"Justice in America" is a podcast of which you may not be aware. It is hosted by Josie Duffy Rice, president of The Appeal, along with guest hosts Darnell Moore, Donovan X. Ramsey, Derecka Purnell, and Zak Cheney Rice. Each episode explains a new criminal justice issue and features conversations with experts and advocates. Some of the topics covered include: "The Privatization of Prisons," "School to Prison Pipeline," and "Probation and Parole." Here are quotes from the transcript of their...

Judge Steven Leifman has led the fight in Miami-Dade, Florida's Eleventh Judicial Circuit to keep individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) out of the criminal justice system. How? By helping them treat their mental illness. Listening to NPR's Scott Simon's interview with Judge Leifman about the upcoming PBS documentary, "The Definition of Insanity," featuring Judge Leifman's work, I was struck by the following key points (please know some of these are not exact quotes -- listen to the...

There is one ACE in particular that can result in a child experiencing 8 additional ACEs measured in the ACE Study. That particular ACE is having a parent who abused alcohol or other drugs or was addicted to alcohol or other drugs. As someone with 40+ years of experience coping with various loved ones who drank too much and 16+ years of work studying the scientific research on brain development, ACEs , alcohol use disorders , and the family member's experience , this fact is especially near...

The inputs a brain experiences during its developmental stages have a profound impact on whether that person will develop a substance use disorder (if they choose to drink or use other drugs). In turn, developing a substance use disorder (SUD) as a tween, teen, or young adult dramatically influences that person's brain development. And why is understanding this causality important? The risk factors for developing a substance use disorder are the result of inputs the brain experiences (or...

The Washington Post online ran an article November 26th, titled "' There's something wrong:' Americans are dying young at alarming rates ." The article talked about a recent report published in Journal of the American Medical Association, titled " Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates in the United States, 1959-2017 ." I've copied the report's findings are below: Between 1959 and 2016, US life expectancy increased from 69.9 years to 78.9 years but declined for 3 consecutive years after 2014.

One way to help build a child's resilience is to help them and the adults in their sphere of influence understand alcohol and other drug use disorders and their impacts of families. Nearly 80 million Americans are affected by someone's drinking (this does not include those affected by someone's other drug use). These nearly 80 million are the wives, husbands, moms, dads, children, brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, grandchildren, boyfriends, girlfriends, and close friends who are...

Interestingly, it is brain developmental processes occurring during puberty that make "just say 'no'" difficult for tweens and teens. As I mention in the video, there is more on this in my upcoming book - 10th Anniversary Edition If You Loved Me, You'd Stop! - which is now available for pre-ordering on Amazon at https://tinyurl.com/yyg3lxgc .

Workplace impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) is an important concept for businesses to understand. Why? Experiencing ACEs impairs worker performance according to findings reported in “ Childhood Abuse, Household Dysfunction, and Indicators of Impaired Adult Worker Performance ,” Anda, R.F., et al., The Permanent Journal, 8(1), 30-38, showed: To be clear – the above is not a direct connection to ACEs-related toxic stress, however many of the above are manifestations of...

The reach of substance use disorders in America is far more significant than people think. 21+ million Americans struggle with substance use disorders. Their substance use and addiction-related behaviors impact 100 million more Americans. These are the moms, dads, husbands, wives, children, brothers, sisters, grandchildren.... Together, these two groups represents more than one-third of the American population!

What is possible when we address #AdverseChildhoodExperiences #ACEs #Trauma... "...that my voices were a meaningful response to traumatic life events, particularly childhood events, and as such were not my enemies but a source of insight into solvable emotional problems," explains Eleanor Jane Longden in her Ted Talk, "This is My Story of Schizophrenia," linked below As introduced on Ted.com/talks/eleanor_longden, To all appearances, Eleanor Longden was just like every other student, heading...

VJ Gupta, 2018 MacArthur Fellow, Courtesy MacArthur Foundation Generational trauma. Parenting with ACEs. Passing along resilience with trauma. Learning to believe in yourself, in spite of your adverse childhood experiences. All of these struck me as I listened to Lulu Garcia-Navarro's interview with 31-year-old Vijay Gupta , a violinist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and recipient of the 2018 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, aka Genius Grant. I've copied and pasted excerpts from this...

In case you missed Nurse Rona Renner 's August 20th "About Health" radio show on KPFA 94.1 FM with Resilient Sacramento ACEs Connection members, Lisa Frederiksen and Wendie Skala , as guests, you can listen here . For more about the show and the key resources shared by Rona, visit her website link .

