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 staying sober within the four walls of treatment isn’t all that hard. Individuals receive hot meals, supportive staff, structure and routine, and socialization with others facing the same challenges. It's when people - especially young people - leave treatment that the world hits them like a ton of bricks. They come face to face with relationships and complications that can disregulate everything they've been practicing, and without the buffer of substances to help them cope.

Seeing a desperate need for continuing outpatient care, AJ and his business partner created a supportive early-recovery program called Accountable. In this episode, AJ and I discuss the most common issues families face with a young person in early recovery (many will sound very familiar), why Accountable removes the responsibility of drug testing from parents and spouses, and why fathers often find it difficult to participate in approaches like CRAFT.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Accountable website and phone: 646-450-7641
• Read: Dear Opiates: A True Story Of How A “Harmless” Addiction Took Over My Life

This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Learn about The Woods, our private online community for dads
Find us on Instagram: @hopestreamcommunity
Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol

Hopestream Community is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and an Amazon Associate. We may make a small commission if you purchase from our links.

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 prison. Ken had given much of his life to God, making sacrifices to serve nearly a decade as leader of congregations and raise his three sons in the best way he knew how. With an innocent man dead, one son in prison, and the other two making bad decisions, where was God now?

In this episode, Ken and I discuss how a long period of brokenness and loss began to transform into forgiveness and healing, culminating in his memoir, Letters to My Son in Prison: How a father and son found forgiveness for an unforgivable crime. In this conversation, we discuss the art of blending quiet intuition with the voice of God, how Ken pulled through a crisis of both faith and confidence and a "near-hallucinogenic" experience of catharsis in his darkest hour.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Ken’s website
• Letters to My Son In Prison - Ken’s Book
• Subscribe to Ken’s Substack

This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Learn about The Woods, our private online community for dads
Find us on Instagram: @hopestreamcommunity
Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol

Hopestream Community is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and an Amazon Associate. We may make a small commission if you purchase from our links.

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 sounding more desperate than ever before, he knew there was a serious crisis.

Paul was informed that 5-10 children were dying every day from a new scourge: fake pharmaceuticals like Adderall and Oxycontin made from fentanyl. Even more disturbing, he discovered that kids no longer even have to know a dealer to obtain the pills. In his lengthy new article in Rolling Stone, Paul details how Snapchat - a platform designed for its content to disappear - has been helping dealers find kids who might otherwise have never bought illegal drugs.

In this episode, he shares the terrifying truth about the latest fentanyl crisis, how social media companies have facilitated underage drug use, and the upcoming legal battles to hold them accountable.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Rolling Stones article
• Social Media Victim’s Law Center
• Kids Online Safety Act

This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Learn about The Woods, our private online community for dads
Find us on Instagram: @hopestreamcommunity
Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol

Hopestream Community is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and an Amazon Associate. We may make a small commission if you purchase from our links.

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 standardization of treatment for older adults has also led parents to believe that anyone with a substance use disorder is destined for jail, institutions and death unless they find sobriety. Lara says this just isn’t true for kids and young adults.

As a 15-year practitioner and teacher of the CRAFT approach, Lara should know. She has served as a licensed clinical social worker for kids who are at-risk, in foster care, and drug-dependent, and now works with parents and families as well.

In this episode, we discuss in more detail why teens can be resistant to treatment, how the TV show “Intervention” changed our entire concept of treatment, the enduring myth that most kids are using substances, and why, despite its proven track record, CRAFT still isn’t the standard approach recommended and used for helping a loved one.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Lara’s website
• List of CRAFT-trained therapists in WA State
• WA State healthy use survey

Find a CRAFT-trained provider or organization at the Helping Families Help website

This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Learn about The Woods, our private online community for dads
Find us on Instagram: @hopestreamcommunity
Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol

Hopestream Community is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and an Amazon Associate. We may make a small commission if you purchase from our links.

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) for this community? What if my kid is already in treatment and I have great support there? What if I’m a mental health professional or a prominent member of my community and I don’t want people to know I’m there for help? Tune in to find out answers to these questions and more.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Hopestream Community membership info
• Johnny’s Ambassadors
• Laura Stack on Hopestream
• Krissy Pozatek website
• The Parallel Process book
• The Stream’s Restoration Mom Retreat Webpage

This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Learn about The Woods, our private online community for dads
Find us on Instagram: @hopestreamcommunity
Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol

Hopestream Community is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and an Amazon Associate. We may make a small commission if you purchase from our links.

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 & Drug Studies Program, the Co-Founder and Clinical Director of Recovery Connections Treatment Services, and far too many other programs to list here. Her expertise on attachment and codependency led her to a simple principle: people develop a secure attachment to substances to self-soothe when key adults can’t see them or respond to their needs appropriately.

After decades of clinical work and academic instruction, Dr. Cook is uniquely qualified to explain the connection between codependency and substance misuse. In this episode, we'll cover the three components of codependency - development, behaviors, and physiological consequences - how they’re connected to substance use and our ability (or inability) to set appropriate boundaries, and the crucial concept of "lifting the bottom up" for people struggling with substance use disorders.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Afraid to Let Go: For Parents of Adult Addicts and Alcoholics
• Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find – and Keep – Love
• Awakening Hope: A Developmental, Behavioral, Biological Approach to Codependency Treatment
• Mary’s email: marycook@connectionscounselingassociates.com
• Mary’s YouTube Channel

This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Learn about The Woods, our private online community for dads
Find us on Instagram: @hopestreamcommunity
Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol

Hopestream Community is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and an Amazon Associate. We may make a small commission if you purchase from our links.

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's daughter had been home for just one week after spending seven months in residential treatment. There are new boundaries to determine - from big issues like driving and employment to simple matters like cleaning up messes in the house.

In this session, Heather and I discuss how to assist her daughter in avoiding a return to THC use, while also preventing her own relapse into old, unhealthy patterns of communication.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Partnership to End Addiction

This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Learn about The Woods, our private online community for dads
Find us on Instagram: @hopestreamcommunity
Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol

Hopestream Community is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and an Amazon Associate. We may make a small commission if you purchase from our links.

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, Alice Baker was drawn to the world of competitive dance. The importance of body image in the sport sparked an eating disorder that would linger until she began learning about nutrition in her freshman year of college. Her new understanding of our body’s relationship to food would set her on a lifelong study of dietetics, eating disorders, and their effects on the lives of young people.

Alice joined our Hopestream Community in 2022 when her son developed a substance use disorder, compulsively using marijuana and struggled in school. It was here that she began to realize how the principles of The Invitation to Change approach could also be employed in her field.

In this episode, we discuss the connections between substance use and eating habits, the serious dangers of “drunkorexia” and other combinations of the two, how parents can identify warning signs, and what we can change within ourselves to help our kids in their eating disorder recovery.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

When Your Teen Has An Eating Disorder (Mulheim)
How to Nourish Your Child Through an Eating Disorder: A Simple, Plate-by-Plate Approach® to Rebuilding a Healthy Relationship with Food

This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Learn about The Woods, our private online community for dads
Find us on Instagram: @hopestreamcommunity
Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol

Hopestream Community is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and an Amazon Associate. We may make a small commission if you purchase from our links.