Brenda Zane and Her Journey
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour. I’m your host, Jake White from Vive 18. And today we are hanging out with a new guest, Brenda Zane.
Now, just to give you a little background on her, she is a TEDx speaker, a family advocate, a Mayo Clinic certified health coach, and has her own podcast. And I’m so excited to share this with you because Brenda is one of those people that you’re going to want to become friends with. And we’re going to learn so much from her because not only has she had a 20 plus year career in marketing and advertising, working with Fortune 500 brands like Nike, Pepsi, Starbucks, Microsoft. She has gotten involved in something that we care deeply about, substance misuse and mental health. So she is the co-founder of HopeStream Community a global 501c3 nonprofit organization. And I’m going to stop there because I don’t want to spoil the fun for everybody. Brenda, thank you for coming on the show today and spending some time with me.
Absolutely, thanks for having me, I appreciate it. Of course. And our audience might not know about Hope Stream, but before we get into that, can you tell us a little bit about you and then how did you become passionate about substance use and prevention and then mental health?
The Impact of Substance Use on Family Dynamics
Well, I am a battle tested mom, I like to say. So I have four boys and my oldest, when he was about 13 years old, started experimenting with weed. He went through a pretty significant friend group shift and also his dad and I got divorced. So there was a lot going on in the family and he really found something that worked for him, which was marijuana really helped with his ADHD symptoms. Now I knew nothing about this, of course. I was oblivious for the most part until I got a phone call from the eighth grade vice principal letting me know that he had been caught at school with marijuana. And so that really was a significant shift in my world. I didn’t have addiction in our family growing up. I didn’t know anything about it.
I had no clue. And nor did I really even think that we were dealing with anything like addiction at that point because he was in eighth grade. You know, he is a risk seeker, kind of a out there crazy kid, like likes to do all the wild things. So I kind of chalked it up to, well, you know, this is what kids do. And I didn’t really see that he was hurting inside, which I think is something that a lot of parents miss. So things escalated from there. I will spare a very long six-year story of a lot of very difficult things. But at 16, we ended up having him sent to wilderness therapy because it was a very, very dangerous and risky situation that he had gotten himself into. And we knew that we had to physically remove him from where we live. So that started a treatment journey of four or five different treatment programs. He would run away, he would relapse. It was just chaos in our family. What age was that when that was happening? Well, he went to his first treatment, wilderness therapy at 16, and was supposed to be there for about a year between wilderness and residential treatment center. But he ran away on his first home visit. that ended that situation. And then we sort of fumbled through trying high school again, trying a community college. You know, there’s a running start program where you can sort of skip some of the high school stuff. He had been diagnosed ADHD when he was in third grade and I didn’t know what that meant. This was in 2000. Well, he would have been diagnosed like late 2008 or nine. Like it was very early and this is when people still said, ah, we don’t really think ADHD is a real thing. We think it’s just like, you know, rampant crush boys.
We had tried medication, he hated the medication. It totally changed how his personality was and he just refused to take it. So between that and at the same time, we also had him tested for giftedness and to find out that he’s one of those two E-kids, the twice exceptional ADHD plus highly gifted. So that kind of a kiddo doesn’t fit well in the box of a public school system.
But I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know to look for a different school system. We just were plugging away. All the while, I had a career in advertising and marketing, traveled all over the world, shooting commercials, working on these huge brands. I was super busy and just trying to hold all the balls in the air. It was really all of high school.
Yeah quit going to high school after the end of his sophomore year. Just, you know, he would leave the house, but he wouldn’t actually either make it to school or he would make it to school, but not actually go to class. So we were in the truancy system, which is a whole thing. And so it was just a lot of chaos in the house. And like I said, he was very high risk. So he was dealing. So we also had very sketchy drug dealers showing up at the house, just really scary. So I had to invite him to live elsewhere when he just before he turned 18. I was like, can’t this is too dangerous for us. It’s too chaotic. There’s just too much mayhem going on in our house. And my other three kids were like, what? Like, what has happened to our home? Right? Like this place is a madhouse. That was extremely difficult. I couldn’t let his brother know where he was. I mean, it was just all the bad things you can imagine. Jail, getting phone calls from, you know, we live in Seattle, so I would be getting phone calls from the Seattle Police Department while I’m pitching a $10 million campaign for a Fortune 100 brand.
When you mentioned that he went to, well, multiple like opportunities for rehab is that so that was 16 that he ran away from that, tried some different stuff. And then when did, did he choose later to go or like, does this.
