Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
[Music] Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you are in the world. It’s Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman, Relationship Matters TV. Tonight we’re going to be discussing something that’s extremely important. We are going to be discussing teen substance abuse. So parents, if you have a teenager, grandparents, if there’s a teenager in your life or you know someone with a teenager, I’m going to give you just a moment to contact anyone that you know and have them to tune in to the show tonight. You’re going to get some information that you definitely need. This is something that’s close to my heart and close to my guest tonight. Let me just give you a few statistics. According to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics, 86 percent of teenagers know someone who smokes, drinks, or uses drugs during the school day. 50 percent of teenagers have misused a drug at least once in their lifetime. 43 percent of college students have used illicit drugs. 10 million young people between the ages of 12 to 29 are in need of substance abuse treatment. This evening I have an expert who’s going to speak to us about this. Richard Capriola has been a mental health and addictions counselor for over two decades. He has been licensed in Illinois and Texas. He recently retired from Menninger Clinic in Houston where he was an addictions counselor for adults and adolescents, and he is also an author of a new book on adolescent substance abuse entitled “The Addicted Child” and a workbook, “A Parent’s Guide to Adolescent Substance Abuse.” I want you to welcome Mr. Richard Capriola. How are you?
Richard Capriola
I’m doing just great. Thank you so much for that wonderful introduction and summary of adolescent substance abuse. I so much appreciate you taking the time to have me on your program to discuss this issue which is affecting so many families across our nation.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes, now I said a little bit about you. Is there anything you want to add?
Richard Capriola
I think that was a pretty well-organized summary and captured the basics.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
All right, that’s great. I’m going to start right in and ask you some questions, and I really hope that there are parents of teenagers, grandparents, some teenagers, if you have friends that have teenagers, really, I really think this is so important that you contact whoever you can contact so they can get this information. So Richard, what drugs are today’s teenagers using and has there been any changes in drug use?
Richard Capriola
Well, teenagers are still predominantly using alcohol and marijuana. Those are the two substances that we see most teenagers, if they’re using substances, are attracted to. There is some use of the more hardcore drugs, but nowhere near the percentages that we see with alcohol and marijuana. About four percent of seniors might have tried things like LSD and cocaine. There is some abuse of prescription medications like Ritalin and Adderall, but primarily the substances that teenagers are attracted to are alcohol and marijuana. Now, over the past three years, we have seen a dramatic increase in what is called vaping of substances, where they will take a substance, they’ll use a vaping pen or a vaping instrument that will turn the substance like marijuana or nicotine into a vapor that they will inhale. And in the last three years, we have seen a surge in the number of adolescents who have turned to vaping. For example, three years ago, the number of teenagers that were vaping nicotine was roughly 18 percent. Today it’s 34 percent. About three years ago, nine percent of seniors were vaping marijuana. Today it’s 22 percent. So there has been a dramatic increase in the vaping among our adolescent population.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, now I’m not that familiar with vaping, so tell me exactly what is vaping?
Richard Capriola
Well, vaping is a process where a person, an adolescent, will take a substance like marijuana or nicotine and they will use an instrument that looks like a pen, a vaping pen. Some of them look like USB drives. You might have heard the term JUUL. JUUL is a very popular brand name of a vaping pen, and they will buy the substances in liquid form. The vaping pen will turn that substance into a vapor which they then inhale, and that’s what we refer to as vaping. Primarily marijuana, nicotine, and some of them come in fruit flavors too. They’re very popular with the adolescent population. And the thing with the nicotine, we’ve seen a dramatic decline in adolescent smoking cigarettes. It’s at an all-time low, but what’s happened is teenagers have turned away from smoking cigarettes to vaping nicotine, and they’re getting higher concentrations of nicotine through vaping than what they were getting through cigarette smoking, so it’s becoming more addictive because they’re getting higher concentrations of nicotine.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So do you think that COVID, this COVID pandemic, has affected the increase in vaping and marijuana smoking?
