021: Part 2: Leading Research on Better Ways to Approach Alcohol & Drug Misuse and Child Custody

February 24, 2025

Maintaining a child’s attachment to a parent with substance abuse issues can be a complex path to navigate. With advice from experts and keeping the child’s best interests first and foremost, parents and courts can successfully co-parent and maintain a healthy parent-child relationship.

This episode of Children First Family Law is part two of Krista’s two-part series on navigating substance misuse issues alongside co-parenting in a divorce situation. While citing the research and expertise of  Dr. Stephanie Tabashnecke, Krista highlights the vulnerability of children in a family law case when a parent is struggling with substance abuse. She shares the underlying causes of this disorder and why understanding it can help both parents cope while keeping the child’s best interests at the forefront of their co-parenting conversations. You’ll hear why relapse is an expected part of struggling with this disorder, the top ten myths surrounding substance abuse, and how disrupting a child’s attachment to a caregiver can impact their lifelong health. Krista explains how to set up a treatment plan that continues communication with the child, the importance of using a trauma-informed approach, and her top ten tips for judges and attorneys handling cases involving parents with substance abuse issues.

Understanding the science at play behind a substance abuse disorder can help guide parents to a solution that benefits parents and child and ensures the child’s needs are met throughout the process. Don’t miss this deep dive into the science and expertise to guide you through the complexities of a substance abuse disorder.

In this episode, you will hear:

  • Leading current thoughts on the nuances of dealing with sobriety issues of parents in family law cases, considering strongly safety of children while balancing attachment needs of children
  • Input from leading experts such as Dr. Stephanie Tabashneck, leading Harvard psychologist and lawyer, who provides background insight to help family court professionals and parents navigate this challenging area 
  • The vulnerability of children in a substance abuse situation and the lines of protection the court and attorneys may invoke
  • Understanding the underlying factors that can trigger a substance abuse disorder and the consensus in the medical and scientific communities to treat them as chronic conditions
  • Relapse is part of a substance abuse disorder, and improper treatment, stress, and unmanaged co-occurring conditions can increase relapse risk
  • Finding strategies to meet the attachment needs of children and avoiding overreaction to relapse
  • The 10 myths surrounding substance abuse and the factors that increase a predisposition to addiction
  • Seeking a dopamine “hit” and the impact substances can have on the dopamine baseline
  • Role of genetics in substance abuse
  • Attachment in children and the impact messaging can have on that attachment, especially as it relates to substance abuse
  • Creating treatment plans that work for families logistically and financially and the components of a good treatment plan
  • The Optimal Parenting Time Decision Tree criteria used by professionals to evaluate optimal parenting time
  • Assessments, testing for alcohol and drug use, and questions to consider
  • Having a plan in place in the event of a relapse with specificity and creating a parent plan for this scenario
  • The impact on child attachment when completely removing a caregiver from their lives and mitigating this issue
  • Using a trauma-informed approach for the parent experiencing substance abuse
  • The top 10 tips for judges and attorneys in cases involving parents with substance abuse

Resources from this Episode

All states have different laws; be sure you are checking out your state laws specifically surrounding divorce. Krista is a licensed attorney in Colorado and Wyoming but is not providing through this podcast legal advice. Please be sure to seek independent legal counsel in your area for your specific situation. 

Follow and Review:

We’d love for you to follow us if you haven’t yet. Click that purple ‘+’ in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.

 

Part 2: Alcohol, Drugs & Other Addictions in Child Custody Podcast Transcript

Krista Nash  00:00

The only progress that we look for in a lot of these cases is total abstinence, and that, really, in the newer research, is being found to not be reasonable. Really, those goals need to be more reachable, and they shouldn’t revolve solely around abstinence. Other important incremental goals can include a decrease in use, changes in frequency of use, a decrease in the potency of the drug used, an increase in safety of use. Open communication, not hiding so openly communicating about the use and acknowledging the challenges.

 

Intro/Outro  00:37

Welcome to the Children First Family Law podcast. Our host, Krista Nash, is an attorney, mediator, parenting coordinator and child advocate with a heart to facilitate conversations about how to help children flourish amidst the broken area of family law. As a child advocate in demand for her expertise throughout Colorado and as a speaker on these issues at a national level, Krista is passionate about facilitating and creatively finding solutions to approach family law matters in a way that truly focuses on the best interests of kids. Please remember this podcast is provided to you for information purposes only. No one on this podcast is representing you or giving you legal advice as always. Please enjoy this episode and be sure to like, subscribe and share the podcast with others you think would benefit from this content.

 

Krista Nash  01:26

Hi everyone. Welcome to today’s episode. I’m going to just say right from the jump that I seem to be quite tongue tied. Today I have started and restarted this episode recording, I think 20 times because I keep just tripping over my words. So I think I’ve decided that I’m not going to stop even if I trip over my words. And you all can just give me a little bit of a pass today if I am not as articulate as perhaps I should be. So my apologies. I don’t know what’s going on with me today. Welcome, though. 

 

Today is the second in a two-part series that I started last episode about substance use and when parents use substances that alter the way that they parent, such as alcohol, marijuana, sometimes other drugs, and how we handle those issues in the family courts. Last time, what we mostly talked about was how traditionally this is approached in courts. This for decades, has been handled in essentially the same way for most courts, most judges, most lawyers. We look at it as we need to go test the person and we need to really stop the parenting time pretty quickly and have a very, very careful route back in terms of parenting time beginning again. And sometimes that can be, I don’t know, maybe this is too big of a word, but quite draconian in the fact that we end up reacting in a way that doesn’t allow children to continue to see that parent as frequently, or sometimes at all. And sometimes we will take little blips that occur in the path forward of a parent in terms of their sobriety journey, for example, and even if they end up having some kind of positive test on a breathalyzer,. For example, even if it’s a small positive we end up reacting in a way or have plans that say that the parenting time is going to end, and it’s going to end immediately, and it will not be continued until the parent stops that behavior completely. And we have an approach that ends up having a sort of very black and white way of looking at it. Now I am not here to say that that doesn’t have its efficacy and reasons why that sometimes is appropriate, and in some cases, it really is. But as I alluded to last time and today, we are going to focus on entirely a whole new body of research, and leading authors and psychologists and people who study the these issues are moving in a direction that allows for more nuances in the approach to how we handle these parents and these cases, so that we both treat and deal with the addictive behaviors, but we also do so reasonably in a way that does not as much as possible, at least, does not break the attachment needs of children. 

 

Okay, so with that, I want to share with you that I am unfortunate there’s a positive and a negative here. The bad news, first bad news is that the person I really wanted to interview for this podcast will not do podcasts because she works in forensic psychology, in a way that she just has an essentially a perspective that she won’t be on podcasts. But the good news is she was willing to do a lot of background work with me, and so a lot of what I’m bringing you is from her research and work and from the conversation that I’ve been able to have with her, directly. In getting some insight from her and emailing with her to be able to inform what I’m bringing you. Her name is Dr. Stephanie Tabashneck, and I will link to her work and her website and things about her on my show notes and also on my website, so you can see her background and get more information if you would like. But I will just give you some background. So you know the credentials of the person who’s informing this episode the most and this way of thinking, I think the most. 

