5 Step Protocol That Stops Teen Addiction Before Rock Bottom

If you're worried your child could be heading toward addiction, you may be waiting for a clear warning sign that shows up too late. In this educational episode, drug prevention expert and author Dave Kopeny walks parents through a 5 step protocol for stepping in early, long before rock bottom. This conversation is for parents, grandparents, caregivers, and anyone who loves a teen and wants to protect their mental health before a crisis starts.

Dave has spent more than three decades working with adolescents and families. He has served as a school counselor, juvenile probation officer, gang investigator, and private investigator specializing in drug prevention and intervention. He also grew up in a family affected by addiction and has lost family members to it.

Today's drug environment is not the one most parents grew up with. Dave explains what has changed, the early signs parents most often overlook, and why the old advice to wait for rock bottom can put a child at serious risk. We also look at how substance use, mental health, and family dynamics feed each other, and at the one thing Dave believes most parents underestimate about their own power to change the outcome.

Chapters

• 1:00
• Meet Dave Kopeny
• 5:39 How Teens Get Targeted Today
• 11:53 Subtle Signs Parents Miss
• 13:55 Finding The Real Reason Why
• 19:07 Schools, Therapists, And Support Teams
• 24:31 Room Checks And Drug Tests
• 26:26 Why Rock Bottom Is Risky
• 28:52
• The Tip Of The Spear Plan 35:41
• Sponsor Break Medicinal Herb Tea 37:28
• Kratom Sold Like Candy
• 41:22 Carfentanil Narcan And What’s Next
• 45:10 Free Tools Parents Can Use
• 46:50 Connection As Prevention
• 49:17 Closing And Medical Disclaimer

Your host, Antoinette Berrafato, used nature therapy through archery and kayaking to recover from physical limitations. She found passion, purpose, and people as a recipe for mental health, and she brings that same practical, root cause lens to every conversation on New Normal Big Life.

Resources

https://www.davekopeny.com/  asapcommunity.org

Buy The Tip of The Spear by David Vieth Kopeny 

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Transcript

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Listener Warning And Big Stakes

Speaker 1 0:00

Hey, well, ness Warriors, before we get into today's topic, I just want to let you know that today we'll be joined by an expert who will be talking about substance use and abuse. If you're not ready to have that conversation with your teen or other little ears in the room, you may want to use some headphones or listen or watch later.

Speaker 0:19

Every child in this country is going to be introduced to drugs. Every child. Unless they don't have friends, unless there's no family members that have drug issues, unless they don't have a phone or a computer. If that's the case, they won't be introduced. Because those are the three things family, friends, and social media.

Speaker 1 0:35

Hi friends, welcome to the New Normal Big Life Podcast. We bring you natural and integrative health information and stories about nature that we hope will inspire you to get outside an adventure, along with a step-by-step plan to help you practice what you've learned to create your own new normal and live the biggest life you can dream. I'm your host, Antoinette Berrafato, the Wellness Warrior. Let's get into today's topic. Welcome to New Normal Big Life, Dave

Meet Dave Copenney’s Story

Speaker 1 1:00

Kopeny. Why don't you tell us who you are, what you do, and the one big idea you want to leave us with today?

Speaker 1:06

Thanks, Antoinette. Thank you for having me on your show. I have been involved with families and drug abuse and their teens and their kids for about 30 years, 35 years. I started as a probation officer out in California, became a school counselor, went back to probation, became an intensive probation officer with the juvenile division. I did work gangs. I was a gang investigator working with young adults for the sheriff's department, and I am now a private investigator specializing in drug prevention and intervention. I grew up in a dedicated household. Six brothers. Father was an alcoholic. Lots of trauma with him growing up. He could be violent. He uh not with his boys, but with my mom. I never saw him hit her. But, you know, I remember the bruises on her scalp from him dragging her around the house and that, you know, that kind of environment. I lost a brother to drugs. He he died about 15 years ago while I was a member of the war on drugs, which obviously is kind of a contradiction, right? It made me pause to wonder what I was doing, if I was really making a difference. And uh I was working three or four or five drug cases at the time when I got the call that he had died. And I remember thinking, what am I doing if I can't help my own brother? And I saw it coming. I just didn't, you know, we didn't know what to do back then. But what this did was my early life prepared me well for working with families and teens now. I know what they're going through. I know what they're going to go through. I've been I've been there for all of it. I've seen it and witnessed it, and I've been to my whole family's funerals. And you know, so I understand when I walk into a house and once told me, Dave, we're glad you're here, but I think you're too late. I don't think you can help us. I think I can. And what I want would like your listeners to hear today is that this country has a drug problem, and our children are the targets. We are the most addicted country in the world by far. Second, it's not even close. And today is the worst day to use drugs because they are more addictive, more prevalent, more threatening, and more harmful than they were yesterday. Unfortunately, tomorrow is going to be worse than today. Because we have narcochemists making synthetic heroin. We have THC in marijuana going up and up and up, and THC, the higher the THC, the higher the addiction. The higher the addiction, the more money there is for these entities that sell drugs, whether they're legal or illegal. And parents need to be aware that they're coming for the kids and they know maybe your audience can relate. There's people don't start addictions in their twenties, usually, generally. They start in their teens. We start smoking in our teens, we start drinking in our teens. By the time if we haven't had a cigarette or a drink when we're in our twenties, late twenties, we don't usually aren't susceptible to addiction. The companies know this. The money knows this. The markets know this. We have 50 million people in this country who have an addiction problem. It's called euphemistically a substance use disorder, which to me doesn't hit hard enough. It's an addiction. Meaning we do something that either hurts ourselves or somebody else, and we can't stop doing it. Fifty million people. 90% of them started in their teens. And you are seven times more likely to be addicted in your twenties and thirties if you start in your teens. I'm not a genius. I didn't figure this out. The tobacco companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the alcohol companies, they figured this out years and years ago. And I would like parents to understand that. And that uh I have things that they can do to help their kid and save their kid and educate their kid today. And uh really at this point, that's all we can do. I don't have a magic pill, there's no magic wand. But the parents are the magic pill, and the parents are the magic wand. And uh involvement, parent involvement is the most important thing in raising a child. I don't care if you're talking sports, education, or drugs, or drug intervention, or drug prevention. So that's my message to your listeners today.