Richard Capriola
I think the pandemic has affected adults, it’s affected kids, it’s disrupted lives. I think what we’re seeing as a result of the pandemic for both adults and adolescents is an increasing need in mental health services. The Centers for Disease Control, CDC, is reporting that since the pandemic began, there’s been a 24 percent increase in emergency room visits by grade school children, and there’s also been an increase in teenagers who are urgently in need of mental health services. So I think the fact that all of our lives and all of the adolescent lives have been significantly disrupted has caused mental health issues to start to surface that we’re probably going to see for a long, long time. In terms of addiction, one of the areas that it’s affected is in the area of a process addiction, mainly video gaming. Since 2020, when the pandemic began, the number of teenagers that are spending more time in gaming, the average has gone up to about six hours a day. So I think that we’re starting to see some ramifications of the pandemic both in terms of addiction process disorders like gaming, perhaps some increase in substance abuse, but we’re going to see a big need for mental health services.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh my goodness. So Richard, tell me what motivated you to go into this vital area of concern?
Richard Capriola
Well, I started out in Illinois when I was working for state government and had a part-time job working for a mental health crisis center. We would take in patients from the emergency room into our crisis center, and they would stay with us for a short period of time. I noticed that a high percentage of those patients coming to the crisis center not only had a mental health issue, they also had a substance abuse issue. So I went back to the University of Illinois and studied and received a master’s degree in addictions counseling. I then continued to work at the mental health crisis center for a number of years until I was offered the job as an addictions counselor at Menninger Clinic in Houston, where I worked for over a decade with both adults and adolescents who have both a mental health issue and an addictions issue. So that’s how my journey began.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So I want to ask you this: does the substance abuse cause the mental problems, or do the mental problems cause substance abuse?
Richard Capriola
Well, what I’ve noticed in working with an awful lot of teenagers is when you dig below the surface of their substance use, we begin to uncover mental health issues. A good example is marijuana. I’ve worked with an awful lot of teenagers who were smoking a lot of marijuana multiple times a day, and when I asked them to help me understand why they are using so much marijuana, the number one answer that came back was it helps me with my anxiety. So not every child who uses a substance has an underlying mental health issue, but there are a lot of them that do, and that brings us to the point where we need a comprehensive assessment. We need to look beyond just the alcohol and drugs because in many cases, we may find that a child is using a substance to medicate an underlying issue that may very well need treatment. Unfortunately, many times those underlying issues get undiagnosed and not treated.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, so what are some of the risk factors that make teens vulnerable to drug use?
Richard Capriola
Well, for any disease, and addiction is a disease, 40 to 60 percent of a person’s vulnerability is purely genetics, and that’s true for any disease. If you have hypertension in your family, you are vulnerable to developing hypertension. If you are a woman and you have a history of breast cancer in your family, you’re more vulnerable to breast cancer. It doesn’t mean you’re going to get the disease, it just means that you are at a little bit higher risk. So a portion of it is genetics, but it takes more than just the genetics. The remaining percentage is environmental factors, and that can be anything from high levels of stress, high levels of abuse, any of the mental disorders that we were talking about could be high levels of anxiety. It could be a child who perhaps is being bullied at school. It could be any number of underlying issues that, in addition to the vulnerability that comes about from genetics, creates a perfect storm, so to speak, that makes that child more vulnerable.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I never thought about genetics, and so if you have parents that are either alcoholics or have been or are addicted to drugs, then there’s a proclivity for the child to also be addicted to drugs. I never, you know, I didn’t realize that because you can’t help who your parents are.
Richard Capriola
No, you can’t.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow. Yeah, wow. And so let’s talk about this: is there a difference in teenage substance abuse and adult substance abuse?
