Teen Drug Crisis Explained with Dr. Katie Held & John Lieberman: Fentanyl, Vaping & Recovery

It is so helpful when parents get their kids into therapy when they ask for help because then they're teaching their kids right? They're teaching the kids it's okay to ask for help. This is how responsible adults will live your stressor. Yes, I don't have all the answers. Let's get somebody involved here to help us. If someone has a problem with substance use disorder, please call one call placement. That's 888-831-1581 and if we can't help you, we'll make a referral to someone who can. One call placement is affiliated with Carrera Treatment Wellness and Spa and One Method Treatment Centers. We're living through the deadliest drug crisis in American history and it's not just adults. It's kids. My guests today are John Lieberman and Katie Held, a visions team center where every single day they see what's really happening with adolescents. In their system, parents terrified at home and kids making choices that can mean life or death. Today we're pulling back the curtain on what our teenagers are facing and what it takes to save them. John, Katie, thanks for coming. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, thanks for having us. That's nice. It's very sweet. All right, let's dive right in. Shall we? What substances are teenagers walking into treatment with most often today? Katie. I would say anything and everything we're seeing today definitely as you stated, unknowingly they're ingesting. Not all of them. Correct. Some of them swear up and down that they're not using. They test positive. Correct. Unknowingly. A lot of marijuana use escalating over the last six years, I would say. Nicotine almost all of them. A lot of alcohol, cocaine use. We see a lot of drug addiction, substance use. It's escalating, it's increasing with legalization, with just more access. I think with glamourization of drug use, we're seeing a lot of increase. You know, I didn't tell the viewers that you're the clinical director there. Chief clinical officer. Yes. Pretty chief clinical. Okay. And what do you do there, buddy? I'm the, I'm a CEO. Okay. So, and I get to see things from, you know, a bird's eye view, and I still take calls from parents when they're in crisis. And it is really terrifying. What's going on out there? I mean, Katie said marijuana, but THC is probably causing the initial worst impact we're seeing with kids. How so? Well, because THC is so powerful in today's day and age, because it's been hybrid and because of extracts and things like that, that we see kids as early as 13 years old, having psychosis as a result of the DC. Okay. That's what I want to talk about. Because I've smoked a lot of pot my day. Okay. And I didn't smoke a little bit of pot. Like I'm smoking an ounce of pot every day when I was smoking it. Okay. I'm now again, wasn't as strong as today. Yeah. Okay. But man, I smoked so much pot from morning till night. And I smoked for at least a decade and a half. I smoked no from 12 to let's call it 30. Okay. So that's almost two decades. Like a fiend. Okay. And I never had psychosis. Okay. What what is this? Not everybody has psychosis. Not everybody reacts the same way. But if I'm going to say because I did it, it doesn't make me what so we should be asking. No, I understand that it's anecdotal. I get it. Okay. But you know, I've run a treatment center too for you know, a long time. And some people think I'm pretty good at this. And I'm telling you, I've never seen it. So what is it? What is what it is? Is this really high potency? 50% THC 90% THC that's been extracted and you have 12 13 year olds who have this in a vape pan that they're using during school when they get up in the morning before they go bed at night. I would venture to say that what THC is today is street drugs. It's it's not being we don't know how much of THC is. No, it's not hold on a second. Hold on a second. If you're buying marijuana from a dispensary, it's not going to be laced with it's not. But kids aren't buying it from a dispensary. Where are they buying it? They're buying it from their friends. They're buying it on TikTok. They're buying it on Instagram. They're buying it on that sport that they're going to die. Because if you're buying anything on the street, it's got it's got to care what it is or an online from the seat. And then they say, well, I got this pill too. I could bring you so that because if you're a drug dealer, right, then your job is to sell more and these kids will try anything and we have kids whose parents buy them the test kits to say, if you get something fell, don't take it. So they literally have that. So then the kids test for the p****t pill. They'll say, I'm going to say that one till later till I really want to get high. They don't see it as a risk because kids, their brains are wrapped up in, I'm going to take a risk, right? Also, there are frontal cortex isn't fully developed and you mix that with feeling indestructible and that's a bad combination. I mean, I can't believe I'm alive. Yeah. And the perfect word is they with kids, they feel indestructible. That's right. Right. So then when we come to them with logic, like don't do this, they're like, my friend did it. I did it. My friend didn't. They still got an A in school. So it must not be a problem. You guys are a bunch of liars. Right. No, I get it. I get it. But how often are you seeing p****t in toxicology screens on admission? Like what percentage? I know what my percentage is. Maybe 10%. Yeah. 10% to 15%. Okay, we're about 40%. So it climbs without a lessons as they find a new, so here's the thing. They, you know, like kids, they start with something, they usually have their first drink between 10 and a half to 12 years old. Then they try pod, then they try this and then they find something that works, you know, kind of for let's say they're, they have anxiety. What kid in junior high school doesn't have some anxiety? All of them. So it's a setup. It's a setup for that frontal cortex to say this works. This works because the brains just trying to figure out how to get through life. Have you had any cases yet where kids showed up positive for trink, Zyla's in? No. No. Okay, well, that's that's common. