Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #289 Jessica Lahey Talks About Her New Book 'The Addiction Inoculation'

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#289 Jessica Lahey Talks About Her New Book 'The Addiction Inoculation' · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
0:07
Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.
0:10
Speaker 2: Now, there are a lot of kids who are turning
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Speaker 2: to drugs and alcohol because they just don't know what
0:14
Speaker 2: to do with the pain that they're not getting any
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Speaker 2: help with.
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Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, My mum
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Speaker 1: and dad.
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Speaker 3: Hello, it's doctor Justin Coilson, the author of six books
0:24
Speaker 3: about raising happy families and the founder of Happy Families
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Speaker 3: dot com dot au. Today's podcast contains themes that include addiction, abuse,
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Speaker 3: and suicide. While not rated explicit, the content may not
0:36
Speaker 3: be suitable for some people. I'm joined by Kylie say Hi, Hi,
0:42
Speaker 3: my wife and mom to our six daughters. We are
0:46
Speaker 3: so excited to be developing a wonderful relationship with somebody
0:50
Speaker 3: who has got so much to offer mums and dads
0:52
Speaker 3: around the world. Her name is Jessica Lay. Jessica is
0:55
Speaker 3: a New York Times bestselling author. She wrote The Gift
0:57
Speaker 3: of Failure, How the best parents learn to let go
1:00
Speaker 3: so that the children can succeed. But jess has just
1:02
Speaker 3: released a new book that tells a really important story.
1:06
Speaker 3: Her book is called The Addiction Inoculation, Raising healthy kids
1:10
Speaker 3: in a culture of dependence. And we're talking to Jess
1:14
Speaker 3: about that book today.
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Speaker 4: Jess, you tell a really confronting personal story in the book.
1:20
Speaker 4: Would you be willing to share that with us here?
1:23
Speaker 2: Sure? Yeah, the book. So this book came for me
1:26
Speaker 2: out of a couple of things. Number One, as an alcoholic,
1:29
Speaker 2: I have almost eight years of recovery, early eight years
1:33
Speaker 2: in June. I have two boys who were born with
1:36
Speaker 2: a genetic predisposition for substance abuse that appears to the
1:41
Speaker 2: genetics appear to be about fifty to sixty percent of
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Speaker 2: the risk picture. So that's a big deal in our family.
1:47
Speaker 2: And it comes from, by the way, both my side
1:49
Speaker 2: and my husband's side of the family. And on top
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Speaker 2: of that, the last five years of my teaching career
1:54
Speaker 2: were spent teaching in an in patient rehab for drug
1:57
Speaker 2: an alcohol rehab for kids. So you know, I once
2:01
Speaker 2: I sort of got how hold on my own drinking,
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Speaker 2: I had to start thinking about, Okay, so moving forward,
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Speaker 2: having with this increased risk, how do I help my kids?
2:10
Speaker 2: How do I protect my kids as much as possible?
2:12
Speaker 2: What does it mean when we talk about the fact
2:15
Speaker 2: that substance abuse is is a preventable disease. What do
2:20
Speaker 2: we mean when we say it can be prevented? What
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Speaker 2: are the you know, what does that really mean? What
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Speaker 2: can I do? What can't I do? And then I
2:27
Speaker 2: kept looking at my students in my classroom and thinking,
2:31
Speaker 2: you know, man, I'm seeing some commonalities here, but what's
2:34
Speaker 2: anecdotal evidence, What's what's really happening? What are the myths?
2:38
Speaker 2: What causes kids to end up in this situation? And so,
2:41
Speaker 2: you know, it was a really urgent question for me,
2:44
Speaker 2: but also an urgent question for you know, I think
2:47
Speaker 2: for education, and so there's an education chapter in here,
2:50
Speaker 2: But for the most part, it's really about, you know,
2:53
Speaker 2: anyone who is a mentor caregiver to kids, what can
2:56
Speaker 2: we do what can't we do in order to prevent
2:58
Speaker 2: substance abuse in kids.
