The Addiction Inoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence

[00:01] Announcer:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.

[00:13] SPEAKER_01:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by Jessica Leahy. Jess is a teacher, writer, and mom with a background in juvenile and education law, but she's best known as a writer whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Vermont Public Radio, and The New York Times. And she's the author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Gift of Failure, How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed. And we're here today to talk about her new book, The Addiction Inoculation, Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence.

[00:44] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:46] SPEAKER_01:

Jess, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:48] SPEAKER_00:

Thank you so much for having me. There's so much to talk about with this new book with a school administrator, so I'm really excited.

[00:55] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think this is a concern for many of us on many levels about how to raise kids who are inoculated against addiction. We have these images in our culture of kids who have had, by all external signs, fairly easy lives, but then fall into these terrible addictions. And many of us have personal experiences with that as well. What's happening when A child who is raised in a safe and healthy environment grows up and somewhere along the way develops an addiction. Why does that occur? And how can you help us understand that?

[01:31] SPEAKER_00:

Well, you know, I think there are a lot of people can look like they grew up in a safe and healthy environment from the outside and it can look a little bit different from the inside. So I think it's always important for us as educators, as teachers, you know, as you know, I taught every grade from six to 12 over 20 years. And I know when I walk into a classroom on any given day that someone's going through something, whether it's because, you know, Squeaky the guinea pig died the night before. All that kind of stuff is often kept from us, but it's really important to consider as educators. So just had to get that out there first. From my perspective, the reason I wrote this book is that I myself am a recovering alcoholic.

[02:07]

I have almost seven years of recovery under my belt and I have these two kids. And my two kids come into this world from the moment they come into the world with a higher risk of substance abuse, mainly because about 50 to 60% of the risk as the best we can determine, really comes down to genetics and epigenetics, meaning like our actual genes and then the way those genes are expressed based on stuff that goes on around us in the environment. And luckily, more and more people are starting to talk about the rest of the picture, which has to do with trauma, adverse childhood experiences, But there's a lot of things we tend to think of adverse childhood experiences as just things like childhood sexual abuse or violence in the home. And while those things are definitely on that list, there are events that our kids, the students we teach are dealing with all the time that also are part of adverse childhood experiences, including things like...

[03:01]

like separation and divorce, the death of a family member, those sorts of things. So that's part of the picture. And then we start looking at things like early academic failure is a risk factor for substance abuse. Undiagnosed learning issues certainly contribute to that. There was hardly ever a time for five years I taught in an inpatient drug and alcohol rehab for kids. And there was hardly ever a time that there wasn't a kid in there who either didn't get diagnosed with a It's never really been dealt with well.

[03:31]

They thought they were stupid, you know, that kind of stuff. Early social ostracism, that's a big, well, social ostracism in general. Early aggression towards other kids. So we should be looking as, you know, as early as possible at some of these things, because as kids get older and things like, The sign of early aggression towards other kids starts to get worse and worse. Then we end up having it getting all tangled up with all the other risk factors like, well, of course, if a kid is aggressive towards other kids, they're going to be socially ostracized. And of course, if a kid has early academic failure, they can feel isolated and be ostracized.

[04:05]

So all of these things tend to get all tangled up. But the good news is we know that substance abuse is preventable. And so the question then is, once you look at those risk factors, how do we heap as much protection on as possible to help those kids with the elevated risk, especially the ones with the elevated risk, get enough of those protections heaped on so that they can stay safer, so that we can protect them from some of the risk that they face.

[04:30] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, well, thank you for going through those risk factors because I think sometimes, of course, we don't know everything that a child is going through. But we are able in kind of the big picture to see some patterns. And we know as leaders, if we have a lot of students who face a particular set of risk factors, then we can kind of have a sense of what our student population is dealing with. But let's look at the other side. What are some of the protective factors that make the biggest difference according to your research? And we should say this is a book that you've spent quite a long time researching and really getting into the science of addiction.

