Using CRAFT, Getting Results, Still Questioning: Coaching Episode

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

When Marie's son was diagnosed with ADHD at eight, she did what devoted parents do. She learned everything and got to work. By the time weed entered the picture in his teens, she had already lined up CRAFT counselors, drug and alcohol specialists, an at-risk youth petition, even a street artist mentor. She is a school psychologist. She had the frameworks, the language. None of it stopped what was coming.

What followed were years of watching him cycle through residential treatment, partial hospitalization, therapeutic boarding school, sober living, and inpatient care, all before nineteen. When he came home and relapsed within days, Marie and her husband made the call she'd been bracing for: he couldn't live with them anymore. And something unexpected happened inside her.

Today, her son has a job. He calls. He showed up to his dad's birthday and ate cake with relatives he hadn't seen in years. Marie listens without lecturing. She is only now learning what it means to help herself.

This is one of the most honest accounts I've heard of doing everything right and still feeling unsure.

If you've done everything you can think of and you're still waiting, this one's for you.

You’ll learn:

• The moment Marie felt a significant shift inside her after her son relapsed and had to leave home
• What “active waiting” looks like in practice, and how that doesn’t mean ‘letting go’
• The specific kind of change talk Marie started hearing from her son, and what it signals about where he is in his process
• How Marie and her husband are thinking through the next housing crisis before it happens, including a practical tool for staying grounded when everything hits at once
• The shift from parenting mode to consulting mode, and what it looks like to give your child a voice in solutions without solving everything for them

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Clear30 App - helps people take a 30 day break from weed
• Jessica Lahey’s “The Gift of Failure”

This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Find us on Instagram here
Watch the podcast on YouTube here
Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol

Hopestream Community is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and an Amazon Associate. We may make a small commission if you purchase from our links.

Transcript

Marie Coaching

[00:00:00] Hey Marie, thank you for joining me today for a coaching episode. These are really, really helpful for folks, and it's generous of you to share your time and your experience so that others can learn from it, because I think we learned best right from just hearing other real people's stories. So thanks for joining me. Thank you for having me, Brenda. So you've been in our community. I don't know, I wanna say maybe six months, maybe I wanna say something like that. Yeah, it's not been too long. Hasn't been too long. Mm-hmm. We got to meet, on a couple of calls and just spend some time together talking about your family and situation. So, I'm looking forward to seeing, getting a little bit caught up on where things are. 'cause I know things change every day. Like I could talk to you yesterday and today and things could be drastically different. 

[00:01:00] But to get us started, would you mind just bringing us up to speed on what does your family look like? What, you know, a little bit of background on what's going on with the reason why you joined the stream, and then we'll get into some of the things that you kinda wanna start moving forward on. How does that sound? Sounds good. Great. Okay. Well, we have a 19-year-old son. It's my husband and I, and he is our only son. And we had him when we were older, so I had him when I was 40. So we're kind of older parents, but we had a pretty typical home life, I would say. We started noticing that, our son had some behaviors that were like a DHD, like and he was diagnosed with a DHD when he was eight and he started medication and 

[00:02:00] whenever he was playing sports or tried to do things, an activity or a challenge or anything, it looked like he had some really low frustration tolerance. He would give up pretty quickly. He would just have some negative self-talk, literally, take his hand and kind beat himself up on his head when he didn't make a goal or things like that and so we kinda knew that things were a little bit off. But, when he was in school, like I said, we had a diagnosed, he had a 5 0 4 plan, which is an accommodations plan in the classroom and we started doing things. I started initiating some interventions. I'm a school psychologist and so I feel like, all the things that I know about child development and children just got lost on my son. Mm-hmm. And people had to tell me some things in terms of what to do. 'cause 

[00:03:00] I was just so close into it and I was really biased. Yeah. So we started off with like individual counseling, for him at a pretty young age. And I was told that he's a therapist's dream because he is very forthcoming with information. He likes to talk. My husband and I engaged in parent training 'cause we were kind of, as he was getting older, he was becoming a little bit more oppositional and defiant. And then, COVID hit and we were in the closure and he was in middle school by then and then, things were okay. But then when the COVID closure ended and he went back to school, he was a little bit different. He seemed more closed off and anxious and I remember getting calls from the counselor about how he's having a panic attack and to come pick him up and things like that. So could tell something else besides a DHD was going on and, 