3:00
Speaker 3: Mummy wine time is a really big thing. Social media
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Speaker 3: is full of memes about how parents and particularly mums
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Speaker 3: need to have their wine. Two questions. First of all,
3:13
Speaker 3: I mean a lot of parents who say they stopped
3:16
Speaker 3: drinking because they didn't want to get tipsy or drunk
3:18
Speaker 3: in front of the children. They're scared that their kids
3:20
Speaker 3: are going to catch them drunk basically, But Secondly, how
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Speaker 3: does a parent know if maybe they're relying a bit
3:28
Speaker 3: too much on that five o'clock wine while they're preparing dinner,
3:30
Speaker 3: in the eight o'clock wine once the kids are in bed.
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Speaker 3: How does a parent draw the line and create boundaries
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Speaker 3: that are safe and healthy for them and their family.
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Speaker 2: You know, there was a book that came out just
3:42
Speaker 2: a little while ago and gained a lot of attention
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Speaker 2: because Chrissy Tiagan got on Twitter and said this is
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Speaker 2: why she was going to stop drinking. It was Holly
3:50
Speaker 2: Whittaker's book, Quit Like a Woman. And while there's a
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Speaker 2: lot I disagree with, there's the thing that I absolutely
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Speaker 2: love that Holly Whittaker does in this book is she says, look,
3:59
Speaker 2: those sort of my alcoholic tests. While they can be
4:02
Speaker 2: useful for some people, it can also be a way
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Speaker 2: of saying, oh, well, I don't know, I'm not an alcoholic,
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Speaker 2: so I don't need to worry about this stuff here.
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Speaker 2: But the idea that I really love that she talks
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Speaker 2: about is if we were to take that definition of
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Speaker 2: alcoholic away and say, is alcohol impacting your work, your life,
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Speaker 2: your friendships, your sleep, your anxiety, your depression, whatever that
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Speaker 2: thing is then maybe there's an issue. So the fact
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Speaker 2: that someone thinks to themselves, is this a problem is
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Speaker 2: usually the point at which they're starting to and it
4:34
Speaker 2: was for me anyway, the point at which they start
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Speaker 2: to think, you know, like this, I'm uncomfortable with this.
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Speaker 2: So there is no line for any one person Like
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Speaker 2: I was an exceedingly highly functional alcoholic. I was teaching
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Speaker 2: full time, I was writing for The Atlantic on a
4:50
Speaker 2: regular basis, I had a column in the New York Times,
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Speaker 2: and I was still drinking too much. My story has
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Speaker 2: a lot of not yet in it, like a lot
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Speaker 2: of really bad stuf was just about to happen, and
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Speaker 2: I could feel it coming. So I think for a
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Speaker 2: lot of people we become a little bit dependent on
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Speaker 2: that label alcoholic. And if you're not an alcoholic, that
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Speaker 2: you don't need to think about whether or not you're
5:14
Speaker 2: drinking too much. And actually, I want to point out
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Speaker 2: really quickly with the mommy wine time, if you want
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Speaker 2: to have mommy wine time, that's fine, but think about
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Speaker 2: and I don't care whether you know, if adults want
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Speaker 2: to have adult wine time with their friends, that's one thing.
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Speaker 2: But if we're sending the message to our kids that
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Speaker 2: parenting is so hard we have to drink. That I
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Speaker 2: saw wine glasses in a bookstore that said I teach,
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Speaker 2: Therefore I drink. The implication being that teaching is so
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Speaker 2: hard and so upsetting that we have to drink in
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Speaker 2: order to cope with it. When we say I had
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Speaker 2: such a hard day at work, I really need a
5:46
Speaker 2: glass of wine, those sort of messages are that messaging
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Speaker 2: is what really worries me when we send the message
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Speaker 2: to kids that the answer to feeling sad, angry, hurt, depressed,
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Speaker 2: upset is to drink in order to deal with it,
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Speaker 2: or have some or to medicate it in order to
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Speaker 2: deal with it. That's where we tend to run into
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Speaker 2: problems is with our messaging about alcohol and drugs.