Richard Capriola
I think there’s two main differences between adult addiction and adolescent addiction. The first difference is in brain development. The adolescent brain is just not fully developed, whereas the adult brain is. Our brains get fully developed around age 24 or 25, so the adolescent brain is in the process of developing, it’s in the process of maturing. Many of these important parts of the brain that we need, like the ones responsible for higher-order thinking, weighing pros and cons, making good decisions, they’re just not fully developed yet. So when you start to introduce a substance like alcohol or marijuana or any drug, illicit drug, into a developing brain, you run the risk of that person becoming more dependent on the substance. So the first difference is brain development. The second difference between adult and adolescent addiction has to do with consequences. Most adults, many adults who are addicted to a substance, have many times faced consequences, sometimes catastrophic consequences, as a result of being addicted to a drug. They may have lost a marriage, they may have lost a job, they may have been incarcerated. So these are catastrophic consequences that many adults face as a result of being addicted to a substance. Adolescents, on the other hand, have faced very few consequences, certainly very few if any catastrophic consequences as adults have. Adolescents’ biggest consequence usually is some form of restriction or punishment laid down by their parents, but there is a big difference in terms of the consequences that adults face versus the consequences that adolescents face.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Do you think peers, the teenagers and their peers, play a role in this, whether or not they use drugs?
Richard Capriola
Yes, I think that there are some children that are attracted and eventually end up using drugs because of the peers that they’re associating with. There may or may not be peer pressure, but certainly hanging around peers who are using substances, encouraging you to try substances, that can be a powerful influence on young men and women.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, okay, okay. Now, I’ve heard, and I can’t remember which first lady talked about “just say no,” and then there was this big thing about if you use marijuana, you smoke marijuana as a teenager, it’s going to lead you to harder drugs. Have you seen that a child or teenager who smokes marijuana or drinks alcohol, does that mean that when they become adults they’re still going to be addicted to either alcohol or drugs? Is there…
Richard Capriola
You know, when we talk about addiction, we never diagnose a child or even an adult with addiction. That’s not a diagnosis. It is a label, it is a stigmatizing type of negative label. When we diagnose somebody, whether it’s a child or an adult, we diagnose them as having what we call a substance use disorder, and it’s now labeled a disorder, and it can be on a continuum that runs from mild to moderate to severe. So if your child receives a diagnosis, say, of cannabis use disorder, it might be cannabis use disorder mild or moderate or severe, depending upon the consequences that that drug has had. The more serious consequences, the more number of consequences, the more likely the child is to be in the moderate or severe. I would say most of the teenagers that I’ve worked with have been in probably the moderate category, maybe the mild to moderate, some in the severe category. But because a child is using a substance as a teenager does not destine that child to continue using that substance into adulthood or graduate into more hardcore drugs. I don’t think any child is destined to move from marijuana, say, to cocaine. Is it a possibility? Certainly, it’s a possibility, but it’s not a foregone conclusion.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, now what about the legalization of marijuana? Do you agree with that, and do you think also that that plays a role in the increase in the use of marijuana?
Richard Capriola
I think it leaves a perception among teenagers that this is not a harmful drug. More and more states are making it legal for adults, so the way that the adolescent might look at it is, well, if more and more states are making it legal for adults, it can’t be that harmful. Well, the problem with that is, again, back to brain development. The adolescent brain is in the process of developing and therefore is much more vulnerable to being harmed, whereas the adult brain is fully developed. So if you want to legalize a substance for adults, as we do apparently with marijuana, that’s much different than saying, okay, it’s now okay for an adolescent whose brain is developing to use marijuana because that’s just not the case at all.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, okay, okay. Now, I know that there are some subtle signs that parents need to look for because I’m sure there are parents that are watching and, you know, that they would say, “Oh, I know whether or not my child is using drugs,” you know. So are there subtle signs that parents can look for?