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, you know what that is, right? We do. Okay. It's the flesh eating drug. Okay. All right. Yeah. It's a zombie flesh eating drug coming to a suburb near you. All right. What trends are you seeing with vaping, counterfeit pills, and street zanx? And really, press the perks. I mean, I think vaping is just a complete epidemic for our kids. You know, it's starting. I mean, in general, I think our kids are coming in earlier and earlier. Okay, but hold on a second. That's smoking every bad kid smoked, every rebel rebellious kid in high school smoked when I was a kid. Sure. Okay. The vapes are more dangerous because of the popcorn lung. And every kid smoked cigarettes, but they didn't smoke cigarettes in their room, you know, 12 hours a day, right? Right. That's true. Yeah. That's true to. And if you get, and I've heard, and I've heard this from a talk by the Florida attorney general, and she said that you're getting vape, you're getting in vapes now. Sure. So that's a cross-over word we're talking about. They all, so you have our kids virtually are all vaping. Yeah. So then all it takes is a different cartridge, a different thing to have, have whatever chemical you anything and you're doing that on the street. Yeah. You're going to get that thing on the street. Well, I was talking to a kid one day and he was out for a walk with his counselor and he found what they call a cart, a cartridge for his for a vape, right? He found one on the ground, snuck it in his pocket to bring it. I said, what are you doing? What's going on there that you're in a treatment center? You see a cart on the ground and you pick it up and put it in your pocket. He said, and I quote, because any day you find a cart a good day. In his mind, he's just like, that's just since bullshit that one of his friends said that thought was cool and just parroted it to you. He doesn't even know. But I mean, there's so much danger attached to the idea of just getting a vape. I have so many teen girls starting as young as 13, right? Like buying vapes from drug dealers, vape dealers, getting into the back of a car with an older man drug dealer. I had one who got sexually assaulted, one who got taken around the corner, got away, but was almost sexually assaulted, right? So it's not just about the dangers of the substance. You know any of that? Have you guys, this is really critical. I'm getting involved in this now. The sex trafficking. You guys have experience with that. Tell me about it. I mean, we've had, I think, I can think just on off the top of my head about five teenage girls who we've had and just thinking just off the top of my head, right? Who got involved and were trafficked. And these are all girls under 18. Yeah. And families that they're not, they're coming from quote unquote, good neighborhood. Right. Like high resource families. High resource families. Well, of course, they're all high resource families when you are concerned. We see a higher number in the programs like our Arrow House program. It's higher numbers where kids just have found it's, it becomes their avenue for more free access to drugs. And I think this is just the way it is. This is just the way it is, which is sad. And they'll say that. They'll say when we say to them, so you, you A-Wald, you found some guys, you said that you were sexually involved with them. We need to make a report. And the girl says, no, that's what you do if you want to get drugs. No, that's what you do. And she's 15 years old. Her friend that went with her overdosed in the Carl's Jr bathroom and they had to break down the door. So, and this happened within just about 24 hours of being not having any drug. I can't, I cannot imagine what a parent goes through when his truck, when his truck, when his truck, and we work with the families like around this, right? I mean, it is devastating. So, I have, when I'm treating somebody, and I've got someone who's a young adult, the parents are out of their minds. Yeah. Okay. I can only imagine how much worse it is for you guys. A lot of times for us, that the person who calls when you pick up the phone the first time with a parent, it's a lot of times their first time they've reached out for help. Depend in their voice, the frustration, the mistrust because we live in a world of mistrust so how they know they could trust us or anybody for that matter. Well, let me just say that, um, admissions is the only place that I would ever refer. And you guys aren't paying me for this. I don't even have sponsors. You imagine sponsored by, yeah. No thanks. Yeah. Okay. Um, and we get called all the time for that stuff. Just said no every time. If Narcan calls, we'll do Narcan. I think the actual calls will do Vivitrol. Okay. And parents come in with, well, what if