Speaker 1 5:20

Well, Dave, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. And I'm really sad to hear that you had to go through that, you and your family. But you know, the empowering message that came out of it that you're sharing with all of us today is going to help so many

How Teens Get Targeted Today

Speaker 1 5:39

people. But what do parents most often miss in their earliest stages of substance abuse?

Speaker 5:45

My clients, they it's it's doesn't matter how much money they make or what they do for a living, or their politics, or their religion. What it comes down to is time that they spend with their kids. And parents are very busy today. You know, we're there's a lot of struggles. There's a lot of stress. We're not in a bubble. That stress is shared by our kids. And a lot of parents do not know the real world that their kids are living in now. They think it's the world back when we had telephones on the wall, or we didn't have a computer in our pocket all day long, right? When our kids could go just after school and play or play after school sports or that sort of thing, not come home and have a conversation with a stranger for six hours or an influencer. Our kids are getting bombarded by information, misinformation, disinformation from people that they don't know. And our kids are very susceptible to all of this. And parents need to understand that their kids aren't living in the same world that we grew up in. I don't care how old you are.

Speaker 1 6:53

And where are they getting the information from? Is it from the internet?

Speaker 6:57

Well, there's going to be three ways, and every child in this country is going to be introduced to drugs. Every child. Unless they don't have friends, unless there's no family members that have issues, mental health or drug issues, or unless they don't have a phone or a computer. If that's the case, they won't be introduced. Because those are the three things family, friends, and social media. Social media parents got to understand that the influence of that machine, that computer, on their kids is immeasurable. We have a highest rate of depression ever. Both boys and girls, 12 to 17, over 50% say they they're depressed regularly. They have a lot of outside things coming at them, and parents have to realize that they are getting marketed to in the legal marijuana industry and illegal drug industry. Every kid's a few clicks away from buying things. On Amazon, by the way, they can click, How do I hide my drugs in my room? And they'll go to a site that that has fake shampoo bottles or fake water bottles. They can go a little deeper on other websites and they will tell them, you know, hide it in behind the toilet or in a shoe or in a pocket of an old coat or wherever it may be. This information's out there. Kids can find out how to shoot up drugs into their arms or into their toes on the internet. They will show them how to do that. There are websites that will sell them clothes so they can get high, and they advertise it by saying you can get high at school and the teacher won't know, and you can get high at home with the parent not knowing. This includes vaping and sweatshirts that conceal the vape, yet you, you know, the little string that's attached to every sweatshirt, that's the pipe. That's the how they inhale it. So these things are being marketed to our kids without knowledge, without the parents' knowledge, obviously. Legal marijuana. Now, again, I don't want people to think I'm anti-drug. I don't care what you do. If you're in your 20s, your brain's fully developed, you're emotionally set, you got a good job, you know how to have a relationship, you know how to control your behaviors, and you want to have gummies, and I have my wine with my wife every night. You know, it's not the best thing for me, but I like it. If that's who you are, that's fine. However, I do have a problem with the marketing to our kids, and they do. You know, you walk into these dispensaries and they'll tell you the drugs are for a grandmother who's got a bad back, or a dad who can't sleep, right? And 21 come on in. However, you walk into these and they're called purple locomotives, or, you know, that's what the weeds called, or Girl Scout cookies. I mean, those aren't medical names. These aren't obviously marketed to the older adults. They're marketed to the kids, they're packaged to the kids with cartoon uh drawings on the front and bright colors. And, you know, my my kid had to uh on her way to school, my two two youngest on the way to high school, a thousand thousand yards away from their high school, was a dispensary. And on it was a sign that says, A friend with weed is a friend indeed.

unknown 10:12

Wow.

