Listen Now

Addiction is often misunderstood with perceptions ranging from poor choices, moral failings or a brain disorder. Dr. Sandra Newes, clinical psychologist focuses on the treatment of both adolescents and young adults diagnosed with substance misuse and addiction, clarifies what addiction is and is not. She delves into the risk factors that all parents should know and understand in their children and prevention strategies to lower those risks.

Give Yourself the Gift of Community. Make connections to help support you as you battle addiction. If you are struggling with addiction or have an addict in your family, going it alone is never a good idea.  I was fortunate in many ways that when my 14-year old daughter began her struggle, I had close friends that were there for me who had watched Laura grow up and knew I needed help.  And people were there for me throughout the 15 years we battled the disease, and in the end when she overdosed and died. You need help and support around you to give you perspective, a sanity check, relief and acceptance and that comes by finding a community that you can connect to.  Communities help us feel connected and a part of something, but they also have strong benefits when it comes to helping you as you battle the disease of addiction for yourself or for a loved one. Communities allow us to benefit from the lessons others have learned so we don’t have to learn from our own mistakes.  Communities can inspire us when we watch members achieve things that go right in their lives.  Communities give us contacts we can call on when we need help.  Knowing others that are going through the same things we are, learning from them and getting their support is a very important gift that you can give yourself.  Our company, InterAct LifeLine, supports collegiate recovery communities, organized groups for people in recovery on college campuses.  The gift of belonging to those communities as a student is a higher graduation rate, a higher GPA, a much lower return to substance misuse and frankly, friends you keep your entire life.  For those struggling with addiction, finding communities of sober, like-minded people promotes healthy social interaction replacing the circle of people that misused substances with others that you can connect with without worrying about being around drugs or alcohol.  Communities provide support when counseling is not available, and its people are often just a phone call away. But if you are a family member that is helping a loved one fight addiction, finding communities of other family members may not be as obvious as it is for the person who is finding community in addiction support groups.  Here are a few ideas for where to go find the gift of community. Connect to online support groups. Social media can be a powerful tool to find others that are going through the same challenges you are, share your thoughts without judgment, and find strategies that help you move forward.  For me, I belong to several Facebook groups focused on loss of a loved one from overdose.  The stories I read are sad, but also reminders of how many of us are turning grief into purpose trying to make a difference in the lives of others.  All it takes on Facebook is to access groups, enter keywords to find groupa that you relate to the most and ask to join.  Find a support community in Al-Anon or other organizations.  Most of us have heard of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, AA and NA, but did you know that the same organization has support groups for families who have a loved one battling addiction?  It’s called Al-Anon that uses the same 12-step philosophy to help families heal.  If 12-Step is not your thing, then there are many other ways to connect to family support groups.  If you just google “family support groups for addiction” you will get links to a number of support communities and likely find those who have meetings in your area. Find a non-profit focused group on family support.  As I mentioned earlier, I lost a daughter to overdose and found a non-profit called Compassionate Friends that focuses on helping families cope with loss.  SAMSHA, a government organization focused on substance abuse and mental health, has a national h

Give Yourself the Gift of Self-Care How to keep yourself healthy, centered, balanced & connected when you struggle with an addicted loved one This will be my second Christmas without my daughter Laura who struggled for 15 years with addiction but lost her life to overdose on December 21, 2017, right before the holidays. In the two years since her death, I’ve taken care of myself in some ways, but not in others.   Battling addiction with a loved one or battling it as an addict takes a toll on you personally. There is the stress of not knowing what is going to happen next, the lack of sleep when you stay up through the night hoping to hear the door open and your loved one walk in, the constant anxiety.  If you don’t care for yourself, then your health and well-being will suffer. Self-care is complex, but it’s a gift that you should try and give yourself.  Don’t think of it as something selfish, but rather something necessary to stay strong.  Here are some thoughts for all of us who need to do more to care for ourselves with the gift of self-care. Set healthy boundaries.  When you are surrounding by addiction, you have to set physical, emotional and mental limits so that you avoid being manipulated, used or violated by the addicts in your life. Boundaries are simply guidelines that you express to others so that they know how you want to be treated and what happens when they cross those boundaries.  In my relationship with my daughter, some of the boundaries I set included what I needed her to contribute to the house while she was living there, how I needed to be communicated with respectfully, and the rules around any type of substance use around me or in my home.  Take care of your body.  For me, taking care of my body was not on my “to do” list after my daughter died.  As a result, I gained weight, ate poorly, got very little sleep and just overall felt physically weak.  When you are fighting addiction yourself or on behalf of a loved one, you have to take care of your body.  Start by adding a healthy dose of exercise to your routine.  You don’t have to do cross-fit or run a marathon, but you can start by simply walking 30 minutes a day. Exercise releases those endorphins that make you feel better, relieves stress, and helps you connect with others if you engage in sports activities. Because sleep affects our mood, helps us keep a healthy weight and reduces stress, trying to keep a regular sleep pattern is important.  Start by recognizing what your sleep patterns are and where they are off balance.  Then change your routine to eat earlier, not watch TV as your go to sleep routine, and keep your room cool and quiet.   And finally, eating healthy has some very strong benefits.  If you are in recovery, then don’t replace drug use with a new bad habit of eating poorly like adding processed foods or sugars.  A good diet improves your mood and is a cornerstone of selfcare. Use mindfulness to reduce stress and increase a feeling of well-being.  Mindfulness is the practice of purposely focusing your attention on the present moment and accepting it without judgment. Being mindful makes it easier to appreciate the pleasures in life as they occur, helps you become fully engaged in activities, and creates a capacity to deal with the adverse events that has been coming your way.  And if you are struggling with addiction, there are quite a few zingers that you struggle with.   People who practice mindfulness find that they are less likely to obsess about what may happen to them in the future or have regrets over the past.  Mindfulness helps people become less preoccupied with success or concern themselves on how others might judge them.   There are many ways to practice mindfulness, but most often this is done with meditation,

