Empowering Teens: Navigating Substance Use Prevention with Kriya Lendzion [Episode 163]

Lauren 0:00
Welcome to this episode of High School Counseling Conversations. I have a great interview ahead for you. You are going to love hearing from Kriya. She has been running the circuits as a speaker at ASCA and a lot of state conferences and Departments of Education. She has probably been around your area, if you’re over here on the East Coast where I am. She’s actually from Asheville, North Carolina, which is not far from me. So we connected about that a little bit off air before we got into it. Let me introduce you to Kriya and so you can learn a little bit about her before we dive into the conversation.

Lauren 0:35
Originally inspired by her personal journey through Teen Addiction, Kriya Lendzion is fiercely dedicated to helping educators prevent and intervene early in students’ addictive and self destructive behaviors. She combines her 23 years as a school counselor with additional expertise as a licensed clinical addiction specialist, certified prevention specialist and adolescent therapist, providing schools across the globe with drug and alcohol education, professional development, curriculum and consultation.

Lauren 1:04
Like I said, she resides in beautiful Asheville, North Carolina, and you are going to get so much information from our conversation. You’re going to realize what is even out there, what the trends are, because I don’t know if you are like me, but it’s hard to keep up with that stuff. There is a lot going on, a lot of information that’s always changing, and she kind of opens up our conversation with what’s trending right now, what do we need to be aware of when it comes to substances being used and abused. We talk about prevention and treatment and kind of what our role should be as school counselors, because we’re not licensed in all of these things. We don’t have all these accolades that Kriya has. She has a lot of experience talking about them and dealing with them with students, but that is not necessarily the role we need to play as school counselors, but we have a huge role to play with our students.

Lauren 1:55
And you know, we love something practical that we can take away. So from this episode, you’re going to walk away with strategies in terms of the conversations you’re going to have with students and the resources that you’re going to use with students, parents, community members. You’re going to love it. It’s jam packed. Go ahead and buckle up for this conversation with Kriya. Let’s roll.

Lauren 2:19
You got into this profession to make a difference in your students’ lives, but you’re spread thin by all the things that keep getting added to your to do list. I can’t create more hours in the day, but I can invite you into my counselor clique where you’ll finally catch your breath. Come with me as we unpack creative ideas and effective strategies that’ll help you be the counselor who leaves a lifelong impact on your students. I’m Lauren Tingle, your high school counseling hype girl, here to help you energize your school counseling program and remind you of how much you love your job.

Lauren 2:52
Well, welcome to the show Kriya. I’m so excited. This is a topic that we haven’t talked about on the podcast before, and I know that you are a wealth of information around just drug and alcohol awareness for our teenagers and what we need to know as school counselors. So I’m excited for what you’re going to share with us today.

Kriya 3:09
Thank you. It’s my honor and pleasure to be here.

Lauren 3:12
Great. Well, let’s start big picture. Let’s get right into it. Tell us what we need to know right now about trending substances and stuff to be aware of, because you’re the expert. So like, what are the trends you’re seeing, and like, what should we know right off the bat?

Kriya 3:27
Yes, I am the drug lady. That’s what students call me.

Lauren 3:30
What a great title!

Kriya 3:31
I have to explain that in Trader Joe’s sometimes though, when parents come up and I’m like, let me explain what that means. But the quick and dirty of it is that, unfortunately, you know, all the the most trending substances among youth are, even though they’re things that we know that we’re familiar with, like caffeine and, you know, weed, marijuana, or THC and and nicotine and alcohol, like they’re all still around. But what’s happening is that they are, they’re getting stronger. They’re being mutated and made stronger and packaged up in these stronger, you know, more intense forms and in these, like, stealthy ways of delivering them. So they’re they’re becoming easier to conceal. They’re being made more and more appealing to young people in particular. We know, you know, it’s no secret that they’re marketing. It’s obvious that they’re marketing to young people, and you add social media and all the messaging that they are just soaking in, you put all that together, and it means that these substances are becoming more addictive and more dangerous. So there are damages happening from nicotine and just weed.

Lauren 3:44
You put it in air quotes, because you hear that a lot. It’s just…

Kriya 4:42
Yeah, they are being made synthetically. They’re being chemically extracted, like THC is not, it’s it’s not natural. Let me be clear, when some when a kid is vaping something, it is not the natural plant, you know, 99% of the time that they’re vaping. It has been this chemically extracted just THC, you know, which is one of the cannabinoids in cannabis. It’s missing all the other parts of the plant that kind of balance each other out and have kept people from having mental health issues, or, you know, from getting sick off of it.

