the annual golden nuggets episode; 2022 edition

Host: Brenda Zane, brenda@brendazane.com
Instagram: @the.stream.community

Guests: Dr. Anna Lembke, Carrie Wilkens, Ph.D., Dina Cannizzaro, Dr. Brad Reedy, Cathy Cioth, Steve Sawyer, Dr. Gabor Maté, Mark LaPalme, Rebekah Mutch, Andy Goldstrom, Bill Guy and Anne Moss Rogers.

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This episode is supported by The Stream and The Woods, our private communities for parents of kids misusing substances and who struggle with mental health.

About this episode:

It’s an annual tradition to share with you Golden Nuggets from some of my most memorable episodes. Enjoy segments from 12 episodes that you’ll want to dive deeper into - enjoy!

Episode Guest Information

Dr. Anna Lembke - episode 110,

Dr. Carrie Wilkens - episode 143

Dina Cannizzaro - episode 138

Dr. Brad Reedy - episode 101

Cathy Cioth - episode 130

Steve Sawyer - episode 104

Dr. Gabor Maté - episode 131

Mark LaPalme - episode 128

Rebekah Mutch - episode 113

Andy Goldstrom - episode 95

Bill Guy - episode 137

Anne Moss Rogers - episode 141

  • Well, my friend, it is that time of year. This episode has become an annual tradition here at Hopestream, where I open up the vault from 2022, reflect back on the year, 50 plus episodes, so many guests, and pluck out a few of the golden nuggets that were shared. . It's ridiculously hard because it feels like I'm picking my favorite child or something, but it's meaningful in that I begin to see common threads and themes that emerge through the various conversations.

    In this past year, I've had the honor of speaking with so many unbelievable guests, and this compilation is my way of sharing those insights that will hopefully pique your. To queue up the full episode because these nuggets are just that they're not the whole conversation, and there is a lot more behind these clips.

    There are links in the show notes to all the guests and their respective organizations or work. So with that, I'm going to start out with the incredible Dr. Anna Lemke. Who will help set the stage for all of the following conversations as she talks about the role of dopamine in the brain and body, and why, if you understand this, it's much easier to have empathy for someone who struggles with addiction from episode 110, Here is Dr. Lemke

    [00:03:45]

    Dr. Anna Lembke: every intoxicant whether it's a substance or a behavior, but especially I think with the substances, this kind of makes sense. It mimics. Chemical, our brain already makes, so when it comes to cannabis or pot, we make a version of pot in our brains and we have pot receptors.

    They're called receptors and undermine is Sanskrit for bliss. Every single chemical, whether it's alcohol or cannabis or cocaine, they all work because they mimic something that our brain already makes that already. We already have receptors for, except they're much more potent and much more powerful. And then. The downstream result of all of those chemicals is that they release dope mean in a specific part of the brain called the reward pathway. So when, when we smoke cannabis or otherwise ingest cannabis, What it does is it binds to the cannabis receptors, which are the most numerous receptor in our brains.

    And all of that ultimately leads to dopamine being released in large amounts in this specific part of the brain called the reward pathway. And. what I talk about in the book is essentially how the brain then responds to or compensates for that huge release of dopamine, which is at the heart of what happens as people become addicted.

    we're creating this artificially high elevation of dopamine that we really weren't evolved to experience. And with this firehose of dopamine, our brain essentially compensates by down-regulating. Our endogenous dopamine production. But also like down-regulating our endogenous production of the con the endocannabinoid system, our endogenous cannabinoid system basically says, Hey, wait a minute. I'm getting all of this cannabis from this external source. I can stop making my own. And that's where then you go into essentially an indogenous or internal. Deficit state of what, of that chemical, which in the case of cannabis you asked, why is it this de-motivational syndrome? It's because it essentially goes into this deficit state where then people, there are various neurotransmitters, they're not making them. So they're not motivated to do a lot of things.

    [00:06:13] Brenda: So we have completely just whacked out the balance of what's going on chemically in the body, which then turns into what the parents see. Like the people who would be listening to this is we see our kids doing all these things and we're like, why are they doing things? It makes no sense, but, it does make sense. Then if you understand what's going on chemically.

    [00:06:37] Dr. Anna Lembke: Exactly. That's right. if you see what's happening in the brain as a result of ingesting these chemicals then it does you realize how physiologic, the whole phenomenon of addiction really is and how, in essence, what happens is the individual's reward and motivational systems. Hijacked by the substance or that substance comes to signify for their brain cells. Something that is essential for their survival, such that they will invest all of their resources and energy and creativity into getting more of that substance. Instead of investing it in what mother nature really meant for us to invest in, which is seeking out and obtaining natural rewards, food, clothing, shelter, findings.

    I have many patients who come in who say that the reason that they use cannabis for example, is because they're depressed or they're anxious or they can't sleep. And the cannabis it is their medicine for that problem. What they're not able to see is that although cannabis in the very short term may make them feel less depressed, anxious, or put them to sleep in the long-term. What it does is actually drive those symptoms. So what feels like is self-medication is actually the toxin that's creating the psychiatric problem in the first place.

    But it's hard to see that that's part of the major disconnect that happens with addiction is that people can no longer appreciate that. And again, it makes sense because again, in the immediate moment of using their drug, they do feel better, but they're not treating any kind of underlying psychiatric disorder.

    They're really treating withdrawal from the last dose. And when they're not, Using they're in withdrawal and the universal symptoms of withdrawal for any addictive substance or anxiety or ability, insomnia, depression, and craving. So the anger and irritability that you know, that we see in people who get into. Daily use and addictive use is that. they've essentially changed their hedonic set point where their pleasure pain set point. And when they're not using, they've got a balance tilted to the side of pain.

    [00:08:44] Brenda: , if you've been listening to Hopestream for very long, you've heard me talk about the book Beyond Addiction, something close to a thousand Times. And the reason is it helps so many families learn a new approach to loving someone who has an unhealthy relationship with substances. So when the authors Jeff Foot and Carrie Wilkins and their team went above and beyond by creating a workbook to go along with a book, I knew it was gonna be a game changer.

    So here is Dr. Carrie Wilkins on episode 1 43, sharing her thoughts on a post covid world and why she and the team at C M C. The Center for Motivation and Change created an evidence backed way to help someone you love, make positive change in their use of substances.

    [00:09:35] Carrie Wilkens

    Brenda: what do you see going on and what do you think's coming in the next few years?

    [00:09:40] Dr. Carrie: concerned , I think the mental health crisis in particular with the adolescence is, we're only gonna see more and more of it and, whether or not it's due to covid or I have so many not nice feelings about social media.

    I'm not sure I would've survived my teenage years had I been, had to deal with social media. I think it's really having such an impact on their mental health, their ability to connect with each other, their ability to communicate effectively, their sense of selves.