[05:03] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think for me, you know, a lot of this came out of my own concerns. You know, what do I do for my own kids? What would have helped the kids that I teach, you know, in their most receptive moments? What might they have listened to? So when you get this sort of little soundbite of addiction, substance abuse is preventable. Well, what does that mean?

[05:21]

What's preventable? What's not? What can we do? What can't we do? So one of the things that we need to start thinking about, especially as educators, where protective measures are concerned, I sort of think of this as one of those old timey scales of justice where, you know, risk is on one side and protective factors on the other side. And, you know, the heavier a kid's risk, the more protection they're going to need.

[05:41]

Now, when it comes to protective factors, a lot of that comes out of really good education programs in partnership. You know, parents can do all the stuff that they do at home. And I talk about a lot in the book, but we can also be doing a lot at schools. And those two things sort of have to work in hand in hand. And here's the problem for me is that so many school leaders seem to know that substance abuse programs are an important part of curriculum. And I'll get to sort of what those look like in a minute.

[06:09]

But only 57% of schools are doing any kind of substance abuse prevention program. And of that 57%, only 10% are evidence-based. And it's really important that we look at programs that are evidence-based because the Evidence-based programs, we have actual proof that they work. And we don't end up in a situation we did like we did back in the 80s when everyone started using the DARE program, which has been revamped since the 80s, by the way. But in the 80s and 90s, when people were using DARE, the problem there was is that it hadn't really been tested out. It didn't have a great framework.

[06:41]

And it turns out that when they did start looking at the results of kids who went through DARE kids were more likely to use substances after they had been through the early iterations of the DARE program. So we can do much better for kids. And there are independent organizations that evaluate substance use prevention programs to see whether or not they work. And it turns out we're so lucky here because now that SEL programs, social emotional learning programs, are so popular, yay, really good substance use prevention programs actually are at their heart really good SEL programs. So you take these really good SEL programs, you make sure that they have really effective drug and alcohol prevention issue stuff in there, like refusal skills and actually rehearsing that kind of stuff. And in the book, I give lists of where you can find the best evidence-based prevention programs.

[07:30]

But it has to do with starting really, really young. Like you don't just jump right into a conversation about why methamphetamine is bad for kids' brains. You start when kids are really young with talking about why we wash our hands, why we brush our teeth, why we don't take medications that aren't prescribed for us. And going all the way up through developmentally appropriate stage, you know, developmentally appropriate content until you get to the place. And that's before middle school when you start talking about tobacco and vaping and things like that. And then obviously you get more in depth as you go on.

[08:00]

But the parts of really good substance abuse prevention programs that are important have to do with what's called inoculation theory, where when we give kids ways to refuse, ways to protect themselves from, you know, that everyone's doing it or come on, it's no big deal kind of thing. When we give kids those good refusal skills under inoculation theory, it turns out that when we give kids those ways to talk about drug and alcohol use or why they don't want to engage in early sexual activity or any other risky behaviors like that, inoculation theory shows that those refusal skills are easily generalized and that when we teach kids about early sexual activity or drug and alcohol abuse, that it actually generalizes out to other areas, which is so cool. It protects kids against lots of things, not just the thing we're trying to protect them from.

[08:53]

So, really good programs, evidence-based, you know, you can, in the addiction inoculation, I go through the programs that are evidence-based and successful and why they are. So, look for those programs. And then what's really cool, especially for your audience, is that the more invested school administrators are in the program, the more successful they are. We're talking superintendent all the way down. When superintendents and principals are invested in the programs and model the behavior and talk about this stuff with, show that it's a priority for them, the programs are more successful. So school administrators have a massive role to play in the success of the programs that they select for their schools.

[09:32]

And that's So important to know this isn't just about paying lip service to something that sounds like it would be great thing to have in your curriculum. It's about actually investing and showing that you're really on board with the program. And it really does count. It really does matter.