Kriya 5:14
And now it’s this really intensified, chemically mutated version that is now up to, you know, in the 90th percentile of THC in one of these products. And to put that into perspective, in the in the 70s, there was 1% THC in the plant, and now the plant has been modified to be 20 to 30% THC. And THC is what makes, you know, a kid, quote unquote, high. You know, it has the psychoactive effects, but it also is what we know now causes cognitive deficits, like damages the growth and the, there’s less gray matter in the frontal lobes of kids that are using regularly. They don’t have the same brain connections. Their brains have to work a lot harder to do you know the same things and that cannabis also sticks to their brain longer because they have more cannabinoid receptors in their brain. So a kid that gets high on a on a Friday night is still not on point for the test on Tuesday. And they don’t know that.

Lauren 6:14
I would say so, because I, I mean, not that this is my world, either, but, like, that’s a lot of information that has even changed over time. Like, saying this is what it used to be, they didn’t know what it used to be, and they don’t know what it is now. But I think something that sounds like it has stayed the same over time is the messaging that this is cool. This is not bad for you. This is attractive for any young to old people who want to engage in this. I mean, they’re expert marketers, the the packaging, the colors, the, it makes it look fun, and that hasn’t changed. I mean, you watch Mad Men and see how they were marketing cigarettes back then is, it’s the same.

Kriya 6:58
Yeah. And let’s put that on the shelf, for sure, because I’m gonna pull that down in a minute. I definitely want to talk about the marketing of all these things, but the mental health impacts are also becoming really clear. So other than, so cognitively, we see frontal lobe damage happening, and that is with nicotine as well, adolescent nicotine users having some damage done to the frontal lobe growth as well as to serotonin production in the brain and limbic circuitry in the brain. So with both of those products, there’s mood impacts. There is long and this is long term, because we have to remember that that adolescent use is really different from adult use. And where it might kind of muck up our brains or change the brain chemistry, and then we’ve got to level it out if we when, you know when we stop, for them using substances regularly, or strong substances. So we know that binge use, like a kid drinks rarely or uses cannabis rarely, but then they hit their brain with this really intense, potent version of it. It can do the same damage as if they were using regularly, like in smaller amounts.

Lauren 8:04
They don’t hear this. I mean, this is to me, this makes sense of like, their brain is still forming, it has, it’s still learning and growing, or we’re stunting it with these chemicals. And, I mean, you would have scared me out of my pants in high school, if I would have heard that, you know, that like, Well, I’m not going to be ready for the test next Tuesday because my brain won’t be able to handle it.

Kriya 8:27
And the piece that’s really, that’s really fascinating, and this is where we start thinking about our ins as counselors, is that it’s showing to not just have cognitive impacts, you know. So we see a kid who has executive functioning issues already, you know, ADHD kids, like those kids are actually more at risk for using and more at risk for developing a dependency, because if in the moment, it makes them feel like they can focus, you know, or makes them feel better. But it’s the same with mental health. Is that we’ve got a lot of kids that are using because they are under the illusion that, you know, because for a couple hours it makes them not feel depressed or anxious or stressed, but meanwhile, that nicotine is damaging serotonin production in the brain, that cannabis is making an impact on the part of their brain that has like awe and wonder in everyday things. You know, it’s over stimulating and over stimulating that part of the brain so they start to feel bored, and what we call anhedonia, right, which is the inability to feel just like pleasure and interest and joy in everyday moments.

Kriya 9:27
And if you take that away, that equals depression, you know equals boredom and and depression. And again, these impacts are not just in the moment, right? Because their brain, like I was saying, as our brains clear out, you know, and kind of can restabilize, their brains are changed by using substances in a way that that can last into adulthood, you know, or long, long term, by just what they’re doing right, right now.

Kriya 9:56
And then we’ve got, you know, alcohol is coming, and, like every cocktail and childhood favorite drink comes in a spiked version and a pretty, pretty bottle, and, like, really strong, you know, some of those are three times what a beer is, you know, they’re like, really strong amounts of alcohol. And then we’ve got lacings happening, right? Or poisoning. So it’s fentanyl getting into pills and powders, and we have xylazine and nidazine. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, but just to fill the listeners in, is that, and everybody knows what fentanyl is now, I think, right? So, so that’s, you know, about 50 times stronger than, than heroin is, right? And then we have illicit fentanyl getting, getting put into pills that look just like, I mean, I’ve seen them, I’ve held them, that look just like the real thing. They look like Adderall and Percocet and OxyContin and Xanax. Those are, those are popular ones.

Kriya 10:48
But we have, so xylazine is, they call it tranq. It’s a tranquilizer that is illicit, and it’s put into a substance to kind of prolong the high of it, to create a better, a bigger high. But it is addictive in it of its of itself and and can also sedate and shut down the nervous system, and is not responsive to Narcan. You know, if somebody was going to use Narcan to try to revive someone that had overdosed, it would respond to the fentanyl, but not to the to the xylazine. And then, God, I hate to even mention that this is a thing, but nitazene is kind of newer on the scene, and it is, it is an opiate. It is not legal anywhere. It’s it’s being made completely illicitly, and it is about 40 times stronger than fentanyl.