One of the bests gifts to give yourself during the holidays, forgiveness.Why it’s important to forgive yourself, your family and friends and your addicted loved one  This will be my second Christmas without my daughter Laura who struggled for 15 years with addiction but lost her life to overdose on December 21, 2017, right before the holidays.  But even when Laura was with us, holidays were often stressful because I never knew what kind of tension and drama she might create for the family. It’s so easy to sit back during the holidays and beat yourself up.  Your friends are all having a wonderful Christmas dinner, opening their gifts, and connecting with family.  Your family may have been turned upside down, so you reflect on how you managed to get yourself in this mess.  You look at what you did or didn’t do to create such a dysfunctional family, holiday or in my case lose a loved one.  So now it’s time to open up the gift of forgiveness.  It’s not your fault.  I repeat, it’s not your fault.  Your loved one had a genetic predisposition to develop the disease of addiction because the genes that trigger it run in families.  Ten people could go to a party, have a drink and not feel uncontrollably compelled to keep going.  But that 1 person in 10 that is genetically pre-disposed will have their brain’s reward center triggered to need more of the substance that caused their dopamine production to go wild.  It’s not your fault that those genes ran in your family just as it’s not your fault if you have diabetes in your genes.  Your loved one didn’t develop the disease because of you. Don’t blame yourself because of your parenting.  Parenting is hard enough no matter what someone tells you.  Everyone makes mistakes and you’ve likely made more than a few when it comes to managing an adolescent that become oppositional, then defiant, then a drug user and then an addict.  Trust me that I was one of those parents with my daughter Laura.  But you need to give yourself a break.  It’s hard to make the best decisions when you are in the middle of a war and under siege.  Addiction may have come on quickly not giving you the time to be fully informed and ready.  Everyone makes mistakes, even parents with those picture-perfect kids.  It’s time to forgive yourself for any parenting missteps during this crisis. Forgive those people around you.  You are going to be surprised at the friends, family and co-workers who just didn’t understand the depth of your struggles.  You may feel their scrutiny and disapproval and find them distancing themselves from you.  Although that may seem terrible, it’s perfectly understandable that they don’t really understand because nobody can unless they have walked in your shoes. When I first sent my daughter Laura to wilderness therapy treatment, I chose a New Year’s Eve party to announce my decision to my friends, some of which knew about our struggles and others did not. I was greeted with, “How could you?” and “Why didn’t you try other things first?”.  At first, I was insulted and horrified that they just didn’t get it because that was one of the hardest decisions of my life.  But then on reflection, I began to understand why they didn’t get it.  They had never had an experience like this.  I decided to forgive those people and years later shared with them how their comments did me a favor to enlighten me about how to better manage my conversations with others when it came to my daughter and help others do the same.  And finally, forgive the addict you love. My daughter did some terrible things in the throes of her disease.  She would go months without answering my calls or texts making me fear if she was safe.  She would attack me verbally when I pressed her about her behavior.&nbsp

The holidays can be a dreaded time of the year if someone you love is suffering or has lost their battle with the disease of addiction.  This will be my second Christmas without my daughter Laura who struggled for 15 years with addiction but lost her life to overdose on December 21, 2017, right before the holidays.   It’s hard to think about gift giving during this time of year, because the holidays may be filled with regret, grief, or stress.   This Audio Journal focuses on gifts, not for others on your list, but those that you should give to yourself.  Today’s episode is devoted to the gift of knowledge. I’ve talked to countless parents and family members who are struggling to make sense of their loved one’s substance misuse, crazy behavior, and personality change.  We often mistake addiction as a moral failing or a series of bad choices, failing to recognize that addiction is a chronic complex brain disease.  Now, let’s figure out how to unwrap the gift of knowledge so you are more prepared to deal with it. Start with understanding the science behind addiction.  Addiction is a brain disease and there is a scientific underpinning about how it manifests itself and progresses.  Let me take another brain disease that millions of us know about as an analogy, Alzheimer’s. There is a scientific and physical reason that people’s memories disappear.  It has to do with plaque coating the transmitters in the brain that allow one to process and act on information.   Once there is enough plaque build-up, signals can’t get through and memory fails.  People that have Alzheimer’s are not being difficult or frustrating’ their brain is misfiring. The human brain is wired to reward us when we do something pleasurable. Exercising, eating, and other pleasurable behaviors directly linked to our health and survival trigger the release of a neurotransmitter called dopamine that makes us feel good and encourages us to keep doing what we’re doing.  But the brain can also be rewired in harmful ways when it’s exposed to drugs. When someone takes a drug, their brain releases extreme amounts of dopamine causing the brain to overreact, reducing dopamine production in an attempt to normalize these sudden, sky-high levels the drugs have created. And this is how the cycle of addiction begins because the individual will seek those substances to get that dopamine rush. So that’s part of the science of addiction.  It’s the brain’s rewiring to overproduce dopamine levels that rise and crash, causing the person to seek more of the substance to level themselves out.   You next level of knowledge should be around the condition itself.  Addiction is not an acute disease that can be treated quickly and cured.  It’s a chronic condition that will last a lifetime and requires on-going maintenance and management.  When you treat diabetes, you can’t take insulin just once, feel better right away, then stop. You have to manage yourself with medication, diet and lifestyle change over a lifetime.  The same is true of addiction. People go to rehab to treat the acute symptoms and get stabilized.  They come out looking healthy, but it’s a mistake to believe that because their acute symptoms have been dealt with the person is cured.   Without the proper long-term plan, the chances are 85% that they will return to substance misuse in less than a year following rehab.  It’s important to know the difference in the characteristics of an acute vs. a chronic disease so you know that you must play the long game. That brings us to the next knowledge gift which is know how to manage the disease long-term.  This is the most complex part of the equation and requires the most knowledge and research.  It’s important that you understand that the recovery and disease management process have many compon