[00:04:00] he was just, had a hard time let's see, freshman year, I guess, in high school, I think he started playing around with weed and, excuse me, we noticed that he was hanging out with kids that, you know, weren't his regular friends anymore. And the kids were a little bit on the questionable side, but he really liked hanging out with them and we found out he was doing smoking weed and then it just got worse from there. And so we engaged in drug and alcohol counselors through the school and privately. We actually got in touch with the craft counselor early on. And there was a craft mentor who came to our House and tried to mentor Jess, my son. And yeah, and we read Beyond Addiction early on and you know, from there we just 

[00:05:00] kept asking for advice, you know where can he go? What intervention can he access? And that was kind of my wheelhouse is, you know, as a school psychologist, I'm used to problem solving with colleagues and parents, right? And coming up with ideas and interventions and so that was just sort of all that I focused on. We got engaged with someone recommended a urban street artist for our son because our son was really talented in that area. He loves graffiti and urban art and just very excited about it at an early age. And he was the street artist was a mentor for him for two summers. As things started getting a little bit more risky for him, he would stay out all night. He was engaging in alcohol and drinking and he would be out for long hours at a time. Someone mentioned maybe, perhaps 

[00:06:00] getting him involved with this thing called at risk Youth potent petition. Mm-hmm. Which is basically standing in front of a judge and talking about goals and with that came a social worker and weekly visits to the home and I had been doing some online researching and I've heard recommendations and one of the recommendations was for him to go to a residential treatment center. So we did that for 69 days before insurance ran out and how old was he at that point? He was, I wanna say 17. 17? Okay. Mm-hmm. And then, no, maybe 16. Sorry. I know the years blurred together, don't they? I'm so glad it's not just me. I know I can't keep track, but and while he was there, I just was so naive. I was just expecting him to come back and be healed and cured 

[00:07:00] and that wasn't the case. He came back and got in touch with his buddies and started, I think, smoking weed within a couple days again. And so we got involved in the partial hospitalization program, the intensive outpatient program. He was not going to his regular high school at that time, but again the behaviors continued and they became more reckless and dangerous. He would come home dysregulated and altered, and nothing that we did worked, like trying to take his cell phone away was like taking his breath away. Yeah, yeah. He would punch holes in the walls if he didn't get what he wanted. He punched my windshield and broke that. I mean, there was just a bunch of things that we could not deal with while this whole thing was going on, we decided that we were going to have him go back to his high school because nothing was working. Maybe being 

[00:08:00] along typical peers would help and he was okay for I don't know, a month. And then things started going off the rails again. I would drop him off at high school and then pretty quickly he would just leave and walk around, either drinking from a stash that he had somewhere or he was also involved in shoplifting a lot and that was horrific for us as parents and so we got him on an IEP when he was in high school. Mm-hmm. And it got so bad where the dangerous behavior was just so much more than we could bear and so we felt like the only thing that we had left was getting him to a therapeutic porting school, cross country. We had him transported and he was there for 13 months and did all the things that he needed to do. I didn't want him to come back to our house because I was afraid he was gonna relapse with his friends 

[00:09:00] and so after he graduated from that program and he happened to graduate from high school, which is good. That's excellent. Yeah. Excellent. He went to a sober living place in a couple of states over from where he was, and that was going okay. They focused on trying to get him a job or him getting himself a job and within a couple months he started relapsing with some kids in the program and it was clear that things weren't working. And by the time he left the program, he was saying, I can't do this anymore. I'm done with treatment. I am treatment out and I'm gonna come home and he was calling friends to come pick him up, give him money to pick him up. The program had recommended that he go to a higher level of care, which is inpatient. And so we made a deal with him and said, you can come 

[00:10:00] home with restrictions, but you have to go to this higher level of care and then he agreed to do that. So he was in this inpatient facility for a month, and then he came home and I had I just feel like always a couple steps ahead of this thing, trying to wait for the shoe to drop. Mm-hmm. And so I hired a consultant to help with the transition home and help with boundaries and that was great and it lasted for about a week until he relapsed and one of our boundaries, which is a huge boundary, was if you use or if you come home altered. You can't be here anymore by this time he was 18. And we felt like we had some leverage with the age piece and it was quite easy to kind of make that, because when he came home and relapsed and was altered when he came home, either drunk or high or slurring 

[00:11:00] words or stumbling, it was just so painful to see. Mm-hmm. You know, after having gone through all the treatment and it was really clear for me, like, I can't have this at my house anymore. So we told him that he had to live somewhere else and he opted to live with his girlfriend who happens to live five hours away and that lasted for 10 days and then the girlfriend's mom said he needed to leave and then he came home and lived with his best friend. And that was supposed to be for a week and that it became clear that the friend's parents were, didn't mind having him there and so he's been there ever since and it's been like three months and Wow. At the house. Apparently he can use things like he can smoke weed, he can, I dunno what all they allow, but he's been really forthcoming to us now that there is space away and I feel like there's a 

