How to Talk to Kids About Addiction

Announcer: Welcome to Addiction and the Family, “Episode 44 How to Talk to Kids About Addiction.”

Casey Arrillaga: How has addiction affected your family?

Female Speaker: It robbed me of my father.

Female Speaker: Addiction's affected my family in absolutely every way.

Male Speaker: It has caused a lot of turmoil.

Female Speaker: It goes back to what I understand is at least three generations.

Female Speaker: It robbed my daughter of her mother. It robbed my mother of her daughter.

Female Speaker: Addiction has made our family quite challenging.

Male Speaker: Addiction has affected my family tremendously.

Male Speaker: It's affected my relationship with my sister where I wouldn't – I'd go for months without talking to her. It's a very difficult thing for everybody involved. It doesn't just affect the one individual. It's a disease that affects the whole family.

Male Speaker: Addiction is spread not only genetically through some of my relatives and I assume ancestors.

Female Speaker: It's generational.

Female Speaker: I think of him every day.

Casey Arrillaga: Welcome to Addiction and the Family, a podcast by and for family members of anyone with an addiction. My name is Casey Arrillaga, and I'm a clinical social worker and addiction counselor at both Windmill Wellness Ranch and InMindOut Emotional Wellness Center. I’m the author of the books Realistic Hope: The Family Survival Guide for Facing Alcoholism and Other Addictions, Spirituality for People Who Hate Spirituality, and the new children’s book Mommy’s Getting Sober. My wife Kira and I were in our addictions for over ten years together and have shared recovery for almost twice that long. Join us as we offer experience, strength, and realistic hope about how you and your family can find recovery together. We’re doing an episode in two acts today in celebration of the release of my new book, Mommy’s Getting Sober. It’s a children’s picture book that also includes a caregiver’s guide on how to talk to kids about addiction at any age, including helping them to avoid similar issues as they grow up. In the first part of this episode, there’s a special guest, Skye Hilton, who illustrated Mommy’s Getting Sober. We talk about her personal connections to this book as people in recovery and how we see it can help both kids and their caregivers. In the second part, I share some tips from the book about talking to kids. All of this after a word from one our sponsors. [Commercial] Welcome back. Without further ado, let’s jump into that conversation with Skye Hilton. Okay, so I’m really excited about this. I am here with my compatriots, Skye Hilton. We’re going to talk a little bit about what went into creating our new book, Mommy’s Getting Sober. Skye, I just want to welcome you into the show and ask you to introduce yourself a little bit and talk about what are you doing on a show called Addiction and the Family?

Skye Hilton: Yeah, my name is Skye Hilton. I am an artist. I’m a children’s book illustrator. I’m also a person in recovery so this is just the perfect scenario of these two things coming together for me is being able to use my artistic skills and the stuff that I’m passionate about and also put it towards a topic that is super near and dear to me, especially for kids. It’s just a clash of two worlds and I love it.

Casey Arrillaga: When you were growing up, what did your parents or caregivers tell you about addiction?

Skye Hilton: Nothing, yeah, growing up, it was something that I didn’t know it runs in my family until I myself was going through it.

Casey Arrillaga: Nobody gave you any warning.

Skye Hilton: Yeah, no warning. Yeah, it was – I remember having a moment where I was like, oh, wow, it sounds like we’ve got this person on this side of the family and somebody down the line over here and then somebody currently struggling. I just didn’t know what it was until it applied to myself as well.

Casey Arrillaga: What do you wish people would’ve told you about addiction?

Skye Hilton: Man, I guess I wish I had more foreshadowing of it sucks and it’s really tough to go through but there’s also hope on the other side of it. There’s also ways to get help. I think a lot of times people talk about addiction about all of the suffering and everything. If somebody’s not actively in addiction and struggling with that, even a conversation with somebody beginning to dabble with substances, there’s always this big warning of, hey, you’re going to ruin your life, which I don’t disagree with, but also just the fact that, hey, if this is a decision you’re going to make, if you get to a point where you’re struggling, there’s so much support out there. Just reach out a hand and we’ve got you. I wish it was just talked about in general more.