How to bring joy back into what can be a difficult time of year. The holidays are the most wonderful, but often the most dreadful time of the year if someone you love is suffering from or has lost their battle with the disease of addiction.  This will be my second Christmas without my daughter Laura who struggled for 15 years with addiction but lost her life to overdose on December 21, 2017, right before the holidays.  But even when Laura was with us, holidays were often stressful because I never knew what kind of tension and drama she might create for the family. For those of us who have been through the struggle our perfect holiday gift might be that of peace, tranquility, and for the person who we remembered before they developed the disease to be the one that shows up for the holidays.   For me, my perfect gift would be just one more moment to watch Laura unwrap her gifts, sit by the fire or laugh at the dinner table.   So, knowing that we likely get gifts that are well meaning, but not exactly what we wished for, here are some gifts that you can give yourself for the holidays that can last you throughout the year and hopefully for a lifetime. Give yourself the gift of knowledge.  I’ve talked to countless parents and family members who are struggling to make sense of their loved one’s substance misuse, crazy behavior, and personality change.  Yet, they have failed to research the disease of addiction, understand how it progresses, learn how it changes the brain, and what it takes to treat it.    You would never think to fight cancer without going online, understanding the symptoms and how the disease progresses, checking out treatment options and learning how to beat it.  The same applies with the disease of addiction.  Give yourself the gift of knowledge so you can understand it, have a strategy to respond and know what to do to fight the disease.  Open up the gift of forgiveness. It’s not your fault.  I repeat, it’s not your fault.  Because I’m empowered with an understanding of the disease, I don’t blame myself for my daughter’s death or her 15-year struggle.  And I’ve forgiven myself for any wrong decisions I made along the way when we were in the middle of the fight.  Addiction is complex and often the decisions the person afflicted makes are irrational and confusing.   Until that person decides to get healthy and manage the disease, you don’t really have the power to cure it for them.   If a diabetic eats cake, fails to take their insulin and doesn’t follow the doctor’s instructions, do you blame yourself if they get sicker?   The same is true with addiction Unwrap the gift of self-care. It’s super hard battling the disease and believe me the fight takes a toll on you personally.  There is the stress of not knowing what is going to happen next, the lack of sleep when you stay up through the night hoping to hear the door open and your loved one walk in. There’s constant anxiety.  If you don’t care for yourself, then your health and wellbeing will suffer. Self-care is complex, but may involve a health and wellness routine, mindfulness & meditation, counseling, or connecting with friends and doing something fun.  Look for the gift of community. Going this alone is never a good idea.  You need help and support around you to give you perspective, a sanity check, relief, and acceptance.  There are many communities you can connect to, but for me, I turned first to my close friends and family who watched Laura grow up, saw how I parented, and didn’t judge my parenting skills.  Then, it was going to a community of other parents who had put their children into treatment and who were going through a shared experience with me.  I relied on Al-Anon to gain perspective on the disease of addiction and our role in the process o

The “When”, “Who” and “How” to get help for a struggling teen. This Audio Journal series focuses on what it takes to coach your family through the Opioid Crisis with the right game plan, a playbook, an understanding of your opponent and help from your “assistants” when it’s called for.  This episode will focus on why you need a good staff around you because no game is winnable if you are the only coach calling the plays. Football coaches know that they don’t have all of the answers.  That’s why they rely on their assistants. Nick Saban of Alabama has hired the best assistant coaches, relies on their advice, and lets them take the lead in their area of expertise. Managing your child when he is oppositional, defiant, losing ground at school, and using drugs that can cause overdose at any minute is not something parents should try and manage without help.    There are plenty of good assistants out there to help parents adjust their strategy, send in better plays to protect their children, and know when the game plan that they have is just not working.  This all seems logical, but parents often fail to know the when, the who and the how to ask for help.   Let’s focus on “the when”.  I would seriously doubt that a football coach waits to consult his assistants after the game gets out of hand.  They ask for advice early and often.  But the same is not true of parents when their child is in trouble.  That’s because parents are often ashamed, traumatized or confused.  It’s never a good idea to wait to ask for help.  When you see your child’s grades drop, their behavior change, or just are worried that things are not right, ask for insight, advice, or help right away.  Waiting can have deadly consequences allowing adolescents to keep using drugs, engage in dangerous behaviors and sometimes lose their lives to overdose. And what about your “pre-game strategy”.  You should avail yourself of the help, strategy and advice of others to learn how you should prevent substance misuse and go on the offense before you have to play the much harder game of defense when your child is already in trouble.  You may want to take a look at one of InterAct LifeLine’s portals called Rethink the Family.com (http://rethinkthefamily.com) where there is an abundance of education about the disease, how to talk to kids, and prevention strategies you can use. Now, let’s explore “the who”.   There are so many people out there that parents already know who can be helpful.  All you have to do is ask.  Let’s start with people at your child’s school.  Teachers have their ear to the ground, know when kids are falling behind, and may see behavioral issues before you do.  I started my career as a middle school teacher and believe me, I knew what was going on. Get to school, schedule a conference with teachers and invite the guidance counselors to join.  If they don’t know all the answers, they will now have their radar up and can be on high alert on your behalf. Then think about your neighbors and friends, particularly those who have kids the same age as yours.  My friends and neighbors were the first to alert me that I had a problem with my daughter Laura.  Their kids were telling them what they were seeing her do at school and the bad crowd that Laura was hanging out with.  Fortunately, I didn’t have to ask for their help; they offered it, but it taught me a lesson that sometimes your best allies are those closest to you. And then there are times when you need professional help.  Consider engaging the services of an adolescent therapist that is trained in substance misuse and addiction.  Think about having a full psycho-educational assessment to understand the issues driving behavior as well as any learning differences that