Turning Points and Life-Altering Experiences
Yeah well, he did choose to go to a detox in a 30 day treatment program and then a young adult program because he was facing jail time. So he chose, okay, maybe I can do this. And he actually got his high school diploma in treatment, which was wonderful because I had sort of given up on the fact that he would ever get a high school diploma. I was just like, well, let’s just try to keep him alive, right? So the bar lowers very quickly when you’re in this situation.
So he ended up, I had to have him move out. He cycled through a few more programs and then I had to ask him to leave again because it was getting too dangerous. So he was homeless, part of the time living on his dad’s boat, part of the time living with friends and drug dealers and who knows who. And then on April 14th in 2017, I got a phone call and a girl, never heard her voice before said, Enzo’s in the hospital, he overdosed on fentanyl, you need to go. And that changes your world. So we got to the hospital and the doctor in the ER pulled me aside and he said, do you know this is the second time your son’s been with us this week? I was like, what? He was just turned 19. So I didn’t know because he was an adult, right? So once they turn 18, you don’t, you know, you don’t find out as a parent. So he had had two overdoses on fentanyl in 72 hours. He was found in the backseat of a car, foaming at the mouth, eyes rolled up in his head, no pulse. The medics did CPR for 30 minutes and they were like, you know, it’s not looking good, but they did take him to the hospital and put him on a ventilator. And he was on life support for three days. And so we got our family all around because that’s what you do happens. know the doctors say this is the time to get your family here and he is a medical miracle.
He woke up from that which nobody in the hospital can understand. All the doctors are just like we have no clue how that could happen and how could he not have just horrible brain damage. So I was in the hospital with him for about six weeks. We lived there because he had had a stroke, he had had a heart attack, all of his organs shut down. He had a raging case of pneumonia, but because of the stroke, he had to start all over. So he had to learn how to walk. He had to learn how to tie shoes, tell time, dial a phone, brush his teeth. He literally started over from zero. So that was what really changed his trajectory because he finally realized at 19, Oh, I am not invincible. Fentanyl is going to take me down. Like this is no joke. And until then he had really felt like he had it under control. He had used a lot of Xanax and Fentanyl had just kind of come into the market on the West coast in 2016 or so. And so he was what we call an early adopter. So he was like trying out all the new stuff and he loved it. I mean, he absolutely loved it.
That’s scary. Yeah, so that was his big, big turning point. And it wasn’t fast. It took a long, long time, not only because of the drugs, but yeah, just the like his body was just so broken at that point. So yeah, that was his his turning point.
I can’t even start over. Yeah man and that’s that’s terrifying. I mean for him of course too, but I mean when you’re that gone out of your mind with substances and your brain is literally tricking you saying you need this drug before you need food or water or anything else or family or shelter. But I guess that that really brings us to hope stream because there was probably moments in this where you’re like feeling I have no resources. I don’t know who to talk to about this. You’re on phone calls trying to do your job and I’m sure trying to do life, but this is, this is everything that’s happening to you and having to make that really difficult decision of like, I’m not helping him when he’s under my roof and my, rest of my family’s in danger. which is some of the toughest decisions to say, I need to send them away. He’s like, he has to learn on his own.
Creating HopeStream: A Resource for Families
What’s yeah, can we let’s transition to hope stream because you’re you’ve now built a platform that you probably wish you would have had in that moment. So tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, well, I got back to work after he got out of the hospital and I went back to my what I thought was my fancy advertising job. I felt like I was very important and I got back to that role and I thought I could not be doing anything more meaningless than this because I had just gone through six years of hell as a parent trying to find resources, trying to find information, trying to learn like what can I do? Clearly something is very wrong with my child, but I don’t know what it is and I don’t know how to communicate with him and I don’t know how to help him. And so I left my job. I started my podcast, HopeStream, just as a way to try and bring families more resources sooner in their journey, because I had met so many incredible therapists, professionals programs, just all these people was like, I didn’t even know this world existed until I got into this.
And so I started the podcast to bring those professionals forward so that somebody else in my shoes five years earlier could have found them. And then I had a bunch of moms reaching out to me saying, hey, like, where do you live? Can we be friends? Like, can we go have coffee? I’m like, well, I don’t know. I’m in Seattle. Where are you? And so I started an online community totally separate from Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. It’s not connected to anything. It’s its own private little island in the internet world. And it’s a place where moms come and learn the craft approach. And we can talk about what that is. We provide just the emotional and mental support that they need. And then we have curated resources for them. So they don’t have to start just blindly Googling because that is a terrifying place to be because all you’re going to get is the first two pages or the AI results are from treatment programs who want you to send your child there. So we have a private space for them and it just kept growing and growing and the podcast kept growing. And then I decided in 2021 to host a retreat because I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if we could actually all get together like in person? Because we were all just on Zoom.