Casey Arrillaga: I am with you 100%. One of the things that inspired me to write this book was just thinking there was no conversation when I was growing up. I was watching my dad in his own addiction with alcohol and I remember really distinctly being about three, four, five years old, something like that. It was yet another, I’m going to say, Christmas. Some of those really stand out for me because there’s all this anticipation as a kid and then the actual night was just all bets are off. We don’t know what’s going to happen. It really, looking back, depended on how drunk my dad got, but I didn’t know that at the time. I remember my dad stumbling off to bed and we’re all just sitting around the living room like, now what do we do? I remember saying, probably to my brother, “Daddy’s tired.” I remember my brother, who’s two years older, so that puts him somewhere in the five to seven-year-old range, he looks to me and he goes, “Don’t be stupid. Dad’s drunk.” I remember thinking, what? I didn’t even know what to do with that information. That was probably as close as we ever got to an open conversation in my family about my dad’s drinking. It was just this forbidden subject. I would hear, “Dad was tired. Dad was sick.” There was a night where I was more like 13 where he just terrorized the family all night long while we were on a vacation, which of course, gave him, I’m sure, license to get his relief. He probably didn’t remember much about it when he got up in the morning, but what we were told is, “Dad was sick last night.” I remember at 13 just waiting for the stereotypical ambulance to come up and the guys in the white coats to come and I thought they were going to come and take my dad away. Part of me was scared that was going to happen and part of me was hoping it was going to happen because then something might change. I know I drew on some of all of that stuff when writing this book just thinking, wouldn’t it be great if there was a conversation being had with kids that wasn’t hiding, lying, euphemisms, just being able to say, “Here’s what’s really happening.”

Skye Hilton: Yeah, kids are smarter than we give them credit for. I saw that in my cousin, his mom struggles with addiction and I’m watching him grow up and being in our care, in and out of it. I always said he understands more than we think he does. We can tell him basically. I remember when the conversation went from – and I’ll just talk about with me, too. When I was actively in my addiction and I want to say he was five to eight years old when I was still actively using and living in Texas at the same time. A lot of my use happened outside of Texas. I remember when the conversation changed from Sky’s going to health camp to, oh, yeah, Skye is back in rehab and she struggles with this stuff but she’s getting better. All the way up until now, I’ve had pretty direct conversation with him, he’s ten years old now. I started initially dabbling with substances when I was 12 years old. That to me is like, oh, man, who knows what he’s going to do? I had the conversation with him. I said, “Hey, you know you can talk to anybody, but especially if this stuff ever comes up, I’m not going to give you a hard time if you need to talk to me about it because I’ve been there. It can stay between the two of us. I just want you to have somebody.” I asked him directly, too, “You know that I’m sober, right?” He said, “Yeah, yeah.” I said, “Do you know what that means, though?” We talked about it and it was a crazy conversation to have with a ten-year-old, but I wish it didn’t feel that wild to just be like this is what it means. This is why I don’t drink or do any drugs or anything like that. Reading the copy of the book and being able to then take it into what kind of imagery do you use to express this and how do you convey some of those scary feelings, some of those scary thoughts, sometimes experiences that we wish, for myself, I didn’t have to put other people through or God forbid anybody going through it themselves as well, but putting it into a digestible form to have a healthy conversation about it was a really fun challenge.