 

She is a PsyD, which is a doctorate in psychology, and a JD, a lawyer. She is a Senior Fellow in Law and Applied Neuroscience. It’s the PetrieFlom Center and the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior at Mass General Hospital at Harvard Medical School. So quite credentialed. I love if you go look at the website about her, they talk about her as an interpreter between two fields, which I think is just so tremendously important, because she serves as somebody who is a psychologist, and can talk to other psychologists about, you know, and really get into the research on what is happening in these fields. She can also talk to help lawyers understand how psychologists think. But also the reverse, because she also is an attorney, she can really understand what attorneys need to understand this. And so I think she’s become really a leading voice in helping bridge those two disciplines, which is so important for putting children first. 

 

She did write a really important handbook, I’d say, I guess I’d call it, that she actually has made available to family law practitioners, and really anyone for free, which is just outstanding, and I think really, absolutely demonstrates her commitment to trying to do what’s best for children, more professionals should try to do that. She also is, for those of us who were at the Family Law Institute in Colorado, which is our big conference that we have as family law practitioners, which we held last August in 2024, she was our keynote speaker, and spoke in such a honestly, light-hearted, funny, wonderful speaking way about this very hard topic, and I think, really challenged us to think differently and more dynamically and in more like I said, a more nuanced way about how we should handle these very, very difficult cases. And so again, I thank you, Dr. Tabashneckfor your work with attorneys and across the country and with psychologists and with me directly. Thank you for being so generous with your time for my little podcast to bring this information to whomever might be listening from my channel. So thank you so much for that. 

 

Now with that, I will explain that the first thing I’m going to do is go through a little bit of background on kind of how we should think about these. And I am going to be talking about and again, this isn’t just about alcohol, and it isn’t just about marijuana, although alcohol is by far the one that we see the most in family courts. It’s really the one we see the most in terms of being a challenge and so but this really involves really kind of any addiction level. I will also note there are other addictions that don’t affect as directly or as obviously the parenting time capacity, in terms of being in self control and not having your faculties affected quite so directly. And so I’m not talking about every kind of addiction here, although I think there are applications, you know, for other addictions as well. All right, so really, what happens here is that it can be very unclear to attorneys and judges and even to parents how to proceed when we have substance use questions that are brought to the court, and we do have a lot of uncertainty around that. We don’t know if the parent necessarily is still using the substances, or when the parent last used the substances. If the parent is in recovery or claims to be in recovery, how long has that recovery been occurring. We often have problems where one parent has, during the marriage or the relationship, done a lot of documentation, or at least even if they didn’t document, it has a lot of narrative about the concerns that that parent has seen of the other parent’s use of substances. You know, you can just understand that would be a parent saying, Wow, my spouse drinks like crazy. You know, there’s always 12 beer cans in the recycling bin. Or, I know that she drinks a bottle of wine every single night, or two bottles of wine every single night. You know, whatever the thing that the other parent is saying now gets a little more, even more dicey when you now have parents in different homes, and now we don’t really know what that other parent is doing, we just have a lot of suspicion and uncertainty based on previous behavior. So even if the person is in recovery, will that parent relapse? Will that happen in front of the child, or when the parent needs to be driving the child, caring for the child, things like that. Certainly we ask questions of, how can we be sure that we’re protecting a child? Obviously. A lot of what we are concerned about is dependent on the child’s age. Are we dealing with infants? Are we dealing with toddlers? Are we dealing with children who can protect themselves at all? Or how vulnerable are they not that all children are not vulnerable? Of course, there is a degree of vulnerability for all children, but certainly when kids are younger and unable to really articulate what’s going on and unable to protect themselves from that kind of situation, then we have more concern. What if the child wants to return home and isn’t able to return home? You know, what are we supposed to do with that child? How soon should we be encouraging visits? And what are those lines of protection I will share here. I have one of the first things that Dr.Tabashneck mentioned to me when we spoke, and I think she mentioned this when she spoke to our lawyers at the conference, is this book, which I’m going to hold up here on the video, and I will post onto my I’ll post a link to it. It’s called Beyond Addiction. It’s a guide for families, how science and kindness help people change. I’ve reached out to these people as well to see if I can get them to participate on this podcast, so we’ll see. I don’t make any promises on that, but these people generally work at a place called the Center for Motivation and Change. One of the authors is a former psychologist for the New York Mets, and is Executive Director of the Center for Motivation and Change, which is a residential facility in the Berkshires in New York. I think that’s in New York. And then others also work there, and they are really trying to speak and write and treat in a way that is more effective. They cover both substance use problems and compulsive behaviors. Dr. Wilkins is one of the authors, and she is highly regarded for her work with the media and sharing this information very widely. And then there’s a couple other people who are involved in writing this book, so I’ve tried to reach out to them. I don’t know if they’ll respond yet or if they will participate, but this is a book that is widely referred to that I think can really help people have some insight. You can see, I’ve read it, and I’ve been highlighting it and trying to use it to inform my own practice, so that I am understanding, and I think that’s something all professionals should be doing. I will also link to the pamphlet, or whatever you would call it. It’s a little booklet called substance use and parenting best practices for Family Court practitioners. That’s the document I mentioned before. That was edited by Dr. Tabashneck, and she produced that in a way that is available for free to people, and so I will be hopefully able to provide for you all linked to that. So I do suggest, if you’re working in this area, or even if you’re a parent in this area, that you should go take a look at that and really learn from them. It has chapters on, you know, how does child is, one of the initial pieces of it is what parental substance use disorder and child development, so putting right at the forefront that these issues are intertwined. Another chapter is how children are affected by parental addictions and how to support them. Then we get into supervised visitation crafting, parenting plans in cases involving substance use, medication assisted treatment, drug and alcohol testing and monitoring substance use and commercial sexual exploitation in family court, guardianships of minor children the legal process, Tips for Lawyers in cases involving substance use and judicial perspective on families affected by substance use disorder. So as opposed to what I talked about in my last episode, which was highly focused on the more typical Substance Use Evaluation (SUE) processes and the testing protocols that we go through and the typical parenting time recommendations then flow from that pretty strict treatment plan. You can understand how the chapters I just read you in Dr.Tabashneck’s work approach it really from at least a slightly different perspective, and putting that child attachment issue more in the forefront. 

 