    I just think it, it's just quite painful actually. And I think the bullying that happens behind this, there's just so much that parents. Don't know because it's just, it's happening on their phones. and that is true for substance use too. the number of teens and parents that we're talking of with whose kids were in their bedroom eating edibles and vaping and doing all of these things that are not even on parents' radar, they don't even know they exist.

    First of all, they can't smell it. They can't see it,, so I think parents are just dealing with online pornography, online gambling, like there. So much access,that kids just have. Relentlessly. I would be terrified right now if I had a teenager . it's just, yes, we can talk about the importance of self care if you have a teenager or a young adult right now, because you've gotta be able to survive with them.

    so I worry about a lot of things just continuing to get more painful for people. and I think we're all just depleted. I think just after a couple years of the pandemic and just the economy and just all the things are climate like, we all have something that we're. Concerned about, and there's not a lot of gas in our tank after the pandemic.

    [00:11:11] Dr. Carrie: So I think, resiliency is down, right when we need tons of compassion . so I think everybody's a little great around the edges and that's. That'll just keep showing up.

    We just suddenly realized that it's very hard to pick up and embrace craft when you have a very stigmatized understanding of addiction in your mind. And most people in this country have a very stigmatized understanding of addiction. because we get the messaging relentlessly.

    It's you gotta. Your loved one has to hit bottom. You're a codependent use tough love, like all the things that everybody knows, right? Yeah. So everybody's got that in their head. Literally everyone. the person with the problem, the family member, the police department, like that's how we talk about addiction, And we lock people up and We wanna do everything we can to help them hit bottom faster. That's better. Exactly right. so it turns out that's basically the opposite of what people need. and so in trying to train craft, we realized we needed to create another platform for people to shift their perspective on the problem so that they were more motivated.

    To pick up the craft skills. So the invitation to change has craft in it. So craft is all in there. and then we added something that we call the, helping with understanding section, which includes behaviors make sense, which is really your loved one is doing something. Because it makes sense to them.

    Substances work and they work in very particular ways and they work in different ways for every single person using them. And they're compelling, right? , like your loved one's not using substances cuz they're a bad person. They're using it because it helps them in some way. and they're gonna keep doing that until they learn a behavior that replaces that need.

    you can't just ask them to give it up. that's just not gonna work. . They've gotta learn other replacement behaviors. So we've really put. Idea of if you can step back and understand how those behaviors make sense, you as a loved one can be like, Oh, social anxiety. They don't know how to relate socially, or emptiness or loneliness or physical pain, or whatever it is, which helps you then think through a path of what can I do to support.

    [00:13:14] Dr. Carrie: Them learning other behaviors to do that. It also gives me more compassion. It helps me be less angry. It doesn't condone it. It doesn't say, Oh, okay, it's okay. You use it. Anxiety. So go ahead and keep doing that so you're not condoning it. But it just, if you can increase understanding, you can increase connection and compassion, which helps people stay engaged.

    So we've added that. We added, one size doesn't fit all, which is this idea of. I don't know what's gonna help your loved one. It may be rehab, it may not be. Yeah. like it may be talking to rabbi, it may be talking to the coach. It may be seeing a, learning specialist cuz they're struggling with the learning disabilities.

    open your horizons of what might help your loved one. and don't feel like you gotta jam 'em into one corner and if they're not doing it that way, They're not gonna get better. Which is really feel that if they're not going to meetings, if they don't go to rehab, if they don't do this, if they don't do that means they're not, there's lots of language that gets people really stuck, in terms of just making it hard to help.

    and then, ambivalence is normal. Just this idea of We're all ambivalent. Human beings are ambivalent. we can really wanna change. And we go back to old behaviors. It happens all day long. How you respond to ambivalence can be the deal breaker, right? Because you can respond in ways that help the person shift back to the healthy behavior, or you can respond in ways that drive them further into the destructive behavior.

    so really helping family members realize. Ambivalence is something to be worked with. and you can really move it along or you can shut it down. and that goes to the communication strategies that you hinted out of, like, how do we talk about these things, right? So I can make you defensive in one minute in terms of how I talk to you, or I can create a platform where you wanna talk to me and I can learn more about you.

    [00:14:56] Dr. Carrie: And if I learn more about you, then I can help you. So, the invitation to change is all about trying to help people. Understand the problem, so they're willing to engage. In learning the skills that will help them be effective. Helpers.

    [00:15:08] Brenda: It's one thing to read a book about addiction, substance use, psychology, or self-care. It's another thing to live it day in and day out for years. with a child you love more than life itself. Who is addicted to heroin?

    Dina Karo is a real life mom, advisor member in the stream community. Our private online community for moms and someone we can all learn from here's Dina on episode 1 38, sharing the raw experience of watching your son spiral downhill and how she avoided ending up crashing alongside him. he went to one rehab with sober six months, went to sober living environment, relapsed, went downward spiral pretty quick. went to, new roads. Is here in Utah, did a longer program and was sober over a year and then relapsed. And he told me the first time he did it for me, the second time he did it for our family. And then when he relapsed the second time, he relapsed bad. He was, Homeless, living on the streets in the snow sometimes would sleep in the back of somebody's car.

    He was stealing, was doing bad things to get his fix every day. I didn't hear from him for a really long period of time. he came back home and, and lived in Santa Cruz, California, in a bush for six months. And finally, one of his friends contacted me and had found him, brought him home and he had a plan to commit suicide that week. He was really despondent and, I said, let's see if we can, get you back into rehab. And he was ready at that point. he relapsed a few times, and this time he's been sober for almost six years. But the difference is he called me and asked me if I would support his rehab, and I said yes.

    He goes, Not by paying all clean toilets, I want rehab so bad this time. I want, will you support me just by being there with me as I go through it? And I said, Of course, you know I will. The last three years of his active addiction, I was really in a bad space.

    I say I wasn't really living, I was going through the motions cuz I had to work. Cause I was a single mom and I would go to work and then I would come home and wanna go to bed. I didn't wanna see my friends. I didn't wanna exercise. I just didn't have any energy and I wasn't sleeping at night. So then I finally got a therapist, which made a huge difference cuz she was an older lady, like a grandma.

    And when I say older, like 80 and she had lost two siblings from, heroin od. So she knew what it was like and she led me to learn some coping skills and learn about. A little bit. but I did have to go on a low dose anti-anxiety, for about six months because I just wasn't doing very well.

    And I should say I have a really strong faith life.

    and so that helps a lot for me. I did a lot , I did a lot of yelling at God. I was training for a half marathon and I would yell as I crying ugly cry and yell at God as I was running like a maniac throughout my neighborhood. And I am sure people saw me and thought, What the heck is this woman? But, I'd be on my knees pretty much daily, like on the hardwood floor knee.

    I need some intervention here. God help. And this is gonna sound really stupid, but one day I read this reading, it's in one of my devotional books, and it was about making your child your idol and how that's not what God wants for us. And when you do that, you're not allowing your God, your child, to take control of their own life and their own recovery.