It is likely most readers know someone or they are the someone who has personally experienced alcohol's harm to others | secondhand drinking. The tragedy is we hardly talk about it in ways that can change the lives of those affected -- especially the lives of children. In other words, we hardly talk about it in ways that can prevent, intervene, or treat adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Alcohol’s Harm to Others | Secondhand Drinking and the ACEs Connection One of the 10 ACEs measured in...

Time and again, I hear from husbands, wives, children, siblings, parents, and grandparents who cannot understand how their loved one could possibly relapse after a period of recovery. And for many, their voice cracks with utter despair as they explain the multiple treatment programs their loved one has gone through, only to relapse every time. They tell me their loved one seems to want to get and stay sober but can't seem to make it long term. "Why?" they ask. As we continue our...

Thanks to an explosion in scientific research now possible with imaging technologies, such as fMRI and SPECT, experts can actually see how the brain develops. This helps explain why exposure to adverse childhood experiences can so deeply influence and change a child's brain and thus their physical and emotional health and quality of life across their lifetime. The above time-lapse study was conducted over 10 years. The darker colors represent brain maturity (brain development). I have added...

Newly elected Philadelphia DA, Larry Krasner, is on a mission to tear down the City's "bigoted and patently unfair systems of mass incarceration," writes Shaun King in his article for TheIntercept.com, titled: " Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner Promised a Criminal Justice Revolution. He's Exceeding Expectations ." Quoting some of the highlights of King's article: So far, having been in office less than three months, he has exceeded expectations. In his first week on the job, he fired 31...

My marrying an alcoholic never made sense to me. My mother developing the disease of alcoholism never made sense to me, either. And why my loved ones couldn’t get it together to stop or wrest control of their drinking was equally confusing. Yet I churned around and in and through this muck for almost four decades before my world was split wide open. It was 2003 and one of my loved ones entered a residential treatment program for alcoholism. I remember experiencing a giddy – “I knew it, I...

Children of Addiction (COA) Awareness Week is an annual celebration near and dear to my heart for many reasons, not the least of which are my personal experiences as a child of an alcoholic and as a child with four ACEs - three of which were the result of secondhand drinking (explained below). COA Week is an annual event celebrated during the week of Valentine’s Day - this year it's February 11 - 17. It is sponsored by the National Association for Children of Addiction, NACoA.org . NACoA’s...

If the risk factors of Childhood Trauma | ACEs and Mental Illness are not treated at the same time as the addiction (aka substance use disorder), it is just about impossible for a person to successfully treat their addiction and succeed in long-term recovery . Every week I receive calls and emails from family members and friends trying to find treatment for their loved one’s addiction,* aka substance use disorder. These kinds of phone calls and emails are heartbreaking. Their panic, anger,...

Of the 74.5 million children in the United States, an estimated 17.1 million have or have had a mental health disorder — more than the number of children with cancer, diabetes and AIDS combined. Half of all mental illness occurs before the age of 14, and 75 percent by the age of 24. In spite of the magnitude of the problem, lack of awareness and entrenched stigma keep the majority of these young people from getting help. Children and adolescents struggling with these disorders are at risk...

With up to 40 percent of a workforce affected by secondhand drinking (the negative impacts of a person's drinking behaviors on others), the potential of having employees with one or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) abounds. Not only the presence of ACEs for the employee but for the passing of ACEs along by the employee to their children . Thus, EAPs offer a unique opportunity to include resources that can help employees screen for ACEs -- theirs and those of their children. Not only...

"Why don’t you love me? Why don’t you care enough to care?," writes the high school girl who wrote a letter to her alcoholic father but never mailed it. She asked me to share it on my blogs, instead. It’s the rawness of her hurt, so many years into her life, that drew me to share her letter. Helping children and adults understand the secondhand drinking (SHD) impacts a child experiences when growing up with a parent’s alcoholism* is essential to helping a child (or an adult child) heal from...

I was such a mother. I was also the daughter of an alcoholic. My mom died earlier this year. When a mother loves an alcoholic or is raised by an alcoholic, she is changed in profound ways - ways she has no idea are even present, yet ways that make her a confounding figure in her children's lives. At the root of these "ways" is her adverse childhood experiences. As I shared recently in my post, The Legacy of Untreated Secondhand Drinking ACEs , "[My] Mom and I talked about my realization that...

I am the child of a parent with an alcohol use disorder . My mom didn’t stop drinking until age 79. She died at 84. There was no warning, no lingering illness. She died two days after an unsuccessful emergency surgery. But we had five years during which she did not drink, after forty-five years during which she did. You see, my mom knew she had a drinking problem. So did we, the rest of her family. There were times when she fought mightily to stop or control it. There were times when the...