And so we had a retreat and there was a mom that came named Cathy and I thought, I need her on my team. And so I recruited her. She fortunately joined me and we turned the organization into a nonprofit. So we’re a 501c3 nonprofit organization and we purely exist to be there as that resource, particularly for moms, because we found that moms are the gateway to the family not that dads don’t matter. We have a ton of dads that listen to the podcast, but when it comes to feeling connected, feeling plugged in, feeling like you have a place to go where you can say, my gosh, my kid drank a bottle of hand sanitizer last night. Like what is going on? And nobody blinks an eye. Everybody’s like, yeah, that happens and here’s what you can do. And that’s what the moms need. And so we provide that for them. We have members all over the world and mostly in the US but in Canada but all over the world because no matter where your feet are planted if your child is struggling you will do anything to try and help them so yeah that’s where that’s where Hopestream came from.
Engaging with Communities and Schools
I’m so glad you’re doing that. And I’m thinking back, like I’m thinking through your whole story. And so we’re speaking at schools all over and we ask during the presentation, it’s not a sit and get, it’s like we’re discussing with the students and it’s engaging. And we asked this question, why, you know, if people could get hurt from substances, why do people begin using them in the first place? And we get all kinds of answers, but one of the top,reasons is they’re trying to cope with something, you know, inside their head or they’re trying to escape something inside their head, which was a lot like your son’s story.
And there’s this, yeah, there’s this study showing that how parents react to this or maybe just aren’t that we don’t know, just aren’t informed. It said like of the students who use substances, how many are using because of something like stress, like they’re trying to cope, something like that. And the reality is 70 % of the young people who began using in last couple of years said it was because of stress. And then they asked the parents of those who are using, how many do you think that your child would use because of stress? And they said only 7 % of them said that they would. So there’s just like a, there’s a, a distance of perspective saying like, no, it would never happen to me. things like that. But the resource you’re providing, cause we’re on the prevention side, hopefully educating about that while they’re making the decision, hopefully, you know, like, all right, that’s not a great, it’s not a coping skill. It’s an escape and it’s actually gonna. Worsen our symptoms eventually, or, you know, maybe quicker, and there are better ways. And then you have obviously the world is not perfect. Things happen out of our control and some students are using and it’s leading to some painful things. And as a parent, yeah, what do we do? How do we not feel alone? So your community is a place to go where number one said they can find resources because the community has been there, has been through it. They find support. Y’all have a podcast.
The Role of Community and Support for Parents
And then there’s the kind of a virtual space. And then also you said, yeah, I’ll do some in-person events. Yeah, we do. Not as many. We do one big retreat a year, but it’s mostly virtual. And I think on the prevention side, it’s so important. I always tell people like, I run the club that I wish nobody had to join. You know, my club is a club you don’t want to join. And so we really want to help parents. And a lot of the parents that we have in our community have younger kids and they are terrified because they’re like, wait a minute, my, I, yeah. You know, my 23 year old is here in this very difficult position, very scary, very unhealthy. And I also have a 15 year old and a 16 year old. And what do I do about them? Cause I don’t want them following in the same shoes. And the thing that we really tell parents is to first, have to have that understanding of what you just said, Jake is there’s a reason their behavior makes sense. It’s one of kind of our key beliefs is people don’t do things unless they’re getting something from it. And so you have to have that mindset. And a lot of us have a mindset of, if they’re using drugs, just have, you know, they’re just crazy, they’re partying, they don’t have any willpower, they’re being rebellious. Like we attach all these negative, very sort of bad things to it. And so if I could just flip that script for a parent to say, get curious.
First of all, set aside that judgment and just get curious because the behavior that you’re seeing is the very tip of the iceberg. That’s all you’re seeing is this outward behavior. What you’re not seeing is this giant bundle of stress and anxiety and uncertainty and all the things that your child is feeling. And I will tell you what, as wrong as it is, alcohol and weed solves those problems instantly.
And it is a hugely problematic solution, right? Because we obviously, it’s not the solution we want. But if you put yourself in the seat of a 14 year old or a 15 year old or a 20 year old who’s really struggling, because I hear this all the time, I take that first drink and I’m like, where has this been all my life, right? Or they use marijuana the first time. So parents need to under, they kind of have to shift their thinking to understand that, okay, there’s a reason. And if I can get curious enough and say, we have two magic questions that we recommend. The first is, hey, I can see that right now THC is the biggest problem. I’m sure you see that as well. The high potency, the vapes and all that. I can see that weed’s really important to you, because you’re doing it every day, right? I can see this is really important in your life. I’m just curious, like, what do you get from it? What do you like about it?