[00:12:00] level of respect now that he has with us and maturity. He's telling us things that he's never really divulged before, except while in treatment and it's really great. You know, we're using all the craft tools, the motivational interviewing, just the lip clip, just letting him talk and things like that and not diving in to lecture or offer advice. He's just been more forthcoming with information about all that he's doing and some of it's kind of hard to hear. Yeah. But the other part of that is, it's been great to hear like he's really opening up and he's honest and can we just pause for one second? Yeah. 'cause I want to acknowledge everything that you have done. I mean, you have done everything that a parent could do, literally, like you told me, you started with therapy, you did all this research, you got the A 

[00:13:00] DHD diagnosis, you did the 5 0 4 plan. I mean inpatient treatment, residential treatment. You did the at risk youth petition, which I am familiar with 'cause we're both in Washington state. You did an IEP, you did boarding school, you did sober living. I just want to, if I could reach out and give you a pat on the back, you have literally done it all and that's important to recognize because I know how this whole experience can become a blur and you're like, wait, what? What? When was that? And what was that? And it can be easy to question yourself at times and so I just wanted to pause and just really acknowledge the level of work that you've done and you know, I know, I can tell you're a very thoughtful and intentional person none of this 

[00:14:00] feels like it was done, you know rushed kind of haphazard way. I feel like you really spent the time you hired a consultant. I forgot that one. There was like so many. Yeah. So that is something that I want people to hear because it takes so much work. Mm-hmm and I talk to a lot of people and there are not a lot of people that go to this level, so I just wanna acknowledge that and hope that you and your husband feel good about leaving no stone unturned. It doesn't sound like there is a stone that you did not uncover the street art thing. I mean, you've really tapped into his passions and the things that he loves to do and Yes and so then you make this very casual turn into like, well then he is opening up with us now that he's not living with us and 

[00:15:00] I wanna say that all of the work that you put in, since he was, when did he first leave? At 16. Mm-hmm. And he's now 19. So he's had a lot of input right into his brain right with some sober time, which is the magic combination, right having some sober time and getting some good therapy and peer support and at the same time as you were working on motivational interviewing and all the craft approach and all that, that's why he's doing what he's doing. It's not just like, I think so didn't just drop out of the sky. He is doing what you have set him up to do Yes and that's huge It is huge and it is interesting before we went to do the therapeutic boarding school family members were saying, why are you doing this? You

[00:16:00] know, it's up to him to change you're just wasting your money and I said there, oh, he has to hit rock bottom. That's kind of what they said. Yeah and I said, there is no rock bottom for a 17-year-old. I don't know what to say. They don't have the prefrontal cortex and the executive functioning skills to inhibit their responses and make good decisions. So we felt like we had to jump in and all the things that I looked into were recommended by family members or friends and then I kind of looked online and got more information, but it's interesting how before he came home from the sober living, I was still steeped in trying to get as much information as I could. I'm a part of the community and I love all the podcasts. I love all the guest speakers. I have so many of the books that were recommended, 

[00:17:00] and so I was just, your bookshelf is full It It is, yes. Another Amazon package comes and Yes. Yeah. My husband's like, here's another one. And yeah, I haven't tapped into most of the books, but I feel like, since I have summers off, I really just spent all day trying to, I guess, subconsciously prepare for when he comes home and I didn't know at the time when that was gonna be, and, but it's funny because all the information in the world isn't going to make a difference if he's not willing to change and I think that the biggest thing that I came to realize was that he needs to now experience life outside of any intervention, outside of any therapeutic boarding school, residential treatment. It was like he's telling us that he's done, and I guess we need to listen and how it 

[00:18:00] was so hard, like I was just trying to figure out what next thing to do and there was nothing, you know? And so he came home and we made the leap of saying, you're gonna have to live somewhere else and he found somewhere else to live and I'm not sure the situation there, like we go buy him groceries. We have a relationship with him. We see him a couple times a week. He just got a job at a fast food place, which is a huge, huge thing and so we pick him up and take him there and things like that But, with those visits it's like he hasn't seen us in a while and he's just saying all these things, right and it's been great so we have this nice relationship, I feel, because we have this time and space away from each other and so again I feel blessed kind of coming to this realization that he needs natural 

[00:19:00] consequences and there's just this force, a higher power or whatever that all along the way and the decisions that we've made, it just feels like this is the right decision. Like everything that we've done, has felt right and we've gone with it and with the natural consequences stage, even though that's scary, it felt right and we're seeing that we're seeing the payoff, like we're seeing him opening up, he's still using right? He's still drinking, he's still smoking weed and probably other things but at least he's telling us about it and he has started talking about some change. Like God, I got really drunk last night and I don't feel great today and we just listen or maybe we ask questions and the other day he said I feel like my tolerance level in the weed is just, so high. I mentioned Maybe you 

