FamilyLife Today®

Speaker 1

A parent's finest hours come in their darkest hours. And I've seen it play out many, many, many times.

You know, I didn't plan when I said I do with Joanna that we would face the things that we face with children with struggles. I had this brilliant plan. You know, this is how I'm going to be this dad: follow what my dad did and blah, blah, blah.

But when it hits you, it's like that's when you become or show your finest hours as a parent.

Speaker 2

Welcome to Family Life today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

Speaker 3

And I'm Dave Wilson. And you can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today.

So I told you, last night I got a text from a friend of mine, a dad whose son has been experimenting with drugs and, as a result, is somewhat suicidal. We were talking about how to respond to that. I think that's a major question for all parents who have a son or daughter who's experimenting with drugs, alcohol, porn, or sex and they don't know what to do.

I mean, do they seek out professional help? That's why he reached out to me. He's almost asking, should I get help?

Speaker 2

Well, today we're going to listen to a portion of the Family Life Blended podcast with Ron Deal. Family Life Blended is the division of Family Life that provides so much training and resources for stepfamilies and the church leaders who serve them.

But this conversation really is just applicable to all parents because we all know and love a child who's turned to addictive behaviors. This podcast unpacks why children do that and what parents can do about it.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

And Ron's guest today is Dr. Adrian Hickman, founder of the Capstone Treatment Center in Searcy, Arkansas, which Ron says is one of the most effective inpatient addiction treatment programs for 14 to 26 year old young men in the country.

Dr. Hickman trained therapists at the university level for many years and has lectured around the world about the model they developed at Capstone.

Speaker 2

And we're only going to hear a small fraction of this discussion, but you can hear the rest of it by pulling up the Family Life Blended podcast and search for episode 142.

Speaker 3

Okay, let's pick up the conversation after Ron asked Adrienne to help parents understand what's going on below the surface when a kid is drinking or doing drugs. Here is Adrian's response.

Speaker 1

There are multiple different, let's say, eruptions of the volcano from drugs and alcohol and self-harm and pornography and intensity-based sex, and all these things that are addictive behaviors that are steamrolling America, especially youth. Underneath that, there's a magma pool of trauma, isolation, disconnection, attachment, incapacity, lack of purpose, and connection with God.

And then under that, there's a family context in which both of those battlefronts exist. There are families out there that are a part of the problem, but there are others that are not. The thing to remember on that is every single family is the most important part of the solution.

And so that's what we try to bring together and do: work with everybody in the family, because that's how you are able to save and turn the direction of the child that's in jeopardy.

Speaker 4

I want us to talk today about two audiences because I know we got people watching that fall into both of these camps. The first camp is people who have a child who is actively drinking, drugging, or something similar. But I also want us to talk to the parents who are saying, "No, that's not happening with my kids," yet they know and love someone whose kids are involved in those behaviors. Additionally, there are those who simply want to prevent their kids from going down that road. So, what do I need to know, and how do we build strength and resilience into our children and our household?

Let's tackle those one at a time. Let's start with someone who's listening and is in a really rough spot with one of their kids. They may have a sense that something's going on, or perhaps they have clarity that, yes, their child is drinking, drugging, or engaging in pornography or something similar. What do they do? How should they think about the problem, if you will? And what would be the first things you would offer them?

Speaker 1

You know, the first thing that I would say in that is almost every time there is going to be a difference between what mom and dad think on how big the problem is. So first thing I would say is you got to find the facts to know what you're up against. You know, in the book *The Art of War*, Sun Tzu says, "know your enemy and know yourself." If you don't know either one of those, you're in trouble. And so finding the facts is first.

I had a man call once that wanted his son to come to Capstone. He was pushing me like a bulldozer to accept him. I was asking every question I could to find out what we were up against. There was one thing: the man was a pastor, and he had found two empty beer cans in the back of his son's truck. I finally said, "Sir, we're not going to take your son. He doesn't need to go here. You're taking a machine gun to a rabbit hunt."