[09:46] SPEAKER_01:

Just having a vocabulary for things like refusal skills. We think in terms of problem solving skills and knowing your content in terms of what we normally teach. How can we help parents and our community understand why this is something that we need to worry about? Because I think there's a counter argument that maybe it's not a very strong argument, but one we may encounter that this is for families to worry about. This is not...

[10:11]

part of the three Rs. This is not part of our kind of scope of responsibility. What do you say to people who see this as not really schools concern?

[10:18] SPEAKER_00:

Well, number one, there's the evidence that it works and that, you know, even given my son was in, I have a high school student and I have a college age student. And my high school kid was in a biology class a while back. And his biology teacher took a poll of the class and said, do any of your parents talk to you about substance abuse preventions? And my son, he said it was actually surprising that not everyone raised their hands. But my son was also like, oh, my gosh, when does my mom not talk to me about substance abuse? Abuse prevention.

[10:48]

Because even in a house like mine, where we talk about it all the time, mainly because the more we talk about it, the easier it becomes to talk about it. And the more normalized these kinds of conversations, this is just like sex ed conversations. There isn't one conversation to be had. This is sort of like the more we have these conversations, the more effective they are, because there isn't going to be one conversation that makes all the pieces slide into place. There's going to be a lot of conversations from the time a kid is really small until they go off to school. And I don't expect parents to be up to date on things like inoculation theory or refusal skills, let alone take time to rehearse things like refusal skills.

[11:27]

These are skills that need to be practiced. And the more kids practice them, the more they feel empowered, the less helpless they feel to rebut someone who comes at them with the whole, you know, like everyone's doing it sort of argument. So I completely get why when it comes to sex ed and drug and alcohol awareness, You know, it would be really great to entrust that all parents are going to get it right all the time, but I don't get it right all the time. I love having people to have my back in case I'm missing something. I've spent years becoming as expert as I can be in this stuff, and yet I'm sure there's stuff that I'm missing. I'm sure there's stuff that my kid isn't hearing from me that they might be able to hear from someone else better than, you know, if they were listening in my home.

[12:08]

So I need that backup. And I think it's important that we sort of share those responsibilities and take advantage of the strong homeschool connection.

[12:17] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like there's a hesitation that we've adopted, I think, especially since we've learned that programs like D.A.R.E. in their initial incarnation were not effective.

[12:28]

Like we have this fear that if I bring this up with kids, I might just get them excited about drugs and alcohol, right? Like that I might... Because honestly, that was a lot of the negative finding with some of those early programs. How can we make sure that we're not doing that?

[12:41]

Do we need to jump straight into a full-on evidence-based program? Or what are some starting points where we can at least not mess things up, but still get things going?

[12:50] SPEAKER_00:

Well, I actually talk about that in the book there. I'm so grateful to some of the kids now adults actually who shared their stories and shared their stories using their real names because the people, especially these two people, Georgia and Brian, both now adults, both in recovery, both very active in sort of helping other kids with substance abuse problems. And Georgia found out about alcohol and the fact that alcohol could make you numb and not feel things, which was her sort of, you know, light bulb moment to say, oh, my gosh, I am in agony with my depression and my anxiety. And all I want is to not feel anything. And so the program that her school brought in was, you know, this one old guy talking about and she said he felt old to her. He could have been, you know, goodness knows he was probably younger than we even want to admit.

[13:37]

Right, exactly. Right. He was talking about his experiences and that was sort of a scared straight approach, which we also know doesn't work. And instead it gave her this idea of, oh my gosh, I have this. And she didn't have the words for it, untreated anxiety. And she just wanted a way out.

[13:54]

And part of the problem there was that, you know, clearly the interventions for her anxiety weren't happening. And so she was really vulnerable to the suggestion that she could get numb by trying something. So I think anytime we it's sort of like there are a lot of in the media, we get a lot of there's a lot of talk about how we talk about suicide, because that's a really tricky subject, especially in schools about when we talk about suicide. We don't want to put that out there as an option for another kid and create a suicide cluster, you know, sort of help with that sort of transmissibility of suicide. And it's the same thing that people are afraid of with substance abuse. Oh my gosh, if I talk about meth, the kid will be like, ooh, what's meth?