I will also note though I am going to have Lorraine Bockman, who is a very well renowned Colorado Substance Use Evaluator and does a lot of work in this area. She is going to be on one of my upcoming episodes, so she will help us understand a little bit more, from her perspective, how it’s actually working out in the field. At this point, I do think it’s interesting that Dr. Tabashneck shares that one in seven people will develop a substance use disorder at some point in their lives. And you know, this is for a variety of reasons, right? I mean, some of this we saw really spike up after we had the Coronavirus. The pandemic, people were isolated. There was social stress, financial stress, employment related stress worries, and then you add on all this family stress, so we have a lot of that is affecting and then we also have genetic proclivities toward such things, and all of the various types of stress that come forward with divorce and parental conflict that really can lead to this as well. In my last episode, I went through what a substance use disorder is based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. That’s the DSM-5that you often hear about, and I have linked to that in my last episode, and I talked pretty extensively about what those different criteria are. So  go back and check that out, but it’s important to understand, you know, that there is a way to look at this to be able to diagnose whether somebody has substance use disorders, and that’s in that DSM-5. I would also say that there is consensus in the medical and scientific communities that substance use disorders really should be treated like other chronic conditions like asthma or diabetes or heart disease.here are issues with chemicals and receptors in the brain, and researchers have shown that, yes, there is a genetic component, and it isn’t just that the person isn’t trying hard enough, okay. In our family courts, we see that a lot, and we see that thrown around a lot, that it isn’t treated in such a disease way. And I have trouble with this as well, because it’s really easy to just say, you know, don’t do it, don’t drink, don’t use drugs. You know, why does this person keep going back to that? And I’m going to talk more today about some of the research that helps explain some of those things, but I do think it is important that we understand that even if we sort of colloquially want to say that somebody’s just weak or, you know, doesn’t have it together and just doesn’t have enough, willpower or whatever to stop drinking or stop using marijuana or something like that. I do think that we can see that there is really consensus that we do need to treat these substance use disorders like other chronic conditions, and there are some key principles that we really fail to address well and pretty much don’t address at all in most family law cases, except for really with a hammer instead of any kind of nuance. And those key principles are that, first of all, relapse is often a part of substance use disorder.econdly, improper treatment stress and unmanaged co-occurring conditions like mental health disorders and things like that can really increase that relapse risk. And so part of what Dr. Tabashneck and her peers are advocating for in a more nuanced and child centered approach to the way we handle this in family courts is that we really need to write into our plans the expectation that relapse is going to occur, and come up with strategies that meet the attachment needs for children, while also dealing with that expected relapse and reacting, but not overreacting and not reacting, even in some situations that really aren’t warranting reacting. 

 

So we’ll get into more detail about that, I will say that Dr. Tabashneck also shares that there are some pretty serious myths that I think if you’re a parent, particularly a protective parent going through this, who are worried about the  co-parent. And these are things I think practitioners really need to continue to think about as they practice, and have a real high responsibility in this landscape to advise their clients well on this. So the myths that Dr. Tabashneck presents are, there’s 10 of them. 

 

  1. First of all, all people who use drugs are addicted. 
  2. Secondly, that people addicted to drugs use drugs to get high. 
  3. Three, that people who use drugs can quit whenever they want. And by the way, drugs include alcohol, okay, in this and throughout my conversation, and throughout, really, the industry of what we’re speaking of when we talk about substance use. 
  4. Four, that people need to hit rock bottom to get treatment. 
  5. Five, that people need to want treatment for it to work. 
  6. Six, people need to 100% abstain from drug use to get treatment. 
  7. Seven, that interventions are the best method to get a person into treatment. 
  8. Eight, that treatment should only need to happen once. 
  9. Nine, that people who are addicted to drugs are bad, weak people, and that their relapse would be a personal moral failure, that they’re not trying hard enough. 
  10. 10, that a person must have insight into their substance use problem to make progress. 

 

Okay? So I think those are really challenging, right? I mean, and I think if you don’t understand those or those are jarring to you, you should be doing more work, especially reading, for example, this Beyond Addiction book and other work that I’m going to provide on my show, links and things to really start looking into this, because the only progress that we look for in a lot of these cases is total abstinence, and that, really in the newer research, is being found to not be reasonable, really, that goals need to be more more reachable. They shouldn’t revolve solely around abstinence; other important incremental goals can include a decrease in use, changes in frequency of use, a decrease in the potency of the drug used, an increase in safety of use. Open communication, not hiding so openly communicating about the use and acknowledging the challenges. So those are ways to really challenge us all to think about some of the ways we could reflect really on our really hardcore plans that just cut off parents when they have any type of misstep, which is really the typical thing we do for a lot of parents in a lot of cases. 

 

All right. So next, I think you need to understand and Dr. Tabashneck and her peers emphasize that it’s important to understand that substance use disorder risk factors for an individual involve genetics and early use of substances. And I’ve referred to this before in my podcast, and it’s a very important theme throughout my podcast. The Aces. First of all, it’s a study that was done quite a long time ago about adverse childhood experiences. But it also has, and that’s what it stands for, Adverse Childhood Experiences. It also has become, in addition to just what that study found, a way that we in the field and in the field of psychology, discuss the entire sort of body of work around adverse childhood experiences, and I am going to be doing podcast episodes about that specifically. But having those Adverse Childhood Experiences make you more susceptible to having those substance use disorders in your own life as you go into adulthood, and so you know, those are abuse and neglect, physical neglect, emotional neglect, certainly sexual abuse, things where you’ve had a divorce in your family and things like that. Those are all things that can indicate that you’ve got a higher risk. Because those are some of The Aces. Also, it’s important for us to understand, if you’re really looking into this, the Neuroscience of Addiction and the Neurobiological effects of addicted substances. And this is something that Dr. Tabashneck really is a specialist in. And so when she gives background on this, or speaks on this, it is very important for those of us who are trying to understand this better to really understand how the brain works. And so I will be providing links so that you can go find more information on this, on my site and on the podcast. I keep saying that, but I will explain that when someone uses a substance, that substance floods the brain’s reward system with dopamine, okay, and then in the early stages of addiction, it produces feelings of euphoria and pleasure. Anyone who’s tried any kind of drug or alcohol can relate to that initial feeling that somebody who isn’t in a substance disorder problem may have that kind of euphoria and pleasure reactions from that and then the brain responds by producing less dopamine or decreasing the dopamine receptors, and that there is where we have the challenge, because we become desensitized, basically to dopamine, and we need more dopamine to get the same or anywhere close to the same result. So when we have these dopamine changes, or dopamine receptors change, and we’re producing less dopamine because of the substances our body’s reacting to then this is just your basic neurobiology. Now I am not a neurobiologist, but these researchers are, and they have a lot of insight into why substance use disorders impact functioning, and it’s based on how our brains work. And so this reward circuit that we have produces all these cravings, and it blunts pleasure in areas of people’s lives, basically because they’ve messed their brains up, I think, is like the easiest, most non-scientific way to say it. It’s just that the use of this substance becomes more satisfying than anything else, more satisfying than experiences that would typically be considered to be providing pleasure in one’s life, and it also suppresses this reaction of our brain, suppresses our traditional reward system like aregiving for our children, or reacting to the smile of a child, or doing a good job at work, or having joy in other areas of our life. So we are changing our brains to react differently to those sorts of things that without the substance we would normally have a better reaction to. Frankly, Dr. Tabashneck’s work shares that, I think she gets this from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, that there are various activities that can cause the brain to release more dopamine than usual. So for example, enjoying food brings a 50% boost to dopamine levels in the brain. Video games increase dopamine. Sex increases dopamine, and drug use and alcohol use. Again, I’m using those interchangeably. Significantly increases dopamine, and so it’s really not reasonable, then, to equate though, the use of the dopamine release from playing a video game to that of using drugs. So for example, if your baseline is 100% okay, and by eating food that you enjoy, you go to 150% maybe with video games, it’s 175% maybe sex is 200%, cocaine, then would be potentially 450% amphetamines, 1,000% and methamphetamines, 1300% so you can see that drugs can really mess with your dopamine levels. So normally you have this baseline, and then you have a rewarding event that gives you a dopamine hit, basically, and then you go back to baseline. The problem with addiction is that we have a shifted baseline, and then we have less than effect from a rewarding event, and then we have a potential crash coming. And so those are pieces that really the understanding that this is affecting the brain, and I realize I’m giving a very rudimentary explanation, and I’m not able to describe it very well, but just understanding that our brains have chemically changed from this in a way that makes it so we genuinely have something going on in our bodies that needs to be addressed. 