Speaker 10:12

Funny, right? If you're an adult, quaint, funny, nice marketing tool. But what's it do the 12-year-old? What kind of what does that put in their mind? It gives them an inclusivity to that world that they shouldn't have. They really shouldn't. So that's not going away. So I want parents to understand the facts of the drugs and just give them to your kids. Educate your kid. Here's one thing maybe your audience can do. My kids, in a very state-by-state, my kids, in order to get their driver's license, they had to take a 50-hour class, they had to drive with somebody for 30 hours, they had to drive with a professional for six hours, they had to drive at 10 hours at night, they had to pass a written test, they had to pass a driving test. Only then did they get something that could seriously harm themselves or others. I want your audience to sit down with your kid, take one minute, say, hey, I'm curious, how much drug education have you had? And I bet it's close to zero. Might be a dare officer now and then. DARE officer comes in and says drugs are bad for you, we shouldn't do them. They hand out some highlighters, they put up some posters in the hallway. It's not enough. Last year, over 80,000 people died from overdose, twice as many that died from car accidents. And by the way, 25% of those car accidents were drug related. So you just ask your kid, what do you know? What do you know about this stuff that's coming at you? And then we teach them.

Speaker 1 11:39

So what are those first subtle shifts in, I don't know, behavior, friendships, or even school life that signal a parent should start leaning in closer and having these conversations with their children?

Subtle Signs Parents Miss

Speaker 11:53

First thing, and some dads have this, but not many, but moms have intuition and they know something's just not right. Maybe they see anger in their child that they haven't seen before. Maybe they're spending more time alone. Maybe they don't like their peer group, and we'll get back to that in a minute. The grades are starting to dip. Maybe they used to love football. They don't or sports. Volleyball, doesn't matter. Maybe they don't do that anymore. Some of those are normal, right? So it's hard to see, like, you know, dips in grades and that sort of thing. It's hard to grow up, period. However, a couple of things is isolation. Yeah, you know, kids off as a part of growing up is to detach yourself from your parents and go out into the world and you meet people, and it can be very, very frustrating for a parent when you see a kid who holds their friends up to high regard, yet they dismiss you, right? It's a normal thing. However, if their emotions are so contrasting, highs and lows or violence starts to appear, or you know, they can't control their emotions anymore. Maybe they do get mad and they can control it. Maybe they do get mad and they can't control it. They start throwing things and acting out, that's a sign. Hygiene is a big sign. It's a big sign for me. If I walk into a room and maybe the bed's unmade, some clothes on the ground, that's one thing. If I walked in and the curtains are drawn, it's dark, there's old food on the floor, plates, dishes, clothes everywhere. They're not washing their clothes, they're not they're not bathing, that's a huge sign. It's it's a sign. Either it's mental health or it's a substance abuse problem.

Speaker 1 13:33

And it could be also it could also be neurofatigue from an undiagnosed or diagnosed brain injury. So it should be all three. So how does a parent sort of investigate, if you will, whether it's an undiagnosed or diagnosed brain injury, and neurofatigue from that, a mental health challenge or drug problem?

Finding The Real Reason Why

Speaker 13:55

Well, and substance abuse comes from, I feel, it's not the drug abuse that's the problem. They're using drugs to cover up something or to hide something or to feel better from something else. That could be a mental health depression, it could be an injury, it could be a neurological injury. They are using it for something to make themselves feel better or to not feel. You know, I I tell parents often, in two hours, I can show you or I can tell you if your kid's getting high. Give me a little bit of time, I'll tell you when they're doing it, where they're doing it, who they're doing it with. With a little bit more work, I can find out how much they're doing. But I cannot tell you why they're doing it. And that is the key. That's the key. And parents, when I say they're the ones that have the power to get into that and find out the why. Nobody knows their child better than they do. Even their child doesn't. The root cause of it. Root cause. And like I say, a lot of children don't even know. They don't understand. They're feeling low, but they got nothing to compare it to. But I can take this drug over here and I don't feel low anymore, I don't feel depressed, I'm gonna do it. It's a way out. That's what we need to get to. It's not the drug. But parents need to know what's in their house, for one thing. What's in their room. And when I say you look in their room, there's a way to do it and there's a way not to do it.

Speaker 1 15:21

Can I ask a question to take a step back? So the the parent who's noticing some behavior changes, is getting concerned, wants to look at the full picture. So they take the child in, they get some MRI of the brain, they talk to a mental health counselor, but they also want to investigate for drugs. Where do they start? What's the very first thing that you recommend? And then sort of can you walk them through the steps?

