Jessica Lahey is a mother and a recovering alcoholic who teaches at an adolescent drug and alcohol centre.
She offers evidence-based advice for keeping children away from addiction in the part-memoir, part-parenting manual The Addiction Inoculation: Raising Kids in a Culture of Dependence.
Jessica Lahey's latest book is The Addiction Inoculation: Raising Kids in a Culture of Dependence Photo: Supplied/Jessica Lahey
Genetic inheritance elevates a person's risk for substance abuse, Lahey tells Jim Mora.
"Genetics and substance-use disorder is really tricky. It's not like there's one gene where we could just use the current CRISPR technology to just flick that gene out and be free of it, that would be wonderful. But genetics for substance-use disorder are linked to so many other things like personality and brain chemistry.
"So, we're stuck with the fact that genetics right now are between 50 to 60 percent of the risk picture. So my kids came into the world with a really elevated risk for substance-use disorder.
"And given that I don't have time to mess around and pretend that it's not something we need to talk about. We talk about it all the time."
Also contributing to the risk of addiction is epigenetics, which Lahey describes as the effect our environment can have on genes.
"[It's about] how they turn on or don't turn on, depending on how the stresses in our lives affect us."
Lahey is a great believer in giving children real information in preparation for a time they find themselves exposed to alcohol or drugs.
"For example, if my kid is 13 and they're saying 'the problem is, Mum and Dad everybody's doing it', if they know that that's not true, that in the United States in eighth grade, which is when kids are about 13, that only 24 percent of have kids tried any drugs or alcohol by the time they graduate from eighth grade ... that's information that's powerful information for kids to have."
She calls this 'inoculation'.
"Inoculation theory is something we really have to be doing with kids, which is giving them the refusal skills, the ammunition to say no, to not just say no, but to have actual things to say when they're in a situation in which they're being offered drugs and alcohol, if they don't want to take them, they have face-saving ways to say no to that."
Lahey gives some tips on how to best communicate with teenagers in her book.
"Some of them are really silly things that you wouldn't even expect, like be willing to text with your kid about stuff if your kid is more comfortable texting than actually talking to you.
"Or because we live near a little ski hill in our town, being on a chairlift and sitting side by side with kids not looking each other in the eye and giving them the freedom to not feel sort of trapped in that moment."
Another technique is framing the conversation in a positive way.
"One of the best things we can do for our kids is to model positive framing for kids. If they've had an argument with the teacher, what are the positive experiences they're taking out of an experience that they view is all negative?"
There is also evidence that family dinners can reduce substance abuse problems in children, Lahey says.
"It's a wonderful piece of advice, it really is, except life can get really busy with kids at sports practice and doing all kinds of different things. And it can be impossible to sit down every single night to have dinner together.
"I see having family dinners as a proxy for having scheduled a time together as a family to meet each other's eyes a little bit, check in on each other. See how people are feeling, if they're feeling like they're stressed out. And if change is happening,
"Because often people ask me, how can you know if a kid is having issues with substances and the very first thing I mentioned is change."
She has strong views on at the age young adults should be allowed alcohol in the home, she told Jim Mora.
"The more we protect their brains the lower their risk of substance use disorder during their lifetime becomes. If you have a kid who's 13 and tries alcohol for the first time, they have about a 50 percent chance of developing substance use disorder during their lifetime.
"Whereas if you can get them to 18, it goes down to about 10 percent, which is what it is in the general population."
Parents with permissive attitudes to drugs and alcohol can cause problems later in life, and the idea of raising kids in a laissez-faire European style is a myth, too, she says.
These kids have a much higher level of substance use disorder during their lifetime.
"Trying to teach moderation doesn't work. And that European myth needs to just be put to sleep once and for all because it is a myth. That moderation myth needs to just go away."
