Mental Health & Substance Abuse Awareness

everyone for coming we have an extreme honor to havea here from Amud in Baltimore he is the mash of the TA middle school counselor as well and Director of Education for Amud um got s from Mar St Lear there for 12 years as well as got his um Masters in counseling from John's Hopkin John Hopkins University and is a licensed clinical profess professional counselor and has been practicing since 2013 in counseling for adolesence and adults so the girls today and the CTA high school students had such an incredible opportunity to talk and to listen and learn and I hope we can continue that and bring it forward to our community yes okay thank you so much first of all yes I did add have an amazing time with all the kids today uh both at CTA and at the girls school with a lot of interactivity some fun stuff that we did which I'll share what I want to accomplish for tonight is I'd like to give over to you as parents some of the main Concepts that I already gave over to your children to the children in the community and I think the best way for kids to ever learn anything is through repetition through hearing the same things over and over again sometimes with different flavors different ways of saying it and for for me to be able to share with all of you all the parents the ways in which we approached some of these topics I think is crucial for the children to then hear it again from you so in as much as I'm here to learn together with you but also my hope is that you'll take the lessons that we learned today and actually engage your children in these conversations that is going to be the beginning and end of this presentation how important it is for us to effec non-judgmentally be able to communicate with our children and educate our children plant positive seeds without being confrontational Etc so I want to be able to share with you what we spoke about because it allows you to then go and follow up oh yeah I heard there was this RAB Landa there I heard you spoke about this or that did you do this or that it sound like it was fun it sounds like it was educational tell me more about it and it opens the door in an easy way as soon as possible it doesn't have to be tonight per se but the sooner better to be able to open up that conversation and nothing has to be accomplished in any one conversation with your children you have many years with your children and so you can start the conversation open the door in the right way and then the conversations can continue and the reason I start with that is because especially when we're dealing with teenagers but really if you can start way younger than that that's much better if children feel that that's the way we operate in our home we talk about anything and everything without any judge being judgmental at all and you're not going to be punished by sharing something with me and and all the other tips that we'll get to so if you do that already from a very young age then it's something which has a much easier time making inroads in the style of the family and the ways in which the child is comfortable bringing things up to their parents and that is the number one predictive factor for children uh being saved from a lot of the issues that we're going to talk about tonight the number one factor is having someone in their lives that they feel like they can be open with completely open with and the best possible person for that is parents sometimes the kid themselves will choose somebody else other than the parents that's fine but having someone that they can be open with and we want to try to allow one of those options to be the parents so the way that I like to open this conversation is by asking children and I'll ask all of you is it logical or is there a line of reasoning and logic that would justify using substances over drinking using drugs is there any line of reasoning and logic that would make that make sense to the person using what do you think anybody think there's a line of logic to that using it all or overusing overusing overusing over already implies so the answer to that question has to be yes let me say it in a little bit bit of a catchy way without being so perfectly accurate it is logical to to do drugs well that sounds pretty crazy right don't just make a little Tick Tock snap that um it is logical to do drugs meaning the reason why people do drugs and the reason why they drink too much and all these things is because it does something for them and we have to start with that understanding if we start the with the assumtion and then therefore how we start our conversation with it's ridiculous and you're damaging yourself and it's destructive how could you do that if God forbid a parent ever says to their child I don't want to ever hear that from you again not a curse word revealing that they're thinking about doing something that they heard about this and they're curious about it you they mention marijuana I don't want to ever hear you mention that again well then the child's message that the child gets is okay if I have curiosity and I decide maybe I want to experiment with it I will try to respect your wishes and not tell you that's the message you're given them so what we want is to make sure that we Foster that open communication but we also we have to start with the idea that the substances have logic to them otherwise no one would ever do them it's not psychotic people who decide to abuse substances by psychotic I mean truly textbook definition like completely insane it's actually quite sane people who tend to abuse substances why are they doing it what's the logic because they're missing they're missing something underneath they're missing either some say that what's the opposite of addiction not sobriety but connection so some will say they're missing deep and real connection with family members with friends and so many times if we approach it that way providing connection I told the kids I'm not saying any of you struggle I told them but how many people here know of a friend another person you're close with you're not so close with who has struggled or is struggling every child raised their hands in both schools every child they know someone so I said assuming we're not all talking about the one single person who everyone happens to know right everyone knows a bunch of people that are struggling in these areas it's common unfortunately it's common enough that everyone knows someone and of course there could be some people in the audience too it's not can ask them to raise their hands so when we're talking about being able to be a friend and help them we have to start with what's going on what are they missing what's what's the logic not not stop you're destroying yourself that's crazy but rather wait there must be a why let me try to figure it out with you and see if I can help you with that why and if it's loneliness and if it's lack of Acceptance in peer groups maybe I can help you as a teacher as a parent as a friend even right maybe as a friend you would go over to that person