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Speaker 3: We have some friends who work with the police. Their
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Speaker 3: suggestion is that if alcohol was less acceptable that they
6:19
Speaker 3: probably would have a reduction in the business of about
6:22
Speaker 3: eighty percent, maybe even yeah, well yeah.
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Speaker 2: I mean, what's so crazy about legalization, and I'm pro legalization,
6:30
Speaker 2: is the fact that, and you know in the US
6:33
Speaker 2: it's been happening slowly stayed by state with marijuana and
6:36
Speaker 2: some psychedelics. Alcohol is way more dangerous than so many
6:42
Speaker 2: of these drugs that were you know, battling to the
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Speaker 2: death about legalizing and partially that's because alcohol has been
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Speaker 2: with us for a very, very long time. And there's
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Speaker 2: a whole section of the book that talks about why
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Speaker 2: humans drink and where that comes from and what it
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Speaker 2: helps us with. And the wonderful part about alcohol for
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Speaker 2: people that don't don't have a tendency to not be
7:02
Speaker 2: able to stop after the first drink, unlike myself, is
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Speaker 2: it can really help be help us be more convivial,
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Speaker 2: it can bring people together. But with the ten percent
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Speaker 2: of us who can't drink responsibly healthily, it leads us
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Speaker 2: to a place of unbelievable isolation and secrecy. And the
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Speaker 2: only way out of that. There's this thing in recovery
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Speaker 2: that the opposite of addiction is connection. That it's not sobriety,
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Speaker 2: it's connection. And the only way out of that incredible
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Speaker 2: isolation is by building, you know, building those connections back
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Speaker 2: with other human beings. And I was in a place where,
7:37
Speaker 2: you know, when I was at my worst, nobody knew,
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Speaker 2: no one knew. I had to keep that secret, and
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Speaker 2: it was the most stressful and upsetting part of my life.
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Speaker 2: And you know things have been so much better on
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Speaker 2: this side of it.
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Speaker 3: I have to say, Jessica, we're going to take a
7:55
Speaker 3: quick break. When we come back, I want to share
7:57
Speaker 3: a deeply personal story about alcohol that's impact my family
8:01
Speaker 3: and explore a bit about what is creating this culture
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Speaker 3: of dependence and addiction for our children. We'll do that
8:08
Speaker 3: in just a second.
8:09
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast.
8:12
Speaker 5: Are Screens Creating Tension at home? Tweens? Teens? And Screens?
8:16
Speaker 5: Is a webinar to guide families to healthy, safe superscreen solutions.
8:21
Speaker 5: Bye today at happy families dot com, dot au slash shop.
8:25
Speaker 4: It's the Happy Families Podcast, the podcast for the time
8:28
Speaker 4: poor parent who just wants answers now, And today we're
8:30
Speaker 4: talking with Jessica Lay about her new book, The Addiction Andoculation,
8:35
Speaker 4: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence.
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Speaker 3: And I'm going to jump in because you've got a
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Speaker 3: baby in your arms who's making it extremely difficult for
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Speaker 3: you to talk. Because this is what happens when we're
8:45
Speaker 3: living life with kids. Jess a story that I don't
8:49
Speaker 3: share very often but feels really pertinent to this conversation.
8:54
Speaker 3: Kylie and I don't drink. We don't drink for a
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Speaker 3: number of reasons. One of those, not the only reason,
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Speaker 3: but certainly one of those those reasons is the way
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Speaker 3: alcohol has affected both of our extended families. Many years ago,
9:07
Speaker 3: in fact, just after Kylie and I were married, we
9:10
Speaker 3: received the tragic news that my uncle had taken his
9:13
Speaker 3: life by suicide. He had a history of alcohol abuse,
9:20
Speaker 3: and my grandparents also drank heavily. I think that he
9:24
Speaker 3: learned to drink from them. He'd been in and out
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Speaker 3: of jail because of his alcoholism and his behavior when drunk.