[00:20:00] need to take a break. There's this great app that I found out called Clear 30. Yes and he's like, oh, really? And then he started asking questions, well, does it have support? Could I talk to somebody? I'm like, yeah, it does but I don't think he, you know, it was a nice conversation. I don't think he's, you know, followed up on anything, but at least we have these conversations. He is not saying, heck no, I'm not doing that right using bad language. Right. All those things. It feels like we have a relationship now, and now we're just sort of waiting for what next thing's gonna happen? So you're in waiting mode but also, and I think this is something that I like to reinforce a lot, is that actively waiting is doing something. 'cause you're not just like sadly waiting, you are actively waiting, using your skills, 

[00:21:00] listening. I think the motivational interviewing payoff is clearly happening to where he tells you something about an incident, which is part of that the contemplation phase, right? So he's moved from pre-contemplation, which is, nothing's wrong, everything's fine. This is fantastic. Into contemplation, which is like, huh, I got really drunk and I felt terrible the next day and I wonder my tolerance, da da da. That's change talk. So he is hitting all of the markers of somebody who's moving through those stages of change, which is great. And that's why we have a workshop on this, we feel like it's so important to understand those stages of change because isn't it wonderful while you're a psychologist, you probably knew him anyway, but for me, when I learned that and then I could start to identify where my son was, it was like somebody like got 

[00:22:00] outta squeegee and like cleared the window in front of my eyes. 'cause I was like, oh my gosh. Like things are actually going as they're supposed to. I mean, I wish they would go faster for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So you are in a waiting period. However, I feel like you're actively waiting based on everything you're telling me and for him to have that freedom to talk to you. And for you not to jump in with a solution, not to jump in and like wow, you got really wasted last night and feel terrible today. What a bummer. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's kinda like what you would say to somebody at work in the office, right? Like, oh, that's a bummer. Right. You know, okay, what are we gonna do on this project? I mean, it's just so hard to do, but it, it really is, it really is. Because, cause, you wanna be like, well, right. With all of the lectures and the, you know, I told you this a thousand times, but you're really like, this is so textbook. 

[00:23:00] I love it because you're really just checking the boxes on, we are going to use these skills and you're seeing the payoff. Mm-hmm. So he's still living with a friend. Right. But he got a job, so things are moving in the right direction. That's amazing. It really is. My husband and I have this mantra that it talks about if nothing else. So, if nothing else, he had 18 months of brain healing yes away from the substances. If nothing else, he knows what it takes to get a job. If nothing else, he knows what it's like to go to a job and get paid. Yes. You know? Has he gotten his first paycheck yet? Yeah and I don't know, like we don't know anything about, I think he gets it instantaneously. I think it goes into some kind of debit card and we know it's probably gonna be used for all the substances. Yeah. But that's okay. That's okay. He's 

[00:24:00] getting a paycheck. Right and the anxiety piece is still there, but, and he's been anxious about oh, first day of job, of work and he came home, or he told us, well that wasn't that bad, and the next day he didn't wanna go. And he went and then he came out of it, like that was pretty cool, so talking to him, he's like, I feel focused when I'm at work. I feel like everything's moving so fast. I don't have any other choice but to do this and I think he feels pretty proud. I feel like he's not one to just go up and make conversation, but he is okay if people talk to him and so I think he's coming out of his shell a little bit and which is great. We wish that he had more hours and so we're trying to be like, you wanna get a second job? To you can, you know, we're just worried that all he does is stay at home and right on his phone and smoke and drink and 

[00:25:00] then go to work maybe once or twice a week. Yeah. So, yeah. Well that, I think he's moving in the right direction. Right? So that could be something that as he starts to see, oh, I have these little wins, like getting those little wins is just so massive. It's so important. It's that whole self-efficacy part of motivational interviewing where you start to see those like, oh, this feels good, and Oh, I was anxious, but I could do it. Yeah. And those wins are just so important. What I would love to find out is how are you doing? Mm-hmm. That's a great question. I feel like I'm in a really good spot right now and I can't explain it. I'm an anxious person. I think my husband is as well and we took turns during the really hard years of whole punching and trying to figure out where our son was and exchanging that anxiety. One was 