after understanding that and say hey would you like to come over and join the group that we're having at my house today to do with the project but what is that to do with the fact that they're struggling with vaping or even marijuana or drinking what it might have everything to do with it that might be the whole thing that's driving the to do it because that's their escape that's their shortcut Escape it could be mental health issues sometimes intense anxiety sadness and depression sometimes other mental health diagnoses are not being treated it takes a truly strong and brave person to say you know what I need help not only do I need help with my knee that's hurting it's like a part of my body and also I can't really it at any time and no one's going to tell me with my knee oh come on just get over it what do you mean I smashed my knee into the ground and it's injured so to be able to say no no no also my character who a little bit more deeply who I am I need help it's much more personal it's much more difficult to admit that to yourself and certainly to another person so going and seeking out therapy can be so difficult but that's what we need we need the people to do person has to go and be willing to make themselves vulnerable enough to seek out therapy to be able to get help to be able to open up to someone and say I need help can you help me find a therapist just on that note I want to just say a quick idea about amudim I was discussing with some people before amudim is an organization based out of New York but has International reach they have an Israeli Israel organization as well and they help communities all around America if I could get the CEO loock on the phone right now I believe is in Israel but if I could I'm sure he could tell exactly he knows all the stuff he has all the data on his phone exactly how many cases he's treated in Columbus from which zip codes over the last five years you're not going to share identifying details but he can he can tell me that's usually when he comes to the communities with me that's what he likes to share just to make sure you're all aware that you're not immune to these problems so but amudam is there primarily as a case management organization that means that instead of just having raban and teachers and parents and community members who say oh I know of this therapist and that therapist that might be a good idea why don't you call them you call amudim free of charge you can stay Anonymous and a case manager handles your call 100% with you they handle your call and they're willing to say okay here's first every case manager and ab is a licensed mental health professional and here is what I would recommend try this or try that not because I'm your therapist just initial steps and also I think you need a therapist so we'll also then be the referral agency and help you find a therapist and then after the first session of therapy when maybe which is often I didn't feel like I clicked with that therapist they said something weird that made me feel strange that case manager could say yeah that was strange you should go to someone else here's another idea or no that's pretty typical for a first session you should try again and generally speaking referral agencies are not doing that they're not holding the hand of the client to make sure sure that they're getting the services they need in the mental health area so just to understand a little bit besides for these awareness and educational events in the schools and for the community that's really a primary thing they do and you should never hesitate to call they're there to help you and to help people in the community so getting back to what we were say there's logic to it there's a reason for the decision and we have to make sure that we start with that assumption there's a reason why this person is choosing to abuse that substance and once we approach it that way then we're looking for is there a mental health disorder is there a loneliness is there a lack of acceptance is there some other source of stress in their life that they're not handling at a healthy level so now that we've approached it with that assumption first of all it's much more comfortable for the person like I'm not screaming at you why are you destroying yourself stop I'm here I want to listen listening is the first tool that every therapist uses a good therapist the first session could be just asking a couple of questions and listening the rest of the time but like real listening so somebody says something to me and I paraphrase it back for them somebody says to me it was really hard when I was growing up I was in this school and I had to move and after they finished that paragraph I say so so you're saying that when you were that age you had to move two times from this place to that place and each time just when you were making friends and I'm and they're like yeah just that one little act already is actually one of the healthy coping mechanisms which is speaking it out and feeling like you're heard feeling a little connection to someone who just wants to hear your story they just want to listen not being judgmental just hear the details show you that they're really listening and understanding so that's what we want to do if it's our own children it can be even more challenging but even more so it's important to not react instantly to what they say how many people here in your own minds could imagine God forbid your own child coming home and telling you I just tried marijuana for the first time today what's your reaction that's really hard to imagine hopefully and hopefully will never happen but if you could imagine it it's really hard to stay calm and not home but actually one of the most important things you can do and the child is reading your every single little face twitch the moment they reveal something I'm just giving you a little bit more of an extreme example example can be countless examples that are more realistic for some and they want to see are you going to react with what how did this happen meaning you destroyed yourself you destroyed your life let me use a lot of those languages and scare tactics to make sure you never do it again scaring doesn't work there was a there was a program that they used to do in America I think they made a TV show out of it so they might still do it capacity or another I'm not sure if it's the real thing anymore but they used to actually bring inner city kids to prisons in the elementary and middle school age groups to go meet maximum security prisoners in the prisons and they basically tell the kids that's going to be you if you don't shape up and they did data and surveys over the course of many years and found zero change in the kids that had the Scared Straight program and the kids that did not because just frightening a kid maybe in the moment you can it could sort of be like an inspiration for a moment but if it's not followed up with a lot of love and support then it's not going to last and many times even if it is followed up with a lot of love and support if