How to avoid mistakes that put your parenting game at risk.  This Audio Journal series focuses on what it takes to coach your family through the Opioid Crisis with the right game plan, a playbook, an understanding of your opponent and help from your “assistants” when it’s called for.  This episode will focus on how to avoid unforced errors that put your parenting game at risk. I watched Auburn and Alabama slug it out in the Iron Bowl with three touchdowns coming from errors made by both teams.  Unforced errors can make the difference between a win and a blowout.  Think about all the games that have been won or lost based on turnovers, missed assignments, dropped passes, or interceptions.   Often these unforced errors result when players or coaches don’t stick to the game plan, are unprepared or just not paying attention.  There are number of unforced errors that parents make that are critical mistakes leading to big problems when it comes to drugs and alcohol.  Let’s look at those mistakes and ways to avoid them. The first unforced error is chalking up your child’s troubling behavior to growing pains or just being a teenager.   You’ve been living with your child for years, watching how they behave, perform in school, and if they comply with the rules. But then all of a sudden, things start to change.  They start to get defiant and disrespectful.  They have huge mood swings.  They begin to hide out in their room and keep you away from their friends and what they are up to.  They dress differently and their friend group has changed.  Are these signs of teenage growing pains?  Maybe, but if your child’s actions start to disrupt your family life, cause you to be suspicious and distrustful, or cause them to underperform in school or in their favorite sports team, look deeper and get an outside opinion to see if you have a bigger issue than that of just being a teenager.  Another unforced error is to fail to secure items in your house that your child should not have access to.  If you drink and have bottles of alcohol lying around, it’s time to lock up your wine and your liquor cabinet.  Substance misuse often begins by sneaking alcohol from your supply and refilling your bottles with water.  If you have unused prescriptions from a doctor or dentist’s visit or a stay in the hospital, safely dispose of those expired medications or lock them up.  You don’t want to be your child’s drug dealer.   And unfortunately for some families, you need to stop leaving cash or valuables lying around.  This was one of my unforced errors and my daughter Laura took leftover Vicodin, raided my wine cellar and took money out of my wallet.  I left my car keys on a rack by the door, enabling her to sneak out at night, take the car and meet up with people she shouldn’t have been with. And what about the error of trying to be the cool parent.  I’ve talked to many parents who believe that it is inevitable that their teenagers are going to drink or smoke pot, so why not keep them safer by having them experiment with those things at home.  Big mistake.  Exposing the teenage brain to substances while it is still developing is a sure-fire way to risk your child may be the 1 in 10 that will develop the disease of addiction. It’s important that you understand the science behind adolescent brain development and what substances do to short circuit the normal brain development process.   My daughter began using drugs at age 14, developed the disease of addiction, and fought it for 15 years.  Her brain development stopped about that age making it much harder for her to become a functional adult. And what kind of signal are you sending to your child when you allow them to break the law by using alcohol before they legally are allowed to so or to smoke po

Know the facts to help you make good decisions This Audio Journal series focuses on what it takes to coach your family through the Opioid Crisis with the right game plan, a parent playbook, an understanding of your opponent and help from your “assistants” when it’s called for.  This episode will focus on the value of analyzing the data to understand the facts so you can make the right play calls. Nick Saban at Alabama implemented a GPS tracking system to monitor his player’s activity in practice so he could better predict if his team’s practice strategy wore his players out or kept them ready to go, particularly in post-season play.  He relied on data as much as his experience and instincts to create the right practice plan.  Unfortunately, technology was not there when my daughter Laura started going off the rails in high school, using drugs, and engaging in very risky behavior. So, what type of systems, data, and facts do you need to have at your disposal to make better decisions on behalf of your child to protect them? Answer the question that is most critical. Is my child using drugs?  I’ve talked to quite a few parents who think their kids are in trouble, caught them drinking or smoking pot, and suspect they are doing more. But they’ve never drug tested them to confirm what they suspect.  A drug test may show that they did indeed smoke pot or a breathalyzer can confirm how much alcohol they have been drinking.  So, if that data comes back confirming what you suspect don’t hesitate to ground your kid, let them know that more testing is likely, take their car keys away and make sure they get and understand why this is a big deal. However, your decisions as a parent might be entirely different if the test reveals that they are doing something more dangerous like testing positive for cocaine, meth, opioids or heroin.  You may need to go above and beyond grounding them and taking their car.  The bottom line is that you need to know the facts to make intelligent decisions. Drug testing kits are inexpensive, easy to find at any local drug store or online, and easy to use.  Just follow some simple guidelines.  Make them random.  Research the potential countermeasures your kid may use to fool the test.  And most importantly, never apologize for using a test that could save their life and give you the data you need.  Monitor how your child is connecting with others electronically.  Cell phones and laptops are now common tools that most middle and high schoolers use obsessively.  When they are used appropriately, they allow parents to stay in touch with your kids and allow kids to learn more about the world around them.  But those same tools can also be a way for kids to get into trouble.  My daughter used her phone to coordinate sneaking out in the middle of the night to smoke pot on the golf course, connect with high-school seniors who were selling her vodka she used during school and later with her drug dealers. So, let’s get the facts when it comes to understanding if your kids’ electronics are an asset or a liability.  Cell phone have parental controls so you can disable them at night.  You can install software to monitor texting.   The same applies to tablets and laptops.  Don’t hesitate to use software to monitor keystrokes so you can know what your kids search for, who they message, and what they are posting on social media.  And don’t forget to disable or take away the laptop before you go to bed because it’s also an engine to message their friends. Verify that your kid is where they say they are.  When my daughter Laura was in high school, she let me drop her off at school only to leave through the back door.  She had me take her to sports practice only to leave with a friend.  She told me that she was at dad’s house