    [00:19:28] Brenda: And it like slapped me in the face really hard because a couple days beforehand, my eldest said, If you continue down this road with Parker, where he's your everything, and Cassidy and I are nothing, we're gonna exit because we can't watch you do this to yourself.

    and so then I started. Releasing Parker. And people take this the wrong way sometimes, but I'm gonna say it anyway. I release Parker back to God and I said, I'm glad you made me his mom, and maybe this is what you have intended.

    And if he's in so much pain and lives like this, please take him, because I don't wanna watch him live like this. It's too painful. . And if that's his destiny, then I release him to you cuz he's not mine anyway. I know that sounds really bizarre, but it's what I did and since that day I've been a lot better.

    I wrote a letter to all my friends and my family members and apologized. I'm gonna cry cuz I haven't thought of this in a long time.

    For not being present for so long and not being able to live in a way that they used to know me

    Yeah.

    [00:20:48] Dina: and I explained to them that I was never gonna be that person again. But that I was gonna work on trying to feel moments of joy cuz joy was not something I had felt in like at least three years at that. So I did a lot of reading about anticipatory grief.

    I did a lot of reading about self care and about how to climb out of a well that was empty. that's a metaphor of course, but, and my friends were awesome. They didn't understand, but they were supportive and my parents were great. But. Mostly what I did is I learned how to take care of myself through exercise.

    I stopped taking the anti-anxiety drug cuz I didn't like how I felt. Numb on that a little bit.

    [00:21:42] Brenda: Yeah.

    [00:21:43] Dina: And I found when I exercised and when I started speaking publicly to groups of people about our families, I called our legacy now, but then I called it our tragedy. When I started doing that, so much of what was inside of me came. And people started reaching out to me, my uncle, my brother, my sister, my mother, my grandma, my, And I was shocked. my school let me publicly speak in classes

    what it had done in our family and, and then, And droves were coming to me. I'm like, This is happening in our family. What can I do? And I just wanted to have skills to help them.

    [00:22:30] Brenda: There's a point in this journey of parenting a child with substance use and mental health challenges, where you realize your child isn't the identified patient. They're likely the person with the most acute symptoms, but the whole family is going to need to be involved in the healing process.

    The person you want on your team to help do that is Dr. Brad. He's a psychotherapist, wilderness program founder, podcaster and author. He joined me on episode 1 0 1 to help us understand why it's important to look at ourselves at our own family dynamics and what healthy detachment actually looks like. You know I I think

    [00:23:14] Dr. Brad Reedy

    ---

    the short answer is do your work unravel, unpack your trauma. I practice and the research confirms it clearly cross-culturally, consistently that the amount of work you do, not how traumatic your childhood was. And if you struggled, like I struggled, but do your work unravel.

    Look at your childhood and your family dynamics critical. through a critical lens and understand how you were raised because the way you were raised was not normal. Cause there's no such thing, there's no normal family, there's no normal. Childhood. And if you can unpack and unravel that, the clarity with which the consciousness with which you can parent improves exponentially.

    So you know that's, it's why I have difficulty sometimes being short with my answers, is because it's inviting people into a way of being in a relationship with themselves. That is the change. So I would just say to that, Go to therapy, do your work. Discover your unique emotional history of your childhood, as Alice Miller says, and that will set you up most capably to parent consciously.

    Another thing that I end up talking a lot with parents about is this concept of detachment. And I think it can get a really dirty wrap because it means one thing to some people and one thing to another person.

    And. People get really confused cuz parents do get to a point where they're like, I feel like I need to detach, but I don't totally know what that means. And I've heard you talk about healthy detachment, so I wonder if you could just give us a couple of examples of what healthy detachment might look like if you've got, let's say a 15, 16, 17 year old who's, still at home.

    Doing whatever drugs, refusing school, refusing therapy, just like my kid. What does healthy detachment look like in that case? Because what you hear is kick 'em out, kick 'em to the curb, let 'em hit rock bottom. Don't have contact with them. Let 'em figure it out. Which to a parent is obviously torture.

    Um, so I'd love some help in that area. . It is one of those phrases that has so many different perspectives and definitions. And when I was asked this, a question years ago by a parent during a webinar before it became a podcast, somebody said, you're always talking about detachment.

    What about connection? You know, when are you gonna talk about connection with parents and children? and luckily it was toward the end of the broadcast, so I said, let's pick that up next week. That's the famous therapist, kind respond . So I thought about it all week and I went through my logical, rational mind of dissecting a question and an idea, and it came down to one simple thing.

    Healthy detachment is healthy attachment. and I think we did not learn what it meant to be healthy, to be attached in a healthy way. and I'm gonna say this in a way, I've never said it on a podcast, I don't think, but I think most people associate attachment with kind of a passionate or an engaged or an energetic response to something.

    And those are really trauma. So in essence, a healthy detachment is the ability to overcome or to not respond to the primitive brain, the fight or flight. The trauma parts of our brain and to respond in a flexible, conscious, reasonable, thoughtful, loving, and caring and connected way. And so really, I think we call it detachment, Brenda, because it feels like that when you've been enmeshed and engaged in this kind of pinball back and forth trauma response.

    But really what you're describing is you really are describing. what attachment theorists call healthy attachment. it's a reasonable response, a thoughtful, a flexible response. That's the way Daniel Siegel talks about in his books is you have response flexibility, and so you're capable of parenting from a conscious place.

    And that's why when people, even people who quote me or think they're quoting me saying, Brad would say, kick the kid out. Or Brad would say, kick him to the curb. Which I never say, cause I don't have opinions about what people should do. But I think what I'm trying to teach people or trying to help people move through is, once you heal your own attachment trauma, your own attachment wounds, once you develop, an ability to engage a child in a healthy attachment, whatever decision you make from that place is the right.

    [00:27:33] Brenda: I'm fortunate to have a partner in this work I do, who can literally finish sentences for me. She has been through the experience of having both her kids in wilderness at the same time and bring so much love and light to our moms in the stream, Kathy, Chad and I started recording episodes together in 2022 as a way to share our lived experiences, the good and the bad, and relate to other parents who are in various stages of the rollercoaster ride that is parenting a young person in addiction. She is the best. Here is a segment from Episode 1 31 of our very vulnerable and emotional conversations.

    [00:28:15] CATHY: There's lots of things that, when you've got a kid who's struggling or a spouse or anything, really, but if you know a loved one, who's struggling with substances, there's kind this little area that nobody talks about

    [00:28:29] Brenda: Yeah. It's the awkward conversation that you're always wondering. Should I bring this up or not? And usually we don't

    [00:28:36] CATHY: you usually don't cuz we don't feel safe. We don't feel comfortable bringing it up with just anybody. So, this is a great place to do it. We've both been through it and I think this is a great place to have these conversation.

    this is a really hard one. the, this is the time when you sit and you think to yourself, I wonder if it would just be easier if they weren't here anymore.

    [00:29:01] Brenda: it, almost makes, it does make me, teary to talk about this because I was there. didn't think I was going to get so emotional on this one, but it's really hard.

