Hopestream: Parenting Kids Through Addiction & Mental Health

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1. Vape Addiction: The THC Use You May Not Even Notice, with Dr. Deepa Camenga

   5 november 2026 · 52 min

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   Maybe you found it in the laundry, or at the bottom of a backpack. It looked like a highlighter, or a USB stick, or a cute little accessory that matched their phone case. And now you’re standing there holding it, wondering how worried you should actually be.

   Vaping comes up in our community constantly, so I tracked down the most qualified physician I could find to help us sort through it. Dr. Deepa Camenga is an associate professor of emergency medicine at Yale, board certified in pediatrics and addiction medicine, and the associate director for pediatric programs at the Yale Program in Addiction Medicine. She’s also parenting teenagers of her own, so she gets this from both sides of the kitchen table.

   Dr. Camenga explains why vapes are a completely different animal from the cigarettes many of us grew up around. They’re tiny, odorless, loaded with far more than nicotine, and the ones our kids are buying aren’t regulated, which means nobody can tell you for sure what’s inside any single device. She’s seeing kids as young as eleven and twelve in her practice, and many of them will look her in the eye and say, “Yeah, I’m definitely addicted.”

   We also dig into the situation so many of you have written to me about. Your child comes home from treatment, stays away from the pills and the alcohol, and then starts vaping, along with a very convincing speech about why you can’t take that away from them. Dr. Camenga’s answer is compassionate and honest, and it will help you hold your ground with love.

   And I love what she said about quitting. When a young person stops vaping, the anxiety or depression underneath can get louder before it gets better, and that doesn’t mean something is going wrong. It means the thing that was masking those feelings is finally gone. If you’ve been expecting everything to get better the moment they stop, this reframe could save you a lot of heartache.

   If you’ve found a vape, suspect there’s one, or you’re trying to get ahe…

2. Communicate Your Boundary With Calm, Confidence And Clarity, with Brenda Zane

   29 oktober 2026 · 39 min

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   You did it the way we practice it. You listened, you validated, you said the compassionate and true thing, and then named your boundary. Your kid looked at you like you had never understood them a day in their life. “You’re selfish. You just want to control me.” And there you are, feeling that familiar pull to explain it one more time, in different words, until they finally get it.

   Seven years into the podcast and The Stream, how to set and hold a boundary is still the question I hear more than any other. So this week it is just you and me, talking about the part that so often goes missing, which is the moment right after you say it.

   I share a few tools you can tuck into your back pocket, including one with a name that might make you laugh, a visualization that keeps you from playing verbal pickleball with your kid, and a line from a trial lawyer that has become one of my all time favorites. There are scripts too, including one for the holiday plans that are probably already humming in the back of your mind.

   We also talk honestly about safety, because confidence looks very different when your child is escalating. And I tell you about the day I went to an ATM to help my son pay back a dealer, knowing in my gut it was not the true story.

   If you have caved before, you have not erased your progress. Confidence tends to show up after the practice, not before it, and the first change you notice will most likely be in you.

   If you are tired of defending a decision you already know is right, this one is for you.

   YOU’LL LEARN:

   The small word in the middle of your sentence that quietly cancels out your empathy

   A three step way to name a boundary without opening a negotiation

   What to do with your kid’s words while they are still talking

   The one sentence I want you to get comfortable saying when your child is upset

   What to say when you gave in last time and want to go back to your original answer

   EPISODE RESOURCES:

   The Surprising Power of Non-Re…

3. Hope and Heartbreak: A Nurse Mom Couldn’t Fix Her Son’s Addiction, with Tara Norbeck

   22 oktober 2026 · 56 min

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   You know the mantra, even if you have never said it out loud: I can only be as happy as my unhappiest child. I held that one fiercely for years, and so did Tara Norbeck, until a therapist at her son’s rehab said something to her that rearranged the whole equation.

   Tara spent her career as a level one trauma ICU nurse, the steady presence families leaned on in the worst hours of their lives. She knew how to assess, intervene, and fix. Then the script flipped, and she was the mom at the bedside holding her own son’s hand, with nothing in all that training that could fix what was happening to him.

   Tara and I are two moms with plenty of scar tissue, and we talk about the things so many of us carry quietly. Grieving the future you pictured the first time they placed that baby in your arms. The shame that metastasizes when everything stays a secret. The way your child’s addiction can become your own, until it governs your mornings, your marriage, and every thought in between. She also shares a story about her youngest daughter, told years after the worst had passed, that gave me chills and may change how you see your other kids.