 

It’s also interesting, Dr. Tabashneckshares that fetal brain scans of those who go on to have a substance use disorder show low dopamine d2, receptors as well in the brain. And so that’s also interesting is that there’s something genetic going on here as well. I find it really interesting that these d2 receptors can be really decreased by addiction. And there’s a lot of studies that have been done that have been published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse that show the availability of a control brain in terms of dopamine receptors versus an addicted brain. And there are scans that can show what areas of the brain are affected and lit up from that, and we can see that there are actual brain changes that occur from the use of alcohol or meth or cocaine or heroin. Those are worse brain changes than others. But the good news in this is that most individuals with a substance use disorder get better and reach prolonged recovery. And they show this also through brain scans that show from examples, for example, from a source called Facing Addiction in America, the Surgeon General’s report on alcohol, drugs and health, and it gives an example of a comparison subject, and then the brain scan a month after cocaine use. then four months after cocaine use, and it shows that the dopamine receptors can improve, okay, so that recovery is possible. 

 

here’s also sites to the Journal of Neuroscience, for example, that show a healthy person versus meth users for one month and then 14 months of abstinence. And you know the comparison that after 14 months of abstinence, that brain looks a lot closer to the healthy person and is getting better. So that should give us some hope as well. Also, when we look at epigenetics and the way our genetics play into this, there are also some positive things to think about regarding aspects of recovery that our gene expression can change over time, and that gives us hope for addictive behaviors and addictions generally as well. 

 

So next, it’s important that we look into neuroscience involving the attachment of children. Okay, because this is the piece that we tend to miss, we’ll say in family courts, oh, well, the kids will miss their parent, or the risks of alcohol or drugs involved with a parent are going to be too great, and we just won’t worry as much about the attachment impacts from maybe to extreme reactions to some of the alcohol and drug recommendations in terms of how we handle these situations. So let’s talk about attachment a little bit. These sites are from things like the Early Childhood Research Quarterly and the London Journal of Primary Care, but they are things that are really important to think about. So for example, unnecessary changes in caregivers that occur between birth and age five, which we call the Zone of Attachment, are toxic to children’s development. Okay, so that’s pretty frightening across the board, in terms of an adverse childhood experience of divorce itself when we have kids between birth and age five, and the way that we change the caregivers around it really can very much affect these children, which is true whether we’re talking about addictions or just other people. It doesn’t have to be an addiction issue. So think about that as well. Also with each caregiver change, there is an increased risk of disruption to developmental tasks that. Children should be able to expect, and those things develop through the relationship between the caregiver and the child. So essentially, kids are learning developmental tasks, and they learn those best without caregiver changes. Also with these increased change in caregivers during this zone of attachment between birth and age five, there are increases in risks of poor outcomes for kids in terms of their emotional well being, their social relationships, their cognitive development, their school and learning outcomes, their medical conditions and internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems. It’s true that these studies show that even medical conditions. I mean, that’s really shocking to parents and to all of us, that a kid could be less healthy, that could have development of more disease in the future based on the problems in the breaks of that attachment. And then really, I think, convicting to all of us in the family court system who have created so much extreme reactions to substance use, where we do these no contact times, where parents go long, long time, kids go long, long time without seeing their caregiver, or have frequent interruptions to it, if there is any type of relapse at all, the research shows that even short periods of no contact can be damaging and disruptive to children. These are attachment issues we need to be thinking about really carefully in all of our family law cases where we go jump to, for example, restricting a parent and don’t come up with the lowest possible obstruction or interruption in a child’s relationship with both parents. Okay, so all of that should really give us all pause. 

 

Dr. Tabashneck also shares that we can use narratives with children that really mitigate the feelings of abandonment in explaining substance use disorder to kids, and that it’s very, very important that parents. I talk about this, and I have on my show a lot, that we need to be team Sarah or team Johnny, Team child, Team children, and that parents need to have consistent messaging about these things to their children. So a father, for example, who might be trying to be protective against a mother’s substance use, or a mother of a father’s substance use, are very likely to go to their children and say, well, daddy’s drinking again, or mommy’s using again, and you know how that goes, and just be very disparaging about it, or not show enough grace and kindness, even though I certainly understand and have seen many, many cases, and seen even in my own extended family and life, that these addictive behaviors can cause so much real damage to people and to relationships, and that the feelings that a co-parent might have about what that other parent is using and doing with substances can have this sort of vile, toxic reaction within the more protective parent, but still understanding well that your behavior and how you address this and speak about it is so very critical to how children perceive and flourish. 

 

Still, despite the substance use, it’s very, very important that your messaging is effective and aligned as a parental team. So I’m going to read this to you as an example that Dr. Tabashneck suggests in a collaborative way, that both parents are saying really the same things to explain substance use disorder to children. Okay, and so this is for dad that has an alcohol use disorder. Here is an example of what one could say to or the parents could say to children. “Dad has an alcohol use disorder. This means he cannot have alcohol or he gets sick. Do you know how Timmy at school cannot have peanuts or he gets sick? Dad can’t have alcohol, but sometimes dad’s brain tells him to have alcohol. It’s kind of like when you have too much dessert or ice cream and get sick. Dad is getting help, and mom and dad love you and are on the same team about supporting dad while he gets help. Everyone needs help. Sometimes you can talk about this with mom or dad or insert whoever you think is a safe person there. There are no secrets. Do you have any questions?” Okay, that’s very, very different than your dad is a drunk and incapable of not drinking, and he doesn’t love you as much as he loves alcohol, which I genuinely hear kids tell me they are told in many, many cases. 

 

Another thing that Dr. Tabashneck emphasizes is that we shouldn’t be so hard to judge Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT), which is known in literature,  MATs are safe and effective treatments for opioid alcohol and nicotine use disorders, and the research also shows that that medication assisted treatment mitigates cravings and reduces withdrawal symptoms, and that we shouldn’t put so much stigma on that, because the stigma can really become a barrier to treatment that can be really, really effective. So that’s one tool we should consider for opioid addiction. I think it’s important to know that. That it’s typically very filled with relapses. Okay, so if you have an opioid addiction, you can expect more relapse. The research basically shows that there’s a Harvard review of psychiatry study that basically reflects that less than 25% of people with opioid use disorder who receive abstinence-only counseling will remain in recovery for two years. 40-60% though of people who receive Medication-Assisted Treatment are still in recovery two years later. So promising statistics for use of this medication to help treat and then the treatment protocols. I will say for this medication, use of medication to treat if an early recovery, what they can do is they can go conduct routine drug testing and require counseling like weekly or monthly, dependent on what’s needed as decided by a treatment team, letting a doctor drive medication decisions, not the individual, and not tapering off too early, all of that is found to be more effective. And I would note as well that 50% of users relapse within a month of being weaned from Suboxone, which is one of the typical medicines used. The lower the dose at the time of weaning, the better the outcome. 

 

And then also, Dr. Tabashneck warns that we should be mindful of financial and logistical barriers. We don’t want to create plans that are going to cause so many financial and logistical barriers that a parent is going to fail. And why do we not want to do that? We don’t want to do that because that’s bad for children because of the attachment pieces we talked about previously. Okay, so continuing. 

