Episode 4: Do It for the Kids
Robbie Shaw:
This is Champagne Problems, where we come together to explore the gray areas of drinking. This is a judgment-free zone, where we can all take a look at how we make decisions about our relationship with alcohol. So we are back in the studio with a great topic today that's very close to our hearts, our youth. We call this episode Do It For the Kids.
Sam Hampson:
Parents just want to know, “how do we talk to kids about this? How is it impacting our kids?”
Patrick Balsley:
One of the reasons that this drives my passion is because I struggled with this as an adolescent. I started drinking at 13, was dependent on opioids by the time I was 14. I never had anybody talk to me about substance use when I was a kid, other than we would have those DARE people come into school.
This has really driven my career and my passion. The fact that families do not know what to do. They don't know how to start the conversations. They don't know what to talk about. They don't know what questions to ask. It's a really uncomfortable topic and it's something that kids are getting exposed to at a younger and younger age and the drugs are getting stronger and it's easier to get alcohol than... Well, I don't know if it's easier to get alcohol than it used to be.
Robbie, you’ve got a lot of experience here too, talking with kids and parents. And your drinking started at a young age.
Robbie Shaw:
My experience is more so surrounding my awareness as opposed to how much I work with kids. I do work with kids, but where my passion lies is obviously having dealt with it as a kid and now being a parent. Those two things coupled together can create some anxiety. So there's a need for answers. Parents consistently come to me and say, “what do we tell them? What do we do?” And it's all a probability thing. It's, “how can we lessen the risk?” Because the risk is always there. My answers to those questions vary, honestly. It is circumstantial to a degree, but I think there are guidelines as to what to talk about.
Honesty and transparency are huge. Brushing things under a rug just to preserve the physical and emotional safety of kids is sometimes a disservice and it leaves the decision up to the kid. And sometimes you're looking at a 12 year old or a 13 year old… What kind of decisions are they making? Especially ill-informed decisions.
And of course I always go into the ‘lead by example’ thing. That's always a hard one to hear for parents because we have lived our lives and we think we have a grip. We want to be good parents, and sometimes that makes it even harder to look at ourselves. The ‘do as I say, not as I do’ tactic. That's always the hardest answer, when a parent asks me, “Well, what do I say? What should I do?” I'm like, “well, how much are you drinking?”
Sam Hampson:
I think because of the cultures - I grew up majority of the time in Europe before I moved to the US in my mid teens - it was always around. So there was no first impression of alcohol that I remember strongly. It was just always there. And everyone around me who was older than me drank, and it was an open conversation. If someone was feeling rough the next day, it was very clear to me, and it was spoken out loud that it was because they drank too much and alcohol is bad for your body. There was no secret around that. There was no trying to pretend it was something else. “I'm feeling rough. I can't do what I need to do today because of it. That was really dumb. I'm not going to do that again,” kind of stuff.
I try to think back to some of the earliest exposure that I had as far as consuming alcohol. And it was, “Dad, can I try your beer at dinner” or whatever, and him saying, “Sure, you'll hate it, you can take a sip.” And I said, “It’s so gross, how do you drink that?” And he's like, “exactly. Do you have questions about it?” Just being able to talk openly about it and it not be taboo or reserved. That was the thing that I always felt helped me was it didn't seem like something that was reserved for the adults that I couldn't talk about or touch, because that would've made it way more enticing.
And then when I did drink as a teenager - probably 16, 17 - I was very open with my parents about when that was happening. And the one thing as a professional that I think was likely missing from that conversation was the risk of early exposure on the brain. That was a piece that we just didn't talk about. I don't know that my family would have even been aware of some of the things that I'm aware of as a professional in the field.
That partnered with if there was family history of alcoholism or addiction, or any type of predisposition. Those were two big risk areas that I would talk to parents of clients now about. Do you have a family history of this thing? Have you seen problematic drinking or high risk drinking in their environment? What do you know about alcohol? And also, do you know what the impact of alcohol is on a young brain? And do you know how much more dangerous it is on a young brain versus a developed brain?