Speaker 15:49

I'll work walk it through, and I'll walk it through as I as I as I walk into a house. Okay, if a family calls me, because there's usually intuition involved, like I talked about. And I have to tell you that I've been doing this a long time. And if you're the parent, nobody knows your child better than you, and you think something's wrong, you're probably right. To a high level percentage, you are right. What that is, now we have to look at that. However, if it comes down to you think they're getting high, triple it and you'll be more accurate. We as parents underestimate use. The first thing I do is I look around the house, I look at the parents, and I want to see what's what's out in the house, what I can see. Booze. Do I see booze out? I asked the parents, you know, liquor is out. Are there older siblings in the house? Do they have issues ever? You know, and maybe they're 21, they can leak legally smoke marijuana, they can legally drink, but is is is that a possibility? Because uh kids, family members are are a are a uh big problem for young kids. That's where we get our drugs, that's where I did. I was given marijuana at eight, LSD at nine, mushrooms at ten, you know, it from older siblings. That's just how it it it goes, right? But parents first have to look at what's going on in the house. How are the kids' grades? Are they separate like we talked about? Are they separating themselves from what they used to do? Do they have um anything that they love doing anymore? Look at what's changed in in their life. Are the parents doing anything? Like I talked earlier about gummies. I get it. I have friends of mine take their gummies to go to sleep at night. But if they had that conversation with their kid, why they're taking it, why they're allowed to take it, why it's not an inclusive club. It's just letting the the kids know that there is a difference between me and you. And that's okay. That's okay. But parents need to look at themselves, what are they doing? Then write down what behaviors are they seeing? Is it anger? Is it isolation? Is it peers? And it's very, very important, if they can, to share this information with their partner, if they can. Because if your kid has a problem, they're gonna wear you down. The more serious the problem, the harder it is gonna be for you to break through. And doing this alone is so difficult, Antoinette. It's almost impossible to be to think you can affect your kid for you you seeing them one or two hours before they go to bed. Reach out to the school. And this is hard for parents. I know I grew up in an addicted household where you did not tell a soul. And if you did, you paid the price. My mom one time went to Al-Anon for help. My dad found out about it, and he left us for a month to let us know this information doesn't leave the house. And he got his message across. We have to change that because that's what addiction, that's what drug use, that's what mental health wants. I want you to leave them alone. You got to reach out to school. What are you saying? As the teachers, there, you know, trust, you gotta trust the system. I know it's hard sometimes. I was part of it.

Speaker 1 18:55

Sometimes some parents' experience on other issues with children has been that if you trust the system, the system doesn't work with you.

Schools Therapists And Support Teams

Speaker 1 19:07

It takes the children away from you. So how can you balance that fear of will I use my children lose my all of my children while I'm trying to get help for one child?

Speaker 19:20

Well, it's and I I know that's the sense out there that and that's too bad because I've worked with schools for 35 years. I found them more than more than helpful, especially when a parent reaches out to them and lets them know I'm seeing these things at home. Teachers have kids too. Teachers aren't immune. I've been in a lot of households with teachers and principals and superintendents because their kids have an issue. And we have to get over that, that this is just my problem. Nobody else has this problem. We have to get over that. And schools are very good. And I know, listen, I've worked with schools all my life, and we have to get over that everybody is going to harm us, or everybody is the enemy. Schools can be very helpful. Therapists can be very helpful, and we'll get back to that in a minute.

Speaker 1 20:16

I have a question about schools and uh and other resources in the community. How does a parent sort of get the sense that they may be dealing with a helpful school or a school that may not be helpful? Like what are some of the signs of if a school is in your corner, they might say this to you?

Speaker 20:37

Schools who welcome your input are going to be helpful. If it's difficult to get hold of them or to reach them or have them call you back, then you got a problem. But I found that schools that are welcoming and schools go on their website. What do they say? Do we have other parents? Ask other parents, you know, ask other parents of siblings. What have what about this school? And I'll give you an example of school resource officers. I've worked with so many of them over the years. When I first started this 30 years ago, the officer that maybe got hurt on the job and couldn't be in the community, or the officer that really wasn't really good working with the community, they would stick them in the schools. And that cop would sit in his office a lot of times, generalization, and wait for something to happen. And then come in and make an arrest or cite tickets and then take care of it that way. We've evolved. And now I see some of these schools that I work with, their school resource officers, get involved. They know every kid. They greet them when they come in in the morning. They, how you doing? How'd you get to school? You know what dad does? How you doing? You okay? One. How'd you get to school? My mom drove me. Okay, your ma's around. My dad drove me. Okay, he has a dad in the house. How'd you I walked? How far do you live? Two miles. Okay, that's a problem. How I mean, these are proactive. Trained in mental health, trained in substance abuse, the SROs I'm seeing today are miles ahead of what they were years ago. That's a good thing. However, it's coming from someone who's in law enforcement. It's like mechanics, they're not all great. It's like lawyers, it's like doctors. It's like they're not all good. You're right. And if you walk in and you ask your school, ask the dean, ask the school counselor. What's your school resource officer like? Is he quicker to give advice or give a summons that I have to pay? If he catches my kid vaping, is that a talk? Is that is he going to summon me and then we can talk about things and why is my kid vaping and the effects that or are they simply going to write a $200 ticket that I have to pay and send my kid on their way? That will take a look at the question.