it's not just drugs? And my answer is it's never just drugs. The kids are dealing with their social issues, emotional issues, some kids who have, you see, we find kids with anxiety disorders and things, or just anxiety underneath the surface that is just ramped up because if I went into a room, if you were there and I asked 100 adults, how many of you smoked pot, however many and, you know, raised 75 75% and then I asked those same parents, how many of you quit smoking pot because you got kind of paranoid. It's about half. Yeah. Right. It's about half the number. So you're a little different. Didn't do the same thing for you, but paranoia is a symptom. Oh, no, no, no, no, right. It did happen to me. Okay. It's just I'd rather push through that. Okay. And not have to deal with the life I was dealing with. Right. And feel accepted for the first time, member. And I think from, from my point of view, I'm passionate about this. I got sober at 17. Right. So 1985. And how long have you been a rabbi? Sorry. Sorry. That's all right. I mean, but I've been working in the field. Oh, when I had 103 days sober, so I got hired to work in an adolescent program at 103 days sober. So for 40 years, kids, kids, kids, kids, right. You know, and families and working to get work. Good. That's why you guys are here because this is why I came back. I came back because, you know, you know, I think this is insane. I felt like if I didn't do this podcast, then I was going to be punished. We got a screen it from the screen it from the rooftops and podcasts is screaming it from the rooftops today. And I got lucky. You know, we just passed 100,000 subscribers. So thank you. Keep the messages coming out of the case. I answer all of them. Okay. The stupid ones I have given an answer. Okay. But anytime you're in crisis, I answer. Okay. And I'm always available for that. All right. Let's do this. How many of your alumni have died of f***ing overdoses? Get the CEO hat. No, no, no, no. Okay. It happens every day. It absolutely happens. And, you know, we get the call from a parent. That's right. Who says, you know, Johnny just died or and kids will also use f***ing to support a suicide. Right. They'll find they'll find the drugs to do that. I don't have an exact number, but we get calls. It's probably about twice a year that we get the call. How many times this used to happen to me all the time where people make an appointment? To come into treatment, like they'll schedule it on three weeks out. And then they died during those three weeks. Does that ever happen to you? We've had kids who've the answers probably, those parents may not ever call us, but we absolutely have the cases where a parent says, let's plan this in three weeks. They call me three days later and they say they're on a 5150 hold because they either had an overdose or they had tried to f*** themselves or we've had some, they ran away, can't find them. Has anyone ever f*** themselves in visions? No. Has anyone ever died in visions? No. Do you know how rare that is? Yes. Yes. It takes a lot of supervision, a lot of time. You got to have enough staff. You have that protocols and look, something could still happen. It only takes a few minutes if somebody really is serious. Oh yeah. So no, we're lucky. We're not cocky. No, we're yeah. It's the fear and terror because we tell parents we're here to take care of your child. And if something got, oh my god. Yeah. Right. It's like too much, right? Okay. Move on. Okay. All right. What's the scariest story you've seen firsthand about the dangers of today's street drugs? Either one of you. Well, this, this goes to the family, how the families hurt and angst and terror and not understanding how serious this is. So we had a dad, he, he wrote us a letter and he said, thank God you were there for me. They called from the hospital while their son was in convulsions from f**king Alendenzodasapines, which were mixed together. He was frothing at the mouth, shook out of the gurney. This dad's telling us the whole story. And he said, thank God you were there for me. We were able to get him into treatment because you guys answered. So right from the hospital, a direct transfer to the center. It's a week later when he writes this and he says to me, well, he writes in there, we've really got to get his school on track. And the poor dad doesn't know what to hold on to because the pain of losing his son, he's not, his, his show is so great. So then he did with Lex said, and now he's talking about school. Yes. Yeah. And I want to, and I want to be sensitive. You don't want to say, you don't just look at them and say, dude, your kid just almost died. I mean, sometimes, yes, we know. Sometimes it's absolutely that. Yeah. Oh, I make them say it out loud three times and then tell them and then ask them how can stupid that sound. Yeah. No, I'm not kidding. Yeah. And at the same time, we don't want to say that because that happened that they shouldn't, you know, focus on school and things like that helps repair how the brain works and a lot of things. But if we don't focus on the basics of their relationship, their relationships and their recovery and the road that got them there, we're missing it. Well, right. If your kids not alive, they're not going to have a school to go to. Yeah. He's going to have a child. These kids, you know, they don't know anything. And they've got to be taught. And then they're so dug in to, oh, well, it's the school. No, babe, it ain't the school. You're going to lose a semester. Okay. And that's the way it is. Now, you guys keep up with their schoolwork at your place, right? We do. So they can do all that stuff today. