Hopestream: Parenting Kids Through Addiction & Mental Health

ABOUT THE EPISODE: It's a really common question parents have, "my son/daughter just went to treatment...now what?" If this is a place you find yourself, this episode will give you some assurance, guidance and thoughts about what to do during this time of change. There can be so many mixed emotions from relief to sadness and even guilt...whether it's the first time your child i...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: If your son graduated from high school, was a nationally ranked tennis player, went to West Point, became an Army Ranger, served in Afghanistan, and went to law school, you might think all was good. But for Tripp Johnson, who achieved all of these markers of external success, life wasn't all good.  Tripp’s story takes us from sourcing drugs off the Dark Web to law school, a...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: In honor of September being National Recovery Month, I'm sharing an episode all about the confusing topic of "recovery." For parents in particular this can be a difficult concept if our kids have a different idea than us of what recovery means. We'll look at the Recovery Research Institute's definition of the term, some "recovery" scenarios tha...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: When Virginia Holleman's son finally entered in-patient treatment for his substance use, she thought things would get easier, especially since her company-sponsored insurance covered his treatment. Or so she thought. The nightmare Virginia went through with her insurance company and their denial of her son's treatment isn't unique, but what is unique is the fact t...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: Grief is right up there with politics, sex & religion as "things not to talk about" for a lot of people. And grief doesn't only apply to the impact of someone dying, it's much broader and impacts every single one of us...so why is it so taboo in our culture? Leslie Barber knows grief all too well after suddenly losing her husband to cancer, and has shifte...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: If you're working on being a little more self-compassionate and practicing self-care, there may be times when you ask yourself, "am I just being lazy?" You might also find there are times when your so-called self-compassion might feel more like self-sabotage. SO confusing. You end up feeling guilty for not feeling guilty, or vice versa. This episode will break dow...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: I had the immense honor of speaking with Mark Pepper, a beautiful human who has lived the nightmare of long-term addiction and now enjoys a healthy, happy,  substance-free life. Not only does Mark lead an incredible, full life, but he also helps others re-build theirs as they recover from substance use and addiction. Parents of adult children who are living in active addiction a...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: To say that high school and college students today are under massive pressure to "succeed" would be an understatement and no one knows more about why that's true than Denise Pope, Ph. D., senior lecturer for Stanford's Graduate School of Education and co-founder of the non-profit, Challenge Success . After watching the documentary, " Breaking Points &quo...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: This episode explores the sometimes uncomfortable topic of parents' drinking when they have a son or daughter struggling with substances, and provides non-judgmental information and ideas on how to make a change if you decide it's something you want to try. After exploring this topic personally during COVID, I decided to cut alcohol from my diet. In this episode, I sha...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: If you've found yourself walking on eggshells because the conversations you need to have with your son or daughter usually end up in a defensive showdown or a series of negotiations and mind-tricks, this is your episode. We'll cover a ninja-level parenting tool you can use to approach your son or daughter in a way that lowers their defenses, puts you in the driver&apos...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: It's always enlightening to get perspective from someone who works with young people day in and day out around mental health and substance use challenges, especially now. In our (mostly) post-COVID world, a time when kids have an intense fear of failure and in the era of widespread fentanyl poisoning, we have to ask, are the kids OK? After his massively popular Hopestream e...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: This is a lighter-than-usual episode to get you thinking about ways you can apply radical self-care and take control of events, people and things that cause friction in your life.  If you have a child who's misusing substances, you probably spend too little time on yourself and have more than enough friction, so now's the time to change all that. In my coaching with pa...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: The siblings. What's happening to our other kids when we have one struggling with lifestyle choices, substance use, or mental health issues? How are they being impacted? What do they know? What should they know, and when ? It's a real struggle for parents to know, and that's probably why it's one of the most common requests I get for podcast topics. I figured...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: Wes Robins and Zac Sweat are insanely passionate about helping young people heal and have opened a therapeutic youth center outside of Atlanta, GA to do just that. Eternal Strength Therapeutic Youth Center is an outpatient program - without a program - where each client is met with a tailor-made set of activities, therapies, and healing methods that work best for them and their...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: I'm excited to share this episode of The Work IN podcast where I was fortunate enough to have a conversation with Ericka Thomas, founder of Elemental Kinetics and talk about my experiences and relationship with stress, trauma, food, pain, Al-Anon, family, triggers, exercise and more! Ericka's podcast, The Work IN explores natural ways out of stress, trauma and tension...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: I believe it's important to humanize the faceless statistics you see in the news about those struggling with substance use and addiction - the people are real, the families are real, and each has its own distinct story. The impact is massive and is made up of millions of individual tragedies.  I'm sharing this special project with you, it's a raw collection of wri...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: If you watch your child do harmful things and they don't see them as a problem, they waffle with ambivalence about what they're doing, start and stop behaviors over and over and also struggle with relapse, this is your episode. The Stages of Change model is one that's well known and used in the addiction treatment world but one I didn't learn about until late...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: Dee-Dee Stout is a force to be reckoned with in the world of substance use treatment and specifically in the area of harm reduction. She’s in long-term recovery herself and is an author, coach, speaker, and professor.  In this episode, Dee-Dee shares much knowledge and wisdom from her work with families and organizations related to CRAFT, motivational interviewing and harm reduc...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: There's no doubt that life can feel very unfair when your days and nights become consumed with your child's substance use issues, whether they're just experimenting or in active addiction. We wonder what it would be like to not have a large portion of our hearts and heads filled with worry, doubt, concern and resentment.  We ask why this is happening to us, why we...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: Rebekah Tayebi has been working with families in various therapeutic settings for 18 years. She has valuable insights for parents when they have a child who needs help with mental health issues or substance use. An important one is that your child isn't and shouldn't be singularly identified as the "patient" or client. This episode provides you with considera...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: You may not realize how much trauma your body is holding onto from the stress, anxiety, and fear you experience if your son or daughter is misusing substances or having mental health challenges. Telltale signals of too much stress and trauma include depression, anxiety, gut health challenges, appetite change, and poor sleep. This episode takes a deep dive into what's happen...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: Parents have so many questions when their teen or young adult kids are starting to veer off the path of normal, healthy growth and development. They may suspect substance use, emotional issues, trauma, or may have no idea why their child is struggling. It's confusing, and when you're so closely intertwined emotionally and physically with your son or daughter, it's...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: It can be really hard to tell friends, family members, and co-workers about your situation if you have a child who's misusing substances - first, you're too exhausted to talk about it, also, they probably won't really understand the nuances and depth of the confusion, fear, and helplessness you feel. Knowing this is a difficult conversation to have, I created this...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: Sometimes as parents we get so laser-focused on our kids and their problems that we forget we might benefit from some help of our own. There are often family dynamics that need to be dealt with while a child is struggling with substance use, or while they're in treatment. We need to understand our own traumas, areas of enmeshment, ways we might be contributing to the issues...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: I hear it all the time as I work with parents of kids who are struggling with substance use or emotional and behavioral issues, "I'm so overwhelmed and exhausted!" They're also living with extreme fear, especially when substance use is the issue. In this solo episode, I share four counterintuitive things that can help when you get to the point where you don&a...