Speaker 1 22:47

That's a great question.

Speaker 22:48

That's what the school's about too. I'd like to come in and talk to the dean or a school counselor about my child. And you don't have to get into specifics. It could be, I'm worried about my child because they're at the age now where they're going to start using drugs. And then give them some of the facts that hopefully they learn after this episode, because the teachers don't all know them either, by the way. And I'm worried. What's the vibe you're going to get? You know, if it's a good vibe, a bad vibe. So that's but my point is gathering a support group. The other support group is family members. You know, if you have older siblings and they're 22 years old and they can get high, you don't get higher on your 15-year-old. You don't give them any of that. You don't make access to it. You set down rules, you set down behavior expectations and parameters for everybody. This is a family affair. I can attest. You know, I it would kill me when I heard that uh, you know, substance abuse is a victimless crime. I have a whole family of victims, quite honestly. You know, six brothers that we all dealt with this differently. A sister-in-law who died of a heroin overdose. It's it's it's got plenty of victims. We have a million, one point two million people that have died over the last fifty years. We have a number of victims. But my point is that the family is victimized and the family has to get better. That child isn't gonna spend years working in juvenile justice. We would take a kid and we'd send them to rehab. Lots of money. Two months, three months, four months, six months doing great in a simulated environment. We bring them home and within a day they're getting high again because the home hadn't changed. And that kid is only gonna get as good as that home is. It goes hand in hand. But when I say that, you're you're you're you're getting a support group

Room Checks And Drug Tests

Speaker 24:31

around yourself. You're looking at what you do. Are you triggering anything? Are you okay? Have you been condoning, not a condoning, but maybe looking the other way? If you hear about their friends getting high and you don't want to bring it up, you don't want that discussion. Bring it up. That's addiction. Again, that's addiction's best friend. Creating a support group and then looking in the room, not when they're there, because it could definitely lead to an altercation, especially if they're using. Parents got to be a little sly about this. Go in when they're not there. Don't tear the room apart. Be very, be very uh respectful. Remember, this is a thing to get to get intelligence, to get a recon mission, to see what your kid is doing so you can help them. This isn't a punishment. And I would suggest that uh if you really think things are bad, you can't quite put your finger on it. Ask them if they'll do a drug test. This is hard for parents, I'm gonna tell you, it is hard, and I get it. But you have to present it that this is you and your child against addiction. It's not you against your child. Not an easy message to get across, but when you sit your kid down and you tell them you love them more than life itself, that if anything were to happen to them, your world is over as you know it, and you need to know. And you know, good time, if you haven't done it, is fifteen and a half and they want their driver's license.

unknown 25:51

Okay.

Speaker 25:52

Want your driver's license, you gotta take a drug test. I cannot let you drive our car if you are getting high. And you will get your answer. They will take the drug test and then you can look at the results, or they will refuse, and now you have your answer. Now it's just about finding out what they're doing. Because if they refuse that test and they know if I don't test, I don't get to drive the car. And this thing that they've been looking forward to for the last year, to get their license to give them some freedom to go see their friends, they're willing to give that up for whatever's in their system, you know, they have a problem

Why Rock Bottom Is Risky

Speaker 26:26

with it.

Speaker 1 26:26

So you warned that hitting rock bottom, waiting until your child hits rock bottom is very dangerous.

Speaker 26:32

Why so very dangerous. Because addiction can happen very quickly, very quickly, especially with the high THC. And now six out of ten drugs that you buy illegally either on the internet or on the street have fentanyl in them. Obviously, fentanyl is very addictive, so you can hit rock bottom very quickly.

Speaker 1 26:50

The more how how quickly? Are we talking months, weeks, years?

Speaker 26:56

No, I'll give you a story. A professional, and he was in the sound business. He was a sound man for a really big club here in Chicago, and he had done cocaine, not regularly, but for a big show. He thought it helped him. He sent his assistant out to buy to get him some cocaine one night. He did, he brought it back. Now he was a sporadic user. He said he'd use every couple months. He sent his assistant out the next night to do it. And the next night, and the next night, then he realized there was fentanyl in it. He was addicted overnight, basically. It took him one day to get addicted to that drug. He ended up homeless, begging in for food, and his girlfriend he also got addicted. So that took one day. With weed, it takes a little bit longer. But all of these drugs have an addiction quality. It could be one day to one week to one month, and it fluctuates, you know, on what you're going through, what you're trying to, the why, right? The more desperate you are with the why, the more depressed you are, the more anxious you are, the more sad you are, the more your body hurts, the more you're gonna do, the more you do, the higher more drugs you do, the more, the quicker you're gonna get addicted.

Speaker 1 28:04

So And how does how does a mental health struggle raise the risk for teens and drugs?

