the children can succeed. But jess has just

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Speaker 3: released a new book that tells a really important story.

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Speaker 3: Her book is called The Addiction Inoculation, Raising healthy kids

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Speaker 3: in a culture of dependence. And we're talking to Jess

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Speaker 3: about that book today.

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Speaker 4: Jess, you tell a really confronting personal story in the book.

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Speaker 4: Would you be willing to share that with us here?

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Speaker 2: Sure? Yeah, the book. So this book came for me

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Speaker 2: out of a couple of things. Number One, as an alcoholic,

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Speaker 2: I have almost eight years of recovery, early eight years

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Speaker 2: in June. I have two boys who were born with

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Speaker 2: a genetic predisposition for substance abuse that appears to the

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Speaker 2: genetics appear to be about fifty to sixty percent of

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Speaker 2: the risk picture. So that's a big deal in our family.

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Speaker 2: And it comes from, by the way, both my side

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Speaker 2: and my husband's side of the family. And on top

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Speaker 2: of that, the last five years of my teaching career

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Speaker 2: were spent teaching in an in patient rehab for drug

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Speaker 2: an alcohol rehab for kids. So you know, I once

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Speaker 2: I sort of got how hold on my own drinking,

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Speaker 2: I had to start thinking about, Okay, so moving forward,

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Speaker 2: having with this increased risk, how do I help my kids?

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Speaker 2: How do I protect my kids as much as possible?

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Speaker 2: What does it mean when we talk about the fact

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Speaker 2: that substance abuse is is a preventable disease. What do

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Speaker 2: we mean when we say it can be prevented? What

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Speaker 2: are the you know, what does that really mean? What

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Speaker 2: can I do? What can't I do? And then I

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Speaker 2: kept looking at my students in my classroom and thinking,

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Speaker 2: you know, man, I'm seeing some commonalities here, but what's

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Speaker 2: anecdotal evidence, What's what's really happening? What are the myths?

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Speaker 2: What causes kids to end up in this situation? And so,

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Speaker 2: you know, it was a really urgent question for me,

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Speaker 2: but also an urgent question for you know, I think

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Speaker 2: for education, and so there's an education chapter in here,

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Speaker 2: But for the most part, it's really about, you know,

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Speaker 2: anyone who is a mentor caregiver to kids, what can

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Speaker 2: we do what can't we do in order to prevent

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Speaker 2: substance abuse in kids.

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Speaker 3: Mummy wine time is a really big thing. Social media

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Speaker 3: is full of memes about how parents and particularly mums

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Speaker 3: need to have their wine. Two questions. First of all,

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Speaker 3: I mean a lot of parents who say they stopped

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Speaker 3: drinking because they didn't want to get tipsy or drunk

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Speaker 3: in front of the children. They're scared that their kids

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Speaker 3: are going to catch them drunk basically, But Secondly, how

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Speaker 3: does a parent know if maybe they're relying a bit

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Speaker 3: too much on that five o'clock wine while they're preparing dinner,

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Speaker 3: in the eight o'clock wine once the kids are in bed.

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Speaker 3: How does a parent draw the line and create boundaries

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Speaker 3: that are safe and healthy for them and their family.

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Speaker 2: You know, there was a book that came out just

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Speaker 2: a little while ago and gained a lot of attention

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Speaker 2: because Chrissy Tiagan got on Twitter and said this is

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Speaker 2: why she was going to stop drinking. It was Holly

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Speaker 2: Whittaker's book, Quit Like a Woman. And while there's a

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Speaker 2: lot I disagree with, there's the thing that I absolutely

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Speaker 2: love that Holly Whittaker does in this book is she says, look,

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Speaker 2: those sort of my alcoholic tests. While they can be

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Speaker 2: useful for some people, it can also be a way

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Speaker 2: of saying, oh, well, I don't know, I'm not an alcoholic,

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Speaker 2: so I don't need to worry about this stuff here.

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Speaker 2: But the idea that I really love that she talks

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Speaker 2: about is if we were to take that definition of

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Speaker 2: alcoholic away and say, is alcohol impacting your work, your life,

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Speaker 2: your friendships, your sleep, your anxiety, your depression, whatever that

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Speaker 2: thing is then maybe there's an issue. So the fact

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Speaker 2: that someone thinks to themselves, is this a problem is

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Speaker 2: usually the point at which they're starting to and it

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Speaker 2: was for me anyway, the point at which they start

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Speaker 2: to think, you know, like this, I'm uncomfortable with this.

