Hopestream: Parenting Kids Through Addiction & Mental Health

ABOUT THE EPISODE:
Your kid has been to a program. Maybe two. Maybe four. Each one handed back a diagnosis list a little longer than the last, and none of it ever explained why nothing is sticking.
My guest uses a comparison in this one that stopped me cold. If your child had stomach pain, no surgeon would just open them up and look around. They would scan first. And yet with our kids we tend to go straight to treatment, treatment, treatment, without asking who this person actually is underneath the substance use. He calls it treating the problem inside the person instead of the person with the problem, and once you hear it you cannot unhear it.
Dr. Graham Husick is a clinical psychologist in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and the director of clinical assessment at the Lakeside Independence Program, which works with severe and complex mental health cases. Part of his job is reading the evaluations other people wrote about kids like ours, and he can tell you precisely what keeps getting left out of them.
We get into why he includes IQ testing in every evaluation, what your child's preferred substance choice tells him that they could never say out loud, and why he will usually steer a family toward paying out of pocket rather than running a psych eval through insurance. He also names something I had never heard put into words: why a kid who is finally doing well will sometimes walk straight back into the thing that nearly took them out. I did not have any of this intelligence when my son was in it, and I have thought about that a lot since.
If your child has cycled through program after program and you still cannot answer the question "but what is actually going on with them," start here.
YOU'LL LEARN:
Why Dr. Husick recommends not testing in active addiction, and the window he actually wants
What a diagnosis list eight items long tells you, and what it can never tell you
Why he includes IQ testing every time, even when nobody asked for it
What the substance your child reaches for most says about what they may be needing
The recommendation he sometimes has to put in writing that parents least want to read
EPISODE RESOURCES:
Dr. Husick’s website
Lakeside Independence Program website
This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Find us on Instagram here
Watch the podcast on YouTube here
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:
There is a version of a house where everyone moves quietly. You time your questions. You read the door slam before you read the room. You have gotten so good at it that you barely notice you are doing it anymore, and somewhere in there, one person's mood started running the whole place.
Cathy and I both lived there. I matched my son's emotional state toe to toe and had no skills to separate the two. Cathy handed so much authority over to her kids that her husband walked in the door every night and had to be the heavy, which put a wedge between them that added to their home’s dysfunction.
What we talk about in this episode is what pulled us out, and the term ‘emotional regulation’doesn’t adequately cover it. I made a decision while I was outlining this episode not to use that phrase, because I think it gets thrown around in a way that misses what you’re up against in the real world. Regulating is one thing. Planting your feet while a young person rages at you - and not picking up the rope - that takes something closer to durability. Stamina. Sturdiness.
Here is why we chose this topic: it is one of the most powerful things in this entire experience you are completely in charge of. You can’t control whether they show up for work, school or court. But this one is yours, and you can start on it today and feel something shift by the end of the week.
I also tell a story involving ten dollars and a vacuum, as a real world example of why emotional durability is crucial for your sanity and your child’s growth.
If you’re exhausted and need something to change this week, this is for you.
YOU'LL LEARN:
Why I stopped using the phrase emotional regulation, and what Cathy and I use in its place
The moment Cathy realized she had handed her parental authority over, and what it cost at home
The ten dollar story with the vacuum that I still cringe about
Where dysregulation shows up in your body first, and why that is the signal to work with
Why the low stakes moments are where this can start growing in you
EPISODE RESOURCES:
Self coaching questions, Hopestream podcast Episode 333
Self coaching questions, Hopestream podcast Episode 328
Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help People Change
Beyond Addiction Workbook
Free e-book, Worried Sick: hopestreamcommunity.org/worried 
Free two-week trial of The Stream: hopestreamcommunity.org/try 
This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Find us on Instagram here
Watch the podcast on YouTube here
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:
You have probably rehearsed the apology. I'm sorry I didn't catch this sooner. I'm sorry I wasn't a better parent. I'm sorry this is happening to you. If some version of that speech runs on a loop in your head, this quick solo episode is me asking you to put it down.
Real accountability matters. If there is something you actually did that caused harm, owning it is valid and important. But that is not the same as taking responsibility for your kid's choices, their biology, a disease you didn't cause, or life's timing. Most of the guilt I hear from parents lives in that second category, and it is quietly stealing the energy you need for what's sitting right in front of you.
In this episode I talk about why so much of what we call guilt is actually something else wearing a disguise, and I give you a litmus test that tells you in one question whether you're making a real apology or doing something else entirely.