Casey Arrillaga: It was one of my big hopes for the books was just to be able to give voice for kids, because as I said before, there wasn’t really any room for that. We would feel this distress. I could tell my brother was stressed. My mom was stressed. I wanted to save her and all this stuff. I did what most kids do in that situation, which is I tried to figure out what’s my part, where am I to blame? It’s a natural thing for the kids to think. They’ll take this stuff on. If there’s no place to give voice, then there’s no place for them to say, “Oh, honey, no, it’s not you.” One of the things that I tried to do in the book was to give that opportunity to have it on the page partly where a child might be able to look at it and say, “Oh, wow, that’s me. I feel that way.” My hope is that this becomes a conversation between caregivers who are reading the book. As you said, sometimes the kids are not living with their parents because of active addiction. The hope in the book itself is that it’s something that people will be reading as a parent is getting sober, but we know sometimes people go in and out of that. We don’t know for sure what’s going to happen. When we look at those things, I just think, okay, how do we give these kids an opportunity to talk about what’s happening and be able to give voice to all of this. It’s not an easy thing because a lot of times the kids grow up feeling like they shouldn’t or they can’t. The other thing in the back of the book, as you’ve seen, of course, and I want to tell our audience, a shameless plug here, is there’s a guide on how to talk to kids. The first chunk of the book, of course, if for the kids and with the kids, but the second part is actually for the caregivers to be able to look at that. There’s nothing in there that I wouldn’t want kids to hear, saying, hey, your best bet is to be honest with the kids. Here’s some ways to have some of those conversations because they can feel like weird conversations, but I know as a parent myself knowing, hey, this runs in our family. If it was heart disease, we’d all be talking about it and saying, “Son, here’s what you need to look out for and this runs in the family. It’s a bummer but we can be okay if we do these certain things.” I knew that I was off and running by the time I was ten in my addiction. I can look at the seeds were there earlier and I was in addictive behaviors for literally all of my life, from earliest thought, but I also know that I wanted to give my daughter a chance by the time I had made a choice to be basically in addiction, I wouldn’t have put those words on it at ten years old, but by the time I had made that choice, I would’ve had a conversation with her and said, “Hey, this runs in the family. Your mom has it. I have it. We’re in recovery. This is what this looks like.” Framing it in ways that I was hoping a ten-year-old could follow and lay it out a little bit of a pathway. Here’s some ways to try and avoid that. Knock on wood, so far, she struggles with some mental health stuff for sure, but not addiction, so I’m really grateful for that.

Skye Hilton: One of my favorite parts about the book is the more information in the back of it. I know you had given me a heads up there’s going to be that stuff in the back. Maybe it slipped my mind, but when you sent me the draft of it all formatted out with that information in the back, I was like, oh, yeah, this is awesome. This is more than just a book to read along and open up the conversation. This is actual direction on how to move forward in that conversation. Because even when I talk to my cousin about it, I’m like I know I need to do this. I know I feel directed to have this conversation, but how do you talk to a ten-year-old about this? How do you talk to even somebody younger who clearly needs to have this conversation? Beyond that, the first half of it where it is to be read with the kid, I think it’s an amazing job of actually helping give that voice to the kid themselves and articulate some of these very advanced or more mature topics that I would imagine, put myself back in a ten-year-old’s perspective, I wouldn’t have the words for. I don’t necessarily even understand the concept of this, except for what I have seen that I’m still trying to process. That’s a powerful thing that it’s done is actually give words to like, hey, why use the bad stuff? What’s going on here? Even diving into the topic of I’m scared to talk about this, but I probably should and just opening up that door of here are some words to put to the feelings that might not be identified yet.

Casey Arrillaga: I appreciate that because that’s obviously, of course, my fondest hope for the book is to be able to give that. One that I’ll toss back to you is with the illustrations, usually with children’s books illustrations, a lot of times, it’s just someone says, “Hey, I’m sitting in my bed looking out at the window at the moon,” and so the illustration is of somebody sitting looking out at the window up at the moon, but you took it in the direction of really having the pictures tell a story within themselves. It’s not a different journey but just a different aspect of the journey and really very emotionally based pictures. I was surprised by that and I loved it. When you sent just the artist concept drawings, I was like, wow, this is so cool. It’s nothing that I would’ve thought of. I don’t know if I ever told you this. I almost ended up illustrating the book myself because of that.

Skye Hilton: I think you did, yeah.

Casey Arrillaga: I had one illustrator started and it just wasn’t getting anywhere. Then I was like, okay, I’m going to try working with Sky, who we had just met. I thought, okay, if this doesn’t work out, then I’m just drawing this, but there’s no way I would’ve come up with anything like the ideas that you did. I just really appreciate what you’ve brought to this project.

Skye Hilton: Oh, yeah, thank you. Yeah, I appreciate having the creative license, too, you just being open to me taking a spin on it as well. My thoughts around that was definitely – I don’t know exactly how old the kid will be. I know there’s a general range of what we’re going for here, but who knows who is going to pick up this book? Something that can be digested even just looking at it, who knows if this kid can read or not, and just being able to really put themselves into that experience while also not wanting to accidentally activate any negative response to it, or definitely identifying here’s what’s going on and the reality of the situation, of course, but at the same time, having this thread of hope going through it, a somewhat optimistic perspective, and really, like you said, trying to convey the emotion behind it. That’s something that I’ve always tried to bring into my illustrations as much as I can because you can do a lot with words and if you put an image with the words, you can actually take somebody to a place and a feeling of it. I hope I did a good job with that.