And, oh, by the way, your brain isn't developed until you're about my age, at 29. So it's really understanding it's not about a legal limit, it's not about a legal age, it's about the direct impact of neurobiology and the changes that happen there.
Patrick Balsley:
From my own personal experience, those conversations didn't happen. They may have happened, but I didn't remember them growing up. My family owned (and still owns) one of the oldest wine shops in Charlotte. So drinking was part of our family culture. Fortunately, from most of my family members that do drink regularly, I never saw any angry outbursts. Everybody drank a lot, but everybody had a good time. From my lens growing up, nothing about alcohol use ever scared me.
I remember my grandmother, part Ukrainian, and she was retired obviously by the time I was growing up and I used to spend some time over there. She would garden, pretty much all day. She was always out in her garden and she would sip on Budweisers throughout the day. She'd pour it into a little styrofoam Hardy's coffee cup, and she would sip. It'd take her like four or five hours to finish one beer while she was out in the garden. And I remember she would be like, “okay, you want to sip?” And I'd take a little sip and it obviously didn't have any effect on me. But then my first experience with actually drinking alcohol - I remember this vividly because I was terrified. I wasn't terrified of what the alcohol was going to do to me because I didn't have any experience seeing anything negative. I was terrified of getting caught. The peer pressure is what ended up getting me to drink.
One of the things that I remember is that nobody knew what we were doing. It wasn't until two years later and we were drinking every weekend pretty much. I was living with my dad. And I had some buddies over and we had some beer and he was asleep and we cracked it. We were drinking and he woke up in the middle of the night to pee and came out and we were hammered. And he didn't know how to respond. He grabbed all our beer and put it in a garbage bag. I don't even remember what that conversation was the next morning.
Robbie Shaw:
When I was in fourth grade, I had an older brother, he was in a car crash. He was in a drinking car crash. His friend was driving and he lost his life. And prior to that, my family was fairly normal when it came to alcohol. My dad drank every night, but he was very functioning.
Once the car crash occurred, it was an absolute downplay of what we should learn from it. There was no discussion around it specifically to me as a fourth grader. So I didn't know what was going on. I do not blame my parents for this. They did the best they knew, but looking back that was a pivotal moment in my experience with alcohol. Interestingly, as soon as it happened, I had this big declaration that I was never going to drink alcohol because of that. So I knew it was a result. I knew it was a drunk driving accident. And I had heard that phrase before in Dare and Just Say No.
Well, I did it a year later. I can pick it apart all day long and I probably have for about 20 years now, but that's not fair. It really alludes to what we're talking about, where it's a probability thing. Don't brush it aside, don't cover it up. Don't try to protect everybody's emotions, especially a younger kid. I get the strategy, but there's got to be a balance with some honesty.
Chris Herren on Youth Alcohol Culture
Sam Hampson:
We've got Chris Herren today and I'm excited to hear what his take on all of this is and how to begin addressing this with our younger folks. Can we at least make the social and emotional learning piece more robust so that they have options of coping skills?
Patrick Balsley:
I'm really excited for our listeners that don't know who Chris is, or have never seen The First Day or his other documentary Unguarded. I was first introduced to him six or seven years ago. I was with a kid that I sponsored in AA for a while, and I was on a trip to New York to go meet his family. I walked into their house and we had dinner. And then my buddy's dad said, “hey guys, I want you guys to watch this thing on ESPN. And you're going to love it.”
It was about Chris's story. I had known Chris as a basketball player and I vaguely remembered him, but during the time that he was in the NBA and in college, I was in the throes of my alcoholism and addiction, so I wasn't paying that much attention. He was a McDonald's All-American high school basketball star and was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. He ended up going to Boston College and having to leave because of some drug use. He then played at Fresno State and was drafted. He was the 33rd pick in the NBA draft by the Denver Nuggets, played for the Boston Celtics, and played overseas.
He ended up getting sober 12 years ago and he founded an organization called The Herren Project. It's a national nonprofit organization. They provide treatment navigation. Everything that they do is free. It's an amazing organization. And I have been lucky enough to be on their clinical team for the last four years.