   Tara is a woman of deep faith, and she offers a line about where to place your hope when nothing around your child looks hopeful that I will be holding onto for a long time. Her book, “Dear Mom of an Addict” was written because she needed it when her son was struggling, when she was lying awake at 2 AM, waiting for the phone to ring and dreading it at the same time.

   If your own peace has been moored to your child’s worst day, this one is for you.

   YOU’LL LEARN

   What a rehab therapist told Tara about her tears that changed how she showed up for her son

   The difference between anonymity and secrecy, and why only one of them protects your family

   Why joy and happiness are not the same thing when your child is struggling

   How the neuroscience of addiction can soften the “we didn’t raise you like this” reaction

   What Tara wishe…

4. Strategies For Parenting A Stuck Young Adult, with Kim Muench

   15 oktober 2026 · 55 min

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   You have probably been scanning for it for a while. The one consequence that will finally get your 25-year-old out of their room and into a life that looks like forward motion. You can't ground them. You can't take the phone. And you've already decided you will not make them homeless, so what's left?

   Kim Muench knows that question from both sides of the kitchen table. She's a Jai Institute for Parenting certified coach, the founder of Real Life Parent Guide, and a mom of five whose oldest son's drinking in his early twenties sent her back to college and into coaching parents of young adults who are stuck. Hundreds of thousands of parents follow her on Instagram and TikTok, and her new book, Lost in Place: How to Support, Motivate, and Launch an Adult Child, comes out November 24.

   Kim doesn't hand out the perfect consequence, because she doesn't believe there is one. What she offers instead is a shorter list of what is actually yours to control, and a way of sorting helping from enabling that I kept turning over long after we hung up. She also tells a dog-sitting story that is so ordinary and so telling that every one of us will see ourselves in it.

   We talk about the fear that keeps so many of us frozen, especially when self-harm has been part of the picture, and Kim asks a question I had never heard framed this way: why is it only our kids who get to hit rock bottom?

   She also explains why she refuses to use the phrase "failure to launch," and her reason made me exhale a little.

   If you have a 20-something at home who seems to be standing still while you do all the running, this one is for you.

   YOU'LL LEARN:

   The three things Kim says are truly yours to control once your child is an adult, and what's missing from that list

   One simple question that helps you tell whether you're helping or enabling

   What a family dog revealed about how one mom was over-functioning for her son

   The four C's Kim teaches parents who have lost their footing

   Why …

5. Kratom, 7-OH and Gas Station Drugs: What Every Parent Needs to Know, with Dean Francis

   8 oktober 2026 · 52 min

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   It's the green powder in the shaker bottle, the little blue shot by the register, the "herbal supplement" your kid bought for focus. If you've been quietly wondering whether kratom is something to worry about, drop everything and tune in.

   Dean Francis's son Cameron was an elite college runner, closing in on a sub four-minute mile, when he found kratom online, sold as a plant-based boost for energy and focus. For a few months it did exactly what the marketing promised. Then his running slid, the anxiety showed up, and nobody in the family connected any of it to the powder he was shaking into his water bottle every day. It took an ER doctor in 2021 to say it plainly: this is an opioid, he’s addicted, and it's serious.

   Dean got mad, and then he got busy. He founded End Kratom Addiction, and he showed up to this conversation with a mountain of knowledge (and a few products to hold up on camera, so the YouTube version is worth a watch). We talk about what kratom actually does in the body, the forms kids are buying it in, why the "safe natural leaf" story isn’t all it’s been touted as, and the Billion-dollar business keeping it on gas station shelves. He also gets honest about what treatment looked like for Cameron, and the gap in care that cost him more than anyone expected.

   This is an educational episode, and it's also the wake-up call I think every parent needs, whether or not your child is struggling right now. What's sold at the corner store down the street may not be what you or your child thinks it is.

