hi everyone and welcome to families in recovery produced by svg in association with the hazelden betty ford foundation my name is ken kirschbaumer and today's topic is what about the kids today i'll be talking with carrie bates and jerry mo kyrie is a three-time olympic gold medalist a betty ford alum and currently hazelden betty ford's senior outreach manager and jerry mo was the national director of children's programs at hazleton betty ford for 23 years he is recognized globally for his expertise in that complex and challenging space hi jerry and carrie so great to see you so we're going to discuss the children today and how the road to recovery what their journey is alongside their parents or their relatives on the road to recovery so jerry obviously you spent a lot of time focused on this issue can you please discuss with us you know how children are impacted by family members and parents in recovery it's great to be with you again ken children often think that the addiction and mental health problems in their family are their fault this is a disease of isolation silence secrecy and shame no one is talking about it kids ex when they experience this kind of trauma often make up a story for it all to make sense if no one explains it to them in an age-appropriate way and all too often that story is it must be me carrie yeah jerry i i just can't agree more you know i i have lived experience um growing up in an alcoholic home myself my mother was an alcoholic and i often blamed myself and also we you know the family system learned how to protect that secret at a very very young age and then i also learned by watching my own children go through it through my own addiction and how much they blamed themselves you know so so what i saw in my own personal experience is very much what you're talking about what you see every day and carrie you're really speaking to how addiction can get passed from generation to generation what the statistics tell us that 75 of the people who go to treatment have a positive family history when it comes to addiction chad is 10 years old he lives with grandma his mom is still in the throes suffering from her addiction and early childhood trauma grandma brings him to the children's program where chad learns it's not his fault he didn't cause it he can't control it and he can't cure it and this gets reinforced in weekly continuing care done virtually in newsletters and in books that we send home this past september here in the valley kids all went back to school in person and there's chad sitting with the three best friends at lunch and the discussion turns to the sleepover birthday party at jackson's house on saturday night there was pizza there were games they stayed up late they got great prizes chad gets up feeling hurt and it's his whole fighting back tears holding them back walks away but he can hear jackson say i couldn't invite chad his mom uses drugs my dad says his mom is crazy and when i talk to chad later what he told me was is it me what did i do wrong carrie you know jerry i so appreciate you talking about the genetic predisposition because that's something as a kid and as a young adult i certainly didn't know because that generation didn't talk about that i had no idea that i had the same blood running through my veins as the many members of my family that have struggled with addiction did and i certainly didn't know that it was something that i could pass along to my children but the hope that you talk about that i just love i love to talk about the hope and the promise of recovery because the recovery process is just not is not just for us as the sick person but it spreads to our family i always say to my daughters it's not just my recovery it's our recovery because they have their own recovery too so for both of you jerry maybe you can start as far as how the hazelnut buddy afford children's programs can you guys both you know give an overview from your perspectives of of how that can make a difference for for children and for parents be glad you can carry really capsulized it perfectly no one in her family was talking about the addiction so in the hazel and betty for children's program we teach kids about what it is we use words like trapped and hooked and stuck to personify what addiction is we teach every boy and girl and think about chad that here's the mom that he adores and here's the disease that takes control of her life and he mostly sees the disease not his mom how to separate those two even in our work with sesame street for younger boys and girls five six seven and eight the definition that we worked months on was this that addiction is a sickness of the brain people think they need alcohol and drugs to be okay and yet when they use them they don't act like themselves and people need treatment to get better and kerry's family says it all it's not just addiction that runs in family recovery and healing runs in families too gary yeah and ultimately the hope for me is that i've been able to stop the family process in our family that my daughters won't be subject to it because they have their eyes wide open the resources that are offered within hazel and betty ford not only help the kids realize that they're not responsible for it but it also helps them understand that there is hope of recovery you know um those resources had to impact my children in a way where they fully could understand that they also aren't alone you know we as the addict and um alcoholic are often the ones that feel that we're alone but what we don't realize is our children feel so isolated and alone as well because that's what this disease does to everyone that we know and love so carrie can you talk a little bit more about the process for uh the children and how they get involved with this program because it's not only open to people who are children of people going through hbf's program correct correct you know that that's one of the beauties of the program being taken virtually a couple years ago because of coven is that we are able to reach so many more children today because before it was uh on one of our campuses at one of our residential campuses and so parents could come but not every not all the kids could come and afford it and be able to take that time away from from school and and such so now the program's all virtual and you can sign up for free and your parents or loved one guardians don't have to be a patient which within the hazel and betty ford system and so really that the resources are really um all on our website at www.hazeldenbettieforward.org and from there you can find the children's program and um the counselors um within that program and the directors can really help hold your hand and guide you through what your kids are going to learn through that process you know and what i would add is the surgeon general's report from a few years ago told us that only one out of ten people who need substance use disorder treatment get it at any one time and sometimes the family is ready to heal before their loved one is ready to seek treatment so we want to fight this disease in every conceivable possible way and the children's program being open to all kids who are growing up with addiction is the way we do that yeah excellent well jared kerry thank you so much for that time every time that's really great you