Lauren 11:37
I can’t even imagine.

Kriya 11:38
I know. And so whereas fentanyl, there’s a lot of myths out there about kind of what, what can be in a vape, for example. So cocaine, fentanyl, meth, like those things, cannot actually be activated in a vape. The vape doesn’t get it to the right temperature. So even though they may find it in a vape, it’s not, it’s, it’s, it’s not getting into a kid’s system. But nidazine can be in a vape, and so can GHB, which is a central nervous system depressant, so can PCP and ketamine, so other hallucinogens. So some of those things, we’ve had some pretty intense cases on the on the east coast where I am, where kids as early as as eighth, we had an eighth grader that that had PCP in his vape and had a stroke, coma, and is now brain, has some brain damage. He lived, but brain damage, and has some paralysis on one side of his body.

Lauren 12:31
I mean, I don’t know how you engage in all of these stories, because I’m like sick to my stomach just thinking of how this can affect families and students and schools and communities when, when even one student is affected in this way, whether that’s taken down unsuspectingly or or death, or whatever that is, that can rock a community.

Kriya 12:53
It can. And these are often, you know, and I have, I have developed a lot of relationships with with parents and siblings, and, you know, families of kids that were lost. And what we’re seeing, too, when we’re talking about the mental health impacts, is that it, particularly with THC, is because it is, it is really the equivalent of cannabis crack. You know what kids are vaping, you know, when they’re dabbing, like with a dab pen, and it’s a cannabis concentrate, or it’s any of the liquids that they’re vaping, it’s, again, it’s not the plant. It is not what, what parents you know, or even teachers are familiar with, you know, from, quote, unquote, our day, right? It is, it’s, it’s something new. And so we’re seeing mental health impacts like, like never before. So kids that were not predisposed to psychosis, developing psychotic disorders from, from THC. And kids that I know, that, you know, started vaping at 16, and they’re the, I mean, and these aren’t just Lauren, like the, they’re not just, quote unquote, those kids. I think that’s, you know, that’s the, the thing we have to remember as educators and be teaching parents, is that these are captain of a lacrosse team, 4.0 class president kind of kids as well that can fall into the addiction and the tragedies that that some of these substances are bringing with them.

Lauren 14:09
That was a very comprehensive overview. Like, those are so many different buckets of things that counselors need to just be aware of. Like, have this on your radar, you know, add that to the stuff that we’re supposed to be experts at. What do you think that counselors role, like, what should their role be? As they are, you know, they’re in a school building, so they’re not necessarily disciplinarians by nature when they’re supposed to be school counseling, and they’re not in a therapy setting, like a residential place. So like, what is a counselor’s role with all of this in the school building? What should they be doingwith their students?

Kriya 14:46
Yeah, I mean, I think, I think we can play an extremely powerful role in all this. I mean, one can be just on the prevention side of things, is that we, you know, we can be the ones that are, that are doing educational, passive, you know, campaigns always. But, but I, I’m a huge fan of peer led programming. I mean, it’s just proven to be so powerful when it comes to things around mental health or around, you know, kind of risky decision making, especially when there’s, there’s such a strong social media, you know, media messages coming in, and the peer pressure can be so unhealthy, like, like, distorted. I mean, it’s misinformed, and they’re missing the knowledge, and they’re getting really twisted, distorted stuff from social media. So what the what they’re passing around can be really, really unhealthy, dangerous, misinformation. So having peers really be the ones to, I mean, design it from the roots up. You know, like, what do you think your your peers need to hear? You know, why are they going there, the ones that are? What would they need in order to not go there? What would they need to hear in what kind of language and what kind of form? Like, they’re the best ones, you know, some of us say, I think I’m pretty cool.

Lauren 15:58
But they’re cooler among their peers.

Kriya 16:00
They think I’m 10 years younger than I am, just because that’s how I dress and talk, whether it’s positive or negative. But yeah, hearing, hearing from, from them, my very favorite thing is to actually use, I love to use the kids who have gotten in trouble. They are the best sources of, put them in a focus group and say, What would you have needed? What would make a difference? You know, I think we missed that opportunity. But so we can advise some of that. You know, we can kind of be the catalyst and the advisors for students.

Lauren 16:27
Can I say on that? I feel like students have had this big shift in owning their mental health and being really big advocates for what they need and learning about it themselves. And you see a lot of that heading up, like a local Nami chapter in their schools, or like coming to adults in their school saying, hey, we need this. I feel like, if, if we’re seeing that revolution with mental health with them, like it’s possible that we can see a revolution around drug and alcohol awareness too, I think.