Speaker 28:11

I hear this undiagnosed. Well, it's undiagnosed by a doctor. If you're depressed, you know you're depressed. You might not be able to put a label on it, not not know why, but you know you're not feeling well. You know, you're you're or anxiety or you have too much anxiety, and you're gonna turn to how do I feel better? What can make me feel better? That's survival, that's what we do. We don't want to be depressed, we don't want to be sad, we don't want to be traumatized. We want to feel better. And with drugs being so prevalent, they make us feel better for the moment.

Speaker 1 28:47

You've created a protocol that's a five-step plan for parents.

The Tip Of The Spear Plan

Speaker 1 28:52

Can you walk us through what you cover in the tip of the spear?

Speaker 28:55

Sure. Again, it's self-assessment, looking at yourself and how do you feel about drug use?

Speaker 1 29:00

And is that Is that from the parents' perspective?

Speaker 29:03

From the parents' perspective. How do you feel about it? Because I'm gonna change your mind. If you think it's okay that a little experimentation is okay, that a little weed's okay, but I'm gonna change your mind with some drug facts and the high, high dose of THC that your kid's getting and the fact that it makes their depression and anxiety worse. I'll show the show you the data. I'll show you the research that's gone into that. And uh that's the first step. It's look in and then look out outward. But looking in genetically, how did you grow up? What was your household? What did it look like? Is there mental illness that runs in your family? Did you have that cat that was drinking martinis by two o'clock? We call that today an alcoholic, right? Or an uncle who would bully the mom. That's domestic violence today. We all have that, you know, these stories. And that's a red flag, too. If they're in your past, they're gonna be in your child's past. It's just how it works. And from there, educate yourself on the drug world. I'm just talking legal marijuana. The three biggest investors in the legal marijuana in this country are alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceutical. They're the three biggest investors by far. So we all know they don't have a good track record of being honest with us, of giving us the research of their product. You know, they all three spread death, destruction, disability. They all know about the pharmaceutical industry. And that is who is marketing marijuana, and they're marketing it to our kids. And they know we gotta get them young. We get them young, we have them when they're in their 20s. So you gotta know what your kid's up against every day, influencers, social media. And do not it's a mistake I found for parents to try to, you know, for lack of better words, spy on their kid through their social media, through their phones. Because it's so easy for the kid to figure that out. And they're much smarter than adults. I'll take any 12-year-old kid to help me with my computer over an adult, any adult. And that's just how it is. I had a client who they thought their kid was just acting strangely, and and they uh hacked her phone with one of the hack, you know, apps that you can buy. Took about a month, and she went to school and told her friends that I think my parents are spying on me. By the end of class, they figured out that they had. Because they use other apps to see if her phone is being hacked, right? That day she took 19 bucks, bought herself a drop phone, made that her phone, did her drug deals on that phone, and purposely wrote you know, was doing nice texts to her friends on her other phone that she knew her parents would read. She went deeply underground in her youth. She, you know, she was got much better at hiding her drugs through friends and and the internet taught her how to do that, how to do the drugs, and then she quickly was selling drugs in order to um do drugs, you know, so she wouldn't have to buy her own drugs. She was just selling drugs and then doing part of her stash. And the parents only found out because her s her her brother told them. Right. And uh so my point is they can get around you very quickly. And how you how you supervise your kids is by what I said earlier, garnering family members, outside family members, teachers, a therapist, maybe a school resource officer, coaches. That's how you quote unquote spy on your kid. You get other people involved, and this isn't uh a secret to your child. I want your child to know what you're doing. I want them to know, but you're doing it because you love them. You're not this isn't a gotcha, this isn't a punishment. So that's the second thing is to put a support group around yourself because it is very hard to do by yourself. Almost impossible. You and your partner have to be a united front on this. Even if you don't agree on some things, do not let your child know that. You'd save that conversation for the bedroom or for when your child's not around. And remember, this is not about catching your child or a gotcha moment with your child or an accusatory, you know, blaming your child. This is a my child's going through something, and they they're not gonna be able to handle it. They think they can handle it, they can't. And I need to get my child to understand that that's what kind of moment this is. And then start giving the facts to your kid and let them know. I talked to school today. They're watching you, and I want them to watch you. And it's again, you know, they're gonna let me know how you're doing. We're gonna focus more on your grades and your behavior. And why aren't you on that on the volleyball team anymore? Is it a problem with the coach? What does the coach say? Coaches are really good at looking at kids, by the way, because they see them in an environment where the kids are much more themselves. They're not sitting in a desk who they're hanging out with. And a peer group, you know, look at your child's peer group. But here's the caveat to that. We all hang around people that do things that we also do. We like to have interests with our as our friends. Soccer moms hang out with soccer moms. You know, mechanics hang out with other mechanics or people that like to work on cars or motorcycles. It's we do that as adults, we do that as children. And if you have a bad feeling about your kids' peer group or you don't like their peer group, ask yourself, why is my child in that peer group? That might be your child. Listen, when I was 14, 15, 16, 17, I'm not the person that did things when I was that age, right? I was impulsive and did I didn't think things through. I don't want to be judged by who I was when I was 17. And we shouldn't judge our kids either. But all of us go through periods of highs and lows who we hang out with. We're testing the waters. If your kid's hanging out with people that you have, you think there might be a problem there, look at your child. You want don't you don't want them to hang out with that that group anymore, the group that maybe is not going to class like they should or not getting the grades they should, or not playing sports. Look at why your child is associating or or finds uh common ground with that group. And and talk to your child about it. When I work with parents, be completely open with your child on this kind of stuff. Room searches is the difference on that. I don't want you to tell them. They might know it's coming after the first one or two, but understand that if they have a drug problem, they're not going to be hiding it in their room anymore. So you've got to be a little bit strategic in this. But in terms of what you're doing and how you're doing it, let your child know. And let them know you're doing it, you're doing it because you love them.