Richard Capriola
I have sat across the room from parents and have given them a history of their child’s substance use, the drugs that their child has been using, the frequency that they’ve been using, and how long their child has been using. I laid all that out, I explained it to them, and the reaction that I heard from parents many times was something like, “I had no idea this was going on,” or if they did suspect their child was using a substance, they would look at me and they would say something like, “Well, I knew this was going on, I knew something was going on, but I had no idea it was this bad.” So parents need to be aware of what’s going on, and so many parents, after they learn about their child’s substance abuse, they begin to have feelings of, “How did I miss these signs? How did I not catch this? What went wrong?” So many parents that I’ve worked with have been caught off guard by this, and they didn’t know the warning signs. Many parents don’t know the warning signs because nobody’s ever told them what to look for. Nobody’s ever given them a book like mine that has the warning signs in it, so they just don’t know the warning signs, and then they get caught up in it, and it becomes a total surprise to them. So in my book, I have warning signs for things like marijuana, warning signs for alcohol, and so many times, well, not so many times, but sometimes we will find a child who is not only using the substance, but they might have an eating disorder or they might be self-harming. I’ve seen a number of children that are smoking marijuana and also self-harming. So in my book, I have warning signs that will tell a parent what to look for if they suspect their child has an eating disorder or what to look for if they suspect their child might be self-harming because those can often accompany alcohol and drug use. But as a general observation, what I say to parents is pay attention to changes that you see in your child. Don’t assume that the changes that you’re seeing are just normal adolescent development. They may very well be, but they also might be signs of a different underlying issue. For example, some of the warning signs in general would be if you have a child who was making very good grades and now the grades are starting to decline, you have a child who used to be very social and outgoing and now is becoming more isolating, you have a child who took pride in their appearance and no longer cares what they look like. So those are some general warning signs in addition to the more specific ones I have in my book. But the message is pay attention to those warning signs, and when you see them, look into them, find out what’s going on, get an assessment if you need that. Don’t ignore those warning signs. They may be an indication of something going on that needs attention.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, okay. Now, when you let parents know that their child or their teenager is abusing drugs, do they acknowledge it and welcome your help, or do they bury their heads in the sand and say, “Oh no, that’s not my child”? Have you seen that?
Richard Capriola
By the time they came to me, the situation had become so serious that they were no longer in denial, and they brought their child into the hospital. Many times the child was very angry, very opposed, but the situation had gotten to be so serious that the parents felt they had no other option.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, okay. So we have a question from Sarah Crawley. She asks, “Is self-esteem an issue?”
Richard Capriola
That’s a very good question because many times self-esteem is an issue. It’s an issue because of the way that the child looks at themselves, and if they look at themselves in a very negative way, then that creates what I often refer to as an intolerable thought, feeling, or emotion. None of us, adults or kids, like to have these intolerable thoughts or feelings or memories, and when we do, we usually find some way to get out of that intolerable feeling. So a child who has a very poor self-image or looks at themselves negatively, if that becomes intolerable, they’re going to try to find some way to relieve it. And if through some way they find marijuana helps, maybe another child recommended it to them, maybe they tried it out of curiosity, a number of different ways that they may have started marijuana. But the point is, if they find out that marijuana or alcohol relieves that intolerable feeling, even for a moment, they’re more likely to continue using it because they don’t like that feeling that they’re having.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, Sarah Crawley also asked another question: “What about childhood grief and loss?”
Richard Capriola
Well, that can be very traumatic for a child, and again, it gets back to this primary issue of when we have a very disturbing or an intolerable thought or feeling or memory, if that doesn’t get recognized, if that child doesn’t get help for that, they’re likely to find a substance that will help medicate and ease that feeling. And grief and loss are extremely emotional, devastating types of feelings that children and adults can have, and if a child is suffering in a way and they find a chemical like alcohol or marijuana that even temporarily relieves that suffering, they’re going to continue to use it. And that brings us to the issue of we can’t just treat the alcohol, we can’t just treat the marijuana. That child also needs treatment and help for the grief and the loss that they’ve gone through. If I were just to treat that child’s marijuana use and somebody wasn’t treating the grief, that child more likely is going to continue at some point to go back to smoking marijuana.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, I see, I see. Now, I had a friend who, she wasn’t an alcoholic, but when she had parties and things, her son, what she found out later, when everybody was gone to bed, he would go downstairs, I guess, and drink the rest of the alcohol that was in the glasses. And as time went on, someone told her that her son was an alcoholic, but she, you know, “Oh no, my son is not an alcoholic.” But then what happened was her son got into a fight, and he was arrested, and he was drunk, and that’s how she found out that really he was an alcoholic. So she blamed herself on the fact that she didn’t know this and the fact that when she would have parties and friends over, that he was coming down and drinking the rest of it, and she blamed herself. So I’m wondering, when you do talk to parents about their child’s substance abuse, do they blame themselves?