I also take you back to one of the heaviest seasons of my own life, when my son was transported to wilderness therapy at 16 and I spent months buried under a mountain of shame. What I was doing during that time, and what I wasn't doing, taught me the difference between guilt that sharpens how you show up and guilt that just corrodes. I close with a short pen and paper exercise that might leave you staring at a nearly empty page, in the best possible way.
There is no award for the most guilt-ridden parent on the planet. If there were, I would have already won it. Consider this your permission slip.
YOU'LL LEARN:
Why "I'm sorry I didn't catch it sooner" is not the apology you think it is
The difference between real accountability and misdirected responsibility, and why collapsing the two keeps you stuck
The two emotions parents often carry that get mistaken for guilt
A one-question litmus test that separates a real apology from self punishment
A five minute writing exercise that shows you how much of your self blame is actually yours
EPISODE RESOURCES:
Free e-book, Worried Sick
Try The Stream free for two weeks
Anger Solo - Podcast Episode 335 
This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Find us on Instagram here
Watch the podcast on YouTube here
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:
There's an emotion most of us are carrying that we don't talk about, because we're pretty sure we're not allowed to feel it. Anger. Anger at where our kid's choices have led our family. Anger at what they're doing to themselves. And underneath it, a heavy layer of guilt for feeling any of it at all.
In this solo episode, I'm getting honest about it, starting with a distinction that changes everything: anger at your child is not the same as anger at the situation. One of them usually isn't anger at all. It's grief wearing a really convincing mask, and it needs a completely different response.
There's a cultural script that says good parents don't get angry at a struggling kid. We're supposed to be endlessly patient, compassionate, calm. I have yet to meet one person who pulls that off all the time. So the anger goes underground, and it leaks out sideways: sarcasm, silence, blowups over nothing, or shame that quietly eats at you while you look perfectly fine on the outside.
I'm also telling you my McDonald's parking lot story, the day my anger completely took the wheel and I said things to my son I never meant. I'm not exempt from any of this. Nobody is.
Then I'll walk you through a different way to see anger entirely, one that turns it from something that owns you into something that informs you, plus real things you can do with it starting today.
If you've been carrying anger and beating yourself up for feeling it, come listen. You are so.not.alone.
YOU'LL LEARN
The one distinction that determines whether your anger needs a boundary or something much softer
Where buried anger actually goes, and who ends up paying the price for it
A reframe that turns anger from a character flaw into useful information
What happened in a McDonald's parking lot that taught me how emotional reactivity can wreck a moment (or longer)
How to tell the difference between releasing your anger and just avoiding it
EPISODE RESOURCES:
The Dance of Anger, Harriet Lerner
Hopestream Resources
Episode 174
This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Find us on Instagram here
Watch the podcast on YouTube here
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:
This episode is long overdue, and I know many of you have been waiting for it. Over the past two to three years, the conversations in our community have shifted. It used to be all about opiates and fentanyl. Now a huge number of our moms are watching their kids change right in front of them because of high-potency THC products, and it is happening fast. So I brought together three people with very different vantage points on THC-induced psychosis and what it is doing to developing brains.
First you'll hear from Lynne, a battle-tested mom from The Stream who is living this right now with her son. She shares what the early signs looked like in her home, what she wishes she had known, and the one shift that changed her conversations with him.
Then I sat down with Dr. David Rowe, Director of Neuropsychology at United Assessment. He explains what psychosis actually looks like (it is rarely what you see in the movies), when it becomes a medical emergency, and how a solid psychological evaluation can finally answer the question every parent asks: what is driving the bus?
Finally, Stefan Bate, co-CEO of Jaywalker Lodge, returns to the show. He has spent almost two decades in this field, and what he is seeing in treatment today stopped me in my tracks. The product your kid is using is not the marijuana you remember. Not even close.
This is a heavy topic, but you will leave with real information and real hope, because recovery is possible. My guests see it happen every day.
If you have ever looked at your child and wondered, what am I actually seeing right now, this episode is for you.
YOU'LL LEARN
Why “it’s just weed” no longer means what it did a generation ago
The subtle signs of psychosis that are easy to explain away as something else
What a psychological evaluation can reveal, and the sobriety myth that stops families from getting one
The reason THC-related psychosis is catching even seasoned treatment providers off guard
A reframe that could change how urgently you respond to your child’s use
EPISODE RESOURCES:
Dave Rowe, Ph.D., United Assessment website
Stefan Bate, Jaywalker Lodge website
Download our THC Guide For Parents
Free e-book, Worried Sick
Try The Stream free for two weeks
Hopestream episode 259 with Stefan Bate on recovery captial
This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Find us on Instagram here
Watch the podcast on YouTube here
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.