[00:26:00] calm while the other was spinning and vice versa and like I said, I felt this huge panic before he came home for a whole month. I was like, God I hope this is gonna work. I hope he doesn't relapse but, you know I'm a planner and I'd like to have things ready and when he came home and relapsed and he left, there was a sense of letting go for me and realizing this is how it's supposed to go. I don't have control over this. I don't have a control over my son and his choices and anything like that and it was a liberating sort of feeling, although it sounds, weird. But I don't know if I, I felt that this whole time the sense of letting go and this is how it's supposed to go and you're gonna be okay. And so I haven't felt that in a really long time and 

[00:27:00] even though I think he's still doing dangerous things, even though we could get a phone call tomorrow that says he's been arrested or he's hurt or something, I feel like there has been work done on my part to understand that I don't control over anything, and that's okay And I'm focusing on me. I feel like some of the things that I've learned, the insights, has spilled out into my professional world, into other facets of my life. I feel like no matter what happens with my son, he has given me a purpose. He has given me meaning and I'm more grateful for that feeling rather than, this whole feeling of dread and anxiety and frustration and sadness and grief. It's kinda like a light in my life right now, and it's hard to explain, but, there was a turning point in 

[00:28:00] there that has occurred recently and again, we're kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop on this living arrangement, and that could throw us into a little tailspin again. But I feel like, oh, I maybe not, maybe it's gonna be okay. So I feel like you're gonna be ready for it and it's so interesting. It sounds like, I'm always curious about the inflection point about when that shift happened for you and it sounds like it's when he relapsed and that isn't uncommon because that is when you really do realize, oh, I'm not in control of this. Mm-hmm. And it can be very freeing. I would love to ask you, because I hear this from people a lot. They say, well, if I let go, whatever that means to you. Yeah. Then I feel like I'm giving up on them and it doesn't to me sound like you 

[00:29:00] feel like you are giving up on your son. So I'm wondering if you could maybe talk about that distinction a little bit in how does that work for you in your head and your heart? Yeah, that's a good question too. I think I felt such a tension around the next intervention for him, and it was really kind of my responsibility that I put on myself, that he would be cared for, that there would be a safety net for him and that we were, responsible for that safety net but, I feel like, again, something was trying to tell me that now is the time for natural consequences to happen because he's been so sheltered within treatment settings. Yeah. That I didn't have a choice, but I knew, and I think he does too, that we love him, 

[00:30:00] and when we visited him in the treatment centers and such, I mean, we had this wonderful connection I don't think he blamed us for anything. I don't think he blamed us for having us initiate any of the things that we did. Some of them were traumatic, but he has always said, I understand why you did it. I understand Mm-hmm And so we have this foundation of connection I feel like this level of understanding and the more mature he gets, the better that connection is and again, I don't know what really caused it. It just was like this freeing sensation of okay, he's staying at a friend's house. I don't know what they're doing. I don't know, sight unseen maybe helps right But it just he's still calling and it may be transactional in nature. Like I need some food. Can you take me to the grocery store? But when we are together, he's mindful and he 

[00:31:00] questions, and we had him over for his dad's birthday a week ago, and we weren't sure if he was gonna show up We had other relatives who he hasn't seen in like a couple years. And so that was another thing that we're like, ah, I don't know Right. If he's gonna do it. And he came. It was just amazing. At first he said, I don't know if my aunt and uncle are gonna accept me, and things like that Yeah. And I said, they're all accepting, they love you for who you are. It doesn't matter, take you where you are and I was just thrilled that that whole visit turned out it was like old times, he was sharing and he had pizza and birthday cake with us, and then he is like, okay, I gotta go. And, but it was that hour or two that he was here. I loved it. So, yeah he's still in there, right? Like, and it sounds like absolute, he's emerging 

[00:32:00] slowly right from all the things that he's been through and so he's making his way. In his own time, at his own pace, with what works for him And it's so maddening coming from an adult perspective with all the life experience we have and all the brain cells that we have where it's like, oh, we just wanna like jump in there and fix it. Right? But he sounds like he's doing it, which is amazing. I'm wondering if you hop in a time machine and go forward a year from now, so it is March 6th, 2027, what in your life, not related to him, but what in your life would you like to see have shifted for you personally? Not related to him? 

