Hopestream: Parenting Kids Through Addiction & Mental Health

ABOUT THE EPISODE: After years of producing feature films and TV shows about family life like Cinderella Story, Perfect Man, Lizzy McGuire, and many others, Mark Rosman was forced to face the reality of problems in his own family. Mark and his wife spent some time in denial about their daughter's substance use. Even after two trips to the emergency room, they decided against professional advi...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: When Dr. Jarrell Myers took his first job out of grad school, he loved working with children suffering from anxiety disorders, as well as their families. It was a calling he’d already been pursuing for years. But there was a big problem: many kids who needed needed help for their anxiety couldn’t become patients in his program because they were using substances.   While this mad...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: Christopher O’Reilly says it’s a mistake to think that we can just understand our way out of trauma. But he claims that healing—once we understand how to receive it—can bring intimacy and connection with other human beings in a way we might never know without those challenges. After surviving his own struggles with substance use, Christopher should know. When he discovered the p...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: Upon returning from vacation, I started to notice a theme in our community and my friend groups - there are a lot of exhausted, brain-fried parents who are looking for an escape from the day-to-day strain of having a child who misuses or is addicted to substances. From spouse and partner relationships to our kids themselves, we sometimes need time to tap out and escape. This epi...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: We all have more going on in our lives than just kids who are misusing substances. But Leah is currently facing an overload of grief and loss including caring for her father-in-law through in-home hospice, the loss of her first grandchild as a newborn, and now caring in-home for her mother and sister-in-law, both of whom are suffering from alzheimers and dementia. Her oldest son...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: When AJ Diaz left his sober living home after a year-long stay, he got the same thing everyone else did - a sheet of paper that essentially said, "Here is your relapse prevention plan. We wish you the best."  AJ felt in his gut this was insufficient to support people in early recovery, and after years of working in the field, he now knows he was right.   AJ says stayin...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: Ken Guidroz's son hit a Los Angeles bicyclist while high on heroin, killing the man before his body hit the ground. Ken's son fled the scene but turned himself in less than 24 hours later. What followed this tragic accident was a long period of pain and loss not only for the widow of the deceased but for Ken's entire family, as his son was sentenced to years in pr...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: Over 35 years of reporting on the terrible consequences of both drugs and the war on drugs, Pulitzer Prize finalist Paul Solotaroff developed deep contacts with DEA, Homeland Security, and other branches of law enforcement across the country.  Paul had already seen the deadly wave of fentanyl-spiked heroin in 2013-2014, so when a top official at the DOJ called him last year soun...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: Lara Okoloko wants parents to understand something important: The majority of treatment options were designed for older adults with severe substance use disorders. She says we shouldn’t be surprised that young people with mild to moderate disorders are not interested in identifying with a permanent label of “addict” or “alcoholic” and swearing lifelong abstinence. The standardiz...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: If you’re a loyal podcast listener, or just new to our space, you might be curious about what the Hopestream Community membership is all about, and if it would be helpful for you.  Because we get questions about this all the time, Hopestream co-founder, Cathy Cioth and I decided to dedicate an episode to answering them. We cover questions like, is my kid bad enough (or too bad)...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: "Codependent" is one of the many words that has moved from the mental health field into casual, daily conversation. Unfortunately, its broad use has left most of us without a grounded understanding of what codependency really is, how it can affect our lives, and what to do about it.   Mary is the Faculty and Program Coordinator at San Jose City College Alcohol & Dr...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: When Heather discovered that some significant changes were happening in her daughter's residential program, she began to worry the family was not receiving what they were promised. After an unproductive discussion with the program director, Heather made the difficult choice of bringing her daughter home early. Now what? When we spoke for this coaching episode, Heather'...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: In this episode, we delve into the complex relationship between eating disorders and substance use and how the principles of CRAFT and The Invitation to Change can apply to both.  Alice Baker, a Stream community parent who is also a licensed professional counselor, dietician and certified eating disorder specialist, guides us through these three issues.  In her high school days,...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: After 14 treatment centers, 10 jails in six different states, and solitary confinement at Rikers Island prison, Patrick Babcock is lucky to be alive.   His parents were barely adults themselves when he was born, dealing with their own alcoholism, physical abuse, and abandonment issues. Patrick’s own substance use began early, sneaking his father's Heinekens at age 7 and smo...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: Roy Duprez began drinking whatever alcohol he could get his hands on at the incredibly young age of 7.  He managed to stay sober for two of his high school years, but then returned to using alcohol and drugs for 12 years more years. Roy sees lots of young men with trauma-related substance misuse come through his outdoor adventure recovery program, but for him, drinking was part...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: It's Mother's Day week, 2024. I'm personally counting my blessings because my kids are all healthy and our family is in a positive and safe place. It wasn't always this way. There were Mother's Days when I wanted to crawl even deeper under the covers and not show my face. There were Mother's Days when I didn't know where my oldest son was.  Tod...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: Jane isn't exactly sure at what age her older son began using substances regularly, but the degree of misuse seemed to come in waves. He stayed in therapy until he left for college - which is just when her younger son began having the same issues. He cycled through four high schools, attended a wilderness program, and eventually enrolled in the therapeutic boarding school w...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: It probably doesn’t surprise you that the majority of Hopestream Community members are moms. About 70% of therapists are women, as well, and women are significantly more likely than men to seek out their services. Last year, we launched The Woods, our private community for dads, stepdads, and male co-parents. And as much as we would love to help more dads who have kids strugglin...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: The behavioral symptoms of young people caught up in substance misuse can be disheartening: open hostility, lying, cheating, stealing from family, and others. These symptoms can be hard to view as a result of the substances, and parents may instead blame their child for being “bad.”  My guest today, Dr. Jennifer Fernandez, is a proponent of a compassionate model that sounds more...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: Patrick Balsley's substance use began with alcohol in middle school and ended 11 years later with heroin- and cocaine-induced psychosis.  But instead of talking to Patrick about who he used to be, today I'm talking to him about the incredible things he's been doing with his life since then and what he's learned while helping so many other families in their pu...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: Because I sit at a vantage point of seeing many parents working to understand and implement the Invitation To Change Approach (ITC) with their child who struggles with substance misuse, I see things others don't. I hear the frustrations and the celebrations, and I know that while an approach like the ITC is very powerful and effective, it isn't a magic wand. Sometimes,...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: When Dr. Nzinga Harrison was recently approached by her son, a high school senior, about going to his first party, she consented. He was unsurprised by her followup question: “Do you think there will be drugs there?” As an addiction psychiatrist and M.D. specializing in addiction medicine, Dr. Harrison had been talking with him about substances since he was very young, so the qu...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: When Dr. Robert Schwebel was approached by a local treatment agency about developing a drug program for adolescents, he was not interested. He decided to meet with the agency about the proposal, but also to share hard truths that he thought would encourage them to find someone else: Don't promise drug free kids overnight. Help them learn to make good decisions rather than t...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: Years before his gender transition, Jordan Held still remembers the day he asked his employer if he could wear the same clothing as the male faculty. The reply: "We're not ready for that yet." Whether or not your young person is questioning their sexual identity, gender, pronouns or any other aspect of themselves, you’ll get so much from this important conversatio...

ABOUT THE EPISODE: If you could stand outside your own life, watching your family relationships play out like a movie, what patterns of behavior might you notice about yourself?  If you could see those patterns now , wouldn’t it be much easier to improve them each day?  In this episode, we try to understand ourselves and our family dynamics more deeply through the lens of attachment theory. If you...