The Impact of Addiction for Profit

Welcome back to another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour and today we’ve actually got a repeat guest. Dr. Aaron Weiner was on episode six. And if you have not seen that episode, I would highly recommend go back, listen to that. And I called it the genius episode on the adolescent brain. Because Dr. Aaron, was like, for me, I felt like I was talking to a genius. Normal day for you, right? Like you study this, you’re in and out every single day. So super fascinating. I’m excited to do this again, but I’m gonna read a little bit about you and then we’ll kick off the conversation for today. So Dr. Aaron Weiner is a board certified psychologist and addiction specialist. He speaks nationally on the topics of addiction, behavioral health, and the impact of drug policy on public health. He is a past president of the Society of Addiction Psychology and his opinions and quotes have been featured in numerous outlets, including Newsweek, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, Psychology Today, and the New York Times. He currently serves as the policy advisor on addiction for the American Psychological Association and is a member of the Science Advisory Board for the Foundation of Drug Policy Solutions. So yeah, Dr. Aaron, glad to have you back, man. This is great.

Always a pleasure, always a pleasure, Jake.

Well, hey, I’m going to give kind of a teaser to our audience if they want to go back and listen to episode six, just a quick cliff notes on what we talked about. And then I’m going to let this conversation guide itself and we can chat about what’s been going on in 2024. And when this episode goes live, it could be late 2024 or even early 2025. So just kind of recapping what we talked about.

We talked about how to connect with people and what was happening during COVID and what that led to as far as the mental health crisis in our country. And then where does addiction play into that picture? We really dove into as well, this theme of how, you know, temporary shortcuts and escapes, how that affects a student’s brain and the using of a drug, how it could impact that, but also how does developing resilience impact the human brain and develop these skills for youth to use for the rest of their life. And yeah, once again, for me, it was just such a great episode that I jumped on the chance to have a recap with you today, but kind of catch us up, man. What’s been happening with you this last year? What have you been up to and what things have you been seeing?

Yeah, well, so I was so honored to be on one of the first episodes of the podcast and to dive into more of the psychology behind it. Because ultimately, you know, when you ask what am I up to and how does that fit with our last podcast? You know, I so I’m a practicing psychologist, so I’m always doing that work, which is all in my opinion about helping people understand themselves. And a lot of the more outwardly facing work that I do around speaking and policy, I it’s still.

It’s all orbiting around the same idea of if we understand what’s going on inside of us or we understand what’s going on in society that empowers us to do something about it in healthy ways. Because ultimately, know, a lot’s happened in the last year in the addiction for profit space as well. You know, there’s been some positive changes in terms of public health. There’s been some other trends that have gotten slightly larger and more concerning, but that’s, I feel like that’s always the story.

There’s always folks out there selling shortcuts. we don’t necessarily, they’re not necessarily thinking about like, are these healthy shortcuts necessarily? It’s more of this idea of freedom of choice. Like we’re gonna put it out there and if someone picks it up, like my hands are clean, I didn’t force them to do it. But that’s where the education comes in. The work that you’re so passionate about and the work that I’m so passionate about is giving people being able to understand like, hey, what are the real risks of this behavior or of these substances and is that an influence I want in my life? So I’ve just been banging that drum for the last year and trying to do a bit of good in the world, you know?

Yeah, and following you, you’re the one that kind of taught me that phrase, addiction for profit. And for people who aren’t familiar with what that means, can you explain that to us?

The Evolution of Marketing and Health Products

Absolutely. Well, so there are certain substances, then also behaviors like say gambling where the there’s this dopamine circuit that gets activated where you get rewarded immediately for doing something, even if ultimately it’s detrimental to you in the long run. And it creates the sense of euphoria in the short term. can create the sense of escape, but it really ends up locking you in. And most of these products and substances, whether or not we’re talking about like Purdue Pharma, whether or not we’re talking about big tobacco, about vaping, about the THC, cannabis, marijuana market, gambling, and all the pairs of clothing. I’m losing my metaphors here, but the different shades that it takes, All the different gambling from loot boxes to cards to sports betting and all that. It’s all based around this idea of if we get people hooked on this, this is where the money comes from. If you look at studies of what percentage of alcohol is consumed by the top tier amount of drinkers, right? Like the top 20% of drinkers who average, by the way, like the top 20% of drinkers average around, I believe at six to 10 drinks a day. They consume about 85% of all the alcohol in the country. So like you wouldn’t have, for example, Anheuser-Busch, Coors, all of these large companies without alcoholism and without alcohol use disorders. They would not exist.