Kriya 16:56
Yeah, I mean, it loses its power, they’re already sensitive to, defensive of, adults taking over and doing everything to them and for them. So so we really want to help them be empowered and take take the lead on it. So, so I think we can lead that.

Kriya 17:10
And then there’s, there are, some of the the best interventions I’ve done have been empowering teachers to infuse lessons into their curriculum. The science teachers talking about adolescent brain science and how they’re wired for habit forming like no other time, right? And the impact that drugs can have on them.

Lauren 17:27
And they can probably have pretty cool conversations in their classroom with their students, because they already have that relationship. And the students feel comfortable with those peers in the classroom a lot of times. And so it’s, they’ve already developed that rapport to jump right in and ask questions and have honest conversation.

Kriya 17:42
And social studies classes can talk about media, media’s impact, and brainwashing tactics that they use and that, you know, the effect that they have. They can talk about, they can have debates of over legalization and the pros and the cons, you know. So there’s ways for us to, I think, kind of catalyze that in the in the classroom. But then, you know us, even in in high school, I know we don’t, you know, push into classrooms in the same way that that they gave us an elementary school to do. So sometimes it’s advisory. I’ve played a role in a lot of schools have advisory times, and they’re really because they, you know, they’ve gotten like, okay, school connectedness, huge protective factor. And schools, you know, kids being connected to each other and to a caring adult, and we know that that matters, right? So sometimes activities can be woven into like advisory time, you know, or things where, and it can be things like values exploration, and goal setting. When we can guide them in values exploration and have them identify the things that that matter the most to them, what they believe in, who they want to be, what they want for themselves.

Lauren 18:47
I love that. They don’t get enough time to do that, that blank space to think and be disconnected from social media and their phones and like think, sit in that and wonder what they personally believe.

Kriya 19:01
Right. And so whether that’s in a small group, or it’s in a one on one with a you know that we’re counseling a kiddo, or we’re finding a way to get into a classroom to do that, I find that most kids have fun. Teenagers have fun doing that because they’re just trying to, they’re trying to figure that out anyway, right? That’s where they’re at. And so helping them kind of get clear on that, at least who they are this week. But and then they can engage in, okay, so how, like, if those things, we know, if those are on the front burner of a kid’s mind, then they’re gonna they’re more likely to sift every decision they make through them, from who they date and who they befriend to whether they start having sex to whether they do drugs, to what classes they take, right? So we can encourage them to think about, okay, so how would using substances, how could that fit in with your values, let’s be honest. And how could it contradict them or start to work against them.

Lauren 19:54
And kind of putting a mirror up to them and saying, Well, if you say, these are your values, but these are the things you’re doing, they’re not aligning.

Kriya 20:01
Right exactly. So, so this is just classic motivational interviewing kind of stuff, right? We want to help them get the discrepancy that this could cause for them. And if a kid is already going there, you know, we can have these conversations one on one with them too. The same kind of thing is sort of look at their values and say, okay, you know what, how is this contradicting, and what would it take for you to, you know, to be more congruent with with who you want to be?

Kriya 20:25
So I think we also, you know, we can, there’s some, some short action things we can do. And I am going to make sure that everybody’s got some resources that I’ve created, but I will have kids look at again, I’m not, I’m not being an addiction a licensed therapist in this role, but they can still look at like the criteria for for a use disorder. And I’ve developed a little self assessment that I use with all addictive behavior, honestly, gaming or self harm or anything, and they can ask themselves kind of those 11 questions about like the impact that it’s had on them. And I have another chart that I use that shows kind of experimental versus responsible, quote unquote, use versus problem use. And I’ll have them look at it and just answer the questions for themselves, you know, or circle things on the chart that I made that maybe they say, Oh, well, okay, responsible use is I know the sources of what I use. So I’m circling that one, and I can take it or leave it. I’m circling that one. Oh yeah. But over here, I’ve had some consequences to my health. I’m not breathing as well since I started vaping, like during soccer practice. Or I got busted at, you know, at home for that. So let me circle those things. So we kind of lead them to just kind of hand it to them and let them do the self examination and the questions themselves, and then use that to springboard onto some conversation about, we can give them the diagnosis. I mean, we can say, well, they say that six plus yeses is a severe substance use disorder, you know, or and see what they think about that.

Lauren 20:25
Yeah, even open their eyes to like this, this might be a problem when we score that against what the average is or what your peers are answering. You know, this is just for you, but we want you to know kind of where you’re measuring up right against your peers.

Kriya 22:15
And I love change rulers so much. Some of these classic like MI tools. So, you know, asking a kid, so again, we’re now, we’re talking about, like, tier three interventions, right? When, when a kid has already been identified as as using, or they’ve self referred themselves, and they’re being honest with us about their use, right? Is that asking them like, okay, so on a on a scale of one to 10, and I love this, because you can, you don’t have to have any gadgets.