the scaring was the whole thing and it showed how scared you were and how disappointed and devastated you are all the love and support afterwards is going to be mitigated by that first approach that first you know as much as we feel like that's not fair look at all the time I spent after we have to be careful with our initial reactions I'm not saying it's all over if you do it and in fact one of the best ways to correct for that type of thing is to quickly go back to the child and say you know within a few minutes within an hour I realized I reacted pretty harshly that I'm sorry it was just a surprise and a shock I wasn't ready for it can I try again that itself is a very powerful intervention it's like yeah we can make mistakes too give me another chance you're asking me for chances all the time so let me have another chance and let me try to do this the right way and you stay calm and not nonjudgmental and you say first of all I want to tell you I'm so proud of you that you told me it's amazing that you told me I'm so proud of you you could have easily not told me what does it take to not tell and instead you built up the courage to tell me thank you I'm so proud of you and when we think about it and we kind of separate our emotions out of it that is something to be very proud of it's not it's not like exaggerating that's really true so we want to give that message over to the children because we want them to tell us if other things happen we want them to tell us if they're thinking about doing certain things so that's the approach that we want to take recognizing that there are reasons and there are real stressors and pressures for the children to want to experiment with these things so once we take that approach and it's not judgmental and it's we stay calm and it's not just reacting at the situation so what can we do to help the children so we already spoke about connection trying to offer some connection but in general what we want to do is offer healthy coping mechanisms for dealing with stress in life because that's one of the biggest reasons why people will experiment and ultimately get hooked on substances you will have teenagers who will just kind of for the thrill of it experiment It generally doesn't last for too long or they tried it a couple of times and then they get addicted and now it becomes itself a source of stress for them but it causes them to start the definition of addiction is it's causing dysfunction in your life the substance is causing that dysfunction they're losing friends and they're not doing well academically and all these stressors are building in fact let's talk about alcohol for a second which is legal for adults let's talk about alcohol for adults the number one absolute worst time for an adult to ever drink alcohol is when they're in a bad mood or stressed out which is the number one time that adults generally consider drinking alcohol because if like they're just having a nice dinner out with their spouse and it's like a nice evening and they're like let's have a glass of wine it will enhance the evening that's one thing but if you that's just like an enhancement but if you use the alcohol as a medication as the unhealthy coping mechanism then that much more quickly becomes addictive in nature because again there's all these lines of reasoning now as to why it makes sense for me to use it it takes me out of my misery out of my stress so we want to make sure that we can convey these ideas to our children and understand what are the underlying stressors that are causing them to use these substances and some healthy coping mechanisms your kids came up with Amazing Ideas right writing down your feelings with the girls that's an easy one with the boys much harder I tell the boys if you'd like we don't have to call it a diary we can call it a journal instead and I encourage them very strongly to write to write a little bit sometimes with the boys again I tell this to the girls also but sometimes with the boys it's very important to tell them so you're going to sit there at your desk in your room and you're going to write right what's one of the things you're afraid of someone's going to find My Notes no problem here's the coping mechanism write down your feelings write down what happened write down why it's making you upset just getting it off your chest through talking or even writing Dr David pelovitz famous Orthodox psychologist he talks about what's called naming the monster that means that when we have feelings and stressors in our head they they're very abstract and they bother us a lot but when we put them into words words themselves by definition are confining they limit to For Better or Worse in this case for better they limit the concepts and so they actually give structure to the concepts and allow us to deal with them much more capably that's part of why therapy works through speaking out and putting words to the issues that are swirling around in my mind so so write it down write down what you're feeling and then rip up the paper into a million pieces the second you finish writing burn it up into ashes if you need it doesn't matter it's not about keeping it now if you do keep it it could be an amazing intervention to revisit some of those earlier pages in your notebook from a month or two ago where you wrote there's no way I'm ever going to survive I am completely ruined there's nothing that could help me and a month later you're like what was that about again I don't even remember oh yeah oh yeah that I got over that oh interesting I got over that maybe I can get over this too there interesting new insights that you can get by writing but even if you don't do that just ripping it up afterwards these are this is a real tangible intervention you can share with your children you don't need to go to a therapist to hear this idea and this is something that's powerful not other ideas right breathing exercises which revolves really a around both physiologically okay increasing the oxygen flow in our blood into our brains which clears the mind but also it it connects to the concept this popular Concept in Psychology called mindfulness mindfulness is just all about grounding ourselves in the present because the majority of anxieties and things we're angry about and things we're sad about are are revolving around the future and the past not the present if a person has a current injury and throbbing in pain right now that's present but outside of that most of this emotional stuff we're dealing with our future and past I can't believe that happened yesterday replaying it in my mind I'm so worried about what's going to happen tomorrow thinking about it over and over and over again in my mind whereas if we could ground ourselves in the present and actually gets our brain to slow down and be able to cope with some of the difficult emotions we're talking about all these things are for all ages by the way so mindfulness so breathing focusing on our breathing we normally don't focus on our breathing if we did focus on our breathing at all times