(calm music)
- So one of the questions that I get asked about
pretty regularly especially when I was younger
was how did you turn out okay,
you had sort of a difficult upbringing,
child impacted by substance use disorders.
When I get asked this question,
very simply the answer is it's science.
This is not a miracle, it is not magic.
It was science and counterbalancing all of the risk factors
that I came into life with with protective factors.
So if you think of it as a seesaw,
I had a lot of risk factors on this side of it
coming into this world and for about the first 10 years
but then there were things that happened,
interventions and people that cared about me
that counterbalanced that seesaw
to put protective factors on the other side
so it not only leveled out
but it went in the opposite direction
and I think it's really important for us to remember
that no child is unsavable, right,
regardless of the risks and the home life
and the difficulties that our children are faced with
because of addiction because of substance use disorder
that we have the science and the tools to intervene
and help to improve their outcomes
and we talk about why some people develop
a substance use disorder and some people don't.
I talk about the triangle, sort of the three main factors
and that at the tip of the spear is genetics.
We have about 50% of the individuals today
that have a substance use disorder
have a genetic predisposition, right?
We pass this down to our loved ones
and you can't control that but what you can do
is know that you have a genetic load,
that you have risk factors
because of your genetic predisposition like I do.
So because of that and knowing that,
I have four generations of addiction before me,
I know that I have higher genetic risks
than let's say my next door neighbor or my best friend.
So I make choices that counterbalance that.
So that's on that genetic side
and then on the other side of the triangle,
you have environmental factors.
It's about the community that you come from,
the environment that you live in,
things like poverty level, crime level,
availability of substances in that community
and we know that there are interventions
that can impact that,
the norms that we create in communities
and then you have the individual side, right?
That's things that are unique to me
and unique to my family and my household,
parental monitoring,
really clear expectations that are set forward,
positive adult relationships.
All these protective factors on the individual side
that also have correlating risk factors
but how we address those particularly for all the kids
that are impacted by substance use disorder
is critically important.
So I come back to that teeter-totter.
I came into this world with probably every risk factor
that you can account for both on the genetic side,
the tip of the spear, the environment I lived in
and my individual factors
but I rebalanced that by the interventions,
things like delaying the onset.
I did not drink till I turned 21 and even till today at 41
I am very careful about alcohol consumption,
intermittency and being careful about my own use.
Clear relationships.
I had not only my grandparents and aunts and uncles
that engaged as caring adults in my life
but was given a mentor
through our county behavioral health services
when I was just a kid that helped with another caring adult.
Mental health care.
I was court mandated to see a psychologist when I was eight
and continued that care to make sure
that I had the mental health treatment
that was necessary to deal with the trauma,
the adverse childhood events
and those risk factors that needed to be addressed.
We even know how to prevent this illness
for those that have the most risk factors
for developing this disease and we just need to make sure
that we're deploying them to every community.