    And there are times when you see what it's doing to your family, you see what it's doing to you, you see what it's doing to them, and you think what, if they can't get out of this? What if they. Stay in this forever. How are we gonna cope with life? And would it be better? And I think some of this has to do with whatever your spiritual beliefs are.

    And I knew that if my son didn't make it, that he was gonna be okay, he was gonna be in a better place. And, I remember sitting in the hospital in this dark ICU room, all the beeping and the wooing of the ventilator. And, it's, I can even smell like the, that antiseptic soap

    and I made a deal with God. It was like, okay, here's the deal I can't do this anymore. And he was in a coma, and. the doctors were like, there's a very good chance that his brain is severely damaged. Cuz he had been in a car for three hours and when they found him he had no pulse and he was filming at the mouth.

    And I said, if he's gonna be here, can he please have a quality of life? And if not, and if he's gonna go back to this lifestyle, please take him now. And that was so hard to think and I felt so guilty for thinking it. And I think, you and I talk with a lot of people and every once in a while, somebody will be really brutally honest and say that and talk about this.

    But I think it's not enough because I know. There. and I'm not saying that you think this all the time, but there might be a flash of an instant in your mind when something's going really badly and you think this, and then you feel so guilty for thinking it. And so that's why we're talking about it.

    [00:31:09] CATHY: Yeah, this is such a tough one. And I get your emotions around it. you did, you went all the way, in your experience, pretty much as far as you can go to having that be a reality. And, our situation was different, but there were times where, we did, I did. I wondered, wow. I don't have to worry about that if they weren't here.

    And that's really tough. it makes me emotional too, because I know that. After the intervention with our son, and realizing how close he was to, actually potentially dying. and that was really hard. and I don't think that I was fully aware of that until I got a little set right.

    With this intervention and all of that. And, it's very scary and yeah, it felt horrible having these emotions around it, because I just wanted to escape so badly and that's truly a very human thing to do.

    [00:32:11] Brenda: Yeah.

    [00:32:11] CATHY: And so I think that if anything, all your parents that are feeling this way, this is I think just normal to want to feel okay.

    And want your kids to be okay. and so you do what you can, and your brain goes there. Your brain just goes there.

    yeah, because you do want them to be okay. And it's I don't even know if there's a word in all these years that I've been doing this. I can't find the word because painful doesn't even come close to the feeling of watching your child basically at some level, it, to me felt like he was committing suicide every single day in front of me.

    [00:32:49] Brenda: so I can't really find the right word cuz painful is not even close to it. It's debilitating. And you just

    think if this, yeah. If this is how it's gonna be. Then why, it just doesn't make sense in your brain. And I think your brain just naturally, as humans, we go for safety, right?

    Like we don't tend to put ourselves in risky situations or painful situations just for the fun of it. So when you're in this repeated chronic level of pain, let's just call it that because we use that. there comes a time when you just think I can't do it anymore. I just can't cope. I don't know how to function.

    life is not enjoyable anymore. And we see that and we try to work with the moms that, are in the stream and say, yes, this is true. And you still have to find ways to live and ways to cope and ways to have a good time and to have.

    [00:33:51] Brenda: Joy in your life and it doesn't come naturally. So you have to work at it for sure.

    One of the key nuggets of wisdom I received in 2022 is the impact of trauma in our lives on our bodies, and the havoc it wrecks in families. My conversation with Steve Sawyer in episode 1 0 4 was one that shed light on how many of our kids are coping with the impact of trauma, regardless of whether as parents, we understand or know what that trauma is.

    Steve shares in this excerpt, the relationship between childhood experiences, caregiver relationships, and substance use.

    [00:34:31] Steve Sawyer

    ---

    [00:34:31] steve: the research has been very conclusive that, there's a strong correlation between the. Inside of that experience, there is a particular cycle I'd like to talk about with families, that actually was developed for attachment science and attachment theory. And it's a really basic one.

    There's been variations of it many times, but it's a pretty simple cycle, which is when we're a baby and we're born into the world. We have these needs that we need to get met. And inside of these needs that we need to meet. Whether it be, we need to be fed or we need sleep and rest, or we need to even have our diaper change that need is communicated by our nervous system rising behind that need and it gets aggravated and as it aggravates more and more, you can hear a baby get fussy.

    You can hear it, get moody. Then it progresses to crying and that arousal. Cycle behind the nervous system is a way that we've been programmed as mammals to communicate when we're stressed. And when we have a need that's not being met. So this need not being met is met with the arousal. Arousal was communicated through crying or emotionality.

    Both of those. As we progress in our development, it becomes more of an emotional expression. And then as it progresses from there, caregiver, responsiveness is a key variable here. If I cry and I want to be fed, but instead you put me in bed, that's a misattunement. And so it's aggravating it, aggravates the baby even more.

    So one of the key attributes of this entire cycle is how a caregiver responds to that arousal and it being accurately meant. So if you hear me cry hungry, and you give me food, I trust and I have a gratifying experience. So I go from. Being hungry to grab feeling a sense of gratification, which was brought to me by the caregiver.

    So by somebody meetings, arousal needs and being responsive as a caregiver to our stress state, we experienced relational gratification and nervous system gratification. So the nervous system settles back down. I got my need met and the attribute of having good matches between what I'm aroused and communicating.

    And what my caregiver responds with. It gives me gratification that happening over a span of time and being matched well, creates trust therapist and therapist, world. Talk about trust all the time and rapport, but it's actually a nervous system experience to trust them. It means that you're providing me something that fulfills a need inside of me, and I can feel it and I can experience it.

    When we look at addiction issues, it's like attachment to an unhealthy character. Which is if I'm aroused and on edge or frustrated with my day or I'm angry, and my need is to get rid of that arousal and it might I'm agitated and I'm, dis-regulated an important word. We'll talk about an often this podcast I'm dysregulated.

    When you bring me as a care giver, your response. It settles me down, but the older I get, the less reliant I am on another person doing that. And the more reliant I become on me, self-regulating my situation. And when people develop poor self-regulation skills or caregivers, haven't had the best responsiveness we live in a stressed world.

    So we, as parents are stretched to the edge all of the time, not just with kids, but work hours and demands to get our needs met for our family and safe. When there's not attentiveness to that arousal, that's from the caregiver in a good way, or we just give too much. And we create an existence of gratification for our child all the time.

    And now we go into the outside world and it's just hard because my friends are hard on me or somebody makes fun of me at school. I don't have the ability developed the ability to self-regulate well, so when we have that combination of either one of those two. And it's culminated in a nervous system to a point a stress response.

    It's now programmed in. That's what we call dysregulation. Now, if I get high or I have my first drink, my nervous system experiences that completely differently for the first time, then somebody who doesn't have that dysregulation living inside of them, it's experienced completely differently from a person who has self-regulation capability versus somebody who has not.