So there's a balance in the triage, because that's the point these people are at. You don't take a machine gun to a rabbit hunt or a slingshot to a grizzly bear hunt. You got to balance out the triage with, you know, the needs. So finding the facts, everything from getting someone to look at your computer and the cell phone. Privacy is out the window in parenting today. All that stuff about privacy is ridiculous.

With all the things that the Internet offers, drug screens—it's not just your Walmart drug screen, you know. Some of them are expensive, but you find out the facts of it. The best you can find the body of information that is the facts, then you know what you're up against. And that's when it's time to triage. Triage is just like a train wreck, you know, if they're in that kind of jeopardy.

I always tell parents this: if you have any reasonable expectation that your son or daughter can turn the direction away from what we call the wasteland towards the promised land without coming to a place like Capstone, then you don't need to come here. But if you don't have any reasonable expectation that it can change, you need to hurry because you're playing Russian roulette every day. So triage and finding the facts would be the first thing.

Speaker 4

Okay, so a reasonable expectation. How do you know what reasonable is?

Speaker 1

Every parent is going to have to follow their gut on that. And I think asking questions, calling people, talking, you know, one thing. There are a lot of books to read and different resources available. But people call us and our admissions team, which consists of therapists who understand what this is about, helps them figure out what's going on.

Then, talk to the people that we have on our reference list. I'm not trying to do a commercial for Capstone, but it's important to speak with individuals who have been through the program and see what they say. That's the most solid litmus test. Anyone who works at a facility can lie and embellish, but people who have experienced it can provide genuine insights. There are markers that let you know when something is off, and this is the main one.

I have worked with more than 3,000 families in this situation. I don't have one case where, by the time they came to Capstone, sought outpatient therapy, or sent their child to another program, they knew more than one-fourth of what they would know a few weeks later. Wow. So, the problem is always bigger than you think it is. That's a pretty significant observation, and I don't have one exception to that.

Speaker 4

So would it be fair to say to somebody who's listening right now and they're thinking, okay, I know my kid's doing this, this and this. Now multiply that times four, and that's your real problem?

Speaker 1

Yeah, three or four.

Speaker 4

But again, sobering.

Speaker 1

Can I say this, and this is going to sound crazy. That is your problem. But it is probably also the child's solution.

Because when a teen, young adult, and an old adult like me is struggling with drugs, alcohol, pornography, food—which is probably the one most missed in America—any of these things, you know, something underneath is going on with that person. Something's hurting and something's missing. There's a void and there's a pain.

And so if you don't find that, you're not going to ever solve it. And honestly, once it becomes this level of a problem, it is a solution to the problem for the person involved in it, but that solution will eventually kill them.

Speaker 4

You're saying that the solution that they're pursuing to their real problems is the drug or the porn or the food or the whatever. And so they're going to keep pursuing that unless the pain is revealed and dealt with.

Speaker 1

They have to.

Speaker 4

Yeah.

Speaker 1

I mean, think of it this way. If you can picture a volcano in your mind and it blows out the top with pornography, which is usually the first and most common one, and you get a giant rock and you cap that volcanic tube. No more eruption, no more porn for most people.

And honestly, the biomedical model is saying, "Hey, this is successful. We've got abstinence." And then the magma pool keeps boiling and it blows out on the side of the mountain for drugs and alcohol. You cap it, the magma pool grows, and it blows out on another side, which is, you know, video game binging and those kinds of things.

If you can imagine a mountain that's got like four or five rocks capped at where the old volcanoes were erupting, and you look at that and you're like, "Okay, what's the real assessment of that?" There's no relief valve.

Yeah, that looks like success from a biomedical model. But honestly, that person's closer to suicide than they've ever been.

Speaker 4

Right.

Speaker 1

There's no relief.

So it's almost like that Indiana Jones movie, the first one, when he's trying to steal that thing off that rock and it's booby trapped. He's trying to slide the sandbag on it, but it didn't work out too good for him in that movie.

But it's a simultaneous stopping the solution that's killing them while you're healing the reason they need it.