Robbie Shaw:
Chris, thank you so much for being here. I grew up very similar to you. I was a big ballplayer. It was my life, but the drinking and the partying scene took my career away a lot earlier than yours. But I remember you, man. I idolized you back then. And what's cool for me now is fast forward 25 years, and I idolize you now. What was it like growing up in Fall River and what was the drinking culture like from a normalization perspective?
Chris Herren:
It was no doubt part of the culture. Some people call it a rite of passage, I call it complete dysfunction. I grew up in a house that suffered from alcoholism. I was well aware of the danger and the effects of it. I remember praying at night that my father would quit one day and I remember the first time I drank his beer. In recovery, you do so much reflection. And looking back on that moment, what a tragic moment to be a 13 year old kid who suffered so much.
So, yeah, it was definitely normalized. I think in Fall River, it was probably a little more than most. It wasn't abnormal to be 17, 18, 19 years old, hanging out in bar rooms. I think that's the scariest thing about addiction. Nobody knows who's going to suffer from it. Bill Reynolds wrote a book about me when I was in high school called Fall River Dreams. Bill Reynolds is a renowned writer and he followed me for a year. In hindsight, looking back, he would say, “I wouldn't identify you as having a problem.“
Sam Hampson:
What could have been said or shared with you as a child or as a teenager that would have stuck about alcohol use? What would you ideally have heard?
Chris Herren:
I don't know if there's anything that I could have heard. Where we've dropped the ball is in education. The fact that wellness is not a core class in our kids' school system is just unbelievably bizarre to me. The fact that we have so much social anxiety and substance use disorder and mental health, and yet, wellness isn't a core class. I think what could have been done is learning coping skills, life skills, around emotional health and wellness. The first time I was introduced to any conversation about drugs or alcohol was probably when I was 15 years old in a health class. I was already past that. We've done such a poor job at providing platforms for children to have open discussion and to feel that they can share some of their struggles in their adolescent years.
At 15 years old, it's awkward, right? If I walk into a middle school and I do my presentation, the kids are so engaged; they are way more emotional than high schoolers. If you come to one of my presentations and the high school and middle school are mixed, 95% of the questions come from middle school kids. Because they don't really have it in their brain yet that it's not cool to raise their hands.
How to talk to your kids about alcohol
Patrick Balsley:
I got to hear you speak a few weeks ago to both students and parents. For some reason, that always seems to hit me more, the conversations that you have with the parents of the students that you talk to. Can you describe some of the things you say during that presentation, or some of the ways that you address parents around their own alcohol use and how that impacts their kids? And can you share some of the reactions that you get from parents and some of the objections that they bring up?
Chris Herren:
Some of the discussion points are that nobody knows who's going to suffer from it. And when it comes to alcoholism, when it comes to substance use, we focus on the worst day and we forget the first day. We want to show pictures of bums on the street corners, but we don't show them how they looked when they were 12 years old. We've gone so wrong over the years of showing the worst day, because what 14 year old kid can identify with someone who's in stage four alcoholism. So I think we've done a poor job at presenting the whole spectrum. And other topics are that I have a 19 year old daughter and I have a 21 year old son. And I could not imagine when my daughter was 15 years old saying you and your girlfriends, who I've known since they were five, they'll get drunk in the basement. That's just creepy to me.
Patrick Balsley:
How do you talk to them about drinking? From the time that your kids were that age, what were the types of conversations that you had with them?
Chris Herren:
I've been very fortunate as a parent. Christopher, 21, and Samantha, 19, both have not drank alcohol in their life, both have not experimented with marijuana. But where I think parents go wrong is when kids come home under the influence. It's immediately, “who were you with? Where did you get it? How much did you do? What did you do?” And the parents never ask why.
The parent never sits down, looks him in the eyes and says, “why did you have to change yourself tonight? In order to feel like you're fitting in or having fun?” And that's where there has been such a lack of emphasis. And I say this to the parents on social wellness, that it’s great that Chris was a McDonald's All American. It's great that Chris could score 2000 plus points in high school and win national championships and get a division one scholarship. But the reality is I couldn't hang out on a Friday night with 10 kids I've known my whole life without getting wasted. And that's sad.