And then let them talk, like close your mouth and let them talk and listen to what they’re saying. Don’t reload. Don’t be thinking like, here’s my response. And then after they share that, you can say, well, that makes sense, you know, cause they’re probably going to tell you, helps me sleep. I can fit in more socially. Like we don’t have to approve of it. But if we say, you know, I can see why that would make sense. Is there anything you don’t like about it? Are there any downsides? Because there usually are and if you can get them talking, people believe what they hear themselves say. So if I am 14 and I’m like, well, you know, I lost my best friend because she doesn’t smoke or whatever, like they’re hearing themselves talk about these things. So for parents on that prevention side of it, I think you have to get really brave and really strong to be able to set aside any judgments you have, any past experience, because I’ll tell you what, if you grew up in a home where there was alcohol abuse or if there was drug use, this is not easy, right? Because all of your stuff is just flaring up and you’re like, oh, I have to shut this down immediately. So parents just have to be able to really be strong and have these conversations with their kids. And if they’re not using yet, which is what you hope, just be really honest, you know? Hey, some people do turn to weed or alcohol or whatever, and it could be a short-term thing, but man, the long-term impact is really bad. And just be okay to talk about it.
The Importance of Early Conversations with Teens
Yeah, and that’s so important because the young brain sees something as a solution because it took away the pain for a moment. And even though it’s not a solution, our symptoms come right back. So you’re now paying for this cycle. And that’s the thing, you don’t see how much it costs until you get to a certain point. And you’re like, my gosh, that cost me everything, it cost me my grades, I’m no longer in school or I don’t have the same friends, I stopped caring about my sport, I don’t have any aspirations. It’s like, man, those pennies, they really, really add up. And that’s the thing too, I think that parents can be encouraged by is you can never start the conversation too early to protect the number one resource you have in your entire life, your brain. That governs every single thing you have ever cared about or want to do in your entire life is that it’s your brain. And if something’s gonna mess with that, then it’s gonna mess with you and your entire future. We can never start that early enough.
I really agree. And especially if you haven’t been talking about this, think parents can be a little awkward like, ooh, I haven’t been having this conversation and now I’ve got a 13 year old or now I’ve got a 11 year old. And what I always say is just be really honest and just say, man, I wish I would have been talking about this earlier with you, but it’s so important that I’m going to start now and I’m probably going to fumble and I’m probably going to get uncomfortable and you might get uncomfortable and that’s okay. We’re just going to fumble through it together because if you try to go in perfect and you try to go in as like the fount of knowledge they will sniff that out in a heartbeat. So it’s okay to just be awkward about it and be like, man I wish I didn’t have to have a conversation with you about vaping THC but I need to because I love you so much and your brain and your body are so important to you and to me. So let’s just do this, right? Like just put it out there. And I think that’s just the best way to approach a young person. Just be super honest.
Yeah. Yeah that’s so good. And you also talked about leading with questions, right? It’s not like sit down and I’m going to talk to you for 30 minutes about this. It’s, Hey, what are you thinking about this? Are you seeing it? What’s happened? Those kinds of things, whether they’re, whether they’re already using or not. And I love that you have like a background in business because I always, I always reference it’s easier to keep a customer than it is to find a new one. And so if you have a student who is not using.
We want to keep them that way. And that’s actually, it’s an easier job than changing it altogether. Even though you can change and there is hope and Brenda, your story of your son is absolutely a But I would be lying if I haven’t said, I’ve actually heard so many miracles. And I think it’s a canvas what I believe is God’s love to take you from your lowest moment you could possibly ever imagine. How could I get out of this? And him to just paint the love to say, no, I care about you so much and maybe I got a plan for you. I don’t know how else to explain it when stuff like that happens. Cause I’ve heard, I’ve met people just like that. Like, dude, you should not be here.
And that wasn’t the only, I mean, that was the most extreme thing that happened, but there were six years of just, you know, being shot at and getting beat up and being in cars. I mean, just the mayhem was just unbelievable. So yeah, I agree. And he does too. And I can just give a quick update on what he’s doing. He’s actually a mentor for adolescent boys.
And guys who are just starting college who bend a treatment and are trying to stay sober trying to get their life together trying to put together goals and all of that So he does that while he’s also going to school and getting his masters and addiction counseling. So Yeah, so if you know if somebody is listening who knows a family or maybe you have a family member who’s struggling there is always hope that’s why we called our organization hope stream because you really can’t believe some of the things that can happen and you got to just you got to keep that hope alive, you know.