Speaker 3

You know, only Ron Deal could get a guest to talk about Indiana Jones. And that was so. I remember that moment forever.

And by the way, you're listening to Family Life Today, and we're listening to a portion of the Family Life Blended podcast with Ron Deal. His guest is Dr. Adrian Hickman, who's pretty amazing.

Speaker 2

I don't know about you, but I'm already thinking of a family that needs to get connected to Capstone and Dr. Hickman's program. We'll put the link in the show notes for you to capstonewellness.com and remember.

Speaker 3

To hear the entire interview, you can pull up the Family Life Blended podcast and listen to episode 142. They talk a lot about pornography, how that impacts kids, and what parents can do if their young adult has an addiction and more. So don't miss that.

Okay, let's get back to the conversation.

Speaker 4

Okay, so let's go back and chase the trauma piece. I know you've worked so much with this, chasing the pain behind what's going on.

So back to the volcano. Let me just remind our listeners: if there's an eruption into the escape of porn, drink, drug, or whatever it might be, that's indicative of some sort of magma that has been heated up down below. Is that—am I getting that right?

Speaker 1

Let me make sure I'm communicating to you that the distinction: you take two boys, and they drink a couple of beers and feel some euphoria. One of them is like, "Okay, I wondered what that was going to feel like. I might do it again. I might not." The other one is, "Oh, I got to have some more of that."

So think of it like this: the degree to which there is an internal anxiety from pain, fear, and emptiness is a power factor in the enticement level of those two beers. Let's say that there's someone on a 0 to 10 scale at a 6 in pain and emptiness and fear of whatever, and the person they're with is at a 2. They both drink those two beers. Well, the one that's at a 6—the enticement level to go back and do it again—is three times that of the 2. Make sense?

So would the normal person want to feel the euphoria of alcohol? Okay, yeah. But to get into it to the point that it is an avoidance pattern from your pain, that's when you see it as a problem. You won't ever see it as a problem when it's that experimentation and then you leave it alone because it'll go away on its own. But when you're noticing it, it does mean that there is a magma pool there of some hurt.

Speaker 4

So if somebody is sitting here going, I think there's some hurt in my kid or somebody else's kid that I care about. How do you chase that pain? How do you do that in an appropriate way? And what kinds of things might they discover there?

Speaker 1

Well, the first thing I would say is what you don't do. And the classic model on this is detach and practice tough love. Okay. And honestly, you don't do that.

Speaker 4

In other words, that's detached, meaning emotionally step away from your kid. Just say knock it off and you're punished till the whatever.

Speaker 1

You know, it's like we had somebody that went to an intensive after capstone. The parents worked really hard, and the kid did too—late blooming 15-year-old. The place they went to said to make him responsible for his recovery like he was a 40-year-old alcoholic.

The parents went to Al-Anon and practiced tough love, which thank God they did not do because they had learned better by that point in time. But it's like detach and practice tough love is honestly one of the dumbest things that's ever come down the pot.

Attach deeper and practice healthy boundaries. That's how you can help your child.

Speaker 4

What does that look like?

Speaker 1

And it is about one. You just go to the basic message of the gospel. The basic message is a rupture and repair model. And after the repair, you're better off than before the rupture. I mean, that's the whole Ephesians 2:10. We're the masterpiece once we've been made again.

In a family, not avoiding, but engaging in all kinds of different things shows kids how that there is always, through the restoration process of rupture and repair, something better on the other side of it. So it's connection first, it's relationship first, which you might not have the opportunity to do. If you're in a crisis, you may have to do just an absolute boundary. We're drawing the line; this is what's fixing to happen. And then work on the relationship, because you can't let them die if they're so far down into drugs or whatever.

So the idea is, first my son or my daughter is doing X, Y, and Z. What makes that make sense? That's the question. Not what makes it right, good, bad, ugly, smart, stupid, or anything else. It's what makes it make sense. And then believe there is an answer. But the answer is not like one domino that fell over and knocked over the rest in the gym. It is like a jigsaw puzzle picture with multiple pieces.