    The person who doesn't have self-regulation capability. It's like, wow, that's the first time I've ever felt that come alone. And it becomes a solution to a problem. This arousal, this dysregulation of my nervous system. It's a solution, not a problem at that moment. And the more aggravated, the more traumatized and the more stressed the nervous system is the bigger the solution is with that very first experience.

    [00:39:22] Brenda: We couldn't talk about trauma without hearing from the guest. I was incredibly honored to talk with this year. Dr. Ga, one of the world's leading experts in trauma and addiction. Our conversation on episode 1 31 about his new book, the Myth of Normal was fascinating, revealing, soul stirring and enlightening at the same time.

    It's really hard to pick out a nugget when the entire hour was basically one, so I did my best take a listen.

    [00:39:56] Gabor Maté intro

    ---

    [00:39:56] Brenda: my son Daniel, who's my co-writer on this book, says in this book that when he was a child, the floor was never the floor.

    He used to have this nightmare of the floor disappearing. He never knew when The tension between Ray and I, my wife and I, to whom the book is dedicated, would get to the point of emotional stress and for that sensitive child. Like the floor disappearing. This is contrary to intentions, contrary to our awareness.

    And it was only when we began to realize how much trauma we had carried into that relationship and unwittingly passed onto our kids, that we began to understand our kids' behavior.

    So if we wanna understand why child is anxious or is diagnosed with ADHD or has got relational challenges, or is a bully or is being bullied, we really have to look at the environment. And as Robert Sapolsky there, great neuroscientist at Stanford says, we are affected by the environment as soon as we are an environment.

    And that means already in the womb. yeah. so given I was in a stress marriage, My wife had significant emotional stresses when she was pregnant. That already affects the child's brain and the child's development.

    And in this society, a lot of women who are pregnant are highly stressed.

    there's one factor I need to mention here, which is a child's own temperament. Yeah. These kids who struggle tend to be very sensitive kids.

    Yeah. They're born very sensitive. That's their nature. They're genetically sensitive. Sensitive means from the Latin word, sincere to feel. They just feel more. Yes. And you get the same child with the same genes and you've exposed them to an environment that's settled and grounded and nurturing. They just got the wonderful, creative, spontaneous, intuitive, artistic people, leaders,and helpers.

    But you take that same sensitivity gene. Or genes a child and dealt with that, and you put 'em in an environment where they're stress because they feel more, they suffer more. Yeah. Now, addictions, in my view, are not inherited diseases. In fact, they're not diseases at all, either inherited or otherwise.

    What they are is an attempt to sooth pain. So now the more sensitive you are, the less has to happen for you to feel pain. Yes. And the analogy that I use is, let's say I tap myself on the shoulder. there's no pain whatsoever. I'm wearing your jacket had a shirt, and I got my skin intact. But what if I had a burn here and my nerve endings were close to the surface?

    In other words, I was thin-skinned and now I tapped myself on the shoulder with the same force. Wow. So the more sensitive you are, the more pain you're gonna have. The more pain you have, the more you're gonna need to escape from that pain. Right numbers of ways we can escape from pain. One is by dissociating tuning out, these kids tend to, a lot of them tend to be diagnosed with adhd, not because they've inherited the disease, but because they're so sensitive.

    And when they was stressor around them, they tuned out as a way of protecting themselves, right? That out gets programmed into the brain. These kids also have more of a need to escape into, behaviors that, soothe the pain such as internet and gaming and substances and so on. And so that there are two things going on.

    We have to look at the stresses in the environment and we have to look at the sensitivity. The child, and sometimes parents, like we all did the right things, but they don't get as how sensitive their child was. And even the little things that didn't happen that should have happened would've affected them.

    And we have to realize is that the child has certain needs. If those needs are met, that kids gonna be okay. But in our society, the essential needs of children are just not met. Yeah. The more sensitive the child, they're greater the impact.

    [00:43:47] Mark LaPalme Intro

    ---

    [00:43:49] Brenda: Mark Lap Palm is the founder of Isaiah House in Kentucky, and I have so much love for this place for a lot of reasons. If you haven't listened to episodes 86 and 83, those will give you some additional background on Isaiah House. The current FDA trial, they're conducting for a groundbreaking opioid treatment, so be sure to rewind to those.

    In episode 1 28, mark shares a bit about his own movie worthy recovery journey and provides insights to the mindset and behaviors of someone who's addicted to substances. I also couldn't help but pick up on something he shared from his childhood that Dr. Gabo explicitly pointed.

    that sometimes it's not that something bad has happened to you, it's that the good things that should have happened didn't. Here's Mark with more on that.

    [00:44:39] Mark: I think though the trauma that actually led to me having very low self esteem goes back to my dad. I come from a very good family.

    my mom and dad were married for 54 years. but I was the last child. and my siblings were much older than me. My youngest sister is 13 years older than me and I never had, I remember going up to my dad, he was working on a car and I remember, wanting to help him and he sued me away.

    and that was, that set me on a trajectory of just having absolutely no self-esteem and it was something so simple. we do it probably all the time , with our ch we just don't think about, how big of an impact that could have on a child. I wasn't molested, I wasn't abused necessarily, but that one moment.

    [00:45:27] Mark: I think as I look back probably defined all of my choices, for the next, decades.

    [00:45:33] Brenda: So incredible. And I think that's, I'm trying to highlight those little things more in, in the podcast because you're right. I don't think we think about those things for us. It's oh, I'm busy. I've gotta get this done.

    I've got 20,000 other things on my mind. just let me get this done. And we could shoot them away or just those little impacts that yeah. We don't realize are huge impacts.

    [00:45:59] Mark: Yeah, absolutely. And my dad was, much older and my father didn't abuse me or anything like that, but, we never played ball together.

    We never went fishing together. And that one moment, where he chewed me away, as I look back at it, I think I wondered how come we never played ball? How come we never went fishing? How come we never did things together? We never went camping together. That kind of a thing. and then it made, it made the desire to be, that peer pressure in trying to find people where you belong, it made it so much more prevalent for.

    In 1987, I was the number two Susie salesman in the United States.

    And so I was fairly functional when I wasn't being arrested or in treatment. and so I was able to, keep a house payment going and that kind of stuff for the most part from 1989 forward to 1999. When I first started using, I started using to fit in and I think that's probably what most of us would say.

    and then as time goes on, you just don't see a way out. It's not about fitting in anymore. It's just about feeling normal and that's where the disease. Takes over. and so while, I believe that addiction is far more than just the disease. I believe it is a choice, as well. I think when we try to put it in a box, we fail people.

    and so I made the choice to use, I've gotta make the choice to not use, but I was also co-occurring. and so I had other mental health issues that were coinciding. With my addiction. And so now I'm not using, to feel good anymore or to fit in anymore. I'm using just to feel normal.

    [00:47:32] Mark: And when you wake up in the morning, the first thing you think of is,in order for me to function in order for me to work in order for me to be a dad, in order for me to be a husband, that's going to engage on any level. I've got to do this. and whatever that is, if that's a drink or if it's, smoking a joint or slamming dope, it, it doesn't matter, whatever it is.