 

For those of you who are watching, which I realize isn’t very many of you, but those who are watching on YouTube, on the video version of the podcast, you will probably have noticed that there’s a dramatic shift from my earlier portions of this podcast, because the sun has gone down and my first half or so of this podcast has been recorded in a couple different chunks today, early this morning and in between court appearances. And now it is night, and I really want to get this done and get this out to you all, so I have done this in a choppy way today. So for the those that are watching online, that’s what’s going on here, if you’re watching on video. 

 

So I’m going to just continue with where we left off, which is continuing to discuss what a good treatment plan actually looks like. And so the things that need to be thought about in this category are things like support if relapse and recurrence occur, incentives for the user of the substance to be transparent, individual therapy, scheduled drug and alcohol testing, or alcohol testing, if feasible. For some people, we need, for example, some treatment programs with integrated treatment for mental health and substance use disorder. There’s also individual support, peer groups, and it’s not always AA or NA, Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. Other options are out there, including smart recovery, mindfulness-based groups and things like that. It’s important that the individual decides what’s helpful to that person and has a voice in that. And it’s also important that treatment is immediately available. We want to sort of strike while the iron is hot, because motivation can wax and wane for people regarding trying to be open, or being open to the type of treatment that is out there, that can rise and fall based on the timing of the case and the situation of the parent. 

 

And then we already talked about Medication-Assisted Treatment, which is another important thing to think about. This book I’ve been talking about, Beyond Addiction and a lot of this research, and also Dr. Tabashneck’s work discusses a lot that treatment for people with substance use disorders is most effective when family or loved ones are included. And so consider that there’s a lot that we can learn about addressing systems like there’s a couple different types of interventions that are able to address it, through family therapy and through loved ones being involved, and there’s a few different types of those. 

 

So for example, there’s something called Multidimensional Family Therapy, and that addresses systems, including the person who has a substance use disorder, the parent, family and larger systems such as school and the community. 

 

There’s another called Brief Strategic Family Therapy, which focuses on addressing and changing negative interpersonal interactions within the family. 

 

There’s also family Behavior Therapy, which uses contingency management and behavioral contracts. So those are all things to consider. There’s also something called CRAFT, which is Community Reinforcement And Family Training, and that is family-based intervention that increases the level of engagement for those with a substance use disorder with goals of improving the quality of life. Life and the functioning of the concerned person, reducing the individual substance use and increasing engagement of the loved one in treatment and support. And I will be citing much of this comes from Dr. Tabashneck’s next work and presentation at the Family Law Institute, but I will be citing the citations that she cites, and some others that I have found on my own in the show notes and on my website. So if you are in this situation and want more information, you can certainly go take a look at the various research in more detail. Also, there are emerging treatments that could perhaps help the future of addiction treatment, and those involve things like the use of LSD, ketamine, CBD, and a whole host of other things that are hard to pronounce, frankly.I might butcher them, but there’s Ibogaine and Ayahuasca. I’m sure I’m not saying that, right? And psilocybin is another one, and there is an emerging body of research that indicates that psychedelics might improve symptoms of substance use disorders and mental health. And like I said, with CBD, that’s showing some promise as well, according to the research. Again, I think it’s just important that we recognize through all of this that there is a lot of complexity to this, and there are a lot of things we need to be thinking about, and it’s not as black and white as the courts often treat it in our typical approaches. So that’s why this is such an important conversation and area of research. 

 

Other considerations to think about are to focus on short term goals and swift consequences. It’s interesting to say that the average non-addicted person’s perception of what we would say is the future. So what do you think when you’re thinking what the future is? A non addict will think about the future as 4.7 years away, but the average perception of the future for an addicted person, research shows, is just nine days. That’s a pretty striking difference, obviously, and so having short term goals and swift consequences is very important. So when we have these cases that need to be delicately handled, when substance use is an issue, there are some other tools that we can consider. And I will be producing a chart that was produced essentially during a mega analysis called Optimal Parenting Time Decision Tree based upon shared parenting mega analysis, which was at the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts in Toronto in 2014 presented by Leslie Droz. I’m not sure I’m saying her name right. Dr. Droz, it’s D, R, O, Z,  and Dr. Oelsen, Nancy Olson, O, L, E, S, E, N.   And our own, I will finally say, since he’s been a podcast guest, Dr, Michael Saini.nd so these three people did this presentation and created this Optimal Parenting Time Decision Tree. I’ll link that separately on my show notes so that you can take a look at this. But all professionals, judges, lawyers, Substance Use Evaluators and parents and therapists need to be thinking about this sort of decision tree, and I will talk you through it, in case you’re not looking at it. 

 

So essentially, at the top, we have a bubble that asks, what is the optimal parenting time that the child should spend with each parent? And then we have a row of columns, basically, and I’ll just go through each one. So first we look at safety issues. We look at child abuse, neglect, physical abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse. We look at intimate partner violence and substance misuse and abuse. Okay? So obviously safety issues are paramount, and we have to be sure that we are meeting those needs. Next we look at the child’s strengths and weaknesses  the child’s adjustment and resiliency, the child’s temperament, the child’s perspective and wishes, and the child’s age and stage of development. I would add that we’ve got sibling interactions. Then we have to consider that as well. That does go into the third category on this decision tree, that is about the child’s relationship. So it’s the child’s historical relationship with each parent, the child’s current relationship with each parent, the sibling relationships, which is what I was just commenting upon, that we have to consider sometimes we have one child who’s presenting quite differently than others in various ages and stages and maturity levels, depending on the sibling group of that family, and we have to consider that the child’s relationships with extended family and the child’s relationships with peer networks, fourthly. So again, we have safety issues, the child’s strengths and weaknesses, the child’s relationships. The fourth is mother’s and fathers’ mental stability and capacity. So that involves the mental stability of both parents, the parent capacity, and the things we think about parent capacity are the parents attunement to the child and to the situation, the ability to be nurturing. Nurturance, the ability to be protective, show protection, the ability to teach, the ability to promote child separate and unique needs. And I would indicate that’s true across sibling groups as well. So it’s not just one need that’s met, it’s the separate and unique needs of each child and the children as a child as a group also within the parents mental stability and capacity, we would have the consideration of parent problems that might exist. Maybe parents are hyper-vigilant or intrusive, maybe they’re too lax or too rigid, maybe they’re self-centered or enmeshed. There’s a variety of things that can come into play here regarding the parent’s mental stability and capacity. 

 

Next, the fifth category is mother’s and father’s relationship, their communication, whether either or both are doing gatekeeping, and whether that is adaptive or maladaptive, facilitative, restrictive or protective, and whether the parent supports the other parents autonomy as a parent. And then lastly, or I guess this is the sixth thing, is logistics. What is the distance and time between homes, the proximity of the child’s educational and social networks, the degree of synchronicity of the parents calendars, religious and holiday schedules, exchanges, where they do them, when they are and the transition of the child’s items. 