We've had plenty of boys aimed through Capstone. I've had plenty of women that I've worked with in private practice, and they have been forcibly raped. They've gone through parents' divorce and parents' death. Those are the top two traumas for a child, and those are giant reasons. Never have I seen it be the only reason. It is always in a choreography of a dozen or so more.

So I think the main point is most parents look at it and think it does not make sense because we have raised our children not to be like that. They know better, they're loved at home, and blah, blah, blah. But this is what I'm promising you: there's always a set of answers to that question. And if you don't find them, you don't change things, because that's what has to be addressed in that Banglader poll. That makes sense.

Speaker 4

It does. And part of what I'm hearing here is sometimes we as parents have to go, yeah, there's something I'm not seeing, and I have to be open to finding that.

If I just think there's no reason for them to be doing this, they just shouldn't be, then I'm not listening. I don't have the right antenna up to even move towards my child and try to hear the pain that's going on with them.

Speaker 1

Yeah. And here's the deal. No matter how astute and committed parents are, Satan wants inside our families. And he's brilliant at sneaking in with the stealthness of a virus.

I've worked with so many families. I have my own family where my own children have been hurt by different things. It's like, I don't know of anybody that grows up and becomes an adult that did not go through things that could take them out. If it weren't for the parents doing the best job that could be done, they would all be smashed to the point that they can't recover.

You know, but it's like none of us are immune to that. Nobody can create that kind of fort to keep the bad guys out, if that makes sense to you.

So, number one, if you're seeing it, you know something's off. Now, the deal is, find out what it is, what it is underneath.

Speaker 4

That's so good, because, I mean, we all need to hear that as parents. We all want to be that formidable wall that keeps our kids from having to experience anything or go through any of this or make these kinds of choices.

And I appreciate you saying that, because maybe another way to say it is we're not all to blame. And don't get into that blame game. The point is, find out, explore, listen, you know, help put some of the pieces together, if only for you, but maybe even with and for your child.

At least that's a step towards understanding what that big magma buildup is all about.

Speaker 1

Yeah, you know, I guess because I've worked with so many kids that have been sexually abused. I've been sexually abused myself when I was 4. Not near as severely as many guys at Capstone, but I know what a big T trauma it is. The fear of that is probably the greatest fear that parents have. And the thing is, if somebody wants to infiltrate your family, they're probably going to eventually get there. They want it bad enough.

And so the point is, a parent's finest hours are not just in the protection in that kind of scenario. Honestly, a parent's finest hours come in their darkest hours. I've seen it play out many, many, many times. You know, I didn't plan when I said I do with Joanna that we would face the things that we face with her health, with children, with struggles. I had this brilliant plan. You know, a football coach lays out the plan. I'm going to be this dad, follow what my dad did, and blah, blah, blah.

But when it hits you, it's like that's when you become or show your finest hours as a parent. And on the other side of it, something's better than there was before it started. So the hope of this deal, and honestly, it's just the pattern of the gospel: rupture, repair, and masterpiece.

As a dad, when people come and I'm working with them at Capstone, my stomach falls out, my shoes, I shed tears. It hurts, you know, and it's like. But as a therapist, I'm not unconfident at all because of this. The gospel says rupture, repair, masterpiece.

Speaker 3

We've been listening to a portion of the Family Life blended podcast with Dr. Adrian Hickman.

And Ron Deal, the host of that podcast, now joins us in the studio.

And, Ron, I'll tell you what I've been preaching for over 30 years. I have actually never heard that phrase rupture, repair, and masterpiece, which is so beautifully applied to the gospel.

Speaker 4

Yeah, it really captures and summarizes well what God has done for us. We ruptured it. We broke the relationship. He spent an awful lot of time repairing and creating a way for us to move back towards him and for us to have a strong relationship. And then he didn't stop there. His grace makes us a masterpiece. You know, Ephesians 2:10, where God's masterpiece is prepared to do good works that he has set before us. So, you know, it's an amazing story when you stop and think about that.