[00:33:00] That's hard. I feel like I said, I am on the brink of, just, I don't wanna say self-actualization. I feel like that is just too much. But I know what you mean though. I don't know, like I feel like all this stuff is purposeful and there's a reason in my work I feel more of a compassion for, I always have had a compassion for parents and things like, and students and I don't know I love to see myself just reaching out more and connect with parents who have kids who are struggling and not that mine's gonna be in a different position. It could be years, but I feel this sense of I need to help others who are in this position or who are having challenging children who may not even have anything to do with substance use It's just Right 

[00:34:00] parents are trying to figure things out like I am and I think community is important. This community has really helped me hearing all the stories about it's gonna take time. It's a marathon, not a sprint and it has really hampered down my anxiety around like, okay is there an endpoint? Who knows? But I have to be okay and the enmeshment concept was very much in play, a couple years ago. Yeah. And how hard that was for us to just carry on our own lives because we were so concerned for our son and his happiness was our happiness, his highs, our high. Yeah but we are carrying on even with things as they are And it's been okay like my husband and I are saying even if something happens that's horrible, 

[00:35:00] it just has to be okay. 'Cause it's not us that's causing this, so we're like trying to prepare for the worst kind of, but just keeping it in the back of our head and knowing that we are trying to do what's right for us as adults and parents individually. Yeah. So what could be something that you might put out there as it sounds like you really have this like, growing passion for helping parents. Yeah. And is there something that you've thought about that you wanna explore, look into? Mm-hmm. I think it's always nice to have some, and I know you have a full rich life, so I'm not saying that you don't, but something that is just for you that you are sort of pursuing outside of and it may be adjacent to the struggle, right? Because you've lived this, but is there something that you've 

[00:36:00] thought about like, huh, you know, I kind of wanna look into X, Y, Z, that you could put some sort of some benchmarks against of like, am I working toward this? Am I, and you may go, uh, you know what? Nevermind. I don't wanna do that. Whatever, but it's something that you have for yourself that you're really pursuing that feeds your soul outside of anything that's going on with him. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Is there something like that that comes to mind? I've always wanted to I don't know, be a consultant of some kind. So, like I've done staff trainings numerous staff trainings around executive functioning skills and child development and how to help kids. When I did it with parents, there was a spark there. Mm-hmm. And they were a hungry audience and it was like I couldn't

 [00:37:00] give them enough. They still wanted to meet even though the book study sessions were over, they're like, wow. You know? And so I feel like there is some calling there for me and I'm not quite sure, how that's gonna come out, but yeah. That sounds amazing. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like something that would be so right up your alley and bring you joy. I know that feeling of seeing in, especially in parents' eyes, like, yeah, this is resonating, this is hitting, I get it. You know, and so that sounds like something that would just be so natural for you to pursue. My close friends have said I need to do it. I have a lot. Well, they, they say I have a lot of information and I'm like. Okay. But I don't know. I feel like it needs to be 

[00:38:00] shared in some way. Mm-hmm. I sit in. What are ideas that you've had about how you could share that? Have you kind of had a brainstorm with yourself about what that could look like? Well, I have done a couple of book studies, with staff and parents, and I feel like I have all these books. You're like, I got the inventory. I've already paid for 'em. I do and some of them really have resonated with me, like the gift of failure from Jessica. Oh my gosh. Right. Yeah and I'm like, oh, I need to get the word out with this message because we have so many kids show up, who are just really struggling with anxiety and not sure what to do and it is a family systems thing and parents struggling, like, I don't know what to do and I just kind of wanna say, let me help and I'm not saying that I've been through this and 

[00:39:00] I'm on the other side 'cause that's not the case, but I doesn't, I feel like doesn't, it doesn't need to be right. I always appreciate somebody who's just a bit ahead of me. They don't have to have everything solved. 'cause as we know, that's the big lie. Nobody has it all figured out. So the fact that you're still walking the journey is actually really advantageous.  Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, I could share anecdotes if I, anything  you're like, what do you want to hear? Right. There was a little bit of imposter syndrome, a couple years ago and I did some parent trainings. 'cause I'm like, my kid is just off the rails and here I am talking about mm-hmm. What to expect at this age and I'm like, ugh I don't have it all together and, but there was a sense of community and I'm in this with you. Yeah. I feel there's a lot of benefit, to that sort of thing. Well, 

[00:40:00] that sounds like something that would be such a gift to others and that would really be something that you would enjoy. Is there anything else that you wanted to get some coaching on, some direction, anything like that, that we haven't covered? So I wanna make sure and get to that as well. Yeah. Thank you. My big, and I think I already know the answer, but my big question is if my son. It's not really if, but when he has to find another living arrangement, he's probably gonna wanna knock on our door. Mm-hmm. And I have always had this thing where, you know, no, you can't be here and like as my proactive professional school psychologist piece comes out, like, well here's this thing, or here's this thing you could do and one of the things that I have is the homeless shelter in our community number and 