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's not an end or no. I think it's just tough. It's managing the parents expectations. It's like locking into like the parents are just terrified. Yeah. And I think they're coming from this place of managing what other people think about them, the stigma. Okay. I don't have any treatment. Right. I don't have a year for it. I know. I know. I know. But it's like how can you access that and then redirect them to we have to do this with your child? You let them know, well, I always have them close their eyes and I take them through something real quick. Mm-hmm. That gets them insane. Okay. And just they fall apart. No. And then I get them into a state of reasonableness. Yeah. Exactly. One of the, one of the ways that that happens for adolescents is having the having those kids and families in treatment long enough so that when parents show up, they see that little sparkle that glimmer in their child's eye. If it's the rang bunchness, a little the defiant that isn't that isn't evil that isn't about hurting themselves. It's about being a kid and the parent sees that and they will invest anything in the continued success of their child. Should because it's your child. Yeah. Yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah. And all the families that are with us, I mean our main rule out is parent engagement. If parents are not willing to do groups to come out. What do you do? We don't take them. Oh, you don't take the kids. Yeah. Yeah. Our requirement is family involvement because everybody wants to know what your rule out is. It's psychosis is it this is it that and our number one is you have parent involvement. We know that it is family family family family. And so that's on one side the other side from a kind of terrifying from a parent being terrified is usually I was in group one day and I asked so how are you doing today and the mom says to me, I just hear the sirens. I just keep hearing the sirens every time I close my eyes because she was holding her son who had just overdosed and she'd called 911 and all she could hear in the background was the sirens and can they get here fast enough. Can they get here fast enough to save my son. And what that does for a parent is just crushing. You know, because then they feel like it's their fault. And the next question I asked the group is it is. Yes. Well, let me tell you something. We have the kids, they don't have us, they didn't ask to be here. If something bad happens to my children, it's my fault. You got to be present, you know this, if you do the work from the gate, okay, you don't have your phone, you're down on their level, you're connecting, they go, bjbj, right, they know what they're saying, but they can't get it out. So you go, wow, Oh, you're making these kids feel important. So that way, when they're older, you can have the conversation because you've done the work. If you haven't done the work, the conversation falls on deaf ears. And I think this is where we look at things where we're seeing kids with significant depression, struggling with anxiety and escalating levels. They're things. Sure. Because that's a controversial statement that I just made. And I'm going to double down. Okay. Okay. Just because it's your fault doesn't mean you can't repair this thing. That's right. Okay. But if you don't accept responsibility for your child's failures, okay, or failings, okay, or struggles, that's you're not, you're not on track to fix it. You have to, you have to be accountable. This is my child. He's struggling. I didn't do my job. Okay. That's reality. Now, I'm not talking about a sick kid. Somebody born a... Like a medically sick kid. I'm talking about, or psychologically sick kid. Okay. I'm not talking about that. Okay. That is a different deal. But I'm talking about your average run of the male kid. Okay. Us as children. Not okay. I'm sorry, man. I interrupted you, but I just couldn't. If you don't accept responsibility, you're in a victim position. If you accept responsibility, you're in a powerful position, and now you can change it. Isn't that what happens with that phone call when a parent says, I'm looking for treatment for my child? It's some of the first steps in the process for those parents. And it might be really difficult. Yeah. Yeah, you know what have been great? At the first sign of a problem to get your child a therapist, and then have a family therapist where you could go in and deal with it. That would have been, that would have been great. I wanna follow up with something that you've said there, because it's so important. It is so helpful when parents get their kids into therapy. When they ask for help, because then they're teaching their kids, right? They're teaching the kids. They're okay to ask for help. We want, I don't have to know everything. And this is how responsible adults deal with their stressors. Yes. I don't have all the answer. Let's get somebody involved here to help us. That's right. That's exactly right. And we, it's not always easy to find therapists to understand substance abuse and things like that, but it doesn't mean we don't reach out for help, and we live in a world today where there's the more kind of experience, letters behind somebody's name, it's almost like we trust them less. When the reality is, trusting them more would be more helpful for our kids. Yeah. Well, it's