every time we took a breath that would look like and I wouldn't be able to talk to you so it's good for us not to focus on our breathing or need to focus on our breathing but we can choose to do it to ground ourselves in the present that's a practical strategy you can share so sure there's the 478 you know inhale for 4 seconds hold it for 7 Seconds exhale for 8 seconds and and and the belly should move in and out for the breathing and all sorts of techniques for maximizing the productivity of the breathing exercise but just make it simple as a parent you can share with your child try just breathing for 60 seconds deep slow breaths and focus on that try any writing down your feelings do you want to talk about it these are incredibly powerful interventions that you as parents and and not in the context of Oh no you're angry remember the rule we made you must go end but rather I could see something's really bothering you like empathize I could see it's really bothering you right now uh may maybe if I was in your place I would feel the same angry let's try to dial it down a little bit see if you can do one of these exercises just to calm down a little bit and then let's talk about it then let's try to solve it I want to be on your side could be very powerful I tell the again boys more often than girls but I tell both the boys and the girls um the first thing what's the first thing you're going to think about when you're in the middle of being angry or in a bad mood and you have this thought pop into your head or your parents remind you remember that thing where elanda told you about breathing exercises or about writing your feelings down and you're in the midst of being angry and you're in a bad mood what's the first thing you're going to think those are dumb ideas they're definitely not going to work so just make sure you remember I called it already that's what you're going to think and you should do them anyway because when you're in a bad mood everything's going to be dumb everything's going to be futile nothing's going to help me so you have to be ready for that and say okay but what do I have to lose it'll take 60 seconds let's see if it helps and very often if they do it for 60 seconds it helps a little bit and encourages them to do it a little bit more so teaching and repeating and giving over healthy coping mechanisms is like the core of what we can do as parents for our children within the context of nonjudgmentalism and empathy and patience and never reacting in the moment in that context we're giving our children the greatest Safeguard against experimenting with these substances being able to stand up to sometimes seeing friends glorifying the substances to be able to say no no I'm okay I'm good because we're giving them that messaging don't go there here are actual things that you can do and tell me everything I'm never going to judge you okay so those are some basic coping mechanisms let's go over just a little bit quickly some of the different common substances out there that children teenagers and adults struggle with and let's just understand them because it's important to understand exactly the makeup of these the first one I want to discuss is one that's often misunderstood which is vaping vaping is instead of smoking a cigarette using fire and comus to burn the materials in the cigarette and bring smoke into the logs with all the B dirty and terrible poisonous byproducts that come along with that vaping is using electricity to vaporize the liquid and in that liquid is the nicotine sometimes there's no nicotine in the liquid and there's flavorings so that's vaping now many people I've heard try to approach this topic from the position of there are dangerous chemicals in the flavoring ing so there's something called dietal which is a flavoring that provides grape like flavor to vape liquids and dietal is associated with popcorn lungs because it is a chemical that's used in the flavoring of microwave popcorn and in one of the microwave popcorn factories the factory workers were not wearing their masks and a lot of the powder from the dietal got into the air and got into their lungs and caused scarring on their lungs which became known as popcorn lungs because association with working in the Popcorn Factory and they put that chemical so it's perfectly healthy to eat in the quantities that some of the particles are getting into your nose and mouth in the popcorn itself even if you stick your face into that freshly made microwave popcorn bag and breathe in as hard as you can it's minuscule and doesn't affect you at all but when it's put in concentrated liquid form in The Vape liquid and vaporized and put into the lungs then it's like that vat of powder in the factory and can be dangerous the reason I don't like going down that path with kids is because there are many companies that will like advertise we do not use dietal in our flavorings like oh RAB what about Jewel Jewel says that they don't use it so yeah you have to deal with the reality some of them are not using it so what I like to focus on instead of that is the nicotine a little bit will get to but that not so much but rather what's the base of the Vape liquid it's important to know this basic basic idea when when people Vape they want the experience of smoking that's part of the reason why they're vaping they want thick smoke coming in and out of their mouth and lungs that's the feeling they're looking for many times the look they're looking for and the base of the liquid is propylene glycol it's not water these are not H2O water-based liquids it's propylene glycol propylene glycol is a safe chemical to eat and a dangerous and unhealthy chemical to inhale it is actually used as a coating on top of some produce to preserve freshness so it's FDA approv for that but to inhale it's not safe and it's dangerous and every single teenager I've ever worked with who has Vaped for some time we're not talking about years months sometimes weeks will come back to me and admit to me I'll ask them because I've learned to ask this question just to do my own anecdotal research how's it going at recess well I used to really like playing full CT basketball at recess but now it's all half court basketball why what happened I just get out of breath much faster you smoking cigarettes not only vaping every teenager so yeah they could say well I'm doing a cost benefit analysis and I just really like the vaping better than the full court basketball you could say that but one thing you can't deny your lungs have changed since you started vaping what's what's happening you see the effects in a short time what's happening propylene gly is bad for the lungs and the base of every single Vape liquid if any of the base of the liquids was water it would look the same as on a cold winter night you breathe out and you have very thin little steam coming out of your mouth that's mostly water but propyl and glycol is that thick smoke that comes out of the Vape so that's a simple thing to know as far as nicotine nicotine is highly addictive some