Richard Capriola
Not all the time. Unfortunately, many times they still want to continue to blame the child, and that brings up the issue that many times, you know, addiction, having a child who’s abusing a substance, becomes a family issue, and many times the family needs treatment as much as the child needs treatment. But parents sometimes want to focus just on the child, you know, “Here, fix the child, that’s the problem, just fix the child and everything will be okay.” But unfortunately, that’s rarely the case because addiction is a family system type of problem, and many times the entire family needs to be treated as well as the child.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh my goodness, this is so very, very interesting. Richard, I have to take a brief break and do some commercials, okay? But we will be right back. This is a subject matter that I really wanted to bring to the forefront because it’s extremely important for parents to know what’s going on with their child. So we will be right back. [Music]
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
All right, we are back, and I really hope that some parents, grandparents, that you contacted people that you know with teenagers so that you can get this information. Now, Richard, which assessments and tests are important for a comprehensive diagnosis?
Richard Capriola
Well, certainly you need an addictions assessment. That’s what I was doing at Menninger Clinic, and that’s going to be an assessment that is going to give you information about your child’s substance use. It’s going to describe the substances that have been used, how long they’ve been using the substance, how much of the substance they’ve been using, and it’s going to recommend a diagnosis, like I was saying earlier, if it’s applicable, of a substance use disorder. And you’re going to know what category is it, is it mild, moderate, or severe. And beyond that, because as I mentioned earlier, it’s very important to look beyond just the alcohol and drugs because many times a teenager will be using a substance to medicate an underlying issue. So you need a complete physical examination, and you need a psychological or a neuropsychological examination, and my book describes a little bit more detail about those. But the bottom line is when you get all of these assessments done, including a stage of what we call a stage of change assessment, which will tell you where your child is in terms of their willingness to change their behavior, when you get all of these done, then you’re in a position where you have a comprehensive view of what’s going on with your child, you have a diagnosis, and then you have a treatment plan on how to move forward. So it’s very important that you just don’t get the addictions assessment so that you don’t miss some other aspect of what’s going on with your child.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
What’s the worst case of substance abuse among a teen that you’ve seen?
Richard Capriola
We had a young lady who was 17 years old who came into the hospital, and she was addicted to heroin, which is very unusual with the adolescent population. Most of the time it’s alcohol or marijuana, sometimes it’s a prescription drug, but this young lady was addicted to a very strong drug that her boyfriend had introduced her to. And the really sad part of it was not only was she dependent on this very powerful drug, she was also pregnant. And the only thing we could do for her at that point was stabilize her, make sure that she was safe, and then ultimately we referred her to a very good long-term treatment program because this is an example of when a child has such a severe addiction that they’re more likely going to be referred to a residential type treatment program for a length of time, six to 12 months or even longer. It is that severe situation.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Now, did that affect her baby also?
Richard Capriola
We only had her in the hospital for a couple of weeks while we were arranging to get her transferred to this residential facility in California. I did hear back that I think everything worked out well for her.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Maxine Walker says A and N, N A also treat the whole family, and so I guess I would imagine that if a child is abusing drugs that you really do have to treat the whole family because you really have to find out, I’m assuming, why it happened, where it’s coming from, and hopefully a parent would know, you know, and probably sometimes brothers and sisters might know before the parent knows.