 

Okay, so that’s what that decision tree looks like. And then we need to consider, when we look at biases, alliances and polarization, which is something that comes up a lot in these cases, it’s very important to recognize that sometimes what people’s conclusions are as to how something is presenting is based on where they’re postured in terms of their view. And so Dr. Tabashneck uses a picture of an elephant, a huge elephant with people around it, and the person who is looking only at the elephant’s tusk yells out, it’s a spear. And the person who’s looking way up at a part of the ear of the elephant says it’s a fan. A person who is looking underneath just at the end of the trunk, says it’s a snake. The person looking at the elephant’s leg says it’s a tree. The person looking at the side of the elephant standing on the ladder says it’s a wall, and the person looking at the tail says it’s a rope. So you can see that, you know, that’s a little bit of a, you know, silly way to look at it, but it does make the point that there are different ways and different contributions to how we label things. And there’s a real big problem in family law, with the over emphasis on labeling things, you know, even saying parental alienation, it’s something that has very specific factors in it. And everybody use, I It’s almost no cases that I got come on to as a child’s legal representative where parents aren’t yelling about alienation and claiming it’s alienation and it’s, you know, it’s a very specific thing, and sometimes it does exist, but very frequently it’s not the only thing that exists, or there might be elements of it. It might be some kind of combination of things. So it is very important to think about that. 

 

Next we will talk a little bit about assessments and questions to think about regarding testing of a parent for drug and alcohol use, and also self-reporting measures, and whether or not you know what to think about regarding the self-reporting issue. So there’s some questions to think about, and this all cite. It’s from Dr. Tabashneck, and also from Leslie Drozd, from November 2, 2023, work that they did. And again, forgive me if I am mispronouncing that other name. 

 

So questions to think about are as follows, what data points do you have about the parents, substance misuse? Where is the information coming from? Where is it originating? What data points are missing. What other information is needed? Is the substance use occurring during parenting time? If the substance use is occurring during parenting time, is the use impairing the parent’s ability to care for the child? And that might sound like a ridiculous question, but there certainly are cases where it really isn’t impairing the parents ability to care for the child next. Does the substance use carry an elevated risk of overdose, or is the substance potentially lethal? For example, fentanyl? Next, what is the current and that is emphasized, the current direct harm to the child, given the child’s age, vulnerabilities and developmental needs, and within that, we want to think about the child’s emotional status, for example. Is there unpredictability, failure to adhere to a schedule, inattentiveness, non responsiveness to the child’s needs? Is there going to be emotional harm? Is there going to be physical harm, like inadequate shelter, clothing, food, medical next? Is there going to be. Safety, harm, driving under the influence, physical violence, second hand exposure to the substance, failure to monitor the child and protect the child from harm and other harm, failure to take the child to school, for example, or to be late all the time, extracurricular activities that being missed or disengaged in those failure to go to medical appointments or get the right care for child that way, and modeling of non pro social behaviors, that that kind of behavior from a parent exhibiting that sort of non pro social behavior could cause current direct harm to the child, depending on their age, vulnerabilities and developmental needs. 

 

Next, and this is a sobering question sometimes, but one that should be asked. What is the worst case scenario? direct harm to the child, and what is the most likely direct harm to the child, which is different from the worst case scenario direct harm to the child. And we have to come in and really establish a nexus about how the nature of this parent’s substance use impacts this specific child based on this child’s age development and unique needs. And one of the problems, I think it is fair to say, with the old way of doing Substance Use Evaluations, and not just that, but just thinking about this in court and thinking about it in terms of what we do to try to address this need in family court is we tend to use a cookie cutter approach, and not look at this parent’s substance use and the impact on this specific child, and looking at it with the goal of and so that’s something we really need to watch out for. 

 

We also need to clarify the nature of the parent substance use. This is very important. Is it that the parent is having active use without any regard to consequences? It’s more common that there are long periods of abstinence. Is that something that we’re seeing with this parent, is substance use prioritized over family responsibilities? Is it prioritized over work and other obligations? What kind of harm reduction strategies are there so for example, or, and let me backup, what kind of harm reduction strategies is the person already inherently doing so, for example, does the parent use less when with the child? Does the parent call someone else and give the child over to a family member if he or she has been drinking or using marijuana or something of that nature. Does the parent try to be careful about use? For example, only using when the children are at school or with the other parent, or when the child is not in the home. Those are harm reduction strategies that should be considered when we’re measuring what to do next. And importantly, we really do need to adjust the way we do things based on what this specific family needs I mentioned earlier. And this is one of the big things that gets left out of most of our substance use approach in our typical ways that it’s handled in family cases, and it is that there is really no serious consideration that relapse will occur, and what we’re going to do other than just hammer this parent with a restriction motion or something that would cause an immediate ceasing of all parenting time and long gaps when the child would see the parent. And so these psychologists who are working in this area talk about the need to have a relapse plan, or a quote still using plan, and emphasize that there absolutely must be a plan for if, or more likely when the parent relapses, and we need to determine the level of intervention needed and who decides. So it’s important that in the planning that the court does or that the parents do together, there has to be spelled out what this will look like. And so this can be the parent consulting with the treatment team, like therapists, physicians, a sober coach, a drug counselor. Specify who those people are to determine the level of treatment intervention that is appropriate. Again, it’s not one-size-fits-all situation. I will say that most Substance Use Evaluations that I’ve seen do have a pretty routine set of expectations, or even child custody evaluations that include substance use recommendations, even though they are very specific in their data collection, they and in their narrative. The good ones are at least about how to handle this. They end up with, usually, often pretty similar recommendations that don’t seem to be as nuanced as these researchers are indicating it should be. 

 

So I’ll give you some specifics on this, some ideas, so we need to determine options ahead of time. So some suggestions for language would be this, okay, so, like, I’m going to give you a few examples. Specifically, I’m going to give you three examples. So one, language in the agreement or the stipulation or the order, could say this. So number one, if an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) is recommended, then the parent will comply with the recommendations of the treatment team and then indicate who those people are, the therapist, physician, sober, coach, drug counselor, if to be specific, and the recommendations of the program. Below is a list of the three options for an Intensive Outpatient Program that the parent has identified as a good fit for his or her needs and preferences, and then that is listed out, and it’s very specific, an Intensive Outpatient Program, for those who don’t know. It’s often referred to as an IOP, and that is something where there, it’s a program that usually different sobriety emphasizing organizations offer, or different hospitals or mental health programs. It’s a focused amount of time where people generally come together and they are kind of doing group work, and some I think it sometimes has individual work, but it’s short of going to rehab. It’s an outpatient program, okay? So that is a lower level intervention than some kind of detox or rehab. So I just wanted to be clear on that. 

 

So secondly, another thing to include potentially in your plan, is in the event of a relapse of extended duration, and if a detox program is recommended, then the parent will remain at the detox program for the duration recommended by the treating physician. And you should also emphasize potentially, whether medically supervised detox is preferred, which it usually is. Below is a list of three options for a detox program that a parent has identified as a good fit for his or her needs and preferences. Thirdly, if an inpatient program is recommended. So again, that’s a heftier intervention to try to go inpatient and get treatment, as opposed to just a detox, which then would probably have a treating physician recommending how long that person needs to be there. And then there would be potentially a secondary step into potentially an IOP or another type of treatment. If an inpatient program is recommended, though, then the parent will comply with the recommendations of the treatment team, again, listing those people out specifically, and the recommendations of the program. 