say more addictive in nature and physical withdrawal symptoms than even opiates and heroin nicotine is highly add and we have to understand that also the teenage brain is much more vulnerable than the adult brain the adult brain generally actually starts mid 20s not 18 or 21 but on average mid 20s and as long as the brain is still developing and it's initial stages of development of basic growth and formation which goes through the mid 20s it's much more vulnerable in that state so you can tell the kids you might see adults doing certain things not advocating the adults starting to vape but you might see adults doing certain things you have to know just like in general there is a difference between any chemical affecting the brain of an adult versus the brain of a child of a teenager when it comes to vaping they still will agree in the medical community that vaping is healthier or better said less dangerous or less unhealthy than smoking cigarettes although there's a lot of questions about that now because a lot there's a whole bunch of people who died from vaping related lung illness that's actually an acronym now that's its own illness category now so it's not even so clear we're only first learning about the 20 and 30 year marks of people vaping now because it's new as opposed to in cigarettes we have 100 Years of data to be able to see full lifespans of what it does we don't know where we're going to end up the people vaping right now are actually the guinea pigs for us in 20 and 30 years to see well what happens over the course of 40 or 50 years a little scary but in even if it Remains Not as unhealthy as smoking cigarettes being less unhealthy does not make it healthy obviously so sometimes teenagers will come with that type of like well no this is so much healthier than smoking okay I can think of lots of things that are healthier than something else but they're still unhealthy and dangerous and bad for you so just a simple simple point to keep in mind and nicotine also unlike let's say caffeine where there's a lot of discussions there's more of a consensus amongst the neuroscientists about nicotine that nicotine is not healthy for the teenage developing brain so something to keep in mind with the nicotine as well but the the main thing I like to talk about is proping glol let's talk about any questions on vaping or on the mental health piece and how it interplays with substance abuse and the interventions yeah so I've been reading a lot about Zin on the gums they like gum patches nicotine it's not vaping it's not cigarettes these things yeah or chewing nicotine gum right yeah you don't have to go to the new stuff with the patches but there's patches on the arm forever help people quit smoking they put patches on their arms take a teen gum I've yet to find teenagers that are really into that because there's usually such a strong uh social component to these things that vaping looks cool and feels cool and feel like you're doing something like well you should really stop I can't I'm addicted to nicotine okay here's the nicotine go here's the nicotine pack put it on in the morning set it and forget it you're done the whole day you won't have a nicotine urge no I can't do that like why so it starts to bring out that there's something more to it than just the headache I get from lack of nicotine so you're yeah I I think that we still have that AR if there was a kid arguing I want to use the Patcher which I I've never heard but if there was a kid arguing I'd like to use one of those nicotine VI that doesn't affect the lungs at all or the brain at all outside of just nicotine then it would be much again not as bad but still there is research on the impact of nicotine on the developing brain it's pretty widely agreed that once a person's beyond their mid-20s nicotine is not an unhealthy substance or it's similar to caffeine in its effect it doesn't take away your ability to think at all so there's there's a lot of research on that but for the developing brain there's a lot of research on that it could still be unhealthy any other questions okay so let's move on to alcohol this is going to be the the focus of our presentation for tonight we'll touch on marijuana and prescription medications as well but when it comes to alcohol anybody know what the chemical is in alcohol that affects a person's brain close you heard it from earlier today remember e uh similar to ethanol so e is actually the chemical and I like to tell that to kids because instead of just talking about it is like scotch and bourbon and beer and wine all of them share something in common e it's a much more clinically sounding and accurate name for the chemical that's an alcohol that actually affects our bodies and brains and it's a poison and our body works furiously to try to excrete it through going to the bathroom much more frequently through sweating more and ultimately if you keep drinking despite all the sweat and going to the bathroom and it's not able to keep up through throwing up so that is how the body reacts to e right again I just instead of instead of it being this common household name of whiskey or whatever you call it that that's just the method the fermentation of Wheat and barley versus grapes versus sugar or whatever those are are just the methods of developing eoh to put into your system and put into your brain and body so when it comes to alcohol alcohol is also highly addictive terrible withdrawal symptoms once a person becomes addicted and obviously it Alters our ability to Think Through think things through in a straight fashion what do you think is the first bad decision that a person makes after they've begun drinking any ideas what's usually the first bad decision the drink one exactly how much should I drink so somebody might come to the perm suda and they might say which we're going to have soon and they might say you know what I'm only going to have two drinks or three drinks I'm not going to you know once I mentioned perm I'll just say really quickly there are many sources that say that no one has to drink on Perm there are definitely sources that say that men should um but but there are sources that say not in this country the fact that it's illegal really for kids to have alcohol you could argue maybe for a parent to give their child but certainly certainly for a parent to give someone else's child would be majorly problematic in terms of liability and in terms of legality and all of that so keep that in mind and spread the word um you know let parents make decisions for their own children and some parents might make the decision to give them some alcohol but the sources in the Torah and in the talud that talk about the idea of drinking there are so many sources that talk about how embarrassing and dis disgusting and terrible it is to drink to the level of it being out of control to the level of it being someone throwing up and getting sick from it the the the tal talks about that in the terminology of shalot which means comparing what that person's doing to the episode of L and