   YOU'LL LEARN

   What kratom turns into once it reaches the liver, and why that changes everything

   The popular "energy shot" Dean held up that most parents would never look at twice

   Why the "used safely for centuries in Southeast Asia" story should be taken with a grain of salt

   The treatment mistake Dean wishes someone had warned his family about

   How you can add your voice to the push to make kratom a controlled substance

   EPISODE RESOURCES:…

6. The Surprising Power Of Non-Reactivity, with Cathy Cioth

   1 oktober 2026 · 56 min

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   The morning of our move, the pods were in the driveway, my dad had shown up ready to work, and my son was barely awake and in no shape to lift a box. Half an hour in, he asked if we were almost done. I felt the butterflies start up in my chest, and within seconds I was matching his drama word for word, with my dad standing right there taking it all in.

   Cathy has her own version of that moment - and I’m sure you do as well. We can laugh about it now, but both of us spent years believing we were responding to our kids when we were really just adding fuel to their fire.

   This episode is about non-reactivity, the piece of the Invitation to Change approach that I think quietly gets left behind while we focus on more concrete things like boundaries and natural consequences. Chaos needs two participants, so when you stop supplying your half, something shifts, and it has nothing to do with controlling your child.

   Cathy and I talk about where reactivity shows up in your body before your brain catches up, why the rules every "good family" follows can pull you into the wrong fight, and what to do when the demands and gaslighting leave you wondering who the parent is in your house. We also talk about safety, because sometimes that pounding heart is telling you something real.

   And we re-share a line from our friend Dina Cannizzaro that I think every parent should memorize. Put it on a sticky note, or your forearm, or bathroom mirror - it’s pure gold.

   If your home has started to revolve around your child's moods and you’re tired of losing the same argument over and over, this one is for you.

   YOU'LL LEARN:

   What Cathy and I each finally did mid-blowup that changed the relationship dynamics

   The early warning signs your body sends before you say something you regret

   Why the small things you care about most can be the perfect distraction for your kid

   Two questions to ask yourself when you feel triggered, and why one of them is about your safety

   The power…

7. What Recovery Looks Like For Parents, with Janice

   24 september 2026 · 1 uur 1 min

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   If you’re parenting a young person struggling with substance and someone tells you that you need recovery too, it can land sideways since you're not the one using. You're just trying to hold everything together while your kid gets better. And you're already doing so much: the books, therapy, podcasts, late-night Googling.

   Janice asked that question anyway. A member of The Stream and mom of two adult kids now in recovery, she used to be the one everyone called to get things done not for a hug. When she Googled what drugs her son was using, she chose to get educated instead of feeling sorry for herself. That education pointed straight back at her.

   We talk about the two biggest shifts she had to make (one starts before you say a word), the small non-negotiable practices she keeps no matter what's happening with her kids, and a standoff over the air conditioning that taught her more than she expected plus the question she asks herself when her own recovery feels like walking away from her child.

   It felt like the right way to close out Recovery Month, with the parent who so often gets left out of the conversation. If you've poured everything into your child's recovery and nothing into your own, this one's for you.

   YOU'LL LEARN:

   What "doing the work" meant for Janice, after months of research

   The two biggest shifts she had to make and why one starts before a word is spoken

   The small, unglamorous practices she keeps non-negotiable, no matter what

   What a standoff over the air conditioning taught her about the rope she kept picking up

   The question she asks when her own recovery feels like abandoning her child

   EPISODE RESOURCES:

   Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help People Change, by Jeffrey Foote, Carrie Wilkens, and Nicole Kosanke

   Co-Dependency Isn't What You Think, with Rawly Glass, LCSW: Hopestream podcast episode 324

   Hopestream Community free two-week trial of The Stream: https://hopestreamcommunity.org/try

   Free e-book: Worrie…

8. From Self-Harm to Healing: A Highly Sensitive Girl’s Path to Recovery, with Ciara Fanlo

   17 september 2026 · 59 min

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   You’ve heard some version of it: Leave me alone! I know what I am doing! You don't understand me!” Ciara Fanlo said all of that to her mother, but what her mom didn’t know was that those statements were hiding a plea…please help me.

   Ciara was a sensitive kid in San Francisco, the kind who felt everything the world hurled at her at full volume before she had language or coping skills for it. Her parents divorced and she started self-harming by age ten, before she’d ever seen anyone else do it. She just knew she needed to displace the emotional pain she felt.

   By high school she had been through therapists, medications, and a residential program. She came home on a contract and broke every rule on it in one afternoon, which ended with a wrecked car, police, and her mother angrier than she had ever seen. On the drive home they passed a church, and her mom pulled into the parking lot.