Sam Hampson:
If you're a parent and you drink for the exact same reasons as your adolescent, then how do you address it? If I'm a parent and I use it as a social lubricant, what am I supposed to tell my kid who goes, “I don't know why I drank. It seemed like fun. Everyone else was doing it and I wanted to let loose or amplify the fun we were already having.” It's like, “yep, same.” So it starts with that conversation of, “why are you drinking?” And then taking it a step further, “what else could you do?”
Chris Herren:
Right. I've needed a social lubricant most of my life. And now, at 32 years old, I'm introduced to this world of recovery. And now I can dance with my wife. I can sit at a table and be completely present at a wedding. It gives me great comfort, but yet also pride that recovery has given me this ability to not need a social lubricant.
Robbie Shaw:
That also allows you to lead by example.
Chris Herren:
Yeah. If my kids are at a wedding and see their mom and dad having fun and dancing on the dance floor and they know they're both sober. My wife does have a glass of wine here or there. So they have both pictures. They know mom can drink, but doesn't drink often or hardly ever. And dad, he's got a horrible relationship with alcohol.
I think the social lubricant often comes from insecurities, right? Self-esteem and the uncomfortable feeling you get in certain environments. If we can educate our kids and talk about these things at a young age, the less they'll need a social lubricant. A lot of kids turn to drugs or alcohol at a young age for a social lubricant. Sadly, we haven't practiced enough with them. We haven't given them enough education around it to have another option. Hopefully, one day that will change.
Robbie Shaw:
If we could normalize the feelings that you're talking about right now, the majority of junior high or middle school kids feel. They need to know that it is normal to feel weird and odd.
Chris Herren:
So many parents are so caught up in their children's academics and their athletics. Monday through Friday, they hover over their homework, they'll email teachers, they'll ask for extra credit, they'll kick the bleachers out at a game. They'll stand on the sidelines for soccer or lacrosse. But on Saturday nights, they're nowhere to be found.
Sam Hampson:
And it's totally fine as long as they're performing academically, right, which turns into adulthood as it's totally fine as long as they're functioning at their job.
Chris Herren:
You want your child to be really good academically. You want them to be really good athletically. Why wouldn't you challenge them in other areas like emotional wellness and social health. That's where we've just surrendered, we don't broach those topics because some people don't want the answers.
Changing our relationship with alcohol
Patrick Balsley:
I don't want to keep this conversation totally on kids either because I think we need to talk about adults too. They're the ones that are going to have to make some significant shifts in order to be able to talk to their kids about this stuff and change their relationship with alcohol if they really want to influence their kids' relationship with it. What are some of the conversations that you have with guests around alcohol consumption or alcohol use?
Chris Herren:
From my point of view, most people who come in here with a specific substance use disorder, they quickly come around to their life. The people that love them are much better off if they stay abstinent from everything. So very rarely at Herren Wellness do we have people come in for say, opiates, but plan on drinking after. We don't want to shut anyone out, right? If you have plans of drinking and yet you're here for a different issue, we want to stay connected and keep empowering and encouraging and supporting, right? I don't judge anyone for their path to recovery, and that's why at Herren Wellness, I've offered everything.
We have AA, we have smart, we have refuge, we do acupuncture, massage therapy, yoga, meditation. We have a personal trainer that works with them seven days a week. You never know where they're going to find it, what path. For me, I can say, my path has been the 12 steps. It's not going to be the path for everyone, and I wanted to have as many options as possible at Herren Wellness.
Sam Hampson:
We are all professionals in the realm of helping people that struggle with substance use disorders, and I always have to shift back to, “what about the rest of the drinkers?” How do you start a wellness conversation with someone who doesn't have problematic use, but just wants to explore their relationship with alcohol?