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Speaker 2: So there is no line for any one person Like

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Speaker 2: I was an exceedingly highly functional alcoholic. I was teaching

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Speaker 2: full time, I was writing for The Atlantic on a

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Speaker 2: regular basis, I had a column in the New York Times,

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Speaker 2: and I was still drinking too much. My story has

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Speaker 2: a lot of not yet in it, like a lot

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Speaker 2: of really bad stuf was just about to happen, and

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Speaker 2: I could feel it coming. So I think for a

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Speaker 2: lot of people we become a little bit dependent on

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Speaker 2: that label alcoholic. And if you're not an alcoholic, that

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Speaker 2: you don't need to think about whether or not you're

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Speaker 2: drinking too much. And actually, I want to point out

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Speaker 2: really quickly with the mommy wine time, if you want

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Speaker 2: to have mommy wine time, that's fine, but think about

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Speaker 2: and I don't care whether you know, if adults want

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Speaker 2: to have adult wine time with their friends, that's one thing.

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Speaker 2: But if we're sending the message to our kids that

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Speaker 2: parenting is so hard we have to drink. That I

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Speaker 2: saw wine glasses in a bookstore that said I teach,

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Speaker 2: Therefore I drink. The implication being that teaching is so

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Speaker 2: hard and so upsetting that we have to drink in

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Speaker 2: order to cope with it. When we say I had

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Speaker 2: such a hard day at work, I really need a

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Speaker 2: glass of wine, those sort of messages are that messaging

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Speaker 2: is what really worries me when we send the message

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Speaker 2: to kids that the answer to feeling sad, angry, hurt, depressed,

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Speaker 2: upset is to drink in order to deal with it,

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Speaker 2: or have some or to medicate it in order to

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Speaker 2: deal with it. That's where we tend to run into

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Speaker 2: problems is with our messaging about alcohol and drugs.

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Speaker 3: We have some friends who work with the police. Their

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Speaker 3: suggestion is that if alcohol was less acceptable that they

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Speaker 3: probably would have a reduction in the business of about

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Speaker 3: eighty percent, maybe even yeah, well yeah.

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Speaker 2: I mean, what's so crazy about legalization, and I'm pro legalization,

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Speaker 2: is the fact that, and you know in the US

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Speaker 2: it's been happening slowly stayed by state with marijuana and

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Speaker 2: some psychedelics. Alcohol is way more dangerous than so many

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Speaker 2: of these drugs that were you know, battling to the

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Speaker 2: death about legalizing and partially that's because alcohol has been

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Speaker 2: with us for a very, very long time. And there's

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Speaker 2: a whole section of the book that talks about why

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Speaker 2: humans drink and where that comes from and what it

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Speaker 2: helps us with. And the wonderful part about alcohol for

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Speaker 2: people that don't don't have a tendency to not be

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Speaker 2: able to stop after the first drink, unlike myself, is

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Speaker 2: it can really help be help us be more convivial,

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Speaker 2: it can bring people together. But with the ten percent

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Speaker 2: of us who can't drink responsibly healthily, it leads us

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Speaker 2: to a place of unbelievable isolation and secrecy. And the

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Speaker 2: only way out of that. There's this thing in recovery

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Speaker 2: that the opposite of addiction is connection. That it's not sobriety,

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Speaker 2: it's connection. And the only way out of that incredible

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Speaker 2: isolation is by building, you know, building those connections back

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Speaker 2: with other human beings. And I was in a place where,

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Speaker 2: you know, when I was at my worst, nobody knew,

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Speaker 2: no one knew. I had to keep that secret, and

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Speaker 2: it was the most stressful and upsetting part of my life.

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Speaker 2: And you know things have been so much better on

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Speaker 2: this side of it.

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Speaker 3: I have to say, Jessica, we're going to take a

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Speaker 3: quick break. When we come back, I want to share

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Speaker 3: a deeply personal story about alcohol that's impact my family

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Speaker 3: and explore a bit about what is creating this culture

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Speaker 3: of dependence and addiction for our children. We'll do that

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Speaker 3: in just a second.