hard to trust, okay, when it's your child. All right. What's the biggest myth parents or kids still believe about these street drugs? Or about any drugs? Quick. They're just not going to happen to meet. That's exactly right. Or there's two things. Not going to happen to meet. Or the other part is that we tend as parents. Not my kids. Not my kids. Or we pace our experience onto them and say, well, I smoked a little bit of pot or I did this, or I did that. That's right. I'm not using that there an individual and there is a negative effect. So from that point of view, you know, the myth is that it's okay. I have a parent tell me, I know my son just, he smokes a little pot before he goes to school. I said, he's 13. And he's not smoking a little pot. He's dabbing. He's dabbing 98% THC at 13 years old before he goes to school. And he says, and I quote, at 13, I need this to cope. That's just terrifying. I did too. Yes, and it's true. So then that goes back to, we need therapy, we need to understand what's going on with my son. And I certainly didn't have that. And there's kids that we're seeing too. I think the myth of like everyone's doing it. Why can't I do it? You know, and we're seeing kids with severe mental health disorders. There's a difference between someone with one, two, three mental health diagnoses and a kid without, you know, not that any of them really at 13, 12 or 13 should be doing it, right? But there is a difference. There is someone who's really predisposed to what we were talking about earlier, like psychosis, you know, dabbing and like having, you know, really, really constant, create concentrated THC versus someone who's not. I think the biggest myth is, right? And we went over, is, I don't know anybody who's died of, my kid's not going to die of, yeah, he's just being a kid. And it's not if it's when now, because everybody's dropping from this. Yeah. All right. This is a good one. Where are teenagers heads today? Where are they at? What's their mental and emotional state compared to five to 10 years ago? So that's one question. Yeah. I mean, I think I've seen a huge difference in the last six years. I mean, post COVID, huge change. They're like social, social, emotional ability to interact with each other is super different. Coming out of COVID, a lot of them, what's the stare? The stare? The stare. Like the literal stare. Yeah. So today, you're going to talk to kids, and you'll ask them a question, or you'll say something, they'll just do this. Yeah. I mean, I think post, what is that? Post COVID, a lot of them didn't want to take their masks off. Like they, they have trouble interacting face to face, because I think they were on Zoom for so long, they were behind masks for so long. They didn't want to take their masks off. It was really hard to get them to even be. But it's more than that. I've noticed over the last, since I've been back. Sure. OK, because remember, I was going five years. OK, and I'm back too. So in the last seven years, this is what I've noticed. And I even had this experience with one of my employees. I was asking questions, and she's dissembling, right? And it's like, a dissembling is like you talking about, isn't it a great day today? And somebody screams Thursday. OK, that's dissembling. OK, or they start talking about their dog, right? And like, dude, I just asked you this question why are you talking to me about your dog? So she's dissembling. And then finally, I get her cornered, right? Because I'm going to ask, and why is that? Why is that? Why is that? How did this happen? Right? And I'm going through the thing. And then finally, I've got her. Now I'm speaking at a whisper. I'm speaking lower than I am now. And she started, and she said to me, stop screaming at me. And I had other people on the phone. They were like six of us. And I said, get off the phone, hang up. And she hangs up, right? And everybody's in shock. Because I've got a 20-something kid that said, or stop screaming at me. It was so bizarre. What is going on with these kids? You see them all day long? Yeah. That is totally different. What's going on with that? I think there's a lot. I mean, I think that the parenting is different. I think that there's such a desire to protect kids from like, I need to feel safe all the time. Like, there's so much like, I don't feel safe here. Do you know what I think it is? Social media. I think it's also social media, right? But I think that there's the parenting. I think it's the social media. I think it was COVID. There's so much that's different. Definitely COVID. It's definitely COVID. It's definitely, I don't know how much different parents you would know better than I would, how they've changed. I know that we've remained consistent. OK. But again, that doesn't everything to do with me. It has to do with who taught me how to be a better man. So I think parents don't want kids to feel discomfort anymore. And kids are like, I'm unsafe, right? Like you're attacking me. It's helpful for kids to feel discomfort. They need to be able to go out in the real world and say, you know, I was, I have resilience, right? Like I was able to have this challenge. That's so beautiful that you say that because nobody, it's the benefit of a skinny, right? Yeah. Who wrote that again? The benefit of a skinny. I don't know. It was it, well, you know, we beetle. Also, there's also the, there's a, this goes back to the social media piece, which is that one is we're dealing with parents who have difficulty themselves with