Casey Arrillaga: You did.

Skye Hilton: Yeah, that definitely is my goal is to try to get the emotion across. For me, there’s kids’ books that I grew up with and I think about the visuals in them and it really takes me to a place when the book then applies to my life, I can actually identify with that image. It just gives it an extra layer of, oh, this is what that book was talking about and I can literally see it and it makes me feel this way. I mean, trying to talk about it out loud just feels like talking mumbo jumbo a little bit, but…

Casey Arrillaga: I don’t know if you know the Frank Zappa quote where he said writing about music is like dancing about architecture. The hope, of course, with a thing like this is to be able to convey both, but yeah, the caregiver section in the back was very near and dear to my heart because so many people start out lying to kids, whether they intend to or not. I’ll hear things, especially from clients and their family members at the treatment center of, oh, yeah, I’ve just been telling our kid that I’m on vacation or daddy’s at work or daddy’s sick and he needs to go see the doctor, and I’m just thinking, what do you think is going to go through your kid’s mind the next time they’re sick and they’re like, oh, are you going to take me to see the doctor and they just think I’m going to go away somewhere and not be seen for what a kid seems like a really long time. In fact, I’ve tried to make sure to mention that in the book, because the book is written from the child’s point of view, which was important to me, that very personal voice, but to say to me, yeah, this isn’t what it looks like when I get sick because otherwise your kid is going to think, oh, no, I can’t be sick because they’re just going to send me away somewhere. Also mentioning in the book, the idea that, yeah, everyone told me mom won’t be gone for long, but it seemed like a long time to me. Because for kids it is and we forget that sometimes when summer vacation is endless, and then the school year is even more endless. Being able to give kids that opportunity, give parents that opportunity, but also say that I hope not only does it open up the conversations within families, but also just within individuals between the pictures and the story. There’s a book that I recommend for people who adopt to read called 20 Things That Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew. The thing is the book is written for you as a parent who’s about to adopt a young child. Maybe you’re going to adopt a newborn. Everyone thinks, oh, they’re not going to remember and all this stuff, when in fact, the kids do. It can be very subconscious. I know this. I’m adopted myself. I remember reading this book and thinking, wow, somebody nailed it. I wish my parents had this book. My little secret hope with this children’s book is that you don’t have to be reading it to a kid. Someone who’s been through this experience can just pick it up themselves and say, there it is. This is what this feels like. Because you’ve been through some of this. I’ve been through some of this. Being able to look and see how can we help the next person so that they may not have to go through the same.

Skye Hilton: Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s all about changing the narrative, for me at least, in terms of how we talk about addiction and how we look at addiction and how we look at recovery and all of that stuff, and especially approaching the conversation at a younger age when it is current and it is happening and already being able to process that in a healthy way while also navigating the complexities of it could really – I think about a kid who reads this if they’re going through this and as they get older actually being able to wrap their heads around the situation more and more and take off those things of I’m not to blame here. This is why this is happening. This is the effect that substances could have on me instead of just associating an emotion and just being mindlessly controlled by this emotion. I don’t understand what’s going on. I don’t know. I just think helping to be able to process that more is going to become exponential and keep paying it forward.

Casey Arrillaga: That is the hope. It’s something that I talk about a lot with the families in the family workshop that I do at Windmill Wellness, which is addiction may skip a generation or two or three even, but the family patterns will have passed down to everybody. Either we’re going to teach kids we are honest within this family, we talk about what’s really going on, we open up with our feelings, we can ask for help when we need it, and we’re going to model that as adults and caregivers and just the adults around them because while you may or may not spend a lot of time as a direct caregiver, like you said, for your cousin, you’re going to be that model. I’ve seen so many people come into treatment and say, “I know I can get sober because my grandmother got sober, because my cousin got sober, because my mom or my dad got sober. That tells me I can do it.” We always hope, of course, that the kids aren’t going to struggle with that, but addiction is 50% genetic right off the bat and we’re not going to be able to help pass on some of the family culture. Kids who were raised or just are born to somebody that has some of these issues, they’re going to be at higher risk. If we can’t talk about it, like you said, there’s no warning. For instance, in my family, because there was no language or framework or room, in fact, it was absolutely positively discouraged. Don’t talk to anyone about what happens in this house. It became very clear very early on, you can’t talk about dad’s drinking. I was sliding into sex and love addiction and I had no idea. I didn’t know it existed. I didn’t know it could be me. I know I didn’t want to drink the way my dad drank, although ultimately, I did end up drinking and getting sober. With all this stuff, it was like, was anybody looking to say, hey, this kid is sliding into addiction? If we’d been able to talk about things, might have there been more of a protective factor? I can’t look and say, oh, I wouldn’t have gotten addicted and there wouldn’t have been any problems in my life. I’m not that kind of changing the narrative, the being able to say, am I going to recover earlier than 30 if I had some idea this was a family pattern I should be looking at? It can show up in different forms and things like that. Being able to have those conversations with kids is, I think, incredibly important.