9:31
Speaker 3: And one night, just after we were married, he got
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Speaker 3: so drunk and he decided that he absolutely needed more
9:38
Speaker 3: money to buy more alcohol. He couldn't get access to
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Speaker 3: any money, so he caught a cab to my grandparents' home.
9:45
Speaker 3: They locked him out of the house because they knew
9:46
Speaker 3: that he was drunk. He broke down the door of
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Speaker 3: the house and he beat them. They were in their
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Speaker 3: sixties at the time, and they were hospitalized with broken
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Speaker 3: cheeks and broken ribs, and it was a devastating moment.
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Speaker 3: But the next day, when he, I guess, sobered up
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Speaker 3: a little bit and realized what he'd done, he couldn't
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Speaker 3: live with himself. He realized that alcohol had taken so
10:07
Speaker 3: much from him that has had a tremendous impact on
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Speaker 3: the way our family views alcohol. Now you've been really clear,
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Speaker 3: this does not happen to everybody. This is an unusual thing.
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Speaker 3: Probably about ten percent of the population don't know how
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Speaker 3: to handle their drink. Many people are able to handle
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Speaker 3: it quite responsibly.
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Speaker 2: Actually, I want to correct you. It's not don't know
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Speaker 2: how to handle it. It's that there were were wired differently.
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Speaker 2: There's different chemical makeups that's going on. Our brains react differently.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and can't stop. Can't stop. What I'd really like
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Speaker 3: to ask you about, based on the research that you've done,
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Speaker 3: is what creates this culture of dependence for us and
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Speaker 3: for our children.
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Speaker 2: So it's so interesting. Gift to Failure really dovetails in
10:53
Speaker 2: a way with this book because there's a lot of
10:56
Speaker 2: sort of a number one wanting things to be fixed
10:59
Speaker 2: right away. And you know, we're so fortunate and that
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Speaker 2: we have great pain relieving and disease relieving drugs and
11:07
Speaker 2: we're able to not hurt, you know, to not be
11:10
Speaker 2: in pain. If we have a tooth extracted, we don't
11:12
Speaker 2: have to feel any pain at all. Right, So our
11:15
Speaker 2: tolerance for discomfort is really really low, and parents don't
11:18
Speaker 2: want to see their kids hurt. And so, you know,
11:20
Speaker 2: for example, when our when my son got his wisdom
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Speaker 2: teeth pulled it, they automatically handed us the script for
11:28
Speaker 2: an opiate, and I said, I'm actually uncomfortable with us
11:31
Speaker 2: having opiates in the house, So if we'll take the script,
11:36
Speaker 2: but we're not going to fill it unless we need
11:38
Speaker 2: it kind of thing. And it wasn't just because I'm
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Speaker 2: uncomfortable with having opiates in the house because of me.
11:43
Speaker 2: It's just they're worth a lot of money, and it's
11:46
Speaker 2: very tempting to a kid who needs extra money, and
11:48
Speaker 2: it's very tempting to a kid who might want to
11:50
Speaker 2: just check out for a little bit. So we have
11:54
Speaker 2: this culture that sort of makes us believe that we
11:56
Speaker 2: can have our stuff we want right away. We don't
11:59
Speaker 2: have to ever hurt, we don't have to feel any discomfort,
12:01
Speaker 2: and if you're anxious or if you're depressed, you can,
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Speaker 2: luckily for many of us, take a drug and feel
12:07
Speaker 2: better right away. And so I think we're in a
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Speaker 2: position where we're not dealing with not helping a lot
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Speaker 2: of kids with their trauma not helping a lot of
12:16
Speaker 2: kids with adverse childhood experiences where you know, keeping a
12:21
Speaker 2: lot of secrets. There's a lot of sort of shame
12:23
Speaker 2: and guilt around stuff that happens to kids in childhood.