[14:34]

I want to hear all about it. But that's just not the way it works. And I think that is really underestimating kids. I think when you have a comprehensive program that from the beginning is helping them understand that the things we do for our body either make us healthier or can make us sicker, that when we tell kids about how their brain works and the reality of drugs and alcohol, is that kids, adolescents, are uniquely vulnerable to the harms of substances because of the fact that their brains are in this incredibly plastic state where the adolescent brain is more vulnerable to outside influences, both for good and for bad. And it isn't until they're in their early 20s that their brain is really sort of fully cooked. And, you know, if they take drugs once they're in their late 20s, there's a lot less damage done.

[15:22]

But helping kids understand, giving kids information about the fact that their brain is not done developing, here's what drugs and alcohol actually do to their brain in a very real way and get in the way of memory formation, getting sort of and do all kinds of damage that they may not even understand unless we teach them about it. I think that's a really important consideration. Kids are not stupid. They need the information. Kids don't want to be told, just do this because we said so. They want to understand why.

[15:49]

And so when we are honest with them, when we give them that information and help them understand, how all of these factors affect them and affect their individual risk. I think that's only good for them. I'm not worried about a kid having information and then using that information in a way that's unhealthy. I mean, it really comes down to your belief system about exposing kids to ideas. And I was that kind of mom who never restricted what my kids were allowed to read. I did restrict their exposure to violence and movies and that kind of thing, just because I understand that that can damage their young brains.

[16:23]

But I think giving kids some benefit of the doubt and giving them more information rather than less, I think that's the way to go here.

[16:31] SPEAKER_01:

So scared straight does not work, but- No, no.

[16:34] SPEAKER_00:

Information works. Really good health-based programs really do work. Schools that implement programs that are about giving kids information and giving them the whole picture, those really do work.

[16:46] SPEAKER_01:

And I should ask, do you have a hard stop in a minute or two here?

[16:49] SPEAKER_00:

Nope.

[16:49] SPEAKER_01:

Okay. I think we're getting to a pretty good point, but wanted to respect that if you did have to get on another call here. Let's talk just for a second, if we could, about moralizing, because you've mentioned the importance of giving health-based information. And of course, we want kids to have a moral compass. We want kids to internalize that there are things that they should do and shouldn't do. But what has been the track record of this is wrong kind of approaches to educating kids about substance abuse?

[17:15] SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think the problem is, is that the concept of wrong is subjective, right? And it's more likely to get kids sort of us versus them sort of path. And one of the best things I would do when I was working in the rehab was share the fact that I, too, am in recovery. And the kids would look at me and say, you know, man, you don't look like you're an alcoholic. And, you know, I think that's part of the point. And my ability to communicate with them really came from the fact that I was honest with them.

[17:44]

I was asking them to be extraordinarily honest with me in their writing. So that has to be a two-way street. And the idea that we can go to a kid and say it's wrong. The problem is, is that they have so many other sources saying that it's not wrong. And so if, for example, we're coming at it from a religious perspective, you say, well, but, you know, wine is in the Bible. And, you know, that sort of commentary about and if you're Jewish, you know, their wine is a part of that culture as well.

[18:11]

It's so subjective that coming to a kid and saying this is wrong is wrong. going to be problematic from the get-go. But talking about the very real and scientific effects it has on the body is a little more helpful. Now, I'm not saying you can't come at this stuff from a perspective of, you know, this is what our family does and within our family it is wrong. And I'm all in on that because, so for example, there's really good research to show that when a family, when parents have the approach of, No, you know, we don't drink before we're 21. Number one, it's illegal.