Richard Capriola
Many times that is the case. The brothers or the sisters might also be using a substance, or if not, they know that their sibling is using a substance, and many times it’s the parents that’s the last person to find out.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow, yeah. Now, Sarah asks, “Does the new marijuana have THC, and does it still have residual effects six months later after it’s no longer used?”
Richard Capriola
Well, I would say that the marijuana that is out there today is much different than the marijuana that was out there in the 60s and 70s when Woodstock was going on, for your listeners who might remember the 60s. The marijuana back then had a THC, THC is the psychoactive component that’s in marijuana, of maybe two or three percent. But the way it’s being cultivated these days and grown, the THC, the psychoactive component of marijuana, is much more powerful than what it was back in the 60s and 70s, which makes it more addictive and potentially more damaging. So those substances are much more powerful now. Now, the question of, well, what happens down the road is a very good question because the one thing we know about the brain is that it has a remarkable capacity to heal itself once the person stops the substance abuse. I’ve seen scans of brains of people and adults who are using substances three and six months after they have quit, and it’s pretty remarkable the improvement that we can see. And that’s the message of hope. That’s the message of hope that I want parents to understand. Once their child stops using a substance like marijuana, their brain has a remarkable capacity to heal and recover. So I want parents to understand that even though you might be in the midst of dealing with a child who’s using substances and there might be some rather severe consequences of that use, if that child stops using the substance, you can see some pretty remarkable changes in a relatively short period of time.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, okay. So I see we’re talking mostly about marijuana. Now, what about, isn’t there a meth epidemic? Is that something that teenagers use and abuse, or is that mostly adults?
Richard Capriola
We’re not seeing very much of that in the adolescent population. That tends to be more in the adult population. Adolescents, as I was saying earlier, are more attracted to alcohol and marijuana. Now, one of the reasons for that has to do with availability. If we ask teenagers, “How easy is it for you to get marijuana if you want it?” almost 80 percent of seniors will tell us it’s very easy for them to find marijuana if they want it. If we ask them, “Well, how easy is it for you to get LSD if you wanted it?” 30 percent will say it’s pretty easy, and over 80 percent will tell you that if they wanted to find alcohol, that wouldn’t be a problem at all. So the availability of these drugs is one of the reasons why we’re seeing what we’re seeing, but that’s not the only reason. The other one is harmfulness. How harmful do these teenagers think these substances are? And when you ask them, you find out that they don’t think that these substances are very harmful. In other words, only 30 percent of seniors will tell you that they think regularly smoking marijuana is harmful, only 30 percent. And about 25 percent of them will tell you they don’t think it’s very harmful to have one or two drinks nearly every day. So when you combine the fact that these drugs are readily available if a teenager wants them and these teenagers don’t see the harmfulness in them, then you’ve created a perfect storm where there’s so much of this going on.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow. So Richard, how long did you work in this field?
Richard Capriola
Well, I’ve been in the mental health addictions field for over two decades. I started in Illinois with the crisis center. I worked there for a number of years, and then I worked for over a decade at Menninger Clinic as an addictions counselor for both adults and adolescents. So all combined, I’ve had a little over two decades of working with adults and adolescents diagnosed with both mental health and substance use disorders.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow, good grief. I would think it would take a toll on you, you know, to me it would be just draining, you know, to see all of this. I have a question that came in: is there a boot camp type atmosphere to help substance abuse teens, or do you just treat each individual separately? So I guess, you know, like a group kind of environment or…
Richard Capriola
Well, each child’s different, so, you know, each assessment is different, each treatment plan is different, and the recommendations are different. My book does mention different types of treatment options that are available for a family depending on the diagnosis and the unique circumstances of that child. But one of the options that families sometimes turn to is a system that’s called wilderness camps. And wilderness camps are really where young men and women are sent literally out into the wilderness with supervision, and many times those wilderness type of programs are designed to motivate a child for treatment. This is a child, for example, that is just absolutely resistant to any type of treatment, so there may be recommended to the family that they first begin with a wilderness program where the child will be sort of exposed to counseling and treatment in literally a wilderness type of environment, and the objective is to get them motivated and prepared for more formal residential type of treatment.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, I guess that would be like a boot camp, yeah. Okay, okay. So we talked a little bit about your book, and it’s called “The Addicted Child: A Parent’s Guide to Adolescent Substance Abuse.” Now, I think you said, I think we spoke and you said that there was a workbook with it also?