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Speaker 2: And so, for example, you end up with a situation
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Speaker 2: where you know, a kid who has a learning disorder,
12:32
Speaker 2: or a kid who has been had sexual abuse, or
12:35
Speaker 2: a kid who has grown up in a house where
12:37
Speaker 2: there's violence and doesn't get treated for that stuff. There's
12:40
Speaker 2: a lot of emotional pain there, and our brains register
12:45
Speaker 2: that emotional pain and that physical pain similarly, and opiate's
12:49
Speaker 2: help with both, and so we end up in a
12:51
Speaker 2: situation where kids may not have the tools they need
12:55
Speaker 2: in order to deal with that stuff and get at
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Speaker 2: the core issues, and instead just sort of can numb
13:01
Speaker 2: out or you know, escape from that. And it's really interesting.
13:06
Speaker 2: There was a discussion going on on Twitter the other
13:08
Speaker 2: day where someone I really like, Tracy Helton Mitchell, who
13:11
Speaker 2: wrote this book called The Big Fix. She had gone
13:13
Speaker 2: through a lot of trauma and she actually said something
13:16
Speaker 2: that was really interesting, which was thank goodness for opiates
13:18
Speaker 2: or for drugs, because they helped her survive until she
13:21
Speaker 2: could get to a place in her life where she
13:23
Speaker 2: could deal with her trauma. Which is a really you know,
13:26
Speaker 2: strange way to look at it, But there are a
13:29
Speaker 2: lot of kids who are turning to drugs and nowcohol
13:31
Speaker 2: because they just don't know what to do with the
13:33
Speaker 2: pain that they're not getting any help with. So the
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Speaker 2: whole thrust of this book is how do we help
13:39
Speaker 2: make kids feel like they are enough? They are good enough.
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Speaker 2: They don't need to you know, walk into a situation
13:46
Speaker 2: and have a beer in order to feel like they
13:47
Speaker 2: have the liquid courage. They need to be you know,
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Speaker 2: present in that situation, And how do we help them
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Speaker 2: deal with their trauma so that they can come into
13:57
Speaker 2: the world from a place of where they can learn
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Speaker 2: and become and grow and not have to just deal
14:03
Speaker 2: with the burden of that pain.
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Speaker 4: Well, Jess, because this is the podcast for the time
14:08
Speaker 4: poor parent who just wants answers now, we would love
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Speaker 4: it if you would share with us a couple of
14:13
Speaker 4: things that parents could do to actually help them deal
14:16
Speaker 4: with these challenges.
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Speaker 2: So very quickly, think of risk for substance abuse and
14:23
Speaker 2: protections like one of those old timey scales of justice
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Speaker 2: where one gets side gets heavier, and you have to
14:29
Speaker 2: make the other side heavy to zero them out. So
14:32
Speaker 2: if your risk side is super heavy, and those are
14:34
Speaker 2: risks for substance abuse include things like obviously genetics epigenetics,
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Speaker 2: which is like a combination of environment and genetics, trauma,
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Speaker 2: big tea and little Ta trauma that kids go through,
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Speaker 2: academic failures, social ostracism, divorce and separation, things like that
14:50
Speaker 2: average childhood experiences. So the more we know about our
14:54
Speaker 2: kids individual risk factors, the more strategic we can be
14:57
Speaker 2: in applying the prevention measures and prevention measures a things
15:00
Speaker 2: like you know, oddly enough, having family dinner is a
15:04
Speaker 2: big protection for against substance abuse, and I like it
15:07
Speaker 2: to refer to that as sort of a emblematic of
15:11
Speaker 2: something that's really about just regular family check ins. It
15:14
Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily have to be family dinner, but it can
15:17
Speaker 2: be you know, when you're driving to and from those
15:19
Speaker 2: soccer games, or when you're you know, any sort of
15:22
Speaker 2: family time, when you're getting together, you're looking at each other,
15:25
Speaker 2: you're sort of getting a sense of what everyone's going through.