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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast.

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Speaker 5: Are Screens Creating Tension at home? Tweens? Teens? And Screens?

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Speaker 5: Is a webinar to guide families to healthy, safe superscreen solutions.

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Speaker 5: Bye today at happy families dot com, dot au slash shop.

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Speaker 4: It's the Happy Families Podcast, the podcast for the time

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Speaker 4: poor parent who just wants answers now, And today we're

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Speaker 4: talking with Jessica Lay about her new book, The Addiction Andoculation,

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Speaker 4: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence.

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Speaker 3: And I'm going to jump in because you've got a

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Speaker 3: baby in your arms who's making it extremely difficult for

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Speaker 3: you to talk. Because this is what happens when we're

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Speaker 3: living life with kids. Jess a story that I don't

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Speaker 3: share very often but feels really pertinent to this conversation.

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Speaker 3: Kylie and I don't drink. We don't drink for a

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Speaker 3: number of reasons. One of those, not the only reason,

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Speaker 3: but certainly one of those those reasons is the way

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Speaker 3: alcohol has affected both of our extended families. Many years ago,

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Speaker 3: in fact, just after Kylie and I were married, we

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Speaker 3: received the tragic news that my uncle had taken his

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Speaker 3: life by suicide. He had a history of alcohol abuse,

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Speaker 3: and my grandparents also drank heavily. I think that he

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Speaker 3: learned to drink from them. He'd been in and out

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Speaker 3: of jail because of his alcoholism and his behavior when drunk.

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Speaker 3: And one night, just after we were married, he got

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Speaker 3: so drunk and he decided that he absolutely needed more

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Speaker 3: money to buy more alcohol. He couldn't get access to

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Speaker 3: any money, so he caught a cab to my grandparents' home.

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Speaker 3: They locked him out of the house because they knew

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Speaker 3: that he was drunk. He broke down the door of

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Speaker 3: the house and he beat them. They were in their

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Speaker 3: sixties at the time, and they were hospitalized with broken

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Speaker 3: cheeks and broken ribs, and it was a devastating moment.

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Speaker 3: But the next day, when he, I guess, sobered up

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Speaker 3: a little bit and realized what he'd done, he couldn't

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Speaker 3: live with himself. He realized that alcohol had taken so

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Speaker 3: much from him that has had a tremendous impact on

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Speaker 3: the way our family views alcohol. Now you've been really clear,

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Speaker 3: this does not happen to everybody. This is an unusual thing.

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Speaker 3: Probably about ten percent of the population don't know how

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Speaker 3: to handle their drink. Many people are able to handle

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Speaker 3: it quite responsibly.

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Speaker 2: Actually, I want to correct you. It's not don't know

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Speaker 2: how to handle it. It's that there were were wired differently.

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Speaker 2: There's different chemical makeups that's going on. Our brains react differently.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and can't stop. Can't stop. What I'd really like

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Speaker 3: to ask you about, based on the research that you've done,

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Speaker 3: is what creates this culture of dependence for us and

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Speaker 3: for our children.

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Speaker 2: So it's so interesting. Gift to Failure really dovetails in

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Speaker 2: a way with this book because there's a lot of

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Speaker 2: sort of a number one wanting things to be fixed

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Speaker 2: right away. And you know, we're so fortunate and that

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Speaker 2: we have great pain relieving and disease relieving drugs and

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Speaker 2: we're able to not hurt, you know, to not be

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Speaker 2: in pain. If we have a tooth extracted, we don't

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Speaker 2: have to feel any pain at all. Right, So our

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Speaker 2: tolerance for discomfort is really really low, and parents don't

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Speaker 2: want to see their kids hurt. And so, you know,

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Speaker 2: for example, when our when my son got his wisdom

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Speaker 2: teeth pulled it, they automatically handed us the script for

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Speaker 2: an opiate, and I said, I'm actually uncomfortable with us

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Speaker 2: having opiates in the house, So if we'll take the script,

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Speaker 2: but we're not going to fill it unless we need

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Speaker 2: it kind of thing. And it wasn't just because I'm

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Speaker 2: uncomfortable with having opiates in the house because of me.