And we see the same thing in gambling. We see the same thing in THC. We see the same thing in smoking. And that’s where that idea of addiction for profit comes in, where that’s really where the money is. The money is in the problematic use patterns and they don’t say it, right? But if everyone drank responsibly, there be no cores in Anheuser-Busch. So that’s what that landscape is all about.

Okay. That’s so interesting because right now I’m going through this show and it’s like brands that built America, but it’s focused on food and I think it’s part of the History Channel and it’s on one of the streaming platforms. But what was really interesting is these big food manufacturers that came out, things like Kellogg’s creating granola and making it into cereal that became a mass food market during the time when people were, you know, they only ate local because that was available. And then the railroads came into existence and it made this country-wide commerce available. And advertising became really big then because you didn’t have to choose what was right there. And what was really interesting is you can see all the way back then, they started experimenting with different additives, preservatives in their food, different things to make it taste different.

And there was more competitors. And when I think about the landscape today, what you’re talking about too, is all these different companies competing for this space to sell this one product and they’ve got to compete with each other. And the main way they do that is with their ingredients and with marketing. And what really struck me is that as you go through the storyline of different foods and as time goes on, you start seeing the science behind their product, trying to make it more addictive, whether it was Coca-Cola actually having the drug in it, like the Coca leaf in it, which was addictive. And then other things, just knowing how addictive sugar is. Like sugar, you can add that to food to make it more like dopamine to hit your brain. And now you enjoy that food over the other food. And what’s really, really wild is as I watch the show, almost every product maybe that’s an exaggeration.

There was a lot of products that started off that are called health products, like cereal that we eat in the morning and today we don’t really call healthy. It was invented as a health product inside this clinic for their patients to help them with their gut health. And so today we don’t call that a healthy breakfast thing. It’s, you know, it’s cereal. But same thing for soft drinks like Coke was in initially it was marketed as a health product. And the funny thing is there’s nothing has changed. We’re seeing these THC products and vaping products that began to be marketed as a health product. And then we’re seeing what they actually do. And the kind of sad truth is that the marketing teams know exactly what’s going on. Like they’re not shy about telling us that this is healthy when they know it’s not. So we’re fighting this uphill battle.

But I just thought that was so interesting and how far back this strategy goes to sell us this health product that in fact is not great for our long-term health at all.

Yeah, well, and I think you’re pointing out a really important point, which is that there’s a playbook that gets recycled a lot. Like, when you were talking even about like the Coca leaf and Coca Cola, my mind also goes to the fact that we, you to this day, we have diet Coke, even though, like, you know, you could say like, well, it’s diet because it doesn’t have calories. But if you actually look at the research, what I mean, let’s not even talk about like any health implications around artificial sweeteners, but we actually have data that shows that diet beverages actually stimulate you to eat more, actually. And then you end up not losing weight because you’re drinking diet sodas. But it seems like you put that out there, right? You call it health or vaping sounds like water droplets when it’s actually more of like an aerosolized mist of thousands of chemicals you’re inhaling into your lungs, right?

There’s all of these ways of presenting these products so that we soften up to them or we even think that they’re healthy sometimes when it’s not the case. But once you get that ball rolling or that narrative created, it becomes really hard in the minds of the public to roll it back.

Yeah, it’s so true. I never thought about that as like even a diet drink, a diet soda. It’s it’s soda. It’s for you to taste good and feel like that. It’s not very hydrating at all, like because of everything else that’s in it. But it’s called diet, like as if I’m on a diet. So I’m going to eat something healthy. But they’re so smart. Yeah.

Right, right, or even that it will help you lose weight. Nope.

These marketers are so good though. Like they’re so good. I want to ask you, what is, can we dive in? You mentioned some things that you think have maybe changed this year and you listed off a couple, but let’s pick one. What have you seen this year that’s maybe the needle has moved and either in a positive or negative direction. I mean, what’s happened in 2024 as far as addiction and prevention?

