Ep 152: Alcohol, Drugs, and Prevention

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Stories of addiction and overdoses are incredibly scary. We hear about teens who lose their way after getting in with the wrong crowd, or watch friends and family struggle to keep their lives together while battling substance abuse. As a parent, the last thing you want is for kids to fall into a destructive pattern of addiction  that slowly chips away at their mental and physical health….but teens are impressionable and drug and alcohol use among adolescents is on the rise. What can we do to make sure our teens don’t develop  a substance use disorder?

Today, we’re talking about prevention. So often, we view substance abuse from the end, looking at the rock bottom as the starting place for recovery. And while it’s important to acknowledge those life-changing moments of realization, it’s time to focus on how we can stop our teens from using drugs at all. In this episode, we’re getting into the steps you can take right now to ensure your teen is safe from substance abuse. 

Our guest is Jessica Lahey, author of Addiction Inoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence. With over 20 years of teaching and parenting experience under her belt, Jessica began to write about her experiences, becoming a blogger, journalist, and eventually a best-selling author. Her work with adolescents in rehab clinics pushed her to research and write on the subject of substance abuse–primarily how we can prevent it instead of waiting until our teens hit rock bottom. 

In our interview, we’re debating the existence of gateway drugs, explaining how kids get into substance use, and deconstructing the popular myth that it’s better to give kids wine at the dinner table before they reach drinking age. Plus, we’re covering things like academic failure, monitoring teens online activities and more!

Click for full show notes, exercises, and parenting scripts from this episode