Why a Focus on Prevention is so Critical If you listened to the last Audio Journal, we focused on what it takes to coach your family through the Opioid Crisis with a game plan, a playbook, an understanding of your opponent and help from your “assistants” when it’s called for.  This episode will focus on what every successful college football coach knows and understand, that it’s much easier to play offense vs. always be on the defensive. Football coaches don’t start preparing during the game; they start way in advance by scouting the competition, evaluating their players, understanding what plays produce results and just committing the time to do their homework.  Your child may or may not ever use drugs or get addicted, but the reality is that 1 in 10 high schoolers will develop the disease of addiction before they even leave high schoool and that child may be yours.   We’re going to start the Parent Playbook by understanding how you can play offense before you have to play the much more difficult game of defense.  Playing offense in the game against substance abuse begins with a good prevention strategy.  It’s hard for parents to get motivated to execute a prevention strategy when their child is a good student, a girl scout, an athlete and an all-around good kid.  All of those things applied to my daughter until she started using drugs at age 14, became addicted and was in for the fight of her life, only to overdose and die after a 15-year struggle.  I never played offense, so I spent 15 years playing the tougher game, defense. Here’s how to execute a good offensive prevention strategy.  Start your game strategy by understanding the risk factors.  The disease of addiction runs in families so understand if it’s present in yours, your spouse’s or your extended family.  Developing the disease requires a genetic link that kicks off the propensity of one’s brain to respond in overdrive in the presence of drugs and alcohol.  Children that find it difficult to regulate their emotions, who have been bullied, who have had learning differences are all at higher risk.  And think about children who have experienced other changes or difficulties they struggle with like managing through a divorce, a move to a new neighborhood or school, enduring stressful situations or trauma. They are statistically at much higher risk than other kids, so evaluate if this applies to your family.    InterAct LifeLine has been collecting great content and education and making it available in online portals to help parents understand the risk of addiction so they can be better prepared. All you have to do is visit rethinkthefamily.com and there is great information waiting for you. Next, talk to your kids and educate them about the risks.  Executing an offensive strategy is most successful when you prepare your team to understand the game they are playing. Start early and have conversations about substances in an age-appropriate way.  Kids learn science in school, so give them a science lesson on what might happen to the brain when they drink or do drugs.  Help them know what drugs are out there and what they need to do to avoid them.   In addition to helping parents understand the risk of addiction, InterAct also gives you the help you need to use the right words to begin the conversation with your kids at any age. Consider proactively and randomly drug testing your middle or high schoolers. Don’t think of drug testing as a punishment, but rather as a gift.  Your kids can now blame their crazy parents when they choose to turn down the chance to smoke pot or take pills because they can tell their friends they are being drug tested and are sure to be caught.  Drug tests can be bought at any drug store and are cheap and easy to use.  Your child may try and fool the s

The Game Against the Opioid and Addiction Crisis that Parents Must Win We’re coming to the end of the college football season where an elite group of teams will realize their dreams of winning their division, being tapped for a bowl game or being selected for the national championship playoffs.  Every one of the teams had one thing in common; they started their season with a game plan, did their research and homework to create the plan and adjusted it dynamically for each and every game.   Coaches like Nick Saban of Alabama, Kirby Smart of Georgia, Dabo Swinney of Clemson or Ryan Day of Ohio State lead their staff to look at the talent they’ve recruited, understand their opponents, analyze the impact of playing at home or away and spent  countless hours crafting a game plan that will produce a win. If you are the coach of your family and have children, particularly adolescents, the most important game you will ever play and one you cannot afford to lose is against the disease of addiction brought on in large part by the Opioid Crisis.  You have to have a game plan, a playbook, an understanding of your opponent and get help from your “assistants”  Here is an overview of what college football coaches do to win each and every week and the lessons that we, as the coaches of our families, can learn when we are on the field, fighting against the drug use that sidelines our kids, takes them out of the game, and cripples or kills them. First, you have to prepare for game day.  Football coaches don’t start preparing during the game; they start way in advance by scouting the competition, evaluating their players, understanding what produces results and just committing the time to do their homework.  Your child may or may not ever use drugs or get addicted, but the reality is that 1 in 10 high schoolers will develop the disease of addiction so you may be the ones that have to take the field.   You need to act “as if” you will get the call to play in the game of your life and be prepared in advance.  Learn the factor that contribute to make your children more at risk.  Ask yourself what are the telltale signs of drug use?  Understand your opponents: the drugs, the bad friends, the dealers so if you get the call, you’ve done your homework. And think about how much harder it is to play defense when your child is already using vs. offense where you focus on prevention.   Learn how to control the game by being proactive, educating your child, monitoring them, and executing a prevention strategy.  Become data driven.  Nick Saban at Alabama implemented a GPS tracking system to monitor his player’s activity in practice so he could better predict if his team’s practice strategy wore his players out or kept them ready to go, particularly in post-season play.  He relied on data as much as his experience and instincts to create the right practice plan. If you are walking on the field in the fight against substance misuse and addiction and have none of the data you need to make strategy decisions, then be prepared to have a much more difficult time.  You need to have the data drug tests provide to know if your child is using and if so, what drugs are in their system.  You need to get the facts about how they perform in school to see if there has been a drop off.  You need to know where your kid really is, who they are with, and what they are up to. Good coaches don’t commit unforced errors.  Every college football coach cringes at unforced errors that can make the difference between a win and a blowout.  Think about all the games that have been won or lost based on turnovers, missed assignments, dropped passes, or interceptions.   Often these unforced errors result when players or coaches don’t stick to the game plan, are unprepared or just not paying attent