Trends in Substance Use Among Youth

Yeah. Well, so there’s a couple trends that I’d love to chat with you about. Just get your take on it too. So one trend that I thought was very, very heartening actually was that it seems like use rates are actually down for a number of different substances amongst teenagers. In terms of vaping, we’re seeing a decrease there. Alcohol, we’ve been seeing it go down. Even THC, there’s mixed data, but a lot of places we’re seeing a decrease. I was actually at a high school about a week ago where they were showing their numbers. And it was actually staggering in the best possible way to see how things went down. And that I think a lot of us, myself included, were expecting to see like a pandemic bump, you know, in terms of like, they’re getting out of their house, they’re stressed out, they’re coming back to school, they’ve got that social element again, and it just never came. And I think a big part of that, honestly, like, and I don’t wanna take up either a premature victory lap or give too much credit to one particular place. But I think folks working in prevention, like yourself and all the coalitions around the country have a lot to do with that. just where kids are recognizing, like, hey, this is actually profoundly disturbing in terms of when they actually look at the health side of it and when they think about what is this potentially going to do to me. I think we’re seeing a shift amongst young people.

Though also, and then I’d love to get your thoughts on it too, that said, we’re seeing the opposite with young adults. When you look at those rates from like the 18 to 25 crowd, we’re seeing more vaping, we’re seeing more THC use, we’re seeing more hallucinogen use. Alcohol is still a little bit down, but we’re seeing some increases there. So I mean, I don’t know if that mirrors, Jake, what you’ve seen when you’re out, when you’re talking with people, but does that vibe, like are you seeing the same thing in your work?

Yeah, what I am seeing is definitely that student perspective of they’re wanting to make better choices. And I think there’s a matchup of what this generation looks for in the people and the movements that they follow. And there’s a mismatch between these companies that are selling destructive products. If you think about how open the world is right now, they can go find out anything they want online it is they really value authenticity and being who you are, not being fake, taking off the mask and whether, no matter what you’re into, that you’re just open and honest about it. And what I’ve seen to be very, very powerful when I’m at schools working with students is when we go over the inauthenticity of these companies who are selling things that are not investing into their long-term future or their health or their benefit, but just to the company’s bottom line, they’re like visually, we go through a lot in an hour.

And that is like the quietest moment, the most introspective, like you can see it on their faces and you can see minds moved. And afterwards you get students talking to you about it and asking how can I quit and stuff like that, which that’s the best thing. That’s the encouraging thing. And students are trying to quit. I don’t know the exact statistic, but I think I read that there was close to, was like between 50 and 80 % of young people who were vaping were trying to stop in the last year. And that was a very encouraging statistic to hear that because it shows that there is this downward curve that they’re wanting to make better choices. Maybe they made a mistake and tried it. And of course that addiction happens pretty quick with various products. But I am seeing that I’m hearing more about it. They’re coming up after to talk more about it. And with the student clubs that we helped launch, we’re getting more numbers because they are sick of it. They want, they want to get their school bathrooms back. They don’t want to be locked out because of vaping and drug use. They want to create better mental health for their friends because they’re tired of seeing their friends die from suicide ideation and everything. So as they’re getting more educated, I just want to echo what you said. I think it is a lot of the work that people are doing who are advocating for mental health and prevention is word is getting out there. We’re equipping young people, not only with the education, but with the skills to share it with their friends. And I think that’s paying off because their voices are heard now.

The Future of Addiction Prevention and Corporate Responsibility

I haven’t done much in the young adult space recently though. So I do feel a little bit out of touch where I couldn’t say necessarily, I would have any stories or, or data to kind of, see the, rise of it, but I just have read certain things that have, have said that as well.

Yeah, well, and certainly, I mean, it’s definitely a different animal when you start getting to, you know, kids who are making that transition to being adults and living outside of the house and whether or not it’s a college or working on their own and, you know, living on their own and figuring out where their values lie. But I agree with what you’re saying, though, about that mismatch, you know, like something that always really I don’t know for the young adults if it hit quite as hard.

But I know for youth, they care a lot about the environment and the idea that you’re throwing out these lithium ion batteries all the time with disposable vapes, like generally into the landfill. think there’s just moments like that, I think, where it doesn’t connect or when you’re talking about like this pushback against like really like sort of predatory corporate, cynical corporate America. There’s a new vape device that I saw recently. I posted about this on LinkedIn recently actually, but where they literally put a virtual pet into a vape where in order to get food for your pet to live, you have to pit the vape. to me, that’s some of the darkest, that’s just so awful when you really think about it. It’s like you literally have to hurt yourself to keep your little animal alive. And I think, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think for some people, like they might fall into that, but I think others, like the kids, they’re gonna look at that and be like, this is the most bold-faced, cynical stuff I have ever seen. Like, I am not interested in being part of that machine and that system anymore. And I think that’s part of the sort of the shift that we’re seeing. Now, I will say though, you know, in terms of like, what comes next, because there’s always a next.