Chris Herren:
At Herren Wellness, we'll identify eight areas of their life and where they're at. And oftentimes they'll identify, “my drinking has affected my relationships, my finances, my work life.” So if we can identify the effects that alcohol is having on some of our guests and make that transparent to them, they're more likely to want to explore the possibility of living a life without. I never want to be judgmental. We have one life, we get one crack at this and it's becoming the best version of you. And if alcohol is part of that story for some people, that's your choice. I know for me, there is no gray area.
Robbie Shaw:
With more and more people like you speaking out, traveling, reaching millions of people, podcasts like this, do you think we can and are creating a shift on how we're thinking about alcohol?
Chris Herren:
For the first four or five years, I went into high schools and I told my story. And I realized my stories are not enough. Once I started talking about self-esteem, self-worth, insecurities, those are the conversations that we can attach alcohol to, marijuana use to. That's where we can have great influence and impact. Once I got away from my story and started telling more of the students' story is when kids began to reach out and ask for help or dive in and do some self-reflection. Once I pivoted and shifted the way I did my presentation, they started reaching out and giving me their story.
Sam Hampson:
It's like, put alcohol on the shelf. Let's stop getting tunnel vision on the substance itself and what is that helping with? What is it medicating? Why are we using it? What else could we do?
Chris Herren:
I take my recovery in a sense like my athletics, right? If I can shoot 500 jumpers a day, then I can put in that type of effort towards my recovery. And I think there's a lot of people out there that live in the gray area that are shooting only 100 jumpers a day. There's more if they want it, that they could get and not miss out on moments. How many moments have you missed out on? How many hours have you put into the gray area where you could have put those hours into the people that love you or people that you love?
Patrick Balsley:
The probability for somebody to actually engage in something like that is so much higher.
Chris Herren:
The Herren Project is such an amazing organization that has grown way beyond my wildest dreams. It's an unbelievable resource for families. It's an unbelievable resource for people looking for preventative tools and a community of support. Whether it's you or your family member, Herren Talks is my speaking. At Herren Wellness, we have 24 people living here currently, and just trying to become the best version of themselves. So there's multiple places, Herren Project, Herren Wellness, Herren Talks.
Taking the first step in your journey to wellness
Sam Hampson:
One disclaimer I just want to make is, any time we are talking, everyone understands there is no right or wrong here. It's not healthy versus super unhealthy, it's we're all doing the best we can with what we know and what we have. Once you know more, you can do more. And that's the conversation we're trying to open up here.
Robbie Shaw:
A lot of times, it may sound like experts are looking down on the listeners and saying, here's what you need to do differently. Well, that's not the intention. The intention is to inform and we are informing ourselves equally during this.
If there's one thing for this episode that I can have our listeners hear and potentially act on, please go watch his documentary called The First Day. If you are having difficulties in approaching this with your kids, it is the perfect ice breaker. And all you have to do is sit down and watch it with your kids.
Sam Hampson:
You don't have to have the answers. If you're nervous that your kid's going to ask you about your use, or they're going to ask certain questions about alcohol or what they should be doing instead, please just don't let that fear of not knowing the right answer keep you from entering the conversation in the first place. The responsibility there is just equipping them with the tools and information. And if you don't have it, just make sure they get in front of someone or some resource that does.
Patrick Balsley:
There's plenty of resources out there now. They have family groups. You can even get online and do a 15 minute consultation with a licensed clinician, and all of it's free and confidential.
Robbie Shaw:
What I love about Chris is especially in this podcast, there's obviously a lot of talking, a lot of problem solving and critical thinking and us sitting around trying to better the world essentially. But Chris is out there doing it and, I mean, three different entities that he's created are on the ground doing it. He is creating the change and it is just so respectable to watch what he does.
That was just extremely valuable. And I hope the listeners loved it. The information and opinions shared on this podcast are solely those of the hosts and guests and not a substitute for medical advice. If you feel like you may need professional help, here are some resources. For the substance abuse and mental health services administration hotline, call 1-800-662-4357 or visit samsa.gov. For listeners in the Charlotte, North Carolina community, visit dilworthcenter.org, or call 704-372-6969. Or visit theblanchardinstitute.com or call 704-288-1097.