Audio Journal Technology to Take on the Opioid Crisis When I look at my iPhone or open up my laptop, I’m like most people going to Facebook.  But unlike most people, I’m not spending very much time checking in with my friends or searching for the latest products I can’t do without.  I’m watching the posts of families in Facebook groups that I belong to that are expressing profound grief, sadness and despair over losing a loved one to overdose or their own personal struggles with addiction.  I belong to those groups because my daughter Laura overdosed and died two years ago after struggling for 15 years battling heroin, opioids and meth. Addiction, driven in large part by the opioid crisis, is killing many of our young people at an alarming rate, decimating rural communities who lack access to treatment, costing our economy over a trillion a year, and ruining the lives of millions of families nationwide.  After processing my grief over the loss of my daughter, I decided to do something about it using the technology my company built over the last 8 years that has served countless businesses who sell services through independent sales agencies. In my business career, I’ve become aware of technologies that are transforming medical healthcare making it easy and affordable to monitor patients in their home, have telehealth doctor visits and transmit vitals to the cloud.  I decided that it was time to see if my company’s technology could also transform addiction and mental healthcare and change the trajectory of how we extend care, monitor people struggling with the disease, improve how people recover and start to reduce those rising death rates. The treatment industry has to find a way to make a shift and leverage technology the same way that medical healthcare has.  There are too many patients and not enough therapists to keep up with everyone that needs help, patients need better ways to access treatment remotely, the cost of treatment needs to go down, patients need to be connected to treatment longer and our understanding of the disease needs to change. So, this year I created InterAct LifeLine, a technology company that partners with treatment providers to accomplish all of those things.  Beyond that, we support the very successful collegiate recovery communities so they can automate themselves and serve the growing number of students that need their help.  In a little less than a year, we’ve been able to transform the technology we have used in the business marketplace and launch successful pilot programs in collegiate recovery and addiction treatment.  Here is what we are doing and why it works. InterAct keeps people connected longer.  The research is clear.  If you stay connected to a treatment program for at least six consecutive months, the chances are that relapse will go down.  Why is this critical?  The relapse rate after a 30-day stay in rehab is around 85% in the first year often in the first couple of months.  There are a lot of reasons for that alarming statistic, but the main one is that although addiction is a chronic disease, but we treat it like an acute one.  That means that once the patient looks good after rehab, we release them without a good way to have the longer-term treatment plan that they really need. So how does InterAct’s technology keep people connected?  Technology provides programs with portal technology that automates many of the processes that staff would be required to do to run an extended care program.  Let’s take a look at how that works. First, we help programs provide structure and accountability for their clients once they have left a residential setting.  When you go to treatment, your day is planned for you.   Your meals, therapy sessions, group meetings and even down time is scheduled, and frankly, there is a

Audio Journal The Elderly, the Forgotten Victims of Addiction  For 20 years, my mother in law had a great relationship with the man she fell in love with when she met him on a cruise at age 74.  But things changed dramatically a few years ago.  As he aged, he experienced a number of health issues that plague so many of the elderly.  His joints started to fail, his health declined, and he began to experience persistent pain.  Enter a less than competent doctor who managed his health issues with only one strategy, prescribe opioids. It didn’t take long for the 90-year old to become addicted, needing more and more of the medications to manage his pain so he could get through the day, despite the fact that those medications became less effective over time.  He was now addicted, and along with many other addicts, his loving and caring personality changed.  He became angry, irritable, blaming and abusive.  He engaged in the same drug-seeking behavior we would normally associate with a teenager. Ultimately the relationship ended when my mother in law had enough and now, she’s spending her final years alone. Is this story unique among the elderly?  Unfortunately, it is not. It is estimated that 17% of individuals over age 65 struggle with the disease of addiction.  Perhaps they’ve been struggling with addiction for years, but more often they have developed the disease after being over prescribed pain medication without a long-term plan to transition from pills to deal with the underlying causes of the pain. The fact is that addiction among the elderly goes unrecognized and undiagnosed robbing them of getting the help that they need.  This trend is made worse because family and medical professionals are not informed about the risks of addiction in the elderly, office visits to the doctor are often hurried and healthcare providers often overlook substance abuse among the elderly. Not recognizing addiction in the elderly is made worse because they often have medical or behavioral disorders that mimic symptoms of substance abuse, such as depression, diabetes, or dementia. There are certain times in an elderly person’s life that make them more vulnerable for developing addiction.  Here are a few. People retire.  You get up and go to work daily, have a purpose, and have structure in your life.  Then you retire, have lots of time on your hands, miss your work friends, and have a hard time adjusting.  Stress around making that change often motivates individuals to turn to alcohol to cope.   Not to mention that many of the elderly haven’t planned well enough so the loss of income and financial stress also becomes triggering events. The person has experienced the death of a family member, their pet or close friends.  As we age, the people that have been important in our lives start to die off.  One loses their spouse, their best friend, or their brothers or sisters.  Grief and depression set in and substances became a coping mechanism. As we get older, our sleep patterns change.  I remember that my dad when he aged, he began to wake up in the middle of the night, move to the couch and find it hard to go back to bed.  With changing sleep patterns, the elderly may seek relief in prescription pills. Being relocated or placed in a nursing home is often a catalyst for being overprescribed.  Audit the medications a nursing home patient takes, and you might be astounded at how many mood stabilizers, pain pills, sleeping pills and anti-anxiety drugs are prescribed so these individuals become more manageable.  The downside consequence is that they become addicted and face the consequences that come along with the disease. The people most at risk are those facing mental or physical declines.  My mother in law’s husband h