I know what I’m, one of the things that I’m concerned about is this green washing effect that happens when you say, it’s not as bad as blank. And I think what’s top of mind for me right now are nicotine pouches. Zen, of course, like the most, like the top brand in that space right now, the flavor nicotine pouches. I’m sure most of your listeners are very aware of these. But the fact that Philip Morris is building a $600 million plant to create more of these. And the fact that now like, what we’re having to do, and I’m speaking about this when I speak to youth right now as well, is let them know it’s not just what goes into your lungs. So like nicotine alone, just straight nicotine, which is what’s in these pouches, actually changes the physical way your brain grows and develops, as well as how it works. It messes with your serotonergic system, and it also, it messes with that.

It also messes with your ability to moderate and regulate yourself in your limbic system which means that we see all of these linkages to difficulty concentrating, mood control, depression down the line, anxiety down the line. And that’s just from putting nicotine into a brain that’s not done developing yet. whatever the delivery system is, that part is still there. And so there’s always this game of catch up. Like there’s the innovation, right? Where now it’s like, well, let’s put it in pouches. And so it’s like, okay, now we need to not talk about chemicals in the lungs. We need to just talk about nicotine. But that’s the work. It’s always about just educating and empowering through information.

Yeah. Well, that’s also why I think there’s two types of prevention education. And there’s the one that focuses on the substance and educating students about what’s out there. But then there’s the holistic prevention message, which is, hey, you’re enough. Your goals matter. Your life is amazing. It can be. You get what you work for. all this building up a person who is so confident and assured and loved and cared for that they wouldn’t look for that other outlet because they have what they need. And that’s primary prevention. And what you’re right, because it’s always this catch up where the industry is going to move quickly. They’re going to innovate. They’re going to create new things. As soon as we throw a curve ball at them, right? Well, now you have to deal with these regulations or now you have to do these and now we’re going to tax you and now you’re going to get sued. Well, that’s fine. All right, we’ll just go create something else. And they’re they’re fast.

They move quickly, but the consistencies are, well, what are the reasons why students are using anything, any type of destructive behavior? Let’s tackle those causes and really build up these strong, resilient students so that as they go and they pivot and they do that, instead of working on reducing the supply, we’re working on reducing the demand. And that was actually something that I just heard recently when we were partnering with one of the DEA chapters out in Florida and this group called Victoria’s Voice is one of the agents who is out there basically said, we’ll never punish our way out of the system. Law enforcement will never solve it because as soon as one distributor or marketer or dealer is gone, another one will take it place. The only thing we have to solve this is by reducing the demand. And that’s what prevention is, is reducing the demand.

The Importance of Holistic Prevention Strategies

Yeah. Well, and I think your point about getting it, you know, how can we help people feel like their life is or can be amazing, that they are enough, that they are loved, that they have the tools that they need. Like, that’s the, see that, in my opinion, I’m right there with you. That’s the next level, right? Cause it’s not about hopping. We do have to provide information about certain substances and industries and pitfalls, potholes and all that. But what all businesses are about is meeting someone’s need.

Right, it’s solving a problem for someone. And all of these addiction for profit industries, bringing back to where we started, it’s about solving, they’re trying to help people cope or feel good or feel powerful or feel like they can control. It’s all about this emotional need that they’re filling. And so on the prevention standpoint, I think there’s a tendency to want to play defense because we see all of this offense on the other side of like pushing these products and redesigning, but we can go on offense too. But our offense is like, actually solving these emotional problems in and healthy, sustainable ways. as strange as that sounds, as weird as that is, or as just kind of like fluffy amorphous, like that’s the actual, that is the actual problem. Can we give kids what they need inside so that they don’t have to look outside for whatever, you know, whatever clothing it’s wearing.

Yeah, right. And so I had this thought as I was reading and journaling the other day is that if a student has confidence, coping skills, and community, like they would be resilient to peer pressure. And what I was thinking was that if, you know, pressure often seems external, but a lot of it’s internal. We think other people are doing these things. We want to please everyone else.