uncomfortability. And then when it comes to, as really as parents, our job is to kind of frustrate our kids, so to speak, help them learn things, clean their room, have rules, expectations. And if we look at, so is a book, I'll just talk about interest generation. One of one of the statistics in there for young boys between 14, I think, and 22 years old, their minor injuries like broken finger, broken wrist, stitches, things like that have gone down by up to 60%. Over. Right. Well, what he talks about this is those kids aren't out there playing the same way. They're not having the same failures. They're not having the same repairs. What you talked about with parents, a lot of what happens in treatment is repair. It's the pacification of America. I didn't put it that way. Well, it is. But, but yeah, they did not, not being comfortable. I think that the generation of the parents that we're seeing now, they have such a hard time. When we say the answer is no, and that's a complete sentence, and you'll see their eyes kind of glades over. Right. Because they're afraid of the reaction to their, it's okay to show respect for your child. I'll lose though. I go ahead and I'll ask my kid to do something. And sometimes he'll go, yeah, dad, I'm not really feeling that right now. And I'm cool with it, right? But there are sometimes where I'm not cool with it. And I'll say, yeah, I need you to do that. I know you don't want to do it, but I need it. And it'll be like, why? And sometimes I'll tell him why. And then he'll look at me and he go, yeah, but why? And I said, because I've been said so, that's why. Okay, and he's like, oh, cool. Okay, it's like, you know, you go down that, that you exhaust all your legislative remedies. And then it's like at the end of the day, it's like, okay, I really like the whole negotiating thing. You're really very good at it. Unfortunately, my will's stronger than yours. And this is how we're gonna do it. Right. Because I'm asking you to. And that is showing your kid respect. This is what happens in the real world. That's right. There is a rule I'm asking you to do it. That is respect. Yeah. It's so weird when you have two kids, isn't it? They're so different. Like you think they're gonna be the same and they're completely different. My daughters are 36 and 37. And both of them have children. It is not easy to be a parent, but to watch them now on the other end, I have four grandchildren and in their process and my kids working on their own recovery also. So my youngest has eight year sober and her and her husband are running a little treatment center up in Utah. You're kidding. And she said, I will never get involved in what you're doing. Right. And she met the man of her dreams actually during COVID. But that the process was not easy. And she would tell you, it was nine treatment centers for her. It was, it was a lot. It was some of those painful times that our family went through. Were you in this field when you were putting her in treatment? Yes. How did you deal with your own kid being in treatment when you're actually running a treatment center? How did you deal with that? Well, first it probably goes back to my mom when she put me in treatment. You know, in 1984 and 1985, she just said, I put the combat boots on. It didn't matter. Oh, you were 17 or 17. We're the same age. Yeah. I'm 58 in nine. I'm 58. Okay. There was something in me. I believed in treatment and probably working at visions helped because I was like, this thing is good. These interventions are good. I chose places where I knew the staff were good 45 days. And then she came home and started lying, manipulating, going out sheet. It hadn't used, she was sober, but being a shithead. And I took her back to treatment to an extended care program at eight months sober. And, and because she was dry, she was dry. Because it's not just about whether she was using or not, it was what was going on with her emotionally. That's right. And it's only a matter of time, when you just explain this. Because it's only a matter of time when you're that uncomfortable to wear, you have to self-medicate. That's why he took her before the wheels fell off to get the aftercare she needed. And you get so much further more quickly when you haven't gone all down the road of all the complications of some things. Of course. You just, you need to nip it in the bud. But most people, it's hard to do that. Oh, it's hard to do that because the kids don't understand it. But you're, you know, I always say the same thing to my clients, you know, I don't really care what you think about me today. I care about what you think about me next year and the year after that. Absolutely. And now it's dad, when you're coming up to spend a couple of days in Utah with, with your grandson. That's, see, right? So, and, and, well, more importantly, now she's capable of having a child and being a good mother. Absolutely. I mean, can you imagine we've seen so many times these drug addicted kids have their own child. And now, how the hell do you take care of that child when you can't take care of yourself? And it's, it's a difficult thing. And I started, I mean, I was a single dad at 21 with two daughters and diapers. So I understand the process of trying to figure out how to raise kids, you know, bring him to day care, deal with their mom who was out of control at the time. How is she doing now? She's okay. Do the kids have a relationship with her? They do. Yeah. Good, you know. Good. And, and a lot of that is by their doing, they