    It just it's just to feel normal. and then it becomes this thing where you become addicted, not just to the drug, but the environment and the atmosphere. the chaos of it, I couldn't sit still, I enjoyed for a moment, the chaos of it all. for some of it, just the chase of the dope,was a high, I remember, I'm from con.

    And here I am in, in Kentucky. and I'm in a three piece suit and I've got a nine millimeter in, in my pants. and I'm sitting out in Lebanon, Kentucky where I have absolutely no, I don't belong there and I'm waiting for hours for cocaine, and it's just, but it was all part of it.

    I gave up my time. Children. I give up my time with my family to sit there for hours. Hey, where's the dope man? Well, he said he is on his way and so before you know it, you, there are 4, 5, 6 hours waiting, just waiting an anticipation of feeling normal. and then once you get the dope, you have every anticipation of, or expectation of going, being with your family.

    But that doesn't happen either. because now I have the dope and now I've gotta use it. And once I start using it, I'm out of control. There's just, there's no control left.

    [00:49:07] Brenda: I wonder from your vantage point of looking at all of these human souls that have come to you, so broken, so damaged, and then you see them transform, what are the things that we should know about that?

    [00:49:24] Mark: Yeah, that's a, that's such a hard question. It really is. I know, it is, it's so difficult, but I think if there were some things that stood out, number one is, don't quit loving them and giving don't give up on them.

    Don't give up on us. The, the vast majority of us do find our way out. it does take time. We've lost so many. and each one of those lives was extremely valuable and losing. One of them was tragic on the other side of things though. So many more of us do make it out.

    And so I think there's a tendency to look at all of the, the deaths and the negatives and go, gee, this is, I, this is gonna be the end for. and so we start to disassociate just to protect our own selves. and so I think, one thing would be to just always, let them know that you love them and let them know that you're there for them.

    And what I mean by that is not enabling. And so this would be the second part of it. you can't continue to, be their attorney. You can't continue to be their employer. You can't continue to pay their car payment. You can't continue to do that. I've got to come to this proverbial, whatever that is bottom.

    For me. and I know my mom probably said, gee, I thought you were at bottom last year. then I took a nose dive off of that shelf, right? Yeah. she didn't realize there was another bottom yes.

    goes deeper.

    [00:50:45] Mark: We didn't know that. Yeah. but let them find that.

    And I think if you're going to enable you enable it with one way and one way only, and that's to help them find treatment. that's the only thing that you can do because you can't fix it. It takes outsiders to come in. It takes professionals, it takes peers. It takes people that have been through it.

    And even if you're in recovery, you can't. Yeah, you've gotta, you've gotta trust the process with the people that are gonna try to help.

    [00:51:15] Brenda: I hear over and over from parents, they love recovery stories because it helps them keep the light on at the end of the tunnel. I've had some incredible recovery stories, but none like the one I was blessed to tell on episode one 13 where I spoke with a young lady whose family had been devastated by addiction and loss, And that loss was mounting and getting more severe as she herself spiraled into deep addiction after losing her brother Rebecca much is a walking miracle. Her mom is an advisor in the stream community, and I want you to hear from the lips of an addict newly in recovery, how their minds think what impacts them, and words, every parent will want to.

    [00:52:01] Bekah

    ---

    [00:52:01] Brenda: I would love to ask you Becca, because your mom and I do coaching, and we are always talking to parents who have kids in your exact position when you were still using, and they are desperate to understand. When does that thought process change? Like when does it transition from, I'm not clicking on the link, I'm just going to keep doing this thing.

    I'm just going to keep going to this place. I'm just going to keep getting high. And then something changed where you said, I can't keep doing this. I looked at my life and all the parents that we work with are looking for that light bulb. Like where is that switch? Where do I find that switch and what we always tell them.

    So I'm curious to hear your perspective on this. As we always tell them, you can't find the switch, the switches with them,

    and until they find the switch, all you can do is be there. Like your mom was for you.

    [00:53:02] Bekah: Absolutely. There's definitely not anything that anybody else can say or do that's going to make you get help. An actually get clean and make those changes. I would try to explain to my mom all the time. , it sounds so simple to you , Yeah.

    just go to treatment, that sounds like nothing to you, but I have to change every single part of my life. Literally every single part of my life, which in that situation and from the outside looking in it's yeah, why wouldn't you have changed every part of your life, but it's very overwhelming and it's hard to take that first step because you can't help, but look at everything that you have to do.

    And all the little cliches and stuff that you hear in a. And Nan step when they say one step at a time or one day at a time easy does it, and like all that stuff like that is real.

    But when you're in that pit of despair and you're stuck in that hole, it just seems so impossible to get out of that. if you decide to go to treatment and get some clean time under your belt and you start doing the things that you need to be doing it starts to get easier, you look back on that and you're like, oh my God, like why we did it. And I just do that, like it's, and at that time, obviously it's a lot easier to look back and be like, if I would've known it was going to be that easy, I would have done that years ago, but it's not easy. And it just really is a very daunting task.

    [00:54:23] Brenda: I wonder what role it played for you knowing that your mom was there. She didn't disown you. She didn't say, you're out. You never talking to you again, what role did that play when you were in some of those conversations with yourself about could I get out of this?my mom, she never did once give up on me and I can't thank her enough for that. Not everybody is lucky enough to have that, she, 1000% never failed to let me know that she was there for me, not in the sense that she was going to enable me, but that if, whenever I was ready to take the steps that I needed to take to, to change , my life, that she would do whatever she could to support that, she would send me treatments to look at and send me, different places that I could go and offer me to come stay with them and countless sleepless nights and all the. Heartbreak that I, I put her in the whole family through, because she would have done anything for me to get better. and the sad thing is that still wasn't enough, That's A giant burden that parents were when they want so badly for their child to just get better.

    [00:55:29] Bekah: And they can't make them better, that's just a fact of, that is their own personal journey and they have to be the ones that take those steps. I've read this other thing that said change happens when the pain of staying the same as greater than the pain of change. And I was like, that pretty much sums it up. The saying of when you're sick and tired of being sick and tired, it's very real, because nobody is going to be able to take that journey for you,

    [00:55:56] Brenda: Yeah.

    [00:55:57] Bekah: As much as my mom wanted to fix everything. She's a big fixer and she wears the way to the world on her shoulders, , she couldn't do that for me. And, I still can't thank her enough for being there for me and putting up with all of them. Madness because there was certainly a lot of it. But she has a heart of gold and I'm eternally grateful for her. Absolutely.

    [00:56:22] Brenda: I think it's incredibly helpful to hear from someone like you who's been there to say. I had to make the decision on my own and that pain that teeter-totter had to tip in the direction of too much pain, and that your parents can be there for you and they can love you and they can do all those things, but they cannot fix it.