We think that there’s an outside solution to our problems, a shortcut. But in reality, a lot of times it is in within us and we’re searching, right? We’re searching to solve that problem that we have, whether it’s pain, whether it’s coping with something, whether it’s a distraction or something that’s easier than what we currently have. And if you do have a positive community around you to showcase those healthy things, healthy ways to cope healthy ways to think. You have coping skills that you’re practicing that you can go to when you do have that moment or those pain or those trauma in your life that you have those positive experiences to lean on to as well think that.

The confidence is the big thing because if you see all this outside stuff, but you’re not confident in your own ability to do it, you have to either trust that this, like, they’re making a good case that this shortcut is gonna help you and it’s easier. So if you don’t have confidence in yourself to solve the problem another way, you’ll go with that one. But if you develop the confidence in who you are, that you can solve any problems, then when you face a challenge, you break through that instead of breaking down, like there’s that mindset. It grows your body, it grows your brain, it grows your potential and you see amazing things happen. And you know this better than anybody too with like just the power of the human brain, that sense of belief and the confidence that comes from it can lead to incredible things. And so while you were kind of explaining that, I was wondering this question and I’ll hold it in case you had a thought you wanted to share, but my question was, is there a way to help students with long-term thinking before their frontal lobe is fully developed? Can we quicken long-term thinking because I think that’s going to enhance coping skills, community, and confidence. Is that possible with the human brain?

Building Confidence, Coping Skills, and Community

So that’s a really good question. There’s some limits to the biology, certainly, but I think we can work with it. I love that model though, confidence, coping skills and community. gonna have to, I don’t know if you can send me where that came from originally, but I really appreciate it when folks have frames where you can distill complex ideas, because we can get so caught up in details into something that just resonates and feels like it’s got that like truthy vibe to it where you’re like, yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense. That that, because then, you you’ve got a kid who runs into a situation where you’ve got this substance around and there’s, know, why would they do that? Right? Like that doesn’t fit with their identity. They care about their bodies. They don’t need to use it to solve a problem. Maybe not socially, not emotionally. Right. So there’s always going to be some percentage who make that choice or who fall into a use disorder. you can get that percentage very, very low.

I have a lot lower than it is right now, that’s for sure. know what, I will come, I don’t wanna dodge your question about long-term thinking, but I wanted to actually, if you don’t mind, I want to throw this thing back your way about confidence, because while you were talking, in my mind, I was thinking about where, so how do we create systems for kids to gain in confidence? That’s where my mind, so my theory on confidence, the way that I think about confidence is that, confidence, self-efficacy, know, like however you want to, whatever word we want to use. It comes from experiences. You find that like you either put your mind towards a problem or you’re thinking about something, you apply yourself and you see that your expectations equal outcome or success. Like when I work for something, I can get it done. Or I have a belief about something and then I check it with reality and it’s right. Or, you know, I don’t have to be right about everything, but I start to trust my gut.

And I think where we run into trouble is that sometimes the world just isn’t operating that way. know, like people might be in a situation where they don’t have a lot of parental support. They’re living in a rough neighborhood where they’re walking home and they see just like really violent, disturbing things. know, there’s kids, or sometimes it’s just as mundane as like you’ve got a kid who wants to feel really good about themselves, but they come home at the end of the day and their parents are still totally occupied with work, they’re not there, they’re in their phones, no one’s really celebrating them or paying attention to them. And so you’ve got this unmet emotional need, even the parents might think they’re doing a perfect job, and it’s not to say that they’re not doing a lot of things right, there’s that emotional need that goes unmet. I think that scenario happens a lot in what we it, like middle-class suburban life.

So how do we foster that confidence? I mean, I’d love to get your take on it because I know you’re working with kids and doing this a lot. Like how do we create systems for confidence building when there’s so much that might be out of our individual control?

The Role of Caring Adults in Youth Development

Yeah, well, one of the number one protective factors is one caring adult. And I don’t want to minimize the extra things that go on in someone’s life. Like if you’re from a circumstances where you have a lot of maybe negative circumstances and things that you’re trying to overcome, is we need to stack those positives too. Because like you said is, hey, you know what? I want to be confident. So I’m a student in school. I’m involved in music.