Richard Capriola
There is a parent workbook that accompanies this book. This is the primary book to help parents become better informed about adolescent substance abuse. It only runs about 100 pages. The chapters are very short, but they’re packed with a lot of non-technical kinds of information. It’s very easy, I hope, for people to read quickly, understand, and walk away saying, “Okay, I’ve got this now. I understand this issue better than what I did before.” But so many of the parents that I worked with had their own struggles, you know, they felt guilty, “How did I miss the warning signs?” They felt very anxious, depressed, sometimes angry. So I put together a parent workbook called “The Addicted Child Parent Workbook,” and it is also a very short workbook that helps parents process some of these emotions that they go through. It has exercises, a couple of exercises on how to work with anxiety, but I think one of the more interesting parts of the workbook is on communication skills. How do we as parents learn to communicate better with our child? You know, we’re very good at listening to other people’s words, so when our child is speaking to us, we hear the words, but we’re not so good sometimes listening to the feelings underneath those words. So my workbook has some exercises where parents can actually practice learning the skill of listening to feelings, and it’s a skill that every parent can learn. We can all learn it, and we can all benefit from it. But the point is, when we have a discussion with our child, we’re not just listening to their words, we’re picking up on their feelings behind the words, and when that happens, the child begins to believe that the parent really understands what’s going on, and that is so important.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, and I hear what you’re saying. A lot of times parents are so busy working or whatever when their child is, it might be crying out for help, and like you say, they’re listening to the words, but they’re not really, what I would say, effectively listening to the child, you know. And I would imagine that some of the parents would really feel guilty when, if they say, “Well, you know, I saw something, or he was telling me something, or she was saying this, and I just didn’t pay any attention to it. I just thought it was teenage stuff. I just, you know, I just really didn’t know.” And so that’s really, really important. Now, if they want to get your book and your workbook, where can they get it? I have it on the bottom, but it’s always good, so a lot of people don’t read.
Richard Capriola
Well, thank you for putting that on the screen, but they can go to the book’s website, which is www.helptheaddictedchild.com, and once they get to the website, they can review, they can read endorsements that have been made, they can read some book reviews, they can read a sample chapter, and they can order the book through Amazon, and they can also order the parent workbook. The book is available in electronic form if people would prefer to read it on their iPad or their reader, or if they prefer to have a paperback copy, they can do that. These are not very expensive. I think it’s less than, well, under five dollars to get the electronic version and under ten dollars to get the paperback version, and they can also order and read the chapter summary of the parent workbook. So all of that’s available at www.helptheaddictedchild.com. There’s also a link where they can contact me.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, Richard, have you ever thought about having this program in schools?
Richard Capriola
Well, that’s an interesting thought because when I was working with adolescent boys and girls who were smoking a lot of marijuana, it did me absolutely no good to sit there and tell them it’s illegal. It did me absolutely no good to tell them, “Well, if you continue to smoke marijuana, you’re going to drop out of school, your grades are going to go down, and you may never get a job.” They’d heard all of that, and they didn’t believe it, so I was wasting my time. So what did work, what I found worked, was the neuroscience behind the drugs. When I could explain to them and teach them how these substances worked in their brain, I had their attention, and I had their interest. So I would show them a diagram of a brain, and I would show the different areas of the brain and what they were responsible for. One area of your brain is responsible for coordination, one area of your brain is responsible for memory, one area of your brain is responsible for speech, and then I would show them another graph that showed them where marijuana attached itself to their brain, and they could very quickly see, “Now I understand why when I smoke marijuana, my short-term memory is not so good, how I can see when I smoke marijuana, my coordination is not what it should be.” So when they could see the effect of a drug on their brain, that had a powerful influence on them. And to get back to your question, what we could be doing in the schools as a very early stage, starting in elementary school and reinforcing it year after year after year through high school, is the neuroscience of addiction. It’s not going to do us much good to have a session with them and tell them it’s illegal. They’ve heard it, they don’t care about it, but if we could start to educate them and reinforce the idea to protect their brain and how these substances can compromise their brain, we have a chance of making some really, really big changes.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, all right. Now, where would parents find, if they feel that their child is abusing drugs or alcohol, how do they find treatment programs?