Lauren 22:42
Right. We’re just talking.

Kriya 22:44
On a scale of one to 10, you know, how much do you think you’re vaping is, is negatively impacting your life? Or on a scale of one to 10, like, how much would you, you know, are you interested in, in quitting nicotine, quitting nicotine pouches, right? And so if a kid says, Well, four, you know, then we go, okay, so, why is it a four and not a one? You know, tell me about that. Or what would, what would an eight or nine look like? You know, what would it take, do you think, what would need to be happening for you to want to change that much, you know, just feel like or for it to be impacting your life that much? What would an eight or 10 and a problem look like for you?

Lauren 23:23
I love the scaling questions. It reminds me of an interview I did with Dr. Sabella where we talked about solution focus. It’s like we’re starting somewhere. We’re identifying somewhere to start, and getting to hear it from their perspective. It’s like there’s no right or wrong. This is your opinion, and we’re gonna work with it wherever we come from. And, yeah, look, you’re not at one, okay? Or if you are, you’re not at zero, you’re starting somewhere. Like we can move along this path. And I like being able to see and chart their growth with that.

Kriya 23:51
And two roads I like to use too, which is kind of rolling with their resistance, you know? I’ll use this when a kid is like, well, I don’t, you know, I don’t want to change anything. The only problem I have is that the school has a problem with it, or my parents have problem with it, right?

Lauren 24:03
Sounds like you’ve heard that before.

Kriya 24:05
Never, yeah. And I worked in juvenile justice, too, so I’ve heard it all, yeah. But so I go, Okay, I hear that you don’t want to, you know, you’re fine with your use. You don’t want to change anything. So let’s just, let’s just follow this, right? So let’s say you don’t change anything about what you’re doing right now. Let’s just let, so what does that look like in a month, or three months or, and I take it down the road and I will, I will take a piece of paper and literally draw this out with them, you know, sometimes. I say, Okay, what if you change just one little thing? And what might that be? Maybe it’s just you don’t use at school, maybe that’s your one change, right? Or you’re only using three days a week, you know, instead of five, seven days a week, or whatever. Let’s track that. What do you think that would look like in one month, three months, you know?

Kriya 24:55
And so, you know, it’s hard when it’s in black and white for them to not be a, turn a little bit on the dial of like, okay, well, maybe I could just try, and then that’s a win, right? For a kid that is, that is, is, is, like, no, I really like this. You know, the same as as when we if we’ve got that chart in front of us that shows experimental, responsible and problem use and use disorders, we can at least say, if a kid’s like, no, they’re not gonna say, I’m gonna quit, you know? I mean, of course we wanna bring them there, but if they don’t, we can say, Okay, well, then what would it take for you to stay in this Responsible Use lane?

Lauren 25:34
Yeah, and you’re not going into these conversations thinking, yeah, they’re gonna change right this second. Like, none of us change our habits overnight. And like, that’s hard to do, so yeah, just getting them even to a point where they can think, and this is hard for a high schooler too. They think about themselves, think outside of themselves, and see a future that’s a few stages ahead, or, like you said, even if it’s a week ahead, a month ahead, like, that’s a little bit we’re having to process. And, that’s also scary like, when they’ve been using for however long that their brain is cognitively changing, like, this is only going to get harder to make change and to be motivated to change.

Kriya 26:13
Yeah. And so, and the other thing that I love doing, and this can be both preventative and kind of as a response, as an intervention, is, I’ve got this, this chart of needs, like these six essential adolescent needs, which are, let’s see if I can remember off the top of my head, coping, confidence, purpose, fun, connection, control, control and agency, I think, of their lives. So I, you know, got this little chart that I use, and so I will use that as a preventative tool and go in high school I use the 40 developmental assets list, if you’re familiar with that. And I bring that out as an activity with kids and say, Okay, how are you meeting your your needs? You know, like, what are the ways that you meet your needs with and where are the holes, kind of in in all of these areas for you?

Kriya 27:03
And then talking about, like, if you have a hole in any of these areas, then you’re kind of at risk of anything that that comes along that fits in there best, you know, that works better than anything else you you can get attached to, you know. And so that’s why we’re trying to be really conscientious of what we what we meet those needs with, especially right now, when your brain is wiring, you know, connection to things that that work for you, like no other time. So you can use that as a preventative tool to sort of help kids brainstorm and talk with each other. You know, it’s like, again, if you’re in an advisory in a small class on how they can fill those needs and how they do. But if you’re talking with a kid that’s using, I just pull that out and say, okay, so you know, what is this doing for you? What are you getting from using? You know, what is it giving you that you want? What is it taking away that you don’t want? And then we use all that empathy, right, that we’re all skilled at, and instead of the the judgment that they expect from adults, right? First, we say, You know what? It makes sense that you know your parents are fighting every night and that you’re getting a high to tune that out.