his two daughters the most disgusting embarrassing episode in the Bible in the Kish and that's generated through one through alcohol and the rabbis are teaching us that's never okay never that's always an embarrassment and terrible so what does it mean that on purm there should be a certain another level it should be something that removes inhibitions for those that are going to go like the opinions that you should there's plenty of plenty of warrants not touching alcohol at all on Perm completely taking a nap all sorts of other ways of doing it you know ask your your rub your Rabbi but if you're going to go with that opinion it's only to the extent of releasing inhibitions to be able to be be sing songs of thanking God and hem that you normally wouldn't sing and getting into the mood of of kadua of Holiness of happiness and joy for being Jewish and for for celebrating a Jewish holiday and all of these things that's it nothing beyond that anything that's out of control and embarrassing people and and then ultimately getting sick and throwing up that's like an easy Telltale sign that you just you just went wa so the first bad decision as was mentioned it could be at the perm meal it could be on a shabus at a Kish it could be in a Sho it could be at any random dinner it could be anytime the first bad decision is I went into this event thinking I'm going to drink x amount of drinks yeah I feel pretty good right now and they don't realize this my judgment is impaired maybe I'll drink four instead of two hey I feel even better now and they don't realize my judgment is even more impaired so now six seems like a good idea when before it didn't and so on and so forth so when we when when a person approaches drinking they have to understand that they're getting into a situation that by definition it creates an automatic cycle of taking it too far which is why it's always smart for there to be someone to help on the side not just with driving a car but with how much alcohol should be available and how much drink and all of that so that's the first bad decision and then obviously taking away a person's perception creates all sorts of issues so the lack of judgment affects driving a car also like should I merge into this Lane I have one millimeter of space yeah good idea so you're not going to think straight under the influence of alcohol but then just the visual perception how does everything seem straight and am I balanced and I coordination and all of that so obviously driving it's not just driving there are so many other activities that we do and there are injuries that happen uh all the time there's so many stories with uh there was once a a kid who there was a uh a Ritson a wife of one of the rabbis who she saw the kid was about to run into the street after one of his friends and there was a car coming so she grabbed him back it's actually in that regard a happy ending as opposed to other stories just grabbed his shirt back and he felt so abs set just out of control out of his mind that she did that he turned around and swung and punched her in the face and she was out after that he had to confront for the rest of his high school career that the wife of his Rabbi was punched in the face by him injured severely had to recuperate and he had to deal with that for the rest of his high school career because of one dumb decision due to alcohol and there's countless countless examples and we'll watch a video about it but one of the things do with the kids is I have these $160 goggles that are um made with with real research in terms of the visual impairment and if any of you have ever heard of these they are colloquially called as drunk goggles but basically you put these goggles on um afterwards you're welcome to try we paint a blue line on the floor we time the kids to walk this line foot over foot like this all the way till the end takes 11 seconds and then we give them the goggles there's different levels this one is like having seven or eight drinks more than twice the legal limit of driving so 0.08 this is up to 0. 2 and uh this one which is about 08 so about the legal limit are just a little bit over it and so they get to try these different states of what it is like for your bu and your balance to be impaired um we had some of the rabbis try it earlier today also and it's quite scary it actually causes you to feel dizzy and some of the kids say like what this is what you feel like when you're drunk and I'm like well that's a big part of it yeah like you're stumbling over yourself like why would anyone ever want to do that and the answer is that way before this level there was some good feeling associated with but again then comes the bad decision making and it quickly escalates to this and the thought we have all the high school kids tried of driving a car with these goggles on it's ridiculous it would be impossible so again I'm not going to have you all try it out now and make a fool out of your sounds in front of each other but afterwards you can feel feel free to try it out um we also have them toss a ball to each other so they'll toss ball a ball to each other without the goggles on it's very easy8 feet apart and then with the goggles on it's a huge mess and things are breaking in the room and stuff like that so so we try to make it interactive for them it's a great thing the reason I'm telling you is not to go spend $160 on these goggles your children just had this lesson today go home and ask them about it it's such a fun calm nice conversation like what were those goggles like if they didn't try it themselves what were who was trying it what was it like show interest to like to get to the point of just planting those seeds nothing no command no and that's why you better not Tre but rather wow that gives you a whole new perspective on why it's so important not to get to that state of drunkenness not to experiment with alcohol certainly never to get into a car if you or even you know your friend had not to get into the car even if you're not the one driving wow what a powerful way of giving that lesson what's your child going to say no it wasn't that you're making it totally not confront another tip for how to get these lessons over okay so when it comes to Addiction in general I like to show this little animation video I showed this to the kids today I'll show it for you just give me a second here sh for [Music] for [Music] go [Music] for [Music] sh for [Music] so pretty intense way of portraying it but also pretty accurate uh it portrays both the concepts of Tolerance and dependence and addiction so when a person is finding themselves using substances alcohol nicotine also all the other substances we're discussing marijuana obate prescription medications all of these medications and substances when a person finds that using is what happens is that the brain starts to develop a tolerance to them it starts to affect them at less and less of a level over time they need more and more and the addiction cycle continues the definition of addiction is that you're using it even though