And, of course, Adrian's point is parents, family members, and churches who rally around kids who are having a hard time in a tough place. We need to have that same mentality. This can be a story of rupture and repair and then masterpiece. We shouldn't give up. We shouldn't. Did you catch that part we talked about? One of the mistakes we make is detaching from our kids, sort of emotionally pulling back, and then just saying, "tough love. Get it right, kid," you know? All that does is move away from our children, decrease our influence, and increase their pain. What we need to do is move toward them, attach, and, as he said, get closer, come in tighter, and at the same time, have some good boundaries.

Well, let me tell you a little story. So we've talked many times about how Nan and I lost one of our children, Connor, when he was 12 years of age. Fast forward. My youngest son, who was younger than Connor, is now a young adult in college. One day, early one morning, Nan and I get a phone call that goes like this: "This is the Fayetteville Hospital, and your son is in our care. He has been drinking heavily, and we're not sure he's going to survive the alcohol. You need to get here." Nan and I drove two and a half hours not knowing if we'd lost another child.

Now, I had every emotion in the book going on inside of me on that drive. Everything from scared to death, "Lord, please save him. I just want to hug him. I hope he survives. If he does survive, I think I'm going to kill him." You know, all that stuff that you go through, right? And somewhere in there, there is this really strong temptation to detach, to say, "This hurts way too bad. I am way too angry. I can't believe he did this to himself and that he would put us through this pain." So you want to pull back. That is the wrong move—to say, "I'm removing myself from you. I'm not going to talk to you. I'm mad. I'm just going to stay mad. And you better get yourself figured out." Detaching is about our pain; it's about preserving us. But unfortunately, all it does is keep our child in a worse place, even more in the rupture. The repair is something we help to lead with by moving toward.

So Dan and I talked about it a lot, and we were still very, very angry, but we had to try to contain that. When we got there, he was okay. He did survive. We took him home, and there was a lot of car time where I felt like unloading on him over and over again, but I did not. Now, we also made it very clear—this is the healthy boundaries part—what we were going to do going forward. You can't control your young adult; you can't tell them what they're going to do. But I could tell him what I was going to do regarding school, paying for stuff, cars, and things that were all under my charge. He had choices that he could make.

So that's the healthy boundaries part. I'm not telling you what you have to do, but I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do, and you can decide whether you come along with that or whether you just fend for yourself. Those are your choices. That's that delicate balance of moving toward connecting heart. I'm with you. I love you. We're not leaving. However, here's what we're going to do, and here's what you can expect from us. There's a delicate balance in there, but there's something really powerful about having moments of repair that ultimately start a pathway towards changing this kid's life.

Speaker 2

So, Ron, did it work? Like, give us the update. That was quite a while ago.

Speaker 4

That was a change moment. I think for him, it was a long road. Right. He had to make some hard decisions about friends and how he's going to spend his time and all kinds of things.

But thankfully, looking back, I would say experimentation with drinking.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 4

Didn't become something bigger than that.

But let me just say, I know there's somebody listening right now, and you're in the middle of this and it just doesn't feel like there's a lot of hope, do your part.

And if you got questions about whether you need help, your kid needs help. That's what Capstone and organizations like that are for. Call them. Ask, talk to somebody.

Don't stick your head in the sand and pretend like this is not a big deal. It is a big deal.

Speaker 3

Yeah, Ron, this is a powerful, powerful episode conversation and I would agree. Reach out to Capstone. We've got a link in our show notes and hopefully that's your next step. Ron, while we have you here, give us an update on Family Life blended well.

Speaker 4

Our Summit on Step Family ministry that happens every fall is coming up soon. We would love for people to join even if you're not sure you need this.

If you're a lay leader, you help with marriage ministry or parent education. This is a seminar for you two days in person. We would love to have you join us.

The Summit on Stepfamily ministry. Go to familylife.com/blended to get all the details.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Ron.

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Family Life today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.