    [00:56:43] Bekah: On that same note it's definitely worth mentioning. That it's not your fault either, because I think that was also something that guilt that she carried with her for a very long time. Especially after Joel passed away, just her. Constantly reflecting and thinking like, God, if I just would've done this, or if I just wouldn't have done that, or if I didn't kick them out that one time. Or if I, and she was just, she was doing the best that she could and she was doing what she thought was, but she didn't have any manual for any of this, there's no manual that would be able to work for every single person, and I think that's a really hard. Pill to swallow for a lot of people when they're looking , at their children. And they're just carrying all of that with them, there could have been something that they did or whatever they could have done to protect them from that, but , my mom did everything amazingly, and when I look back on my life, I was very blessed child and I was given everything that I could have possibly ever needed, , and like I said, I'm lucky too, to have somebody like that in my corner, because not everybody has that,

    and That's a lot to try to get through and try to be doing the right thing at all times. But with all of the obstacles that She had to go through, she did a pretty stellar job.

    [00:57:59] Brenda: 2022 Also marked a first in that we started a private online community for dads who have kids struggling with substance use and mental health. Dad's experiences are similar, but different from moms.

    When our kids are at risk, when we're dealing with behavioral. When we feel out of control. I had a real conversation with Andy Olstrom on episode 95, where he shared what it's like to navigate this experience as a dad, how guys are wired differently than women, and how that played out when their daughter was involved in risky behavior and misusing substances.

    [00:58:37] Andy Goldstrom Intro

    ---

    .

    what happened when she was a teenager was some kids started surpassing her academically and emotionally, and we recognized it and got her tested and it ended up that she had. Very low memory retention issue. She had a low processing speed and things went in one ear and out the other, so she couldn't retain things very well.

    And so what happened was she started getting anxious. She started getting depressed. She wasn't the same kid. And so what did we do as, parents? We cared about our kid being happy and independent. And so we got her an i e P in school. We got her tutors. We went to a psychiatrist and got her appropriate medication.

    We had her visiting a therapist week by week, and those were things that, were kind of patchwork, that were a little bit of a bandaid, and ultimately she continued to get worse. She started hanging out with the wrong crowd and doing. Things that we didn't think were very safe for her, And ultimately we were fortunate before it was too late that we found out about the wilderness therapy and the residential treatment opportunities for her to get help while we needed to get help ourselves as parents. It's not just a one-way street, it's a family dynamic. So it was quite a journey. I ended up staying home more by choice.

    Once I got my career well progressed and sold the company and based upon my daughter's our family's journey, frankly, I got involved in this ecosystem a lot more because I felt it was a lonely place and a lot of important big financial decisions that needed to be made on a timely basis where you didn't know where to turn.

    It was stressful because we didn't know what we didn't know. We were trying to figure things out. We hadn't, been aware of kids who were struggling in this way and, we were first time parents encountering this, but we had some differences My.

    From the day she was born, always wanted to be a mom. I remember the day I met her, we were both in early twenties and she, that was just some of the first things she talked about in terms of, things that she thought she was born to be and what she really desired. As a result of that, you could imagine.

    She's a really good nurturer and a good listen. and a really good person, way nicer than I am. She's, . But as a result of that, and maybe it's a, partly a,because she's a woman, she's emotional and has ridden the rollercoaster based upon many of our children's successes or challenges that either because I wasn't around or as much, or because.

    I'm wired a little bit differently because I'm mean, and because partly cuz I'm a guy, I just couldn't ride the rollercoaster in the same way. Not as emotional a person. and for me, I'm different than my wife. I wanted to be a pro baseball player when I was a kid. loved everything about baseball. I still do.

    And when that didn't transpire, I wanted to be just a good business person and I wanted to be a dad in some way at some point, but it. The same priority. And so as Audrey grew up, my wife Lori was the primary parent, and I was working long hours and growing that business.

    [01:01:55] andy: And when she started struggling, Lori was torn emotionally and I treated it like a business problem.

    So she wanted to rescue Audrey and I wanted her to face more advers. and neither was right because we weren't aligned and our so solutions were quite polarizing. And so when she was away at wilderness therapy and residential treatment, that's when we first, Lori and I first truly reconciled and aligned our parenting, in a way that really worked for all of us.

    the biggest thing was as parents, we weren't aligned nor attuned, and she was doing some things that were inappropriate and unsafe at times, and we just thought that she was being a bad kid and she was not listening to her parents Putting others at risk at times, depending upon her behavior. And ultimately what we didn't realize was she wasn't trying to be a bad kid. She was just trying to cope. This was her way of reaching out to the world of trying to figure out what was right, what was wrong, how to survive, much less prosper.

    And we didn't understand it that way. So what we, what did we do as parents? We were nervous, we were frustrated. We restricted her more. We locked down on her more cuz we were. Concerned about her safety and, not just her feeling of being supported and safe and in control. And so it didn't work.

    She just wanted, I'll repeat it again. She just wanted to feel supported, safe, and in control. And so what happens is, I call this the cycle of disconnection in that it's a vicious cycle in that you don't understand your kid's trying to learn and. You react inappropriately and then it's a vicious cycle with different actions and activities that continue until it spirals outta control.

    [01:03:45] Bill Guy

    ---

    [01:03:45] Brenda: Some of the hardest conversations I have on Hope Stream are with parents who have lost a child to substance use.

    It's heartbreaking and sense. . Yeah. What I have found is these are some of the most passionate fighters out there, and they make a difference in so many people's lives. They have found a way to turn tragedy into action, and Bill Guy is one of these people.

    In episode 1 37, we talked about how men come into this experience of having a child who struggles with addiction, with a different set of tools, expectations, and support systems. It's the reason Bill hosts our online community For Men The Woods. Bill is a gentle soul who took the loss of his son and has turned it into light and hope for other parents.

    [01:04:35] Bill Guy Intro

    ---

    some of the people that I work with are generally people who have gotten so miserable themselves that they're reaching out for something. like I said, it took me having a major clinical depression and panic attacks and almost having a wreck on the highway to realize, you're not okay.

    [01:04:51] Bill Guy: You're not dealing with this, I'm not gonna say it's any more difficult for men than it is for women. but there are differences, I think, in the way that we respond. Because, and again, this is, talking in generalities, I think in our culture, the man is expected to be the strong one.

    And the man, you've gotta be brave and you've gotta be strong. And it's not appropriate for you to show your emotions. And, especially if the emotion is, crying or expressing pain or expressing inability to do something and. , and I think that's, that's still pretty much, you tough it up.

    and so it, in dads it's we're the ones that are supposed to fix it. And the moms are the ones that are the nurturers. In fact, I was talking about the other evening with the small group of dads that we have as a beta for the, were about the. mothers are the ones that are, take the kids to the doctors.

    [01:05:43] Bill Guy: Usually mothers are the ones that take care of enrolling their kids in school and making sure they have all the supplies. You knows, the dads, my job is to pay for all the stuff that you're gonna buy him, and Brenda, what I just thought of was, again, I think things are getting incrementally better every year in this way. But, when we came back to Oklahoma, eight years ago, and I discovered how bad Chris was and what the problem he had.