Skye Hilton: Yeah, you’re touching on leading by example in a way. That goes back to what I was thinking initially when we sat down and started talking is, if I could have that conversation with him and say, hey, I’ve been there. I’ve done these things. Just don’t make the decisions I made. I would love for you to make better decisions than I did, but I also didn’t have anybody to talk to about it and didn’t feel like I could talk about it. It’s not pointing the finger, like you’re saying. It’s not trying to rewrite the narrative, like it would’ve been different. I probably still would’ve made all the decisions that I made, but being able to understand a little bit more and talk more, frankly, if I just had somebody be super direct with me about it. I don’t know that anybody in my family would have even anticipated needing to talk to me about it as well because I do think it skipped a generation. I don’t know what happened, but I just remember growing up, neither of my parents really drank and just being like, okay, yeah, they just choose not to drink. Today, it’s like, oh, maybe there is a reason, not because they themselves struggle but because maybe they’ve seen other things happen. If I can set that example for my cousin and also say, hey, here are the facts and here’s the reality. You might make some of the same decisions that I did, but I also want you to see what it looks like on the other side of that. Also, more than anything, as a person in recovery, I want to lead by example that life is actually way cooler when I don’t have to use a substance to make it through the day. I’d love to just lead by an example that he’s like, man, I don’t even want to waste my time with that because there’s so much better stuff out there. It has affected his life at this point and now he has a point of context to open the conversation and hopefully rock the boat a little bit when it comes to continuing on the conversation down the line. I hope that this changes the perspectives of the kids that grow up reading it and the families that grow up reading it with their kids and all that good stuff. I hope it continues to change the conversation around how we talk about and look at addiction and what we think about it, which was also a big thing I tried to put into the illustrations as well is the darkness and all of that discomfort that comes with it for everybody, but more than anything it’s the hope. It’s not the thing that we talk about in hushed tones at the wedding about so and so who’s not there. It’s about love and being able to understand what’s going on a little bit more, less judgment, just open that door to a conversation that will lead us all to a better place mentally, emotionally, spiritually, all that stuff.

Casey Arrillaga: That’s what it’s all about, beautiful. Skye, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Skye Hilton: Thank you.

Casey Arrillaga: It’s so cool. We’re looking forward to having this book out there in the world.

Skye Hilton: Yes.