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unknown 35:41

You know.

Speaker 1 35:42

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Kratom Sold Like Candy

Speaker 37:28

It's a good question because there is a there's a topic now that is running through the U.S. And there's a substance called Kratom. And Kratom itself comes from a plant in Southeast Asia, and it's being harvested and manufactured, and chemicals are added to it, and it's being sold in gas stations, convenience stores, that sort of thing. It is not FDA approved. They it can come in a pill form or a uh liquid form or a powder form, and it is can be very addictive. And the reason it is addictive is because it has a substance in it called 7OH. And it's a natural substance. However, when it's on the plant, it is in minuscule quantities. Very little. However, after they manufacture it, they know that's an addictive chemical and they magnify it sometimes a thousand to two thousand times. It's a very addictive. They put that in there because they want you to keep buying their product. It's a very interesting product because, again, it markets itself as an energy supplement. It helps with depression or it helps with anxiety, much like what they've told us with marijuana years ago, or today even. And but it also and I I don't like to get into the you know the mu receptors and and neurons. I like to go more to the point, but what this kratom has in it attacks the brain to a lesser extent, but in the same way that heroin does in terms of Wow. The neurons that it attacks and how morphine and oxycotin, it goes to the same neurons to the point where a number of people, you know, hero heroin, oxycotin, it is good for pain, taken at a reasonable level. It wor it works. That's that's why we have it. Kratom is the same way, works the same way. And some people say it works for my backache, my, you know, that kind of thing. We have some heroin people who are addicted to heroin that are taking kratom because it's helping them come down off of heroin. Problem is.

Speaker 1 39:42

So for the listener who's unfamiliar, that's spelled K-R-A-T-O-M.

Speaker 39:48

Correct. And but anything, go into your they can go into convenience stores and gas stations. My problem with this is kids are going in there and buying it and taking it and getting addicted. And it is affecting their their brain, their physical kids going in and buying Kratom products or 7-0 products are ending up addicted and ending up in rehab, and ending up dead if they if they do it with another depressant. And you want to sell this drug to these marketers, and we and unfortunately, even though it's FDA, FDA has said this is not for human consumption, it's in our stores. Okay you want to sell it, put it behind a pharmacy and go get your drugs that way if you're 21 and older. Show your ID, not the gas station attendant. He should not be in control of what my kid can get. And again, if you are an adult and you want to get your medical advice from a gas station attendant instead of a doctor, that's on you. But our kids shouldn't be able to get that same product. And that's my problem with this. And you look at again the packaging, it's it's bright colors, it's it's funny shapes, it's cartoon characters. They're aiming to the kids. They want to get the kids detected. And that's the problem I have with it. You want to sell in, we have a number of politicians that are in office that are investing in these products, investing their own money or taking lobbyist money from these companies. Fine, you want to do that, but don't sell it in gas stations.

Carfentanil Narcan And What’s Next

Speaker 1 41:22

There's another product that people need to know about, and that's carfentanol. Can you tell us about that?

Speaker 41:28

Sure. Very good. And I don't know how many of your listeners watch as opposed to listening, but just so the ones that aren't watching, I have a packet of sugar here that we get at at a at a at a cafe, right? 2.85 grams of sugar. If this were heroin, it has a potential to kill 12 people. If this were fentanyl, it has a potential to kill 1200 people. If this were carfentinol, it has the potential to kill 12,000 people. And these I'm not being hyperbolic. I don't like to do that because that just makes everything else I say, it shadows it. These are real numbers. Fentanyl is a hundred times more potent than heroin. Carfentanyl is ten times more potent than fentanyl. And it's easier to smuggle into this country. It's cheaper, and it's much more addictive, and they can make more money on it. In three years, three to five years, heroin is going to be obsolete, Antoinette. We are going to wish we had just a heroin problem.

Speaker 1 42:34

And how are people getting access to carfentinol?

Speaker 42:37

It's being it's being smuggled into the country.

Speaker 1 42:40

After it gets into the country, are they getting it from drug dealers, from somewhere else?