 

Below is a list of three options for inpatient programs and the insurance issues around these things. We need to troubleshoot them ahead of time so that we’re not scrambling when this happens, and it’s very clear and very outlined, and there aren’t arguments then about whether a facility or a treatment place is going to be effective or not, whether it can be afforded and things like that. Also important in a relapse plan is the messaging to the child. Again, as I told you about the initial messaging about this to the child, it’s very important that the parents are aligned on this honestly, because that is best for the children. So depending on the child’s age, the parent or the caregiver would explain that the other parent had a setback. So this is if the parents can’t both communicate this, maybe they both can. That would be better, in my opinion. But if, let’s say the parent just goes off to detox or is gone to rehab, then the parent that is remaining with a child would explain that the other parent had a setback, that parent is proactively managing it. If they are, tell where the parent is going, you know, like going to a different state or different city. Explain whether there will be any changes in the level of contact. Explain that everyone is on the same team in helping the parent get better, provide reassurance, for example, this other parent, so let’s just say it’s mom. Mom loves you very much and will be less available for a little while so that she can work on being the best parent she can be. Give the child space to talk about his or her feelings about the relapse and the changes in contact, if there will be any, and inform the child that he or she can ask questions at any time, and are free to talk about what happened with anyone that child wants to and avoid secrecy, avoid not being available to talk about it. 

 

The other piece that is very, very frequently a tool in these cases is supervised parenting time. And there really does need to be, according to these researchers, an on ramp and an off ramp. And so it’s very important before starting supervision, which is the on ramp, we need to be clear with the parent what the specific requirements are to decrease supervision and supervision which is the off ramp, and we should include short term incentives when possible. The considerations that we need to think about for that are the severity of the substance use disorder, the length of the substance use disorder, the nature of the parent’s substance use, including whether the parent uses when the child is in the parent’s care, the current relationship between the parent and child, the overdose history, and whether the overdose occurred when the child was in the parent’s care, and the nature of the relapse. So for example, if a parent relapses one time or after an extended period of sobriety, like four to six months, and immediately communicates the relapse to their therapist or their sponsor support system, then prolonged supervised parenting time is likely unnecessary. That is quite different from what we normally see in our parenting plans and orders from the court is very different, because it’s giving some grace that usually isn’t given. However, if a parent has a prolonged relapse, for example, two weeks with failure to communicate the relapse, supervised parenting time may be required to ensure the safety of the child. Similarly, if a parent is hiding or lying or messing with sobriety testing and things like that, that obviously gives us some concerns that additional relapse is far more likely. That’s obviously a lot more risky to the children. But one of the things we really have failed to discuss much, other than saying, Oh, isn’t this going to be hard for kids not to see their parent is really considering attachment theories and attachment research into what this does to children if we just do a straight up removal and really continue to cut off contact and don’t really carefully navigate and manage this. The research shows that for an infant removed from a primary caregiver who they are bonded to, and placed with someone new to them, or mostly new to them. It causes disruption to brain development if they end up having contact with a primary caregiver less than daily. Okay? Now, you know this is a little bit difficult, right? Because a lot of this applies a little bit more potentially to a foster care situation where a child is taken for dependency neglect and is taken to a brand new caregiver. But it also can apply to whether, like, let’s say you have a mom who’s the primary caregiver and she has a drinking problem, and we take that child away, even though that’s the person who they’re normally with, that really, unless they have contact daily, can cause disruption to brain development. So that’s very, very important for us to understand and to navigate carefully if the primary parent who has that primary bond has the substance use problem, and it’s not the time honestly that a parent who really, if he or she is being honest with him or herself and knows that he isn’t the he or she is not the primary parent. It’s really not a time to say, Well, I think this baby or infant is equally bonded to me. I think it’s where we need to get really serious and say, Yeah, I could argue that the baby is really bonded to me, but I actually know the baby is more bonded to the person than in many cases, mother. It’s not always mother, but often it is. And so if that is the situation, we don’t want to risk injuring a child’s brain development by having a fight at that moment about whether or not the child needs to be with that primary person each day. So be careful about that. Also for a child under five years old who is removed from a primary caregiver, that child is bonded to and placed in an unknown environment. If they’re seeing that parent less than three times per week, it is likely to disrupt brain development. 

 

So again, the same kind of premises, like we really do for little kids, especially, need to make an effort to make attachment one of our very primary considerations in all of this. And so what we want to do is calibrate supervision to account for progress and to meet the needs of children’s developmental ages. We want to look at, can a visit occur in a public place? We want to try to make visits occur. Could we do it some way safely? Could it occur at a visitation place with a supervisor, but the worker can leave the room the person who’s supervising for a little bit of time, like 15 minutes at a time, and gradually increase over time. Is there a less restrictive, reasonable option to progress and to move this in a direction that would still maintain safety? Instead, I think we usually tend to say, unless you have no lapses at all, you don’t get to see your kids. That’s a very frequent thing that we do, and again, the research shows that that’s injuring children in a lot of situations. Also with supervision, there should always be a plan B, and the steps for implementing Plan B should be clear to everyone, and so that can be implemented if the parent relapses or arrives at the visit under the influence of a substance, or cancels a visit, or anything like that. One option, for example, is to ask the parent with the substance use disorder to provide videos of them saying hello to the child, explaining that they cannot make the visit and or reading a story. And honestly, those can be pre recorded, so that the other parent has several of those ready to go, and the child can just watch those and not even know that they aren’t more contemporaneous. And that would be really solid co-parenting, to show a child’s needs being met and not taking the opportunity for the parent who is not having the substance use problem to, you know, blow up the other parent or make that parent look bad, and instead, just say, Oh, well, daddy, can’t make this visit today, but he wanted to read you a story, and no one has to know when that was recorded. And that can be a nice video that keeps that child connection going. 

 

Another is tha the person with the substance use disorder can collect books or items for the other parent to give to the child in case the visit doesn’t happen, and the other parent can keep those on hand and say, you know, mommy wanted me to give you this that she can’t see you today, but she knows how much you love frogs. And here’s a frog stuffed animal and a frog book or whatever I mean. What beautiful co-parenting would that be, of putting the child’s needs first? And really, what that does is it still gives the child a touch point to the parent, and it doesn’t make the child feel like the parent failed or abandoned them. There is a propensity of the parent who is considered more of a safe parent, not with a substance use disorder, or not exhibiting a substance use disorder, to be negative about the other parent and to emphasize the other parent’s failure or abandonment, and what that safer parent needs to understand is how absolutely toxic and terrible that is for children. So get creative. Those are some creative ideas. Other things to consider as ideas to use, for example, would be having some letters written or pictures written. Maybe even if you can’t see the child, we could do video conference stories, engaging in parallel activities like, I love it. I’ve given a lot of parents the idea of doing painting where each of their kids and the parent have, like, a little easel and a canvas and some paints. And even better, maybe, if it’s given to the child, like as a gift, the other parent can hold on to that and say, Mom, your Daddy sent you this gift, and you’re going to get to do a video call, even though you don’t get to see that person today. And then, assuming that person can be sober during the actual call or video conference, they can do fun things with paint like, hey, everybody paint a heart. Everybody paints a blue square. Everybody paints a purple tree, and then compares at the end what those look like. That’s a really fun thing for kids to do. You can do similar things with Play Doh. You can do funny dance things, singing, playing instruments, playing games. There’s a lot of online games, things like that. But do we actually need to cut this parent off? Hopefully not. There’s also the ability, in addition to kind of storing those videos when the parent isn’t using that parent can record more videos and send those over and again, that really, if the other parent is being a good parent, putting the kids needs first, they will embrace the fact that that is something that is super positive for the child to not feel like that child has been abandoned, and then obviously phone calls. So I will also just explain, and we are almost done here. 