I’m in sports. Great. Those are like positive childhood experiences. I’m building confidence in doing that. I have friends that think that I’m fun or funny and smart and maybe my parents do. Like those are all great things so we can stack those up and those are going to build confidence. And at the same time, those ACEs or adverse childhood experiences are going to diminish that number. And I like to view it as there’s like a ladder.

We’re balancing our student on a ladder and it’s going up and there’s a door in the middle that’s like, we want them to go through this door because when they open it, there’s opportunity, there’s success, there’s brilliance, there’s purpose, there’s value that they’re going to create throughout the world. But on one side, there’s all those aces and those negative experiences that are trying to pull them to the other door that leads to addiction and consumerism and, you know, escapism and all these things. And on the other side, we’ve got a team of people that are doing the positive childhood experiences and they’re pulling to build confidence and getting them involved in after school programs. They’re telling them, hey, you’re amazing. You can overcome these things for every negative thought that enters their mind. They’re pushing in five positives and they’re pulling that ladder back towards that good one that we want them in. But in some circumstances, we have more people on that negative side and we really have to work hard wish there was like this easy answer, but if I think of the most powerful one that I’ve seen, like life transformation, it is number one, having that caring adult in your life, that supportive friend group. And then, I mean, it’s gonna sound cliche because like I’m a Christian, but I have not seen transformation.

Like I’ve seen when someone discovers their purpose and identity in Jesus Christ, it is like miracles happen. Whether you are in addiction or not, it’s like unmistakably present. It’s there. And so when I think about all those things, a lot of ways that you get those things is by the guidance from someone you care about who’s a little more seasoned than you and who’s really investing in you. So I think families, families is a big one.

Experiential Learning and Long-Term Thinking

Yeah, well, and I love, so one thing that really stuck out to me about your response there, and this actually brings us back to this question about how do you work towards longer term thinking even at a younger age, is that you can stack positives. Even if you’re in a situation where you have negatives and there’s certain parts about your life that you can’t control, there often are strengths and resources and options, particularly, probably, the folks listening to this might be wondering, like, how do I positively influence the life of the kids that I’m around, in whatever context? There probably is a way, you know, and if that’s your mindset, you can be one of those positive adults, or you can create that experience. And getting back to then this idea of how do we build long-term thinking? So I don’t know if there’s, again, like a workaround not having a fully developed prefrontal cortex where that long-term thinking happens. But I think that we can still play the hand that we’re dealt and this idea of stacking positives.

Our limbic system, and I talk a lot when I present, I like to use this little picture of a dog driving a car to like represent the human brain. It’s like a dog driving a Tesla where you’ve got the super advanced high-tech car that for me represents the prefrontal cortex, the really high-tech, like most animals don’t have this up here that lets us do all that advanced like long-term planning. But when we’re stressed out, when we’re uncomfortable, you see the activity in that prefrontal cortex decline. And what takes over is our limbic system, the part of the brain with emotions and urges and impulses. And the thing about the limbic system is that it learns from experience. It doesn’t get language, it doesn’t get logic, but it does learn from having something happen and feeling either like a positive feedback or negative feedback from it.

And so for me, what I think about, like how do we prepare kids for this? I think we have to just lead into the tools that we have, which doesn’t mean that you don’t go towards the intellectual route. You they do have a prefrontal cortex. It’s just not entirely developed yet. But I think we just have to speak more to that experiential side and show them like, hey, you can participate in school sports and have a positive outcome. You can be part of a spiritual community and that can feel good. You can do breath work, you know, or meditation and then actually find that like, this was a good experience for you, or you can open up to someone who feels healthy. You can feel powerful in ways that don’t involve hopping on a video game or dealing drugs or bullying somebody, right? And I think that when they have those experiences, that is the most powerful thing for anybody really, but certainly for young people. And that starts to build this working model of the world where even without the fully developed brain, I think that holds, it carries a lot of weight.

Yeah. And now that you say that too, and you explain that kind of the frontal part of your brain, the frontal lobe, and then the limbic system that is more like, yeah, less advanced, right? And it has the urges and the emotions and stuff. And people say we buy, we buy on emotion, not on logic, or we make decisions on that. They even say, you know, cause we had the voting season, like we vote on emotion, stuff like that. And then we use our logic to justify it and, you know, add more data points.

to make ourselves right. And one thing that I remember growing up is my parents were very good at knowing how I was motivated. And I wonder, because I would argue that I was a long-term thinker. I wanted to develop my future from a young age, but a couple things that they did is they were talking about long-term and short-term consequences.