Speaker 42:46

Oh yes. It's it's yeah, there's no legal way to get carfentinol. It's it's through the internet, it's through illegal drug, uh, you know, drug sales. And uh, you know, but when you can take just a little amount and sell it for a greater cost, that's what they're gonna do. And it's very addictive. I don't want listeners to think, you know, a lot of times we just look at overdose rates in this country, and I'll tell you, they're they've gone down. They went down a lot, about 15%. But I don't want to get into a false sense that we're on the right path because they're going down, because for one, thousands of people are being brought back to life with Narcan that we didn't used to have. The loxone, you know, an anti-overdose medicine. Every cop, every emergency room technician, every fireman has Narcan. And ask any cop that's worked with Narcan. You narcan a lot of people. And it's safe.

Speaker 1 43:47

Even some people who are are trained in CPR, trained and certified in CPR are now carrying it.

unknown 43:52

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Speaker 43:53

They are. And that leads me to another point. If you think your your child is doing something Like heroin or fentanyl, you need to have it in your house. You need to have it at various spots in your house because it will save their life. But the second thing about why deaths are going down is these cartels and drug dealers are getting better at mixing it. They don't want to kill their customer.

unknown 44:20

Right?

Speaker 44:20

They don't want their customer to overdose. A dead customer is not a buying customer. So they are getting better. So that's reduced the amount of deaths. But when you start talking, looking at addiction just through deaths, you've changed you've changed the subject because now we're looking at death prevention. We're not looking at drug prevention. That's pretty much that's lowered that bar substantially. I'm still talking about drug prevention. And I don't want it to be death prevention. And that's why I you know want the parents to know nobody's going to come knocking at your door saying, you think you might have a problem in a year, or do you have a problem now? Can we help you? What can we do? That knock isn't coming. No one's coming to our rescue. It's up to every parent to learn the information and to do this on their on their child's life may depend

Free Tools Parents Can Use

Speaker 45:10

on it.

Speaker 1 45:10

Dave, you've made an incredible resource available to everyone, a 30-day free trial that they can find at Davecopenny.com. We'll put that on the screen for you. But if you're listening, it's D-A-V-E-K-O-P-N-E-Y.com. And you can access this free trial for workshops and other resources that are just fantastic. And also buy Dave's book, The Tip of the Spear. Dave, what else can they find on your website?

Speaker 45:42

And I have links to my book. I have leak links to my forum for all parents. It's ASAPcommunity.org. They'll see that. It's free. That's what you talked about, 30-day complimentary. Go on and just take a look at it. Follow the prompts. Watch some videos. It costs nothing. There's no credit card. After 30 days, you're free to walk away. And they can get some idea of what to do today for their child. But yeah, Dave Copony.com and they can then get a link to my email. And it's my email. I answer everything. And if any personal questions, anything, you know, they want to get hold of me, feel free. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere.

Speaker 1 46:22

This has been so insightful, Dave. And you are a wealth of knowledge. I hope, listeners, if you suspect someone in your life is having a drug problem and you want to know how to begin step by step, you have the tip of the spear, you have workshops and resources, you have information that you can use to talk to your family members. And then you also have one-on-one access to Dave. What else do you want to leave listeners with, Dave?

Connection As Prevention

Speaker 46:50

The last thing, addiction comes from so many angles, trauma, brain trauma, or mental health issues, depression, genetically, you know. It it comes from so many variables. And how you get out of it, we don't know what that is, right? It could be the right voice, right words from the right person at the right time. It could be sports. For me, it was sports, you know. I thank God, you know, I had something. It could be acting, it could be art, it could be whatever it is. But the denominator for all of these is connection. You have to connect. And the opposite, I didn't I didn't come up with this, but the opposite of addiction is connection. And I I want parents to understand along those lines, Samsha, right? The the golden rule for data when it comes to substance abuse and drugs and families. 90% of parents believe that just marijuana, not encountering other drugs, but just marijuana is harmful to children. You flip that over. 80% of children don't think it's harmful. So just again, cut get a couple of facts. Talk to your kid, talk to your kid about cranium tonight, talk to your kid about THC and addiction and who's selling it and why they're selling it, why they want to make money off of it. Two minutes. And so that's the problem. It's not the kids don't understand it. It's what the kids are getting, is not the truth. And you know, if 80% think it's okay, where 90% of their parents say it's not, but the kids don't get that message, connect. Connect with them. Two minutes today. That's all I ask and see where it leads.

Speaker 1 48:30

And there's another resource for you. If you really want to understand how DNA impacts someone's, I guess, susceptibility to addiction, there's an episode on DNA, how it works. And within that episode, we have a DNA specialist who talks about why, for some people, a substance abuse gene that is dormant gets turned on or stays turned off. And that's also a great resource. And I hope you will connect with Dave because it sounds like you've created a one-stop shop for anyone who's dealing with teenagers and addiction. Thank you so much for coming on, Dave.

Speaker 49:12

Antoinette, thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 49:16

It's been

Closing And Medical Disclaimer

Speaker 1 49:17

my pleasure. The information in this podcast is not medical advice and should not be treated as such. Always consult your physician or healthcare professional before pursuing any health related procedure or activity.