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Speaker 2: It's just they're worth a lot of money, and it's

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Speaker 2: very tempting to a kid who needs extra money, and

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Speaker 2: it's very tempting to a kid who might want to

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Speaker 2: just check out for a little bit. So we have

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Speaker 2: this culture that sort of makes us believe that we

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Speaker 2: can have our stuff we want right away. We don't

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Speaker 2: have to ever hurt, we don't have to feel any discomfort,

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Speaker 2: and if you're anxious or if you're depressed, you can,

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Speaker 2: luckily for many of us, take a drug and feel

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Speaker 2: better right away. And so I think we're in a

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Speaker 2: position where we're not dealing with not helping a lot

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Speaker 2: of kids with their trauma not helping a lot of

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Speaker 2: kids with adverse childhood experiences where you know, keeping a

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Speaker 2: lot of secrets. There's a lot of sort of shame

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Speaker 2: and guilt around stuff that happens to kids in childhood.

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Speaker 2: And so, for example, you end up with a situation

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Speaker 2: where you know, a kid who has a learning disorder,

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Speaker 2: or a kid who has been had sexual abuse, or

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Speaker 2: a kid who has grown up in a house where

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Speaker 2: there's violence and doesn't get treated for that stuff. There's

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Speaker 2: a lot of emotional pain there, and our brains register

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Speaker 2: that emotional pain and that physical pain similarly, and opiate's

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Speaker 2: help with both, and so we end up in a

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Speaker 2: situation where kids may not have the tools they need

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Speaker 2: in order to deal with that stuff and get at

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Speaker 2: the core issues, and instead just sort of can numb

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Speaker 2: out or you know, escape from that. And it's really interesting.

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Speaker 2: There was a discussion going on on Twitter the other

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Speaker 2: day where someone I really like, Tracy Helton Mitchell, who

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Speaker 2: wrote this book called The Big Fix. She had gone

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Speaker 2: through a lot of trauma and she actually said something

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Speaker 2: that was really interesting, which was thank goodness for opiates

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Speaker 2: or for drugs, because they helped her survive until she

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Speaker 2: could get to a place in her life where she

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Speaker 2: could deal with her trauma. Which is a really you know,

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Speaker 2: strange way to look at it, But there are a

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Speaker 2: lot of kids who are turning to drugs and nowcohol

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Speaker 2: because they just don't know what to do with the

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Speaker 2: pain that they're not getting any help with. So the

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Speaker 2: whole thrust of this book is how do we help

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Speaker 2: make kids feel like they are enough? They are good enough.

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Speaker 2: They don't need to you know, walk into a situation

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Speaker 2: and have a beer in order to feel like they

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Speaker 2: have the liquid courage. They need to be you know,

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Speaker 2: present in that situation, And how do we help them

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Speaker 2: deal with their trauma so that they can come into

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Speaker 2: the world from a place of where they can learn

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Speaker 2: and become and grow and not have to just deal

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Speaker 2: with the burden of that pain.

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Speaker 4: Well, Jess, because this is the podcast for the time

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Speaker 4: poor parent who just wants answers now, we would love

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Speaker 4: it if you would share with us a couple of

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Speaker 4: things that parents could do to actually help them deal

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Speaker 4: with these challenges.

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Speaker 2: So very quickly, think of risk for substance abuse and

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Speaker 2: protections like one of those old timey scales of justice

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Speaker 2: where one gets side gets heavier, and you have to

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Speaker 2: make the other side heavy to zero them out. So

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Speaker 2: if your risk side is super heavy, and those are

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Speaker 2: risks for substance abuse include things like obviously genetics epigenetics,

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Speaker 2: which is like a combination of environment and genetics, trauma,

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Speaker 2: big tea and little Ta trauma that kids go through,

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Speaker 2: academic failures, social ostracism, divorce and separation, things like that

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Speaker 2: average childhood experiences. So the more we know about our

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Speaker 2: kids individual risk factors, the more strategic we can be

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Speaker 2: in applying the prevention measures and prevention measures a things

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Speaker 2: like you know, oddly enough, having family dinner is a

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Speaker 2: big protection for against substance abuse, and I like it

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Speaker 2: to refer to that as sort of a emblematic of

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Speaker 2: something that's really about just regular family check ins. It

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Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily have to be family dinner, but it can

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Speaker 2: be you know, when you're driving to and from those

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Speaker 2: soccer games, or when you're you know, any sort of

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Speaker 2: family time, when you're getting together, you're looking at each other,

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Speaker 2: you're sort of getting a sense of what everyone's going through.