    I did go to some places. I did find some places here in the area and I thought, I'm just gonna show up to some of these places and ask them what I can do. In most instances, what I was met with was, your son's an adult and we really can't, you just need to get him here.

    you need to get him here. And it was like, If I could get him here, then that, my problem would be solved. . Yeah. Yeah. So even when a father decides, I'm gonna take this bull by the horns, and do something about it, you run up against roadblocks. And I'll say this too, the way he was raised, it was just the dad's job was to come in and be the disciplinarian. and if you didn't do what he wanted you to do, you were gonna get punished for it, or you were gonna get cussed out for it, there were gonna be, hell pay, And and then when you run up with something like, And you try, I'm just gonna say blaming and shaming and guilt and punishment. even when we just think about those words in, in the abstract, it ought to be obvious to that's work, right? But it's just. Pattern, that certainly I grew up with.

    Thankfully, it's different, So I think that's changing. Yeah. But I think if you're a father and you grew. in the fifties and sixties and maybe even into the seventies, you probably were raised where, children were supposed to be quiet and do what they were told, and if they didn't, they got punished.

    But that doesn't work with addiction.

    [01:07:26] Anne Moss Intro

    ---

    [01:07:26] Brenda: I am going to wrap this up with what I believe is likely the most important episode of 2022, and I'll provide a trigger warning here that it has to do with the connection between substance use and suicide, especially in young people. On episode 1 41, I spoke with Anne Moss Rogers, who lost her son Charles, to suicide.

    And like Bill, she is hellbent in her work to educate.

    So they don't have to experience the excruciating loss that she and her entire family did. Ann's mission is to let parents know the truth about suicide, addiction, mental health, and our young people. It is an absolutely vital conversation. I hope you'll listen closely.

    [01:08:14] Anne Moss

    ---

    [01:08:14] anne moss: My son had a mental illness, depression, and he was addicted to heroin. all just really ugly ending. And I thought at first people don't want to hear that story because it's not a success story. I lost and now I'm speaking on it. You know, who'd want somebody, well, why would I want you?

    What do you know your kid died, So I was concerned about that and I have heard people say that, but fewer than I would've thought. Now I get a lot of invitations and the doors have opened in the last five years, but it's been a struggle. but, wouldn't do it any other way. I have found so much healing in this process of finding my voice and finding my audience, and it's just meant the world to me.

    That's incredible. I've had a lot of young people, a lot of any age people reach out and say, this really helped me, and I've answer. Tens of thousands of people online and by email

    [01:09:23] Brenda: I would love to hear his story and when you noticed that he was struggling and what that looked like for your

    [01:09:29] anne moss: family. So I wanna take this opportunity to tell everybody. I did write my first book, diary of a Broken Mind. I talk about Charles, but I also include his rap lyrics because his rap lyrics tell you what was happening in his soul.

    And it was only until I read those lyrics that really understood drug addiction because he really, he was a creative genius, so he was six foot. Hundred and 30 pounds. And I kid you not, I was always trying to find pants that were 28, 34 and a string bean, oh, he was a string bean.

    Had an eight pack. All his friends were envious cuz he could eat whatever he wanted. But he won a huge eater because he couldn't sit still long enough. he had a sleep disorder that started when he was like, Two years old. And so he struggled his whole life to find sleep. He wasn't able to, like you see kids taking a nap on the sofa.

    Charles never took a nap on the sofa. He was also the funniest and most popular kid in school. everybody knew who he was. He made people laugh. and what he was really good at was timing and being able to kinda adjust the comedy. To the audience who was in front of him. Wow. And he was very affectionate.

    Like he was the, as a toddler, he was the kid who was crawling up into grandparents and hugging and giving kisses and cuddling. and he had, as a three year old, he had this white shop, blonde hair. And he was just one of those kids when he walked in, all eyes turned towards him his whole life.

    That was, and he ended up just being popular, like within minutes and it was just pretty incredible thing to watch. And he was an absolutely awesome kid and I just feel. The world misses somebody like Charles, somebody so willing to listen and be there for others. Yeah.

    [01:11:48] Brenda: he went to wilderness and boarding school, and then he came home. Did he go back to his high school or what happened then? He had already

    [01:11:56] anne moss: graduated. Oh, okay. And then apparently once he came home and. Learning other coping strategies. He went back to the one that he had started using when he was younger, which is drugs and alcohol.

    Yeah. So some kids become addicted and then become suicidal. Once they're addicted. Some kids become addicted because they're suicidal and they're trying to numb those feelings. And Charles was the latter. Okay. And he became addicted to heroin within probably a month of coming. But I didn't know it. But for the better part of 10 months he was using in our house, I had no idea.

    Mm am And

    [01:12:43] Brenda: you said that you, that now you think that his suicidal ideation had started much younger. But were you aware during this time when, like when he was in wilderness and in boarding school, was suicide on your radar or were you really more concerned about the substances?

    [01:13:03] anne moss: I was concerned about the. Had no idea suicide was on his radar. So here's some clues that the, are red flags. He was falling asleep in class, which, giving the sleep disorder, I could of write that off there. He was going to the nurse's clinic all the time, headaches, back aches, nerve, muscle, that kind of thing.

    And those, that pain is, Because they're tensing up a lot. So frequent flyers to the, school nurse or the, primary care physician, even broken limbs, because kids who are depressed tend to get sick more. They tend to be a more accidents, they tend to have more ailments. Charles cot every flu strain at every school and every place he ever visited.

    his friends did change, his grades dropped. So it's not just one of these things, but the combination of multiple ones. He also talked about death a lot. He talk, he was always talking about people who died young. And then I remember one day in the car goes, mom, I might not live that long. I may not get married and have children.

    I should have stopped and said, tell me more about that. I'm listening. But I was so dumbstruck, I was afraid that I was gonna plant some kind of idea in his head by asking that question. And I think as parents, we need to listen more and lecture less. And that includes basically when they're saying something like, They're inviting you to ask more questions, but not to ask in a way that is probing, but ask in a way where you really want to hear what they have to say and that you're curious., you gotta think, curious mind, so I'd love to know what, what brought that up and what you're thinking is behind. Started a discussion on that. he would say on Facebook and on Twitter, he said, if I died, no one would notice for at least a month. And that's actually could have been the bullet point under the phrase, what do people thinking of suicide say?

    [01:15:35] Brenda: All right. I hope this was insightful and sparked your interest in some amazing guests and that you'll dive deeper into all of the episodes from 2022. It is such an honor to travel this road with you. I'm humbled every single week by your stories, your strength, and the love you have that powers you through this season of life with your child.

    But most of all, I wish you peace and a spirit of compassion and. As you continue on this path to healing, I'm sending you all my love and light and I'll meet up with you right here in the new year.

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straight from my heart; you don’t get to tap out on yourself, with Brenda Zane

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how adventure therapy can offer young adults life-long tools for mental health & resilience, with Andrew Taylor