It was October 2012. I had been invited to give a lecture on secondhand drinking (the negative impacts of a person's drinking behaviors on others) to Stanford Medical School students enrolled in Dr. Stanley Fischman's Eating Disorders and Addiction Rotation. Dr. Fischman asked me to speak with his rotation students on a regular basis given my decades experience with loved ones' alcohol misuse, my own eating disorders, and my relevant work experience. He wanted his students to understand the...

Raising awareness about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) - often referred to as childhood trauma - and the ACEs Study in the workplace offers companies and agencies an incredible three-fold opportunity to: help employees understand the root origins of their physical and emotional health concerns (ACEs) in general and as they relate to their alcohol misuse and/or secondhand drinking-related physical and emotional health impacts (if applicable), reduce the ACEs-related impacts on worker...

In 2016, I celebrated 35 years recovery from the eating disorders I’d grappled with from the ages of 16–28. I was 63 years old. But as I shared in my last post, “ When ACEs are Rooted in Secondhand Drinking ,” I was into my 40s before I realized my anorexia and bulimia were the symptoms of, and soothers for, my deeper, unresolved issues. First recovery: learning to re-eat As always, my eating disorders recovery “celebration” last year consisted of quiet kudos to self on Thanksgiving Day. I...

My 30s would roll into my 40s before I realized my anorexia and bulimia were the symptoms of, the soothers for my deeper, unresolved issues. In fact, it wasn't until 2003 when one of my loved ones entered a residential treatment program for alcoholism that my "true" recovery began. I say “true” recovery because back in the day (early 1980s) there was no ACE Study, nor an understanding that ACEs are often rooted in secondhand drinking. About my soothers... After dropping to 95 pounds on my...

Secondhand drinking - the other side of alcohol misuse - refers to the negative impacts of a person's drinking behaviors on others. These drinking behaviors include verbal, physical or emotional abuse, neglect, domestic violence, committing a crime or...

Patti Neighmond's July 16, 2014, program for NPR's Stressed Out  series, titled: " Want More Stress in Your Life? Try Parenting a Teenage r," shared a lot of what it's like for parents when their child enters the teen years. Ms. Neighmond...

Why is it addicts | alcoholics lie, cheat and steal from those they love the most? How can a mom or dad pick up a drink or drug, after years of sobriety, "knowing" what it was like for their child when they were active in their addiction? How does one...

Once again, I was struck by the number of those with the chronic relapsing brain disease of addiction  in the audience at a lecture I gave last night who have four or five of the five key risk factors for developing addiction. Not only that, but...

Can changing our youth substance abuse prevention messages to include secondhand drinking, brain health and brain development science - especially that which occurs with the onset of puberty - help youth counter ACEs and/or embrace their decision to...

"I’d like us to stop here and let this sink in because it drives home the point of the ripple effects – secondhand drinking – the impacts of a person’s drinking behaviors on others – and not just the obvious ones, like...

If we can help parents and children through simple educational programs in schools, PTA newsletters and the like understand the impacts of secondhand drinking | drugging, we just may be able to help a child avoid developing the brain changes...

Understand brain maps and you can learn how to change a habit, change your life. Now that’s a bold, somewhat bizarre statement. Nonetheless, it holds the key to the power each of us can wield over the health of our brain and therefore the...

Want to Get Through to Teens | Talk to Their Brains. In my decade of research and writing on brain development and the brain disease of addiction, understanding the whole story about puberty and the brain’s evolution [see Image 2 below] gave me the pieces that finally completed the puzzle on how/why teens do the things they do and how/why their peers are so influential and why all of this is so instrumental in the development of substance abuse problems . If you are a parent, you know...

Children of Alcoholics – a national celebration , February 10 – 16, 2013, and an international celebration the same week. Why a national and international celebration? To raise awareness about what happens to the silent victims of a...

As we all know, growing up in a home with a parent who is an alcoholic or drug addict or who abuses a substance is one of the ACEs that deeply affects a child's future. Nick News aired this video, " Under the Influence: Kids of Alcoholics: Coping ,"...

Addiction does not discriminate based on parenting. If that were the case, significant numbers of the addicts/alcoholics with whom I work would never have become addicts/alcoholics because they had (have) wonderful, caring, engaged parents. When you...

Children of alcoholics experience trauma that is little understood by those who have not grown up in a home with a parent who has the untreated disease of alcoholism. If you are unfamiliar with this concept or would like more information, this link to...

Coping with secondhand drinking | drugging is especially problematic for a young person because of the brain development that occurs from birth through one’s early 20s – especially if the parent or sibling’s drinking or drug use...