Lauren 28:12
And that might be the first time they’ve heard someone say, I see your situation, and I see why that would be hard and why you’re filling it with something else.

Kriya 28:21
Yeah, and then, and then, once, you know, they they see we’re not going to judge and they don’t have to defend, right, then we can sort of pull them into an invitation and be like, well, but you know, I know that if we don’t have something else to help us cope, then, then that can become the only tool in our toolbox, and then it becomes a dependency. And that’s when we’re talking about it being a problem, which I can tell you don’t want to have a problem, right? You know, you don’t want to have an addiction, I’m assuming? So, so then we can invite them into brainstorming, like, Hey, you willing to brainstorm some other ideas with me about how, how you could meet the same need, you know, so that you might not need this, or at least develop a dependency on it.

Kriya 29:00
And then, and talking also about, like, how, how use, can flip, can turn on itself, and highlighting that, it’s like, oh, well, it’s interesting. I noticed, you know, you said that you were, you were using because it helped you feel connected, like, better in your skin, and more confident around, around your friends. But I also just heard you say that you’re, you’re feeling bad about the reputation it’s giving you. So it sounds like it’s kind of turning, turning against this reason you are using it for.

Lauren 29:28
Yeah. So a lot of reflecting back, kind of, some of the contradicting statements they’re giving you.

Lauren 29:36
You’ve already given us so many good like, scripts and examples where I know counselors, when they’re ready to, like, dive into a conversation like this with a student, I think our conversation here is going to be really helpful for them to, like, play back, think back, and listen to and even just hearing you talk is like, I hope it’s building people’s confidence. Because this is a sensitive issue, like you might feel like, well, I don’t want to go in the classroom and talk about it. I can’t have a whole school assembly where I’m the one talking about it. I don’t, I don’t know enough about this. They know more about it than than I do. But like, no, these counselors are listening to this. They’re willing to probably go to your website and see your resources. Like, there’s a lot out there, and they can educate themselves, and they’re going to be 10% more than the students are going to have more information, and that’s going to make them the expert.

Lauren 30:22
And then along, like what you said, with having that empathy, having those natural counseling skills, them listening and asking questions, is going to be huge in helping a student work through this and motivate them to change their ways, like we motivate and help change and help reflect their thinking and change their thinking for the betterment of themselves. We do that with all different topics. And so I feel like drug and alcohol awareness is no different from that. Like, if we have skills that we can help students with in certain places, we can do it here too. I just like a little pep talk, because I feel like people are probably intimidated to have these conversations.

Kriya 30:57
Sure, and keep in mind, I mean, sure it’s helpful when you can go to a training and get, like, what’s the latest research on all things weed, you know.

Lauren 31:05
But it’s probably always changing and hard to keep up with.

Kriya 31:09
Trust me, I have to recreate my presentations. I don’t have that thing that topic, where it’s, I’m like, I can pull that thing out of my pocket. I have to always tweak it. But it’s okay that you’re not, you know that you’re not the expert, expert on it. Because it’s okay to say, I mean, if you start with a kid and say, What do you know about the impact of of weed on a, you know, on on a 16 year old brain, you know? And say, like, I don’t know everything, but I, you know, I learned a couple things. I’ve heard a couple things along the way. Like, do you mind if, are you, are you down with kind of hearing what I have, you know, my input on that? But, but then we can say, well, let’s, let’s look it up. Because I know, I do know the trusted places to go to look for research on that. Like, can we take five minutes and look some of that up together? Because I don’t know.

Lauren 31:57
Is it on tick tock? Is that where we should find it? Because that’s probably where they would direct you, right?

Kriya 32:03
Right, right.

Lauren 32:04
Around that messaging, this is kind of like the last big topic I kind of want to hit on is, how do we make our voices as adults or people who care about our students, how do we make our messaging stronger and heard when there are so many other messages out there that are overpowering them? From their peers and from the media and maybe even their family, like, how do, how do we get them to listen to the real facts?

Kriya 32:28
Yeah, and that’s hard, right? I mean, think of how much they, they say with the average that these kids are online nine hours a day average, right? In high school? So, you know, I, I used to say we have to talk louder and more often than these voices are, but like…

Lauren 32:45
That’s a lot of time!

Kriya 32:46
That’s a lot of time, right, right, right. So I think, I think the key is, is remembering who they are right as adolescents, and kind of taking advantage of that. Like typical adolescent values, what do they hate more than anything? Being conned, manipulated, controlled. They have their hypocrisy meters are on, like, super, super blast, right? So they are looking for every hole in what adults in particular are telling them and doing. And this is actually the beautiful thing, you know, that we can use, because we can lead them to analyze and disassemble, you know, these messages that they’re getting hammered with by using their values, you know, against them.