it's clearly harming your life in M many different types of ways so it's a powerful video you can find this video on YouTube under addiction animation if you want to review it or take a look at it I want to show you one more video okay so just just in terms of what we sometimes find so this is an important lesson that is both applicable to people themselves struggling with with substance abuse alcohol addiction overdoing it with alcohol and that but also even for kids teenagers who are think to themselves I'm never doing that it's not anywhere near my train of thought you might be surprised all of a sudden something doesn't go well and this and then you find yourself in a position and one of your friends you thought never does it is doing it and it's like baby all of a sudden it is and things change really quickly with teenagers but even if it's true that it never will be within their range of what they would consider doing what messages are they getting from us from the parents and that's important for them to learn that if they see certain behaviors and activities they don't have to and this is the message I try to give over they don't have to say you know what then I disrespect that person because they smoke or they do this or whatever we're going to see that's not what your approach needs to be you're mature and old enough in the high school years to compartmentalize to say you know what there's so much I do respect and so much I do appreciate and so much that I I want to learn from but I'm not going to learn from that and you can give that message over to children but also the children need to know what okay and what's not okay what's normal what's not normal what they really shouldn't be learning from so this is a pretty intense video Let's Take a Look may [Music] I [Music] day [Music] spe [Music] it [Music] do [Music] Happ [Music] by [Music] [Applause] [Music] spe [Music] e every time I watch it even though this is the 200th time I watched it BR tears to my eyes it is a very powerful video in terms of actually being a pre accurate reflection of reality um obviously in in pretty extreme fashion in terms of all the drinking that's going on but kids learn from the decisions that we make part of what I want to teach children is that even if you're in a situation where you can't change something you can still choose to learn from some things and not from others and you can get help from your from a parent from a teacher you can say to a parent is that okay instead of of course that's okay it's my father brother whoever doing that of course I'm assuming that's okay second no no no you learned in school it's not okay getting to the point of getting sick is never okay on perm or any day that's not okay and so that's that's what we want to teach we can teach that adults can responsibly enjoy alcohol in moderation I don't think in my opinion in the opinion of amudim we do not have to Advocate that nobody ever touch alcohol ever again but it has to be with the understanding that a it's always moderation so nothing like this in terms of the messaging we're giving our children and what they may end up doing but also we have to make sure that we're not giving the children the wrong messages um the wrong messages of what does it mean to do to do such a thing as an adult and how do we really what do we really focus on in life and that I think is one of the biggest messages when it comes to alcohol that we can find is one of my colleagues told over a story of a father who came home and he realized afterwards how terrible this was but he came home from an overseas business trip and he came home and he told his family I'm so sorry it was a successful trip thank God but I wasn't able to pick up souvenirs from that place and then later that day a friend of the fathers came over and he was showing off the bottle he was able to get dutyfree at the airports for you know the very expensive bottle for much cheaper how much of the sh meal how much of the purum meal how much of any time that that there's alcohol involved how much per percentage of the conversation is revolving around the pedigree and the age and the origin and the notes and all of that doesn't mean you can't appreciate the wine or even the scotch but it shouldn't be more than like a minute of conversation like that's nice like how long would you talk about this new flavor of Dr Pepper that me that's the same amount of time time you can talk about the Scottish it wouldn't be the focus of conversation the whole entire meal if the if the idea is that for the adults in moderation the alcohol is there just as an enhancement in moderation to what's happening at the meal so the Torah that's being spoken and the songs that are being sung and the family time together that's one thing but if it's the opposite if the meal is really just the pretext to be able to drink that's where it becomes a problem even where the alcohol is stored I don't want to nitpick but it can sometimes send a message if if there's a there's a beautiful Showcase of the bottles and that shows literally how you're putting them on a p if it's just in a cabinet somewhere maybe preferably locked if you know your children but if it's just in a cabinet somewhere and once in a while it'll take it out and use it and put it back similar to what you you do with the soda or whatever so then you're putting it in its place to be conscious of these these messages that we may be giving our children okay so I don't know if we were expected to end at 8:30 or not I'm going to assume we were so we're late already I try never to go late I just want to say two quick points on marijuana and prescription medications and I'll open it up to questions so when it comes to marijuana the main chemical in marijuana is THC there is way more THC in the genetically modified marijuana plants than there ever was in the 1960s and70s and it has been causing psychosis and mental breakdowns and mental health issues to be triggered in children that means that children smoke or vape marijuana or eat candies and gummies that have THC in it or eat brownies and chocolate chip cookies that have THC in the mix and in the ingredients so be aware of all of those options these days and the THC affects their brain it's a psychoactive chemical we're not going to get into all the the Neurology on that but the bottom line is that it does alter the brain bra chemistry and the brain functionality and for some kids and you don't know who it is so genetics and predispositions it actually can cause sometimes as terrible as psychotic breakdown that you can tell that that happened years later and sometimes it can bring onset of anxiety disorders and paranoid schizophrenic disorders and and depressive disorders and all sorts of things marijuana is a is not a simple substance in terms of when kids ask well what's the difference between marijuana and alcohol why should one be legal and one not first of all In terms IL legal it's a silly question because there's economics and politics involved it has nothing to do necessarily