Casey Arrillaga: All right. This seems like a good place to take a quick break to hear from one of our sponsors. Then when we come back, we’ll have some tips for caregivers on how to talk to kids about addiction. [Commercial] Welcome back. As promised, in this second part of the episode, we’re going to talk a little bit about how to talk to kids about addiction. Now, first and foremost, the most important thing, and I can’t stress this enough, is to be honest with kids. We can use language and come at it from an angle that kids can understand, but it’s important to tell them the truth. They already know something’s wrong. They already know something’s going on. If we’re not honest with them, two things happen. One, they’re more likely to blame themselves and think, what did I do to bring this on? The younger they are, the more likely that is to happen. The second thing is we’re modeling for our kids not being honest. If we want them to grow up to be honest people, if we want them to be open and honest about any struggles they may have around these issues, then we have to model that by being honest with them. For younger kids, this might mean putting things in terms they can understand, not just saying, “Mommy’s sick,” but we can talk about the idea that a parent or someone that is close to them or that they know is struggling with addiction may have sickness going on in their mind and that this can happen for people sometimes. It’s not incurable, but it can be difficult. Helping them to understand, again, it’s not their fault, but there is something going on with the parent that is not just about the parent making bad choices, although that is most often how it shows up from the outside, but that these choices are not completely within their control. I know that can be difficult for even adults to understand, so you may have to do some reading and get a better understanding of addiction yourself before you’re having that conversation, but at least start the conversation with them. As kids get older, it’s better to have more mature conversations. It’s okay to talk about the fact that alcohol and other drugs can sometimes feel really good at first or it can feel like they’re taking our problems away, but then these things become another problem themselves and the first problem still hasn’t gone anywhere so now you have two problems. These are things that kids can understand. It can help them prepare them for some of the challenges that they may have ahead of themselves. It's important to reassure kids that they can be okay even if the parent struggles. I know this can be a hard sell sometimes and sometimes we have trouble believing it ourselves, but it’s important for everyone to recognize that they don’t have to be dependent on that one person getting sober and being okay in order for everyone to also be okay. This is a chance for you to model your own recovery as a family member and to talk to them about how they can recover from what’s going on. Don’t be hesitant to get them help or to connect them with resources that can help them to heal and grow from this experience. It's important to recognize what they’re going through. That’s part of the purpose of the book. It’s written from a child’s point of view so that children can sometimes recognize what’s going on within them, give it voice, and learn how to talk about and acknowledge some of these feelings. You can model this by acknowledging your own feelings. It's okay to talk about the fact that this is difficult for you and everybody involved and still reassure them that you’re going to do what you need to do to make sure that they’re safe. Let them know that you doing what you need to do can also include seeking help for yourself. This helps to model for them that it’s okay to get help. It’s okay to ask when you’re hurting. It’s okay to let somebody know what you’re going through. That way, they can have that tool. It’s something a lot of people struggle with when they’re facing addiction themselves. Again, we know that addiction is around 50% genetic, which means some of the kids will have to face this decision moving forward. They’re going to have to make difficult choices. Being able to model asking for help now in yourself and encouraging them to do the same to connect them with hope is something that can help them a lot in their own future. As part of this, we can teach kids direct skills that are known to help around addiction and other mental health issues. This can include asking for help, being open emotionally, talking about problems when you have them, learning to identify your emotions and then express them to others, whether in writing or words. Teach them to foster supportive social connections as this is one of the biggest factors that helps people around these issues. Teach and model how to be of service to others as this is another important protective factor because it creates a sense of meaning and purpose and meaning and purpose can help people to stave off the ravaging effects of addiction. This does not mean taking care of everyone else to your own detriment but instead learning how to serve and help others from a full cup rather than draining ourselves. If it seems like a good fit for them and for your family, talk to them about spiritual connection. Remember, it’s not religious practice that helps people the most around these issues, but actually the spiritual connection, a deep feeling of being connected to something greater than themselves, whether that’s the world wide energy of people who are in recovery, whether it is a sense that I’m not sure what it is that’s out there but there’s something on my side, or maybe things that aren’t connected to a particular religious practice, as long as it fosters a sense of connection and not distance from others. Finally, teach and model where to go for help, whether it’s help right now or help that they may need in the future. This can include teaching them how to find a good therapist and also how it is that they can connect with recovery fellowships, such as Al Anon, or Alateen for teen members who have a parent who’s been through addiction, or groups like SMART Recovery Family and Friends, or the National Alliance on Mental Illness. All of these resources are freely available and can be found on the internet, telephone, and in-person meetings. Teach them about these things, learn about them yourselves so that they have a better fighting chance as they’re growing up. That’s the episode that we have for today. Take good care of yourselves. Take good care of those kids. We’ll see you next time. Thanks for being with us through another episode of Addiction and the Family. As they say in many recovery meetings, take what you liked and leave the rest. Go out and explore the possibilities for recovery in your life and give your loved ones the space and dignity to make their own choices. If you liked this podcast, please subscribe. It means a lot to us. If you know anyone else who could use what we have to offer, please tell them about Addiction and the Family. If you have comments about this podcast, have a question you’d like answered on the show, or want to contribute your voice, or just want to say hi, you can write to us at addictionandthefamily@gmail.com. We’re also happy to be your friend on Facebook and we can be found tweeting on Twitter.

Kira Arrillaga: Addiction and the Family is produced, written, and engineered by Kira and Casey Arrillaga, with music by Casey.