learned, right? They learned in their process of their own recovery, their own process, going to therapy, putting me in the middle of the room so they could talk, you know, that's, that, the biggest smile on their face, ever, probably, not a gift. It's when we all went to family therapy together. And, Dr. Allenberger said, would you like to put your dad in the middle today? And their eyes just lit up. What that means is that dad's going to be the focus. And everything in here is safe for us to talk about. So that's where they shit on you. That's where, yeah, and they can ask questions. Good. And then, and they had a mediator, right? Then a mediator to help with the process. And so if they get too aggressive, the guy looks at him and says, what was your intent by? It was more like, so John, are you going to really answer that question? You know, it came back to me because it was, it was uncomfortable. And when you're a parent, the, the, the, the, when you look at things, like when they say, dad, when you said this, it hurt. Dad, when you did this, you know, I was afraid, why did you do these things? You know, then that's the biggest gift you could give your kids. That was the most beautiful thing. Literally, that's great because that's hard for a parent to hear. And somebody asked me the other day, are you a good father? And I said, you'll have to ask my kids. That's not for me. Yeah. Because if you asked my mother and my father, if they were good, well, not my dad, my dad would have told you the truth. But if you would have asked my mother, if she was a good mother to her three children, she would have said, absolutely. Now, but she would have said, absolutely. That's how she would have done it, right? I mean, poor mother. Right. And that's what they, when we talk about things like therapy and our own process as a family, they point to that event. It's beautiful. Right. It's the most beautiful thing. I cannot wait to do that. I cannot wait to sit in the middle and have my kids do me. I can't wait. That is going to be the best day of my life, because I'm going to get clarity on what I did to my kids. And I had helped to show up in a way that was authentic. That the therapist would stop me and say, what are you feeling right now? Because I can get into my head pretty quickly. And it was, it was a process that was you say. I had to stop. I would ask some questions because sometimes my emotions were so big, because all I wanted to do was protect my kids. And in protecting my kids, I said and did things sometimes that either they didn't understand or that I need to apologize for. And repair goes back to that's for kids when they can repair with a parent, a coach, a teacher, we're setting the foundation for how they can work out in their lives, like in with their partners and their marriage. Yeah, we show that you can make repairs. Yes. That's how adults do it. Right. Double down, okay, they're mistakes. They double down, they're, when they know they're correct. Right. All right. How often do you see depression, anxiety or trauma alongside substance use disorder? Okay. The answer is everything. Yeah, every single time. Okay. Yeah. Great question. Okay. What's the biggest difference in treating adolescents versus adults? Wow. Great question. I mean, I think definitely the family piece, still with adults, yes, it's useful to bring in the family piece, but adolescents like, like we talked about like the, and I tell you what I think. Yes. Yes. They're a hostage. The kids are a hostage? Yeah. Yeah. They don't have a choice. Yeah. Yeah. That's the eat for me. Mm-hmm. If I could keep people against the wrong will, we'd have 100%. Mm-hmm. I mean, think about it. If you could keep someone. Absolutely. Until they were ready to go. Yeah. It'd be 100%. Mm-hmm. Well, and with kids, they do and say things that the adults think about and don't say, or it takes them a lot longer. The kids will, for example, the kids will throw the chair, flip you the finger. Yeah. They'll, they're on a family session with their parents and they just get up and hold on. Hold on. You kids will never do that. Yeah. So they, like we're on a whole family session and the kid just gets up and closes the computer. Just gets up and closes the computer. Or they run down the street. They're running down the street. And their parents don't take the computer and throw it in the pool. No. No, I'm asking. No, because they're on the other end. So they're having a session, like there may be a family session or something like that. Oh, a computer. On a computer, the therapist is there. They're maybe doing something. And the computer. Have you ever had a parent just come right into the place, grab the kids computer and rehab, say, you don't need that. That's bullshit. And just. It's the other way around for us. We tell the parents, they don't get their computer. That's a therapist computer. They don't get their computer. They don't get their cell phone. Yeah. There's no social media. We need to, we need a clean slate to start from. Has to be that way. And we have parents saying, what, what are they going to do without their phone? But most, most parents say, you're really going to do that. Mm-hmm. Yeah, we're really going to have the stones to do it. They're afraid of their kid. They're walking around on eggshells. Yeah, absolutely. And then they need the stone. So a lot of our work for family work is getting, getting there. But and also with kids. Do you know what they tell parents? What do you tell them? I