   That stop at the church led to a life-changing wilderness therapy experience where she spent three months getting to know and love herself. One night in the wild of Colorado she looked up at the moon and felt something she had never felt in her life, and it changed what she thought was possible. Today she mentors teen girls through her practice, Homing Instinct.

   This is a recovery story, and it is also the closest thing to a translation I can hand you. Ciara says out loud what our kids cannot, including one line about hope that will especially resonate if your child currently feels out of control and beyond reach.

   If your child is pushing you away with both hands, this one is for you.

   YOU'LL LEARN

   The second message running underneath every angry "leave me alone," and why parents almost never hear it

   What Ciara wanted an adult to say to her to felt heard vs. diagnosed

   How she unraveled a home contract in a single afternoon, and her mom’s reaction

   Why her mom got the worst of her, and why that was never about her mom

   EPISODE RESOURCES:

   Homing Instinct: https:…

9. Parents: You Change First, Then Them, with Brook McKenzie

   10 september 2026 · 1 uur 11 min

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   You might already know what needs to change - or at least that something definitely needs to change in the dynamic with your child. Underneath the crisis calls, the covered debts, the conversations you soften before you have them, there’s a quiet voice telling you, “this has to stop.” But how?

   Brook McKenzie says that voice is right, and then says the harder part. You must go first.

   Brook is a Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor, the CEO of Burning Tree Programs, and a person in long-term recovery. He’s also the author of the field guide parents truly need, “You’re Waiting On You: Why Real Recovery Starts With You - Not Them.”

   Brook didn’t find recovery until his thirties, and he’s clear about why. His parents loved him fiercely and did what most of us do. They softened the truth, absorbed the consequences, and kept the peace. He describes what that felt like from the inside, and it’s not what you might expect.

   The moms in The Stream talked about Brook’s book for months before I finally read it, in an hour and a half, and emailed him that same day.

   What lands here is that Brook does not perform sympathy. He highlights that the things that feel hardest are usually the effective ones, and the things that feel like relief are usually what keeps everyone stuck. He has his own word for what parents are doing when they rescue, and spoiler alert, it is not enabling. He also has an answer to the question that is in the back of every parent’s head, the one that starts with "but what if they die?"

   I asked about the sixteen year old you still have to house and feed, and what belongs on the list of what you will and will not do. He answered both without flinching.

   If you have been waiting for your child to be ready and change, this one might sting, and then it will help.

   YOU'LL LEARN

   Why Brook doesn’t use the word enabling, and the word he uses instead

   The two things he says sit underneath every ineffective parenting decision, without exception…

10. His Mom’s Hard Boundary Drove His Recovery, with Darren Hobbs

    3 september 2026 · 1 uur 22 min

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    You‘ve probably watched your child make a decision so obviously terrible you could not understand how it made sense to them. Darren Hobbs can tell you exactly how it looked, because he made that decision. He had done treatment. He had a sponsor, a home group, a year chip. Then he took some cash he made, drove back to his old dealer, and fully believed he could be the sober cocaine dealer in a small college town.

    His story starts at 14, with a Vicodin prescription after surgery and the discovery that with substances in him, everything was better, easier and more fun. It runs through years of drinking and cocaine, wrecked cars, stolen money, and parents who kept trying to love him out of it. It ends, or maybe begins, on the floor of a Nashville bar with undercover detectives on top of him, staring at 20 years in prison.

    What changed him was not the arrest. It was a phone call from his mother, and one sentence she said that I know broke her heart - and drove his recovery.

    Darren is a Certified Intervention Professional, founder of The Firm Addiction Consulting in Nashville, and a cast member on A&E's Intervention. He has taken hundreds of families through interventions, and he is blunt about what parents do that keeps their kids stuck. He also told me the most extraordinary story of divine timing I have heard on this show. If you watch on YouTube, you will see the goosebumps on both of us.

    This is the first of four recovery stories this month, and I started here because Darren says out loud the things our kids cannot.

    If you are watching your child choose the things that will hurt them and cannot make sense of it, this one is for you.

    YOU'LL LEARN

    What Darren told himself the day he decided he could sell cocaine and stay sober

    The one sentence his mother said on the phone that did what years of crime, jail and chaos never did

    Why he says parents are the ones who installed the buttons their kids know how to push

    The two things he sees in a…

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