ABOUT THE EPISODE:

When Marie's son was diagnosed with ADHD at eight, she did what devoted parents do. She learned everything and got to work. By the time weed entered the picture in his teens, she had already lined up CRAFT counselors, drug and alcohol specialists, an at-risk youth petition, even a street artist mentor. She is a school psychologist. She had the frameworks, the language. None of it stopped what was coming.

What followed were years of watching him cycle through residential treatment, partial hospitalization, therapeutic boarding school, sober living, and inpatient care, all before nineteen. When he came home and relapsed within days, Marie and her husband made the call she'd been bracing for: he couldn't live with them anymore. And something unexpected happened inside her.

Today, her son has a job. He calls. He showed up to his dad's birthday and ate cake with relatives he hadn't seen in years. Marie listens without lecturing. She is only now learning what it means to help herself.

This is one of the most honest accounts I've heard of doing everything right and still feeling unsure.

If you've done everything you can think of and you're still waiting, this one's for you.

You’ll learn:

• The moment Marie felt a significant shift inside her after her son relapsed and had to leave home
• What “active waiting” looks like in practice, and how that doesn’t mean ‘letting go’
• The specific kind of change talk Marie started hearing from her son, and what it signals about where he is in his process
• How Marie and her husband are thinking through the next housing crisis before it happens, including a practical tool for staying grounded when everything hits at once
• The shift from parenting mode to consulting mode, and what it looks like to give your child a voice in solutions without solving everything for them

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Clear30 App - helps people take a 30 day break from weed
• Jessica Lahey’s “The Gift of Failure”

This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Find us on Instagram here
Watch the podcast on YouTube here
Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol

Hopestream Community is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and an Amazon Associate. We may make a small commission if you purchase from our links.

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

When Sally Harris’s middle daughter started down a dangerous path at 14, she did what most devoted mothers do. She fought hard to fix it. Boarding school. Rehab. Anything and everything she could think of. What she did not expect was that the hardest decade of her life was still ahead, or that the coping mechanism she reached for would quietly become a crisis of its own.

Her daughter’s story wound through some of the darkest places a mother can imagine, and Sally will tell you she did not handle it with grace. She handled it the way most of us do: imperfectly, desperately, and often in ways that made things worse. What turned everything around was not something she did for her daughter. It was something she finally did for herself.

Ten years later, her daughter is back. They speak together publicly. They laugh about things that were anything but funny at the time. Sally now coaches moms who are somewhere in the middle of their own version of this, and she brings the kind of clarity you can only get from having actually lived it.

This conversation goes to places I do not hear enough people talking about honestly: what it does to a mother when her child goes silent, the ways we unknowingly push them further, and what it actually looks like to do the work on yourself while your child is still out there struggling. Sally asks one question of every mom she works with, and I think it will stay with you.

If your child has asked for space, cut contact, or simply drifted somewhere you cannot reach, this one is for you.

You’ll learn:

• The coping mechanism Sally reached for and what finally made her put it down for good
• Why honoring a requested pause is harder than it sounds, and what happens when we do not
• What Sally means by "father wounds" and how often they show up in the families she works with
• The one question she asks every mom she coaches, and why the answer changes everything
• A practical tool she calls a personal board of directors, and why your friends probably should not be on it.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Sally Harris YouTube Channel
• Sally Harris website

This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Get our free, 4-video course, Hope Starts Here, and access to our Limited Membership here
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Find us on Instagram here
Watch the podcast on YouTube here
Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol

Hopestream Community is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and an Amazon Associate. We may make a small commission if you purchase from our links.

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Tough love. Two words that get thrown around constantly in the addiction world, and yet nobody can quite agree on what they mean. Kick them out. Cut them off. Save yourself. That’s the version I heard early on, and I couldn’t do it. Not because I was too soft, but because something about it felt fundamentally wrong - especially with a teenager.

In this episode, Cathy and I get practical on the topic of this illusive thing called “tough love.” We walk through the nine actual actions we took with our own kids, in order, from the very first steps all the way to the hardest ones (ones we call “strong love”) as a way of demonstrating action, not theories. Just two moms who were figuring it out as we went, without the language, community or support we needed at the time.

YOU’LL LEARN:

• What Dr. Gabor Maté said about tough love that stopped me cold
• Why I stopped using the phrase “tough love” and what I call it instead
• Nine “strong love” actions Cathy and I took with our own kids, and what we wish we had done differently
• The thing every person in recovery has told me about what finally changed things for them
• The two books I recommend to every parent, no matter where you are in this

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Heather Hayes on Hopestream episode 111
• Mary Crocker Cook on Hopestream episode 223
• Jessica Lahey on Hopestream episode 163
• Trish Ruggles on Hopestream episode 313
• Safe Enough To Change course in Hopestream Community’s Limited Membership

This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Get our free, 4-video course, Hope Starts Here, and access to our Limited Membership here
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Find us on Instagram here
Watch the podcast on YouTube here
Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol

Hopestream Community is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and an Amazon Associate. We may make a small commission if you purchase from our links.