Oh my gosh, that’s so good. And I’m going to, I’m going to plug in one resource I think is good. And then I’d love to finish with, um, your, your craft framework. And if you can leave us with a place to go to learn more about you. Um, I, I was speaking with Tomas, our co-founder this, this week and talking to the students, you know, and he really resonates with the students who have used, cause that’s his story and that’s where he’s been. So they resonate and they feel like they can have a new future and they can start over.
And the ones who don’t use, they resonate with my story because I never did. I still want to have fun and make friends and feel good. And they resonate with that, right? I still want to get all these things. And I love it. Tomas kind of shares that when you’re young, your brain is more susceptible to addiction, but it’s also more susceptible to recovery and change and new beginnings. And so when you’re inviting a young person, whether it’s your kid or somebody else’s, to say, recovery is not only possible, but if you choose to do it now, you might be able to breeze through it a lot better than somebody in their adulthood who has to go to rehab seven or eight times, right? All that time and expense and effort, you have a gift right now. It’s like, if it’s not serving you, which I mean, studies will show it, but you have to come to that conclusion yourself, you can change. so I’m so encouraged by that with young people is like you have this gift of time right now and your brain knows it. It’s incredible.
Yeah, it’s really true. My son was in treatment once and his roommate was in his 60s and he was 17. And his roommate said, dude, do you know how lucky you are? You’re 17. And, you know, my son was like, my life is over. I’ve totally screwed it up. I might as well just give up. this guy, fortunately, he was in that situation and he’s like, oh, no.
like look at me I’m 65 years old I’ve been doing this for decades living this crazy life and it’s unhealthy and unhappy life so you’re so right they have this little window where if we and that’s why we really work with we hope stream specifically works with young people who are like 13 to the late 20s because exactly that we have this window where if we can get some help to them and get their parents some help we can save them decades of just torture. yeah. Yeah. And Brenda, I know you’ve got some practical ways to help our audience who works with teenagers, sometimes parents, and they are professionals in the field. Is there that you teach that you could share with us to help us do our jobs just a little bit better? I’d love to learn more about that.
The CRAFT Approach: A Structured Method for Families
Yeah, I think for professionals just to know that there is an approach, it’s called the craft approach. It was created by Dr. Bob Myers, not by me. He’s like a professional PhD addiction specialist and he created this approach specifically for family members to help somebody that they love in their family who has a substance use disorder. So it’s an approach that keeps the connection, keeps the love. It’s a behavioral approach.
At the same time, it lets you protect yourself with self-care, with boundaries, natural consequences. there actually is a very structured approach. There’s nine protocols basically that we teach and we take parents through because I think sometimes what I always hear when I’m talking to like school counselors or people like that, they go, why? I never really know where to send a parent. Like I just tell them, go to Al-Anon, which is fine. And that’s great to have a community where you can see there’s other people.
But we take Alan on like one step further where we’re saying, okay, but here are nine things that you can do very strategically to change the relationship with your child and to start motivating them to make change in their own life. Because you’re not going to force it on them. I have run that experiment. I can tell you for a fact, you cannot force a kid to stop using drugs. It will not work. So you have to be way more strategic about it. And this approach teaches that. So I think if I was to leave you with anything, I would say there is an approach. It’s evidence-based, it’s been research-based. I can send you all the paperwork. And yeah that’s awesome. I’ll just say for anybody listening, if you, if you just Google the craft approach addiction, it is the first one to pop up. and you can learn all about it. So I’m, I’m going to dive into that after our call and learn as much as I can. That sounds really, really cool.
Yeah well it’s just nice to know that there is a structure that you can follow. This isn’t just like, I just got to like, hold on and white knuckle it for the next 10 years. So yeah, there is action you can take and it absolutely works. I see it every single day. If there’s someone that you know, their child is struggling with a substance use disorder and they are addicted, and you could send them this episode to encourage them and let them know there is hope and there’s people who get it. Brenda, where would these people go to learn more about Hope Stream and take advantage of the resources and community that you have?
HopeStreamCommunity.org is our URL. Everything’s there. And you can find the podcast is also called Hope Stream. We tried to make it super easy and that’s available on every podcast platform. So yeah, we’re out there, but our URL, HopeStreamCommunity.org, we have a ton of free resources you can download, find everything there about the community as well.
That’s fantastic. Well, Brenda, thank you so much for being on the show today. It’s really inspiring to hear your story and I’m so glad that your son is doing fantastic and is even using all that pain for good. Really, really amazing. Thank you. I appreciate it so much. Of course, and for everyone listening, thank you for being a part of the Prevention and Recovery Movement. Your work is so, so appreciated. If you haven’t been told today, you’re incredible. Keep up the good work and we will see you next Monday for another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour.