Audio Journal The Power of Gratitude You may be struck that the topic of this audio journal is gratitude, especially in the midst of the opioid crisis, the deaths of 70,000 people each year from overdose and the ravages of an addiction pandemic. After the loss of my daughter Laura to overdose 2 years ago gratitude has been the one thing that has helped me through what could have been an unbearable loss.  I am grateful for the time I had with her, for the lessons her disease taught me, for having the insight to use my knowledge of technology to create a new company to take on the opioid crisis and for my friends who have reached out, stayed in touch and have been supportive. I belong to Facebook groups focused on addiction and the loss of loved ones to the disease and one overarching theme is that grief has sucked people into the deepest and darkest of holes that they cannot seem to crawl out of.  Not only have they lost a loved one, but they’ve lost marriages, friends, jobs, and most tragically themselves.   If you are struggling with addiction yourself, trying to create a recovery plan, attempting to  help a family member who is trying to get clean and sober, or trying to cope with the loss of someone you loved from overdose, here are some reasons to consider a shift in focus to appreciate what you still have vs. what you have lost,  Here is how gratitude is helpful.  Being grateful makes you a happier person.  Research reveals that if you just spend 5 minutes a day writing down what you are grateful your feeling of long-term happiness will go up and sustain itself over time. Gratitude reduces your feelings of jealousy.  When my daughter starting using drugs at age 14 and spent most of her teenage and young adult years in and out of treatment, I found myself feeling jealous when I watched my friends shop for their daughters’ prom dresses, teaching them  to drive or contemplating where  they were  going to college.  However, I was blessed in having several young ladies in my life without their mothers that allowed me to do those things that I couldn’t do with Laura.  My gratitude at having those opportunities and experiences did wonders in making those jealous moment disappear. Gratitude makes us less self-centered.  When we face challenges, it’s natural to focus on how bad we feel and how those challenges affect us.  Being grateful by its very definition causes us to start thinking about others which can be very healing.  For me, I tell Laura’s story repeatedly in an effort to offer insight and help to other struggling families making me grateful that I had the opportunity to help. Gratitude helps you exert and regain more control over your life.  Addiction is a disease by its very nature that causes one to lose control over choices.  If you have an addicted family member, you understand how little control you have over getting them to stop using and stop taking risks.  Studies have found that gratitude increases people’s self-control, and it increases their ability to wait.   According to the researchers, gratitude is like a self-control buffer helping you be ready to resist temptation and do the right thing. An attitude of gratitude promotes health.  Dealing with addiction takes a toll on your health Research shows that grateful people are generally healthier, so it’s good to get all the help we can. So, knowing that gratitude makes you happier and healthier and has a range of other benefits, how in the face of overwhelming challenges can we start to develop gratitude in our lives?  The secret is to start small, and over time, gratitude becomes part of who you are. Start by focusing on what you have, rather than what you don’t have. When you struggle with addiction yourself, have a family memb

TranscriptHow My Company Transformed to Take On the Opioid Crisis If there ever was a charmed life, I was sure that I was living it.  I grew up in the perfect small town, raised by the picture-perfect parents.  My grades were outstanding, and I breezed through college, married the popular guy from my hometown and settled into having it all....2 beautiful kids, a loving husband and a technology career.   But sometimes life throws you curve balls, and it threw me some big ones that hit me right between the eyes and knocked me for a loop.  My handsome husband descended into alcoholism leading to a divorce when I turned 40.  Not understanding that we were dealing with addiction, a disease that runs in families, I was blindsided when my 14-year-old daughter began using drugs that took us on a 15-year journey of rehab, relapse and more treatment. I got educated through my experience with Laura, even opening a licensed therapeutic program for adolescents, but I was not prepared for the knock on the door that came at 4:00 AM when two very nervous and uncomfortable Roswell police officers let me know Laura had overdosed and had been “transported”.  For two agonizing days we watched her struggle on life support only to learn what I already had accepted that she had been without oxygen for too long and her brain had lost the ability to tell her body what to do...she was dying from the inside.    Although many friends and family held vigil with us at the hospital, one conversation stood out with a friend Laura had met in treatment who found her path to recovery after a serious heroin addiction.  She said something surprising as we passed time in the waiting room, “You know, Carolyn, you and I are now in a position of privilege.”  She went on to explain that we had a story to tell, an experience we had learned from, and the ability to change lives to prevent other families from experiencing the heartache of drug addiction and overdose.  And that was the moment that everything changed for me. Starting the Journey Being the businessperson that I am, I started researching, reading, writing and thinking.  Some of what I found shocked me.  Laura was not alone in being on the hamster wheel of treatment and relapse.  85% of those that go to rehab relapse in the first year, often in the first few months after treatment.  Laura was back in treatment over 10 times during the years.  People were treating her addiction as an acute disease – 30 days and you’re good to go.  But in reality, this disease is chronic, just like diabetes, and needs management over a lifetime.  And treatment providers did a great job stabilizing the patient but didn’t continue to work with or follow them, despite research that proved a significant reduction in relapse if they did.  The importance of connections After talking to a number of people in long-term recovery, in collegiate recovery communities and those running treatment programs, I realized that “connections” were a strong indicator of those that could make the move from rehab to long term recovery.  So, what do people suffering from addiction need to be connected to?   Let’s start with their treatment program.  My daughter checked in and almost always developed trusted relationships with the program, got help getting sober, and bared her soul to her recovery coaches and therapists.  Staying connected to those that helped her in the most critical time of need could have helped Laura craft a plan to recover.  30 days of rehab was not enough time and the structure, accountability and on-going education she needed was not there once she checked out.    Government research indicates that individuals who stay connected to their treatment program for at least 6 consecutive months following rehab have a

TranscriptEvery president since Bill Clinton has tried to tackle the question of how to improve healthcare in America, but the government can’t seem to find its footing with a solution that pleases everyone.  But quietly, private enterprise has been advancing the ball in medical care by introducing new insurance models, concierge medicine and technology solutions to make access to healthcare more streamlined and cost effective. These advances, driven by the private sector, are dropping the cost of accessing primary care, allowing people to get connected from the privacy of their home, and making it less likely that they will readmit after a stay in the hospital.  Unfortunately, the world of mental health and addictions treatment has not yet taken advantage of technology in the treatment process.  Addictions and mental health patients just don’t have access to the same digital experiences that streamline treatment, lower cost, and reduce the chances that they will readmit needing more acute care.  In this audio journal, we will take a look at the drivers in the mental health and addictions treatment world that make having a technology strategy essential and not optional as we go into 2020.  Let’s look at what is going on in the marketplace that make incorporating technology into treatment an important trend.  Number one is a severe shortage of treatment professionals. The shortage of mental health professionals in the United States is a huge and growing problem, especially as the country continues to move towards realizing the importance of mental health treatment. In the U.S., nearly 1 in 5 people have some sort of mental health condition, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. A 2016 report released by the Health Resources and Services Administration projected the supply of behavioral health workers to be approximately 250,000 people short of the projected demand by 2025.  The bottom line is there are just not enough people to treat those that need it.  Technology has the potential to make the professionals that we do have more efficient and better able to treat more clients using solutions like telehealth appointments. Unfortunately, the opioid crisis is driving demand The need for more effective and accessible substance abuse treatment has increased with the opioid addiction epidemic, specifically in more rural areas.  The numbers are alarming.  It is estimated that over 10 million people in the US currently abuse opioids with 130 people dying each day from overdose.  And the crisis is more acute in remote areas that have many residents who been come addicted and need to be treated.  Unfortunately, those areas are less attractive to treatment professionals.  However, connecting to patients remotely with telehealth appointments or other virtual options allow the professional to be anywhere and have a conversation with a patient that needs their help, even in harder to reach areas. Some patients just can’t get to a treatment professional. Patients who have been treated and are recovering at home, patients who are not mobile because they lack adequate transportation, have lost their license, and who live in rural, remote areas often can’t make it to their appointments. As long as a patient has a way to connect to the internet, telehealth enables them to access therapists, recovery coaches and support groups.  There is definitely a need to reduce stigma and increase privacy with some patients. While there’s a broader acceptance that addiction is a disease that requires treatment and other mental health disorders often come with the landscape, stigma is still a problem for some patients.  Often, the shame and stigma associated with the disease is more crippling than the disease itself.  Access to treatment through tele