Like they showed me when I was gonna make a decision, like what it looks like short term and long term. So that went in my brain. I saw evidence, like when I had family that was in addiction and they talked about it with me. Hey, this was the short term thing that they got from it. Here’s the long term thing. This is the choice that they made and this is how they’re living now. And what I saw is as a parent, they would encourage me to do certain things by I think using my emotions. Like they would appeal to my short term because they knew even as a kid, I was motivated by money. They’re like, hey Jake, I will give you a dollar if you try this new food or like, you know, a dollar is huge for a kid. You know, I was like, easy. I’ll eat that. Right, yeah, never seen that before. And the new food is broccoli.

But they got me to eat oysters and chicken hearts and a bunch of weird stuff. Yeah, but I think the point was like. As they taught me to try new things like that, that was part of it, right? Is they wanted to emphasize and at one point I was going to quit band. And my dad knew like you’re quitting because of the short term thing like you didn’t get the part you wanted or you don’t feel challenged. But he knew enough that he said, all right, well, Jake.

What if I pay you this semester to be in band? Like it’s your job. You have to do band. Cause he knew that that was a part of like my confidence building and how I showed up at school and where would we feel that time if I wasn’t practicing and doing that stuff. So I almost wonder if thinking about my, my front of my brain wasn’t developed yet. So, all right, parents, can we be that front part of the brain right now or one caring adult? Can we help them make decisions with that front part? Explain it, help them learn through the process, but also ask How can we stimulate that other part that wants the impulse, that wants the reward, that wants the dopamine and combine them to have a lesson? Because I’m very grateful that he did that one semester. He didn’t do it every semester, but one semester he’s like, Jake, you know, and it was like 50 bucks or something, but Jake, I’m going to pay you 50 bucks to stay in band this year. And I’m thinking, dang, that’s like two video games. Okay, let’s go. And then talking to my teacher to make sure that “Hey, Jake wanted to quit because he didn’t feel challenged or, yeah, didn’t get to practice the drum set, which is what he really wanted. So can you keep pushing him or like, yeah, give him new challenges?” Because I bet that’s good for the brain too, right? So I don’t know. I don’t know if all that went into his thought process, but as someone who has remained drug free for, you know, 33 years, it’s just one of those things where I’m looking back on what my parents did. And oftentimes I can see it relating to science. like, dang, I don’t know if they did that, but it worked.

Yeah. Well, and I think, so what you’re highlighting, it sounds like they had a really great approach, was that they weren’t treating you like you weren’t capable of reasoning. And you are capable of reasoning, you know, when you’re in your teenage years. But they were also acknowledging the fact that we are governed more, we are very governed by emotion in general, even as adults, like you mentioned, know, like vote with emotion, justify with facts. But even more so as kids, we tend to be moved by emotion.

And like, was actually like, well, while you’re sharing your journey, I was thinking a little bit about mine. so why, why didn’t I fall into that? And I realized actually, and some of it was, some of it was like an intellectual argument, but it wasn’t most of it, you know, and I was thinking about it too. Maybe I just in some ways got lucky that I had a couple of experiences. like, like for me, was very, it was very proximal. It was very short term. I’m speaking about like, smoking, you like I grew up before vaping was a thing. So was like cigarettes or like marijuana, So I have asthma and it used to be pretty bad. And so the idea of putting anything in my lungs other than air really honestly scared me. And so I was like, no, no part of that. So, but that was, that was there and now, right? That was like, if I do this, I’m going to get hurt immediately. Right? So like, I didn’t have to think as deep about that. And to be honest with you on the alcohol front, I had a really unpleasant experience emotionally because there was this kid I grew up down the block from who I really looked up to when I was growing up. maybe like four years older than me or something. But I really looked up to him and I loved hanging out with him. And long story short, he went off to college and just destroyed his life with alcohol. It was really sad actually. And it was so shocking to me to watch that happen. This was an older kid, older boy. I looked up to him. I liked him a lot. He had all sorts of potential and he just flushed it away.

And it was really sad, but I looked at that and I was like, I do not want that to happen to me. But again, that was something where it was right in front of me. And I got this example of like, is a perfect example of what can happen. I don’t think I had even a sip of alcohol outside of any religious connotation until I was like, I didn’t quite make it to 21. I think it was 20 before I even had a drink of any sort, because I looked at what happened to him. And was like, that’s not going to be me.