[00:41:00] my husband and I are a little different, he right now is saying, I don't know about that. I don't know if I could just say, you're going to have to go to the shelter and I'm like, yeah, I understand what you're saying. 'cause we have this okay relationship with him now and he has a job and what is this gonna do to all of that? But I've learned a lot through just trusting my gut and what the universe is trying to tell me. And I feel like natural consequences needs to keep going, you know? Mm-hmm. However hard that is, we're still gonna be involved in his life, but right now he's probably living a really sweet life where he can live with his friend, do what he wants and still use Yeah and without a lot of restrictions. So, so your gut's telling you to hold your boundary, 

[00:42:00] which sounds very logical and very safe and sane for you. The only thing I would add to that potentially is to think about. Given that he is making good progress in a lot of these areas, would you be willing to support something other than the homeless shelter? Would you be willing to support a trade program that he could get into and maybe help with rent for a couple of months? Or is there sort of an interim, like, your dad and I are willing to support this? Mm-hmm. You know, maybe it's two options. That neither one includes living with you. And if neither of those sound interesting to you, you know, and you encourage him to investigate them, right? Like, we've done the initial like, yeah, that, that sounds like it would be good we're, we would support that, but you would really need to look into it and if neither of those sound interesting to you, then here's this other option.

[00:43:00] And so that could be. 'cause I think that's a pretty big cliff, right? To go from it is where he is to a homeless shelter. But it's an option. But you may, knowing how resourceful you are, you may be able to find another option or two that you and your husband could feel good about supporting with limits, with expectations. Right. That you put in place to say, we're happy to support this for three months in this way, as long as these conditions are being met and if that doesn't work, we understand you may not wanna live within those constraints. Totally makes sense. 'cause you gotta a sweet life right now. Mm-hmm. You know, and using those motivational interviewing skills like that makes sense. So here's another thing, you know, here's another option. And also asking him, well, what have you thought about? Mm-hmm. Right. What ideas have you had? Because the thing we know about our kids is they are so freaking genius and resourceful. He's 

[00:44:00] probably got some other ideas cooking in his mind, which may be absolutely ludicrous or they may be somewhat valid. You never know. Right, right. But exploring that with him so that you feel you're not living on this daily. Like what if, what if, what if you're living with the peace of knowing if and when that happens? That's okay because we've already got some stuff worked out in that way, and it may need some fine tuning. 'cause if it's in a week or six months, that may make a difference. Yeah. But just having that in place could be a way to sort of reduce the anxiety around any potential like. He shows up at your door at three o'clock in the morning 'cause he has nowhere to stay and he is got a garbage bag full of stuff and you know, you're like, yeah. Ah, that's, those are things to think through so that they don't catch you off guard and you can say, okay, if that happens, what will we do? And 

[00:45:00] I am a big fan, as you know, of writing stuff out so that, because if that does happen, the worst case scenario is he shows up three o'clock in the morning pouring down rain. Like think of this is the worst case scenario, and he's sad and he's crying, he's got a bag full of stuff and he is pouring down rain and like all the things are gonna break your mama heart right and you're like, okay, if that happens, this is what I'm gonna do. Mm-hmm. So that you already know and it's written down, it's in your phone or it's in a beautiful little box somewhere that you keep little solution box or whatever you wanna call it. Mm-hmm. And being ready for that. Mm-hmm. You never know. It's like a birth plan. Right. You never know how it's gonna go. Right. It could go according to plan or not, but at least you've put some thought into it and the other thing that can be really helpful is to have a little bit of a self-care plan. So you've got a plan for, 

[00:46:00] what would I say to him? What will we say to him? Also, what will I do for myself? If and when we get to a situation where it's this, we've gotta make a call. Who am I gonna call? Do I have a therapist? Do I have a coach? Do I have my friend in the stream? I'm gonna go on a walk, I'm gonna drink a bunch of water, like whatever that is. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna play my favorite song because we tend to lose our minds in those situations and everything just goes out the door. It's like I know I had something. So being really kind to yourself about that and saying, I'm just going to have a couple of things lined up, and then it's amazing when something does happen, it doesn't feel like such a crisis because you've already preempted a lot of the emotion that's gonna come with that Right, right, right. Does that sound like something that you could do?  Absolutely. For so long I

 [00:47:00] was just so, solid on my conviction that no, telling my husband, better think of the scenario of when he comes knocking on our door, like, what is it that we're gonna do? And he's like, ah, and I'm like, well, I'm giving him the homeless shelter number. Then, as time went on. I was like, ah, this doesn't feel right. Like there has to be some sort of middle ground here where, we're just going to say, sorry, like, here's the number. Good luck. It's not how it's evolving and it's interesting how things go. You feel solid one day and then a week later you're like, ah, it's just how things go in this journey and so I think it's a good idea to come up with things, get back into the research mode. Yeah. Because I've taken a break as well. Mm-hmm. And just look at other options like that don't involve treatment that are there for young adults 

