Episode 28: Richard Capriola: Substance abuse in adolescence and what we can do about it

Today I have another fascinating guest with me, Richard Capriola!

Rick has been a mental health and substance abuse counselor for over two decades. He recently retired from Menninger Clinic in Houston Texas where for over a decade he treated adolescents and adults diagnosed with mental health and substance use diagnoses.

This is a subject that is timely now, it was timely ten years ago and will be ten years from now! This is a topic that affects so many families around the country. 

Nobody is immune to substance abuse. And there is no child that is totally protected. 

It doesn’t matter what school you send your child to, what level of income you have, all children are subject to and vulnerable to getting caught up in substance abuse because drugs are so readily available to kids. 

Knowledge is power though, and the more we as parents understand about adolescent substance abuse and warning signs, the more confident we can be if we have to deal with this issue, we feel better prepared to deal with it. 

What should parents know about substance abuse and what do those substances do to a developing brain? 

The adolescent brain is a developing, maturing brain. Our brains don’t become fully developed until around age 24, 25. So it is essential that parents recognize that their child's brain is very vulnerable. Drugs can do some real damage to their brains, especially during the period of adolescence. 

As Rick says, “No parent wants to believe that their child has an underlying serious psychological issue. We want to ignore that it’s happening or that it’s not there. That can  be very risky though, because the longer that you delay, the more likely this could become a much more serious issue.” 

This topic can be very scary for parents, so that is one of the reasons Rick wrote his book, The Addicted Child: A Parent's Guide to Adolescent Substance Abuse which you can find here.

He hopes that parents can read his book, and feel more prepared if they ever go through this experience. 

We also talk about what most teenagers are attracted to and what has changed over the past few years, why some children become more involved than others and what the warning signs are that parents can be on the lookout for!

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julie hatch