15:28
Speaker 2: Really open family communication prevention starts for substance abuse starts
15:32
Speaker 2: really really young, and it really looks most like really
15:36
Speaker 2: good social emotional learning programs in schools where you're talking
15:39
Speaker 2: about all kinds of mental health stuff, but you're also
15:42
Speaker 2: talking about physical health. And it starts with conversations in
15:45
Speaker 2: nursery school, in preschool, and in kindergarten, with conversations about
15:49
Speaker 2: like why you don't spit out the why we spit
15:52
Speaker 2: out toothpaste and why we don't swallow it, why don't
15:54
Speaker 2: we why we don't put chemicals in our mouths?
15:56
Speaker 1: Why?
15:57
Speaker 2: Oh, look, here's a prescription bottle. This has mommies name
16:00
Speaker 2: on it. What do you think would happen if daddy
16:02
Speaker 2: wanted to take this drug? Should we let daddy take
16:05
Speaker 2: a prescription bottle that has mommy's name on it? Should
16:07
Speaker 2: I give you medicine from my prescription bottle? And conversations
16:11
Speaker 2: about why we don't take drugs that don't aren't prescribed
16:13
Speaker 2: for us, And then move up developmentally with kids as
16:17
Speaker 2: they get older, until you're finally in middle school talking
16:20
Speaker 2: about refusal skills and what's called inoculation theory and helping
16:25
Speaker 2: give kids the information they need in order to push
16:29
Speaker 2: back when someone asks them if they would like to
16:31
Speaker 2: have drugs or alcohol with them. So prevention, early intervention
16:36
Speaker 2: for learning issues, early intervention for things like child on
16:42
Speaker 2: child aggression. Kids who aggressive towards other kids have much
16:46
Speaker 2: higher levels of substance use during their lifetime. And then
16:49
Speaker 2: we have to just have This is the big big
16:51
Speaker 2: picture thing here is families who have a consistent, clear
16:56
Speaker 2: message of no, not until it is legal for you, you
17:00
Speaker 2: have kids with much lower rates of substance use disorder.
17:04
Speaker 2: Now there's a causation correlation issue there. There are some
17:08
Speaker 2: confounding factors to be dealt with there, but that is
17:11
Speaker 2: generally the case, is that in families where there's permissive
17:14
Speaker 2: talk about substance whether that's you know, kids are going
17:18
Speaker 2: to do it anyway, so they might as well do
17:19
Speaker 2: it here and I'll take away everyone's keys and it'll
17:22
Speaker 2: be safe, that is actually a permissive attitude towards substance use.
17:27
Speaker 2: And it actually what it does is it creates kids
17:30
Speaker 2: that have higher likelihood of having substance use disorder during
17:34
Speaker 2: their lifetime. And I don't say, you know, delay, delay, delay,
17:38
Speaker 2: for just the reason that it lowers the risk of
17:41
Speaker 2: substance use disorder during their lifetime, which it does by
17:44
Speaker 2: the time we get them to eighteen, we've lowered it
17:46
Speaker 2: down to about ten percent, which is what it is
17:48
Speaker 2: in the general population.
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Speaker 3: I just I consistently cide of parents. Don't buy your
17:53
Speaker 3: kid's alcohol, tell them they can during until the writing
17:56
Speaker 3: be really clear on it. For all of the reasons
17:58
Speaker 3: that you've said, this is just it's been such an
18:00
Speaker 3: amazing conversation. I wish we could go deeper and spend
18:03
Speaker 3: more time on it. But if people want to learn
18:05
Speaker 3: about their own use of anything that could be addictive,
18:09
Speaker 3: as well as how to inoculate their children against the
18:12
Speaker 3: perils of this addiction, the book is called The Addiction
18:16
Speaker 3: Inoculation Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence. The
18:21
Speaker 3: reviews are outstanding. The conversation we've just had now is extraordinary.
18:25
Speaker 3: I think that it's going to be wonderfully helpful. Jessica Lay,
18:28
Speaker 3: you've been a wonderful friend of our podcast and we're
18:30
Speaker 3: so grateful to have had you on again.
18:32
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
18:34
Speaker 3: The Happy Famili's podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
18:37
Speaker 3: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer, and if
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Speaker 3: you'd like more info about making your family happier, you
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Speaker 3: can visit happyfamilies dot com, dot a Yuke