Kriya 32:46
And so just asking, and these, this is great when we can do like a whole media literacy, like lesson. And again, teachers can weave this into, kind of seamlessly, you know, into into curriculum, but, but even just sitting down one on one with a kid or in a small group of some kind, we can ask, you know, what messages do you get about substances in your world? And what is the, what do you know about how they advertise? You know? What are the, what are the agendas of these companies?

Kriya 33:56
So I asked a question. I had never asked the question this way, and I did this in a recent high school class, where I said, Okay, so let’s just like, I threw my PowerPoint out the window, you know about vaping. And I said, Well, okay, so let’s, let’s imagine for a minute you guys, you are executives and marketing people for a vaping company. And I literally had them get in small groups. And I said, Okay, I want you to figure out what is your agenda, for one. And they all obviously came to, like, I want to make mad money, right? Like, are they trying to better the world, take care of the environment, you know, make us better people? No, they want to make mad money, right? Okay, so if that’s your agenda, then what are you going to do to make that happen? If you’re a vaping company, and they came up with everything that exists. And these were, these were, actually, I’m lying. This was a middle school class, so they hadn’t even come across some of the things that are out there yet. So they didn’t even know that vapes now, I didn’t even mention this, that they are gamifying them. You can, you can pair them with your phone and look at pictures. You can play Tetris and Pac Man on them. You can, you can count your your puffs and compete in a in a puff competition, take your points for each puff and get get swag for them.

Lauren 35:13
I wish people could see my eye roll right now. Like, what??

Kriya 35:15
There are collector cards, there are Bluetooth speakers. There are, this is the form that vapes are coming in now. So when I said to the kids, what would you do, they came up with that. They didn’t even know that gamified vapes exist. They said, Oh, well, I would, I would try to market kids. I would use celebrities and people that they think are cool. I would use rappers. I would use musicians. I would get on social media and use influencers. I would use these kind of graphics, this kind of language.

Lauren 35:43
They are gonna make mad money, huh?

Kriya 35:45
Right? And I was like, okay, so they and, and, but it it only took a few minutes for them to have these. And then when I showed them the pictures of what existed, they were pissed.

Lauren 35:56
They realized they were getting conned.

Kriya 35:58
And it was perfect, because I saw, they were like, what do we do? This is wrong! They’re so mad and and so, I mean, granted, those are eighth graders, but, you know, I have now since done this with, you know, with older kids, and that’s how we do it.

Lauren 36:13
I think we all would feel that way if we, if it’s something we hadn’t thought about. Like, I put myself in those shoes too.

Kriya 36:19
And they’re knowing that none of, there are only 23 vapes that are legal FDA approved in this country. Three companies, any of those flavors, all of them are not legal. Not a single one. Wow. And the fact and the fact that those like elf bars and the ones the vape the disposable vapes that they’re all familiar with that they’re using the most, those these vapes have up to 3000 cigarettes worth of nicotine in them. It’s obscene.

Kriya 36:47
So when they find out that that’s what it is that nicotine has this impact on creating and worsening anxiety and depression and stress response, and that THC, you know that cannabis companies are using the same thing. They’re starting to market and and they’re making it that advertising makes it look like you have everything in the world, that you have happiness and friends and everything and and what’s the what’s the truth about what happens when you really get hooked on this stuff, which is getting increasingly addictive, how it creates the opposite. Again, they get pissed the hypocrisy of that. So I’m like, What do you not see in the advertising that is true about these things? So, so it’s really about coming back to like they need to we, because we can’t control it on the outside anymore. No matter what kind of policy, discipline policy, or how strict, or how, you know, anybody wants to have this, SROs can look through a backpack and look through a locker, and they look like inhalers and key fobs and lipsticks, and you can’t even.

Lauren 37:46
They’ll always be reinvented to the next thing. We have to start it at the at the intellectual level.

Kriya 37:51
And now they’ve got Zins that just dissolve in the lip, and nobody knows that they’re there, and they’re heavy dosing themselves all day long with nicotine. So they’re going to have to have the internal buy in to not want and to and to resent what those messages are are doing to them. And so similarly with with family. I mean, it’s, it’s a trickier conversation, but you can still say, well, so what messages do you get about substance use in your family? You know, what have you seen as the pros and the cons of how your family members use substances. You know, what do you want to do? We all want things that we that we want to keep and things that we don’t from our parents. You know, how do you how do you feel about your father’s drinking? And what do you want your own relationship with alcohol to be like? And what are you going to do? What commitments are you going to make to yourself, and how are you going to uphold those? Because it’s really, I think with adolescents, it’s really important that they get because, because they have had the failing of of adult, I mean, counselors and health teachers, right, has been that whole like, like, the tarred lung in the jar kind of thing, you know, like the scared tactics.

Lauren 38:58
Okay, old news, right? This is, this doesn’t relate to me.