really with just the health of it they tried to outlaw alcohol for three years why did they bring it back again not because they discovered a new study that it's actually healthy for you because it was economically impossible and causing crime so you see all these different equations and considerations when it comes to legalities so let's stay away from legality but why is one worse than the other the one thing I can tell you is moderate alcohol consumption and I mean responsible moderate has been shown over many many many years maybe hundreds maybe thousands to not negatively impact the general course of a person's life whereas moderate marijuana consumption already is being shown to definitely alter the course of a person's life in a healthy way in the emergency rooms in Colorado which was the first state to legalize marijuana they now the DAT is coming up five six years later about the huge increase in marij marijuana related admittance to the emergency room for illnesses and discomforts and problems associated with marijuana consumption that they never had before because all of a sudden a lot of people were using it so we have to understand not just the gateway drug argument you're going to end up doing cocaine and heroin oh so the marijuana's fine though that's like a really hard argument for a teenager to hear yeah marijuana's fine but you're going to end up doing no I won't now it's true nobody in the history of doing marijuana ever started with it and said and this will be my first step towards cocaine no one ever said that no one ever said in the history of addiction I am now going to have my first shot of alcohol and this is my first step towards becoming addicted no one ever says that so obviously all the people who become addicted and all the people that progress to harder drugs started not thinking that way at all and pretty convinced that they wouldn't go in those directions unfortunately my colleague and amudim just buried a teenage older teenage boy who overdosed from heroin after working with this kid for years from when they were only 12 and 13 and they started with marijuana at that age and promised it's always only going to be marijuana an anecdote but an anecdote of many unfortunately so we have to understand the dangers associated with right now the dangers of marijuana not just that it can lead to things in the future and then finally prescription medication so I really have one main advice when it comes to this prescription medications like painkillers prescription painkillers like when it comes to Codine and percocet madin and these types of painkillers that doctors will sometimes prescribe after procedures and surgical procedures and major injuries sometimes un necessary follow the doctor's advice if the person starts to feel better we we have cases at amudim where these were upstanding people in the community men and women who never considered abusing alcohol marijuana nothing no smoking and they got an injury and the doctor said take it the doctor told me to take it like they're Straight Shooters they took it and it started to affect them they start to feel certain things and they start to develop tolerance and they start to use it even when not so much prescribed then one becomes one every five hours four hours and then it becomes two and it becomes more and it can be very problematic it could be all of a sudden this very innocent entryway into abusing hardcore drugs because they're based in opian which is like heroin so my advice is anytime you are prescribe these medications if the doctor's telling you to take it take it but as soon as you start to feel the pain getting better don't just keep taking the rest of the prescription because that's what the doctor wrote on the label ask the doctor consult with your doctor should I still take it I'm feeling this much better this is my pain 1 to 10 and whenever the prescription's over whether it's at that point or the doctor tells you keep taking it for a little bit whenever it's done throw them out don't keep them in the medicine cabin that's where kids are going to look for them okay so you put them in that other drawer in the vanity of the bathroom that's where kids are going to look for them they will find them whichever bathroom of the house that's in where whichever cabinet of the house that's in they will stumble upon them they might have a friend who thought about these things and they never thought about these things and friend says hey did you notice what you have in your bathroom he's like what just just throw them out there's no reason to have them because as soon as you might may need them in the future God forbid you call the doctor and he prescribes them for you again okay so it takes a few hours to get it instead of having it already in the house these things have expiration dates anyway throw them out it's the best thing you can do because the biggest danger with prescription meds in terms of how dangerous they could be is that they are potentially the most easily stumbled upon it's very unlikely that a child will stumble upon a bag of weed in your medicine cabinet but much more likely they may stumble upon one of these bottles of pills so that's that's the main thing that I would say about prescription medic medications and the bottom line is like we started with we want to always make sure to Foster these open communication levels with our children being armed with the facts that I'm presenting to you the recording will go out uh in terms of understanding these different drugs and chemicals and how bad they can be for people even now not just later so that you can plant these positive seeds tell the kids these these points but not in the midst of an argument just like oh I just read something interesting heard something interesting about marijuana and everything's fair game for us to talk about we can talk about anything and it's always non-judgmental one last tip I'll leave you with sometimes it's really hard to talk to a kid directly about something maybe you shouldn't be friends with that person you know maybe you shouldn't be using that substance whatever the conversation is sometimes a powerful tool can be to talk around the child instead of talking to the child what that means or what that looks like is husband and wife are in the kitchen just off the living room child is in the living room in the cchen husband and wife talk purposely a little bit louder than they normally would but not obviously and talk about how serious it is and you read this and yeah I watched a YouTube thing on that and I heard from from somebody of this and saying real good points and the kids hearing what the two of you are talking about when it's not said to him many times the seeds can be planted and hopefully bear fruit sooner than later as opposed to when it's more confrontational like I need to tell you something about this and right away the defense is go well there's one last tip I wanted to leave you with and with that I'll open up to questions if there are anyone any and thank you so much for coming