tell them if you listen to me, you get your kid back. And if you don't, you don't. We had a therapist. It's that simple. We had a therapist who used to say. To dads directly. In the back of my office, I have extra spines and testicles. We can do implants here. Do you know what's great? Yeah. You know what I used to say? Thank you. Because I'm going to break this one out of archives. Okay. I haven't sent this in 20 years. Take your hand and touch the back of your neck. Do it. Feel that bump? Yeah. You know what that is? It's a spine. I need you to have a spine. That's a good one. Yeah. It's so good. But the kids have been breaking us down since the day they opened their eyes, right? Yeah. It's just the way they negotiate and trying to navigate the world. It's helpful. It's helpful when my daughter was 15 years old, right? This is my oldest Justine. I said, she could spin me on her little finger and I was 270 pounds, bench pressing 405 pounds. And she could immediately just with a look or anything I got, I had to get help. That's part of the therapy so that I could sit in there and help support her to get the help she needed. How do you navigate working with parents who are terrified, angry or indenisive? I mean, I think they're all like that. Yeah. I think all of them are like that. Maybe not all of them in denial, but most of them in some way. Oh, they're not in denial because they just sent the kid into treatment. So now they're not in pre-contemplation. Yeah. They're not even in contemplation. These people are into action. Somewhat. I think they can get them there. You get them there and then they pull back. And then they're like, oh, they're going to take their will back. It's like fires were more. Yeah. You know, like they get there and they're like, wait a second. You want us to do this. You want us to do that. You want us to hold this boundary with our kid. We see our kid uncomfortable. We don't like that. You know, maybe people don't, you know what I found? People don't like the word boundary. Yeah. They don't even know what the hell that means. Well, they set a boundary, but they don't hold the boundary. So it's like teaching them that like setting the boundary and not holding the boundary is actually worse than like it's not a way to just don't set the boundary at all. Because then you're just teaching them that your boundary means nothing. Exactly right. And you've kind of like started this whole thing in the first place. On the cheating side of things when it comes to adolescent, the cheating thing. Cheating side. When people say, why do you work with adolescents? They're this, they're that and they're other, the other thing. We get to see changes take place so quickly. Yeah. Yeah, so quickly, right? Kids that like I said, that gleam in their eye comes back. They're talking to their parents about, oh, you know what? I have a sponsor now and he said, I talked to my friend last night, you know, when we were getting ready to go to sleep and we talked about maybe after we go home, that maybe we could go to that AA convention together or maybe we can go to this family. Do you remember those AA conventions as kids? Amazing. The best time ever. Remember? Yep. Best time ever. And these kids, because they get to have find like people who are talking in their lane with, or sexually after their life. Well, yeah, there's that. You know, so a couple of weeks ago, we were in me and somebody else were in New York and we just called this kid up that we knew was there to see if he wanted to hang out or do something with us or something like that. Oh, that's so bitching. And he was so choked up. He said, you're calling me? He said, yeah, we're in New York. I heard that you're still, you know, you're working on some things. He's like, what do you want to do? And he's like, well, don't you guys go to meetings? Yes. So we all went to a men's tag together. That's nice. It was pretty, it was really sweet to a men's tag. That's so cool. She didn't, she wasn't there. She wasn't there. She didn't tell me who identifies them in. Yeah. Those connections. So awesome. He was a kid who was, while he was at Visions, I saw him and he was just like a puddle on the ground who would just scream for like 30 minutes. Like, I can't be here. I can't be here. I can't be here with a hoodie on. Yeah. You know, and how long did it take him to come around? Couple months. Yeah. Couple months. But to go from that to being, you guys actually called me. Yeah. Like, he wanted to hear from the stupid CEO that was trying to hold boundaries with him and help his parents hold boundaries. And the intake person that set the limit with, you know, when his parents were leaving him there, he's like, you guys called me? You want to hang out? I love that story. I love that story. That's beautiful. Okay. We did it. All right. Is there anything left unsaid? I just wanted to thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for what you're doing. Uh-huh. Just like I said, shot in there from the rooftops. We have to shot it from the rooftops. Kids are, kids are dying. Kids are suffering. Parents are suffering. Families are suffering. And there's, there's a different way. There's absolutely hope. See you next Tuesday. They said it. We're out of time. Please subscribe on YouTube. Click the thumbs up and leave a comment. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave a rating and a review. And share the we're out of time podcast with others you know who will get value out of it. See you next Tuesday.