[00:48:00] mm-hmm. That are maybe a trade and maybe some other kind of career or apprentice program or Right. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. The great thing is that now there are so many different options and just having those in your back pocket, we always like to have a back pocket plan and yeah, it'll just save you a lot of anxiety and then he can also do his research and come to you with a plan and Right and then you get to decide are we gonna support that or not. Yeah and I think the giving him the agency to participate in that could be really good. 'cause it sounds like he's not, you know, if he was just off on his own, not contacting you guys really off the rails, not having a job, that's a different scenario than what's going on. It sounds like there's good relationship, good communication, even if it's a little transactional. It's, there is a connection there and. Yeah. So that sounds to me like kind of breeding 

[00:49:00] ground for continued growth and continued connection. Yeah. And that he would understand if you're like, wow, dude, it's just not gonna work for you to live here. This just isn't, this just not an option. However, let's work together. Let's come up with some agreements of how we can make this work. Because you've made such great progress and really, what gets rewarded gets repeated. So I'm trying to remember my own mantra, right? And so using that and really leaning into that positivity and acknowledgement, it goes such a long way. It seems so simple. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Thank you for reminding me about those things. You know, I collaborative problem solving all the time in my work with kids and how their voice and information, it's golden and people need to pay attention to it and again, someone like you has to tell me, remember Yes. To get his voice in here 

[00:50:00] and Yeah and not have everything so planned so tightly that there's no flexibility for other input. So. Right. And also let's say he does say, oh gosh, you know my friends, that I can only live here for one more week. You don't have to, even if you do have your back pocket planned for him, he doesn't need to know that you have that. You'd be like, wow, what a bummer. What are you thinking? Yeah. Right. And then if he says, well, you know, what would you and dad help me out with? You can say, gosh, that's a great question. Let us talk about it and we'll come back to you with some ideas. Yeah. Because if you jump straight into, well, we have this and we have that, then it's like you've already spent problem solving for him, and that takes away that agency. That's true. So just being, playing a little clueless, like, oh wow. Well, that's interesting. Well, gosh, I don't know. Let me think about that for a couple days. Mm-hmm. And what are you thinking about and, right. Yeah giving him a 

[00:51:00] chance to put his voice in the ring and see what he comes up with. I'm sure he's a brilliant boy and he is probably, I mean, he figured it out right now, right? Like he got himself housed and so I bet he could do it again, but he only has a couple friends here, so. Yeah. Yeah. Not sure if their parents are gonna allow another 19-year-old to stay indefinitely on their couch, right? Yes. Well, I'm so glad we got to talk and do this. Do you feel like you have some action items and some stuff to move forward with? I do and I think I needed affirmation that it's okay to be flexible. It's okay to have your boundaries, but also there's, wiggle room in here in terms of allowing him to talk, allowing him to be part of the solution instead of me just, here you go. Here's what I'm throwing out to you. Yeah. I mean, think of it as like 

[00:52:00] somebody in a work setting, they're struggling, they have some issues going on and if they came to you and asked for help, you'd help brainstorm with them, but you wouldn't be like solving their housing problem for them, right? Yeah. You would care very much and if they asked for your help. So it's that moving. I think it was Dr. Mark McConnell, who talked about having to move ourselves out of parenting mode into consulting mode, which is so hard. It is, but it really is the difference in like, oh, okay would you like me to put some brain power against this or not? Right. And mm-hmm. And being that, sounding board for him, I mean, you said, I've always thought about being a consultant. You are right. But you're not gonna engage until you know the other person asks for it. So that could be one way to just do a little shift in your mind about that. But yeah. You are on the right track. So thank you. So many things that you've done so well. I can't 

[00:53:00] emphasize enough, like how you have taken the care and the thoughtfulness to put so much effort against this, and you are starting to see the fruit of that effort and it is still really hard. So all of it, just acknowledging all of it. Yeah, no, I thank you. I just feel like I'm humbled by this whole experience and I feel more gratitude I guess now than frustration and anger and so I feel like maybe now is the time to start giving back. Yeah. It's a beautiful shift. Yeah, it is. So, well, thank you so much for sharing your experience and your questions with us on the podcast. We really appreciate it and of course I will be staying in tune with you and finding out what's going on as we move through the next weeks and months. Thank you so much, Brenda. This has been 

[00:54:00] amazingly helpful. Wonderful. Alright, we'll see you online soon.  Okay. Thank you.