Richard Capriola
I think the first thing they should do is have a discussion with their child and see how it goes. It may go well, it may not go well, but at least have a start to have that discussion with your child. You may find out that you may find some information you were not aware of, or it could all turn into a big argument, but at least start with that discussion. The next thing is you need to get this comprehensive assessment done that I talk about in my book, and if you don’t know where to begin that process, I would say talk to your school counselor. They can give you some referrals. Talk to your family physician if you have one. They also can give you some referrals. Contact your mental health association. They can give you some referrals. So there’s a lot of resources out there where people can direct you to the professionals that can get these assessments done, but by all means, try to get those assessments done as soon as you can.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, now your book, what golden nugget can you leave the audience with from your book?
Richard Capriola
Learn the warning signs, don’t delay acting on them, and understand that this book can be a resource for you and any family that is out there to help you become more knowledgeable and to understand this issue. And knowledge is power, so the more knowledge you have about this issue of adolescent substance abuse, the more in control you will feel to be able to deal with this issue.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, do you suggest that parents get this book before they think that their child is abusing drugs, or do you think that it’s just a book that they should get during the treatment?
Richard Capriola
I think they should get the book as soon as possible because they want to know what the warning signs are. They want to be more knowledgeable about this issue of adolescent substance abuse. Don’t wait until it becomes a crisis. Don’t wait until you wake up and you discover that your child is abusing alcohol or has been using marijuana for six months or a year. Don’t wait for the crisis. Learn the information now. Buy the book, read it, refer to it from time to time. If you have other family members that you think may benefit from it or you have friends who have adolescents that you think might benefit from them, either give them a copy of it, loan it to them, but by all means, don’t wait until you’re in the midst of a crisis to read the book.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Richard, I really want to thank you for coming on this show. This is something, and it’s so important because I’ve been reading about the increase in substance abuse with teenagers. This is such an important issue, and I really, really hope, I applaud you for the work that you’re doing. This is just something that parents need to hear, parents need to know. You have educated me so much about what’s going on because when I was reading the stats, I thought, really, is it that bad? But it is, and I do know that because of COVID, because of kids not being able to socialize now, and that they’re having more mental health issues, that this is really a problem. But I want to thank you so much, and I really hope that parents, you out there, grandparents, friends of parents with teenagers, that you go to www.helptheaddictedchild.com and get the book or go to amazon.com and get this book. It will really, really, really save you, actually. Thank you so much, Richard, again. I appreciate you coming on the show this evening.
Richard Capriola
Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and the help that you’ve given me to be able to reach out to parents and grandparents and everybody who’s been listening and is interested in this subject. So just once again, thank you so much for helping.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Alrighty, and you have a very blessed evening.
Richard Capriola
You too, thank you.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Thank you. Alrighty, bye-bye.
Richard Capriola
Bye-bye now.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Well, I really hope that you really got something out of this. This is a very, very, very important issue. What I want to say to you is don’t ignore your teens. Listen to them, find out what’s going on with them so that you won’t end up having this issue. Save yourself and save your child. This is Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman, and I will see you next week. Parents, you need to be here next week also because we’re going to talk about bullying. Is your child being bullied and you don’t know about it? We want to see you again next week, so have a very blessed evening or morning wherever you are in the world. [Music] Bye-bye. [Music]