TranscriptWe live in a world of urban myths.  You’ve heard the stories that we never really landed on the moon; it was all shot in a sound studio. Or what about the myth that we are storing aliens in Roswell, New Mexico after their space crafts cashed on Earth?  Myths seem to be part of our culture, but unfortunately, they exist in the way people view others who struggle with addiction. Let’s look at some of the more common myths and debunk them as we get more educated about the reality behind addiction. Myth #1:  Addiction is a choice. Nobody would make the choice to be addicted.  Perhaps the person made the choice to misuse substances, but certainly did not make a choice to become an addict. Addiction is a “complex disease of the brain and body that involves compulsive use of one or more substances despite serious health and social consequences”. For an addict, the “reward center” of the brain that produces a pleasurable feeling, is hijacked when the drug or substance is used. The brain naturally produces dopamine, a reward neurotransmitter, but the use of drugs or alcohol produces an excesses release of dopamine each time it used. This results in a “high”.  Once the high wears off, the individual’s brain craves more of the drug to obtain the same pleasurable rush it received the first time. To continuously achieve the high the drug will have to produce a similar dopamine release each time. This requires an ever-increasing amount of the target substance.  What may look like a choice to you is a brain-driven compulsion to the addict. Myth #2:  Willpower and choices are all that’s needed to get and stay sober. It is more than simply choosing to ignore the urge to use drugs, it’s a recognition that addiction is a CHRONIC and COMPLEX brain disease which is an important first step in eliminating this addiction myth.  Addiction creates neurological changes that alter one’s ability to think and act. And while the person may able to verbalize their desire to quit, the brain will convince them otherwise. Recovery from substance abuse requires a process that addresses the whole person. With some tools and support, recovering addicts will be able to better combat physical and psychological dependence on their drug use healthfully and what looks like bad choices will slowly disappear. Myth #3: Addiction only happens to certain kinds of people.Addiction can happen to anyone, no matter their upbringing, what neighborhood they live in, who their parents are, their personality type, or school performance. There are genetic, social, and psychological risk factors that put some people at greater risk—but it has nothing to do with a person’s character.  My normal middle-class family lost both a husband and a daughter to the disease.  Nobody would have ever guessed that we would be at risk.  It can happen to anyone, at anytime and anywhere. Myth #4: People with addiction are hopeless. Many people can and do keep the disease of addiction in remission, most often referred to as recovery. Once treatment begins, someone with a substance use disorder can manage the disease, just as they would any other chronic illness. With the right treatment, recovery is possible for everyone. Myth #5: Treatment for drug addiction should be a one-shot deal.  Like many other illnesses, drug addiction is a chronic disorder. To be sure, some people can quit drugs "cold turkey," or they can quit after receiving treatment just one time at a rehab facility. But most of those who abuse drugs require longer-term treatment and, in many instances, repeated treatments.  Addiction is not an acute disease you are cured from in 30 days.  It is like other diseases that require a lifetime of management to stay healthy. Myth #6: People have to hit rock

Years ago, my 15-year old daughter Laura became a danger to herself as her drug use escalated out of control. I got professional advice, enrolled her in a wilderness therapy program, followed by a long-term commitment to a therapeutic boarding school. Right after enrollment in the school, 20 families gather for our orientation. It took us 4 hours to go around the room, introduce ourselves and share why are child had enrolled. The room was full of emotion. We were all heartbroken that we had failed to keep our child safe, that they were using drugs, and had to be stabilized in wilderness. As I thought about how we could have been more prepared and less traumatized, it became clear that none of us had received any family support or guidance during the wilderness programs. We were totally unprepared emotionally to leave our child in the hands of others to finish out their high school experience. That insight led me to create Phoenix Outdoor, a licensed adolescent wilderness program in North Carolina. The first order of business was to create a family support program that soon became the gold standard in the industry and later incorporated into most wilderness therapy programs. I’d like to share why family programs are critical when it comes to supporting a loved one who is either in treatment or managing their recovery process.

September was National Recovery Month, created by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration otherwise known as SAMHSA. Held every September the focus is to educate people that substance use treatment and mental health services can enable those with mental and substance use disorders to live healthy and rewarding lives. I’d like to dig into addiction and the concept of recovery in the way we treat people that are struggling with the disease. The first thing we need to define is the type of disease that addiction represents. When a person develops the disease, the symptoms are often acute, severe and obvious. People experience a loss of control over choices, cravings and compulsive using, and physical withdrawal if they don’t maintain substance use. There are many other conditions that you would recognize that also have acute symptoms. You pass out from diabetes, can’t breathe during an asthma attack, or experience chest pains during a heart attack. The symptoms appear rapidly but can be treated if caught in time averting a tragic outcome. However, diabetes, asthma and heart disease don’t just go away after a stay in the hospital. They are chronic conditions that stay with you and require on-going treatment and maintenance to keep them in check. In other words, people with those diseases can live healthy and productive lives as long as they take steps to manage their disease, even if the condition is always present.