And there’s other ways I can enjoy myself, you know?

Yeah. And those lessons are so important. And I know that there’s this in prevention, there’s this thought, hey, scare tactics don’t work. And I subscribe to that. But I also know that a scary scenario does work if you have a lot of other positive influences in your life. Like you take a student who’s struggling with everything and then try to scare them into making a good decision. It’s not you’re not actually helping them, but for somebody who grew up as privileged as I did, who had all these resources and help and lived a very cushy Wisconsin life and then add a little bit of scary stuff. It was actually pretty helpful to stay away from that stuff.

Well, I also think, just to hop in really quick, it’s not so much for me, and I agree with you completely, it’s not about scare tactics, but I think reality matters, and sometimes reality is scary. And that’s what, when I talk about the kid I grew up with, that to me was less about scariness, and it was just like, no, I’m seeing this with my own eyes. This is what’s going on. And I think, I just posted my most recent post on LinkedIn yesterday, was I just came across some data about the fact that we are seeing these lowering rates of youth drug use, but we’re not seeing a decrease in overdose rates. And actually the overdose rate for kids, it spiked and it stayed high. And that has to do with fentanyl contamination. And there’s a lot of fentanyl going around. you know, when we tell, if we tell that to children, you know, like we tell that to teens because the DEA chief just said 70 % of the drug supply right now, best to her knowledge is, is contaminated with fentanyl. That’s just reality. You know, like that’s not trying to scare anyone. That’s just like, you gotta know.

You gotta know so that you can try to be safe about it. And I think there’s a place for reality and prevention, even if it’s scary. But I agree with you, it’s not about just trying to scare someone straight. It’s just like, know what’s out there, you know?

Yeah. exactly. Exactly. Cause hopefully the evidence is, Hey, there’s, one path that goes this way and it’s, it’s against my goals and what I want for my future. And there’s hopefully we’re showing there’s another path that’s better. And if you don’t use all this, these substances, here’s the better way to cope, better way to make friends and feel good, have fun and get everything that you want in a life. and that’s all, that’s all part of this big picture that we call prevention and why.

We need so many of us doing this work all over the country. So Dr. Aaron, I want to leave people, number one, I would recommend if anybody’s listening to this, go on LinkedIn and find Aaron Weiner PhD, type that in, follow him because I love seeing all the studies that you post. It’s very fascinating. I learned a lot of the stuff that I learned coming from your feet. So it’s super helpful. Everyone should go on LinkedIn and follow you.

The other thing, will you just kind of share what are some things that you’re doing with coalitions, with schools these days? So if people are like, hey, I want to work with you, what can they do with you this year, you know, into 2025?

Empowering Through Information in Prevention Education

Yeah, but also a lot of what I do is I think a lot similar to you is with education. You know, I do some work with kids. I’m actually going to a high school tomorrow morning, but for the most part, I do much more of my educational work with parents, actually with parents and with adults, really just trying to give folks, empower them with the science behind this so that you can have a conversation about that if it’s useful, but also in terms of from a parenting technique, because I think the family system is so impactful.

Talking about like how do you approach these problems and concerns in ways that aren’t overly confrontational? How do you be emotionally safe when you communicate with your son or daughter so that they feel like they can be open with you and not have that be like a punishment end up, know, particularly about these challenging issues and just trying to to empower through information. think if I had to, that should be like my new slogan is like empower through information, cause that’s what I try to do. So I do webinars, I do in-person talks. I’ve done some Institute days, if there’s any listeners who are on the staff side and you’re talking about what’s going on right now with various substances. So yeah, if you’re interested, drop me a line. WeinerPhD.com or Aaron at WeinerPhD.com is my email. I’m happy to talk with you.

Okay, that’s great. And thank you so much, man, for doing this other episode. We’ll have to make sure maybe we have an annual date we do this, because I think it’s been a couple years since episode six. So just thank you again so much for your time and I’ll get to see you in a week over in Chicago area. So we’ll get to hang out.

Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. We were chatting before the episode. We’ll actually get to like handshake, hug or whatever, the first time meeting in person. So it’ll be great.

Absolutely. And hey, listen for everyone listening. We cannot thank you enough for being in the prevention field. We are in this work with you. So if you need anything, please reach out and keep on the good fight. We’ll see you next Monday for another episode.