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Speaker 2: Really open family communication prevention starts for substance abuse starts

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Speaker 2: really really young, and it really looks most like really

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Speaker 2: good social emotional learning programs in schools where you're talking

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Speaker 2: about all kinds of mental health stuff, but you're also

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Speaker 2: talking about physical health. And it starts with conversations in

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Speaker 2: nursery school, in preschool, and in kindergarten, with conversations about

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Speaker 2: like why you don't spit out the why we spit

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Speaker 2: out toothpaste and why we don't swallow it, why don't

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Speaker 2: we why we don't put chemicals in our mouths?

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Speaker 1: Why?

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Speaker 2: Oh, look, here's a prescription bottle. This has mommies name

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Speaker 2: on it. What do you think would happen if daddy

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Speaker 2: wanted to take this drug? Should we let daddy take

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Speaker 2: a prescription bottle that has mommy's name on it? Should

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Speaker 2: I give you medicine from my prescription bottle? And conversations

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Speaker 2: about why we don't take drugs that don't aren't prescribed

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Speaker 2: for us, And then move up developmentally with kids as

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Speaker 2: they get older, until you're finally in middle school talking

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Speaker 2: about refusal skills and what's called inoculation theory and helping

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Speaker 2: give kids the information they need in order to push

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Speaker 2: back when someone asks them if they would like to

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Speaker 2: have drugs or alcohol with them. So prevention, early intervention

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Speaker 2: for learning issues, early intervention for things like child on

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Speaker 2: child aggression. Kids who aggressive towards other kids have much

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Speaker 2: higher levels of substance use during their lifetime. And then

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Speaker 2: we have to just have This is the big big

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Speaker 2: picture thing here is families who have a consistent, clear

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Speaker 2: message of no, not until it is legal for you, you

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Speaker 2: have kids with much lower rates of substance use disorder.

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Speaker 2: Now there's a causation correlation issue there. There are some

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Speaker 2: confounding factors to be dealt with there, but that is

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Speaker 2: generally the case, is that in families where there's permissive

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Speaker 2: talk about substance whether that's you know, kids are going

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Speaker 2: to do it anyway, so they might as well do

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Speaker 2: it here and I'll take away everyone's keys and it'll

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Speaker 2: be safe, that is actually a permissive attitude towards substance use.

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Speaker 2: And it actually what it does is it creates kids

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Speaker 2: that have higher likelihood of having substance use disorder during

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Speaker 2: their lifetime. And I don't say, you know, delay, delay, delay,

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Speaker 2: for just the reason that it lowers the risk of

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Speaker 2: substance use disorder during their lifetime, which it does by

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Speaker 2: the time we get them to eighteen, we've lowered it

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Speaker 2: down to about ten percent, which is what it is

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Speaker 2: in the general population.

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Speaker 3: I just I consistently cide of parents. Don't buy your

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Speaker 3: kid's alcohol, tell them they can during until the writing

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Speaker 3: be really clear on it. For all of the reasons

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Speaker 3: that you've said, this is just it's been such an

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Speaker 3: amazing conversation. I wish we could go deeper and spend

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Speaker 3: more time on it. But if people want to learn

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Speaker 3: about their own use of anything that could be addictive,

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Speaker 3: as well as how to inoculate their children against the

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Speaker 3: perils of this addiction, the book is called The Addiction

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Speaker 3: Inoculation Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence. The

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Speaker 3: reviews are outstanding. The conversation we've just had now is extraordinary.

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Speaker 3: I think that it's going to be wonderfully helpful. Jessica Lay,

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Speaker 3: you've been a wonderful friend of our podcast and we're

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Speaker 3: so grateful to have had you on again.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.

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Speaker 3: The Happy Famili's podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from

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Speaker 3: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer, and if

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Speaker 3: you'd like more info about making your family happier, you

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Speaker 3: can visit happyfamilies dot com, dot a Yuke