[18:47]

Number two, it's really bad for your brain. And let me explain why. That blanket, no, not until you're 21, actually does show, there is research to show that fewer kids will have a problem with substance abuse during their lifetimes. Whereas if we have a permissiveness or a moderation or a here, you can have a sip of this, sip of that, because...

[19:07]

Often because we're in searching to take part in that whole mythology, romantic mythology of, oh, in Europe, they do it. In Europe, kids sip all the time. And look how great it is in Europe with moderation. First of all, that's a myth. It's not true. Europe has some of the highest rates of alcohol abuse in the world.

[19:24]

And the research is really clear on sipping or moderation-based attempts at home with parenting is that when parents do have a permissive attitude towards drinking at home, that more often those kids will go on to have some substance abuse problems during their lifetime. So I think getting rid of some of the myths, and often we think all the way back to the temperance movement, that whole, you know, singing psalms and pray that away and, you know, make a pledge to Jesus kind of stuff, that stuff, that's what we tend to think of when we say, oh, that doesn't work. But that's not how parents are often communicating their their personal beliefs to their children. And so I'm careful about this right versus wrong thing. But if it's in the context of what you as a family believe, you as a family sort of lay down the code for who you are as a family, then that's a really important part of the conversation. So in that context, I'm all for those conversations of

[20:16]

That's just not something we do in this family. And that doesn't mean that the parents can't drink. It just means that the kids can't drink until they're 21 or can't use drugs until they're in their 20s and their brain is fully cooked. So I'm just like I said, I'm just really careful about the whole right versus wrong because it's such a subjective subject.

[20:35] SPEAKER_01:

I'm grateful that there is now so much evidence about this because a lot of it is counterintuitive, right? Like we've heard the moderation myth over and over again that, oh, you know, and I've heard parents say that, you know, like, oh, I let them try a little bit. I don't want it to be this strange foreign thing to them.

[20:48] SPEAKER_00:

Or I'd rather have them do it in my house when where they're safe and, you know, they're going to party anyway. So why don't I just get a keg for everyone and have it in the basement and take everyone's keys away? Well, I'm sorry, but the research is really clear that if you take that permissive attitude, your kids are more likely to have an issue with alcohol during their lifetime.

[21:06] SPEAKER_01:

And I feel like the backdrop to all of this is the tendency, and maybe you can tell me what your research turned up on this, of teens especially to just kind of do the opposite of what adults tell them, right? How does that factor in? Because it sounds like that's not true across the board if you look at the evidence, but

[21:24] SPEAKER_00:

No, if you look at the evidence, our kids actually do listen to us. I mean, there are some interesting things that I think it's important to bring up. And some of this goes back to the research I did for Gift of Failure, which is that kids who are really tightly controlled by their parents lie to their parents more often. Kids who are not given the opportunity to have autonomy to individuate from their parents are going to take that room through deception if they have to. Kids who need to have space to become their own people and are not given that space by their parents will fight for it tooth and nail. So there is a balance to be made between tightly controlling your kid, watching them all the time, doing the life 360 thing, the find your iPhone, tracking them kind of stuff, reading their emails and reading their texts.

[22:09]

versus having some faith that your kids will make good decisions and giving them the tools they need in order to make those good decisions. And the tools they need to make those good decisions are information about what drugs and alcohol do to their brain when they're young, why their brain is in the state it's in, And a little bit of trust in your kid goes a long way because kids who feel trusted are more likely to rise to that trust. And I think that's true in the classroom. I think it's true in families. And, you know, I would hope that, in fact, when I get interviewed, often people ask what my parents were like as parents. And the best thing, the truest thing I can say about my parents is that they always trusted me to make good decisions.

[22:49]

And therefore, I felt it was important to make better decisions. Now, we also need to talk about the fact that not every kid has the tools to make the best decisions all the time. In fact, adolescents' brains are really wired for risk and novelty, and they have lower levels of dopamine at baseline. And so they just sort of feel bored more often and need some new stimulation to get them just feeling alive again. And we need to remember that as well. And so there's this incredible balance to be struck between overprotecting and overcontrolling and giving some trust and giving kids the tools to understand that.