 

There is another thing to consider that is based on the National Center. It’s really the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Center on Trauma Informed Care, and some other work that that group has done has some tips for lawyers and judges, and they say things, for example, like, you know, when you say your drug screen is dirty, the child, the parent thinks the person that’s getting that news, thinks I’m dirty. There’s something wrong with me, and a trauma informed approach instead is something like your drug screen shows the presence of drugs. Okay, so another you know, you didn’t follow the contract. You failed. We have to restrict you would be I’m hopeless. I can’t do this. I’m never going to get there, and might as well just not be a parent anymore, and a trauma informed approach would be more. Maybe what we’ve been doing isn’t the best wish for us to support you. I’m again going to ask you to not give up. We’re not going to give up on you and things like that, and then another like I’m sending you for a Substance Use Evaluation, for example, instead of making that person feel like I must be, you know, a complete wreck of a parent, there’s something wrong with me that can’t be fixed, the trauma informed approach is more something like I’d like to refer you to a doctor who can help us or or a substance use evaluator who usually isn’t a doctor, but could be, who can help us better understand how to support you when we have mental health disorders which present alongside substance use disorder so frequently, then certainly asking how we can support that parent better and understand that parent better is a really important thing to do. 

 

There is a really important quote I’ll give you too. This is based on drug courts and more of the dependency, neglect kind of world, but it’s still a really interesting quote based on best practices for Family Court practitioners. And this is a retired judge whose name is Beth Crawford, and she said it is important for judges to understand the key role they play in assisting parents in taking the first steps towards recovery. Judges should be encouraging and supportive of parents’ recovery, and should seek to develop rapport with them. Research shows that participants are more likely to comply with treatment and have better outcomes when the judge communicates respect and support to them, and I will say that this is true when we’re talking about lawyers as well and everybody else we’re. Working on the case, child advocates and people like that. 

 

Okay, I know we’re getting pretty long here, but I do want to go over one other thing, and this is I’m going to also publish a up on my show notes and on my website, another of Dr. Tabashneck’st articles that she sent me are called Legal Advocacy, Substance Use and Family Court. It’s got sample step up plans. And I just really encourage you all, if you’re in this universe and you’re dealing with this, or you’re in this practitioner judge in this area, that you go consider that, because she’s got some very specific, really helpful tools and things to consider. 

 

And then I am going to finish with the top 10 tips for judges and attorneys in cases involving parents with substance use disorder. And this is something that, again, Dr. Tabashneck has produced and shared that I will also provide on my site and on the show notes, and this will just sum it up for today, and then I’ll let you all get on your way. 

 

So the first thing is to treat people with substance use disorder with kindness and respect. It may not seem like it, but they are suffering. Find at least one positive thing to say about the parent and praise positive steps, even if they are small. 

 

Two, diatribes and lectures are unlikely to work with this population. 

 

Three, understand that substance use disorder is a medical condition and a brain disease. 

 

Four, relapse and returns to use are part of recovery. Expecting someone to be sober after one drug detox or 30 day rehab is unreasonable. On average, people enter into sustained sobriety after four to five iterations of treatment. 

 

Five, not all returns to use are the same. Resumption of use three days or less often, does not require an extended change to the parenting plan. 

 

Six, use drug and alcohol testing to better understand what is going on with a parent. Remember, a test is not positive unless there is a second test that is also positive that’s with the breathalyzer, for example, a confirmation test avoids games of cat and mouse to find drug use or alcohol use instead. View testing as one part of collecting data to support the family. Expect some positive or missed tests in the event of a single positive test during non parenting time, there is generally not a need to change the parenting plan instead. Parenting time for the next week can, for example, take place in a public place following a negative test prior to each parenting time period, three or fewer missed or late tests per month should generally not result in a change to the parenting plan, provided the parent is able to test negative prior to and duringthe visit, establish a 5% missed test rate to minimize testing stress, and that entire provision is very different than we normally do this in family court. So it’s very convincing to see that this is what a lot of researchers are saying now and again. This is mostly about risk to children and also risk to the attachment bonds. And of course, since we know that safety is number one, it really does depend on the level of use, right? If somebody is using and depending what they’re using, they’re going to be some different ways that we approach this. But for the most part, we’re dealing with cases where we are probably overdoing the levels of protection that we’re providing based on our traditional approaches. Okay, back to our list. 

 

Number seven, focus on the nexus between the substance use and harm to the child. We talked about that a lot. 

 

Eight, focus on non use during parenting time. Moderation of substance use can be an acceptable treatment goal for some substances such as alcohol, many people continue to use alcohol but are able to sufficiently reduce or cut back to the point that they no longer meet criteria for an alcohol use disorder. This, too, is often not the way we view it under the traditional model some judges have, but I think traditionally, it’s fair to say that we have been a little harsher about that in most of our cases. 

 

Nine build awareness of resources. There are free substance use disorder meetings going on virtually at all times of the day. There are also in-person meetings in many towns, virtual meeting. Resources include Smart Recovery, Mindfulness-based Recovery, Women in Recovery, Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and many more. Another one that I know about as well is called This Naked Mind. That’s not one that I’ve seen referenced in the materials that I’ve been reviewing and working on in terms of researching it, but that actually is the Colorado-based entity that has an international there’s a podcast, there’s books, there’s groups, there’s all sorts of things. So that is one that really might be a help to some people. Again, it’s called This Naked Mind. 

 

And then number 10, poorly thought out conditions can do more harm than good. When drafting conditions treat the person as an individual. Consider transportation and time barriers, child care barriers, and what the parent thinks will be most useful are there. Any conditions you are considering that may actually increase relapse risk, for example, making somebody a parent who has really significant social anxiety attend Alcoholics Anonymous in person. Is that going to be successful? Not likely. While the parent would need to select some form of treatment, find out what treatment that parent is interested in and empower that parent in making treatment decisions. 

 

So I will provide this on my website and show notes as well, but I think that that is really a good list for us all to consider. So this has been a really long episode. For those of you who’ve stuck with me, I really appreciate it again. Please forgive me for all of my choppiness in terms of my way that I’ve presented this today, it’s a lot of information. But for those who need it, I know you will be eating it all up, because there’s a real dearth of information, or at least it feels like it. 

 

I really just want to end by saying that there is hope for people who are in this situation, and it is so important that parents get better, because children need them. And if you’re the person who’s got this problem, I want to encourage you that your child and children need you, and they need you to be healthy, and they need you to be well and safe. And so I hope that this has given some encouragement that will help guide and encourage both parents and other and the professionals in this realm to all of us, really, lawyers, judges, therapists, to think about this in a little bit different ways and to take very seriously the obligation we have to do this well in a way that helps children flourish. So I will, until next time, sign off and thank you so much. 

Intro/Outro  1:16:34

Krista is licensed in Colorado and Wyoming. So if you are in those states and seek legal services, please feel free to reach out via Children First Family law.com that is our website where everyone can find additional resources to help navigate family law as always, be sure to like, subscribe and share the podcast With others you think would benefit from this content you