[23:25]

risks and the benefits and help them weigh those more accurately. And I give all of those step-by-step tools in the book.

[23:33] SPEAKER_01:

Wonderful. And I want to circle back to something you said earlier about how a good SEL curriculum, a good social emotional learning curriculum embeds a lot of the substance abuse prevention work that we've been talking about here.

[23:46] SPEAKER_00:

It's not so much that it embeds the substance abuse stuff. It's that really good substance abuse prevention programs are at their heart, really good SEL programs that also cover drugs and alcohol and that kind of stuff. So if you look at really, really good SEL programs that also have components having to do with drug and alcohol abuse, you're probably on a good track.

[24:06] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and it's interesting to see how many of those have cropped up in the last few years. As the evidence has become clearer, we're not just guessing how to scare kids straight. We're not just guessing whether a particular message will work. There's increasingly a large body of evidence, and you've spent the last four or five years studying that evidence and doing the research for this book.

[24:26] SPEAKER_00:

You know, I think one thing that's really important to remember is when I say that there's evidence for these programs, there are these wonderful organizations, for example, Blueprints is an organization out of University of Colorado Boulder that looks at these programs independently. So I'm not relying on evidence from the program itself, you know, sub studies and surveys on the results that the program itself has conducted in order to get sort of these gold star, yes, this program really works through blueprints, for example. They have to have independent evaluation of their evidence. So it's not just that these programs are saying, yeah, look at this, we work. No, outside people have studied the program and said, yeah, look at this, you have some results that really work. And the nice thing is if you go to blueprints, you'll see there are programs there for all kinds of things, not just drugs and alcohol, but helping kids through divorce, helping kids through trauma, helping kids through some of the stuff they need help coping with so that they don't feel the need to turn to drugs and alcohol or self-harm or suicide in order to take that pain away.

[25:26]

And I think keeping in mind that these are all intertwined, And that we can't feel guilty about the risk factors our kids have. When I talk to parents about, yes, divorce and separation is a risk factor for substance abuse, but I'm not trying to make you feel bad that you got divorced or separated. I'm trying to help you understand that knowing that it's a risk factor is power. That information is power. Because if I know that the fact that I'm an alcoholic puts my kids at higher risk, then I now have the power to address that from a place of understanding and knowledge, not shame and secrecy and all of that stuff that actually makes these things worse. So understanding what the risks are really, really clearly and understanding what protections we can put into place in order to combat that risks, that makes us so much more powerful as parents and educators.

[26:15]

That's what I want for everyone is to feel, to come at this from a place of power.

[26:19] SPEAKER_01:

So the book is The Addiction Inoculation, Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence. And Jess, if people want to learn more about your work, read some of your articles, or learn about your previous writing, where are some of the best places for them to go online?

[26:34] SPEAKER_00:

Everything is at jessicalahey.com, L-A-H-E-Y. And I should mention you have a podcast as well, right? I do. It's so much fun. It's called Hashtag AmWriting, and it's with my former New York Times editor, who's now a fiction writer.

[26:47]

Her book, The Chicken Sisters, was just picked by Reese Witherspoon for her book club a couple months ago. That's KJ Del Antonio. And then another writer, Serena Bowen, who writes contemporary. She's a bestselling contemporary romance author. And the three of us talk about the life of writing and pitching and promoting your work and editing and marketing and everything that has to do with being a writer.

[27:07] SPEAKER_01:

Very good. And that's called hashtag amwriting?

[27:09] SPEAKER_00:

Yep.

[27:10] SPEAKER_01:

Wonderful. Available wherever podcasts are sold.

[27:13] SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely.

[27:14] SPEAKER_01:

All right. Well, Jess, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio. It's been a pleasure.

[27:18] SPEAKER_00:

Thank you so much for having me. This has been great.

[27:20] Announcer:

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