Kriya 39:02
Yeah. I’m like, Okay, so in 90 years from now, if I keep doing this, which I’m not going to do, I might, that might happen. So understanding that no one means to be an addict, no one means to overdose, not most of the time, right? So how are, how are they going to keep that from being them? And then this is the difference between when someone tries something and it seems all good in the beginning, you know, that’s the that’s the trickiness of it, right? Is that it might look like it’s meeting your needs and feeling good and all that, you know, and and that every addiction starts that way. You know, so, so they really do need to, need to know what their own risk factors are, and be able to talk about those and how to how to overpower them with protective factors as well.

Lauren 39:48
Yeah, there is so much out there for us to understand as school counselors, but I feel like what you have given us here is a really good intro to what’s out there, what we need to be aware of, even just some of that terminology. And I mean this rolls off your tongue like you know you know it, and we’re hearing it, and the more we hear it, the more familiar we’re going to get with it. But I just really appreciate all your really practical things, like just conversation starters, things to do in classrooms with students, just even thinking how we relate to them on a topic that can be sensitive or that they can get defensive about. I mean, there are lots of things like that that we’re talking to them in high school, but this one just feels trickier. It feels like it falls in that discipline category, and we’re not DSS or child protective services, like we’re not a lot of roles, but we can be someone who’s still an advocate for students, who still helps, we still help them inspire change in themselves. And so I find this conversation really encouraging, and I hope that counselors listening feel the same way.

Kriya 40:51
Good. Yeah, I know that it can feel, whenever I do a presentation, it’s always like, Okay, so just so you know, we’re about to go into some really dismal stuff, and it’s gonna feel like…

Lauren 41:00
It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.

Kriya 41:02
And you’re gonna, might, might feel a little teary and a little nauseous. Okay, that’s gonna happen first, and then we’re gonna talk about, you know, what, what we can do. Because we really, we really can, and we can empower parents as well, right? I mean, parents don’t know what they don’t know. So that’s one of the other roles that we can really play, is by, by helping parents have the information, you know, which most of them, once they have it, care about it.

Lauren 41:26
Right, I was gonna say they’re gonna run with it too, and they’re gonna tell their friends, and they’re gonna do the research. Like, the more we can empower all of these stakeholders, the broader the impact our work is gonna gonna have.

Kriya 41:37
Yeah.

Lauren 41:38
Well, thank you for sharing all this. Where can listeners find some of these resources that you talked about, or where can they go to, like, continue learning more from the vetted sources that you have?

Kriya 41:46
So on, on my website, it is kriyalendzion.com, I’ve got what I think are the best of the best, you know, curated resources that are on substance use. And I also have screen help. That’s another hot, hot topic. And there’s, there’s places to stay on top of, like the latest data, you know, and real good research, if you want to, you want, you know, you want to have that in hand, and you want to be able to have that to lead to kids. Because, well, so when they say everybody’s doing it, and you can actually pull up the data that shows that less and less kids are doing it, and more kids are choosing to not use, you know which is awesome. And I have a whole like VIP section, and all you do, you go to where it says members only, and you plug in your email, and the portal of awesomeness will open, including all these resources that I use with parents to help empower them with how you talk to your kids about substances, how you create, like, family agreements at home, around all of these things, how you respond if you bust your kid. You know, I’ve got some tools that counselors can share with their their parent community as well.

Lauren 42:52
This is great. That sounds so valuable. We’ll definitely link that in the show notes and make sure that they can get to your website and find all those resources. They’re going to walk away from this really empowered, I think, to have good conversations and keep learning more about this.

Kriya 43:06
I hope.

Lauren 43:07
Kriya, is there anything I didn’t ask you about that you feel like we still need to know, like we didn’t hit on a topic?

Kriya 43:13
So the discipline piece, I think, is really important. And you know, whenever I present this to school counselors, I feel like I always have to give this caveat of like, I know you think that this is the administrators thing. But we really need to push our way to that table, because we, we are the experts in the building on why kids are doing what they’re doing, right, on behavior and on changing that behavior. And we know who’s doing it, where, why, right? We know more than anybody else.

Kriya 43:43
So I think we really need to be partners in creating discipline policies. Because if we know that, that most kids are using, I mean, they start because, often because of just the desire to belong, you know, and that they’re figuring out identity and these very natural adolescent needs for one, that the majority of kids say that they continue using, and especially the ones that develop problems because they are self medicating, they’re trying to meet their needs for for their anxiety. They’re trying to relieve their anxiety, their depression, their stress. So it doesn’t make you know the traditional punitive policies that smack a kid on the hand and they leave feeling shamed, feeling like they’ve got this like bad kid identity. They go home, vape for three days and come back and nothing has changed, right?

Kriya 44:34
It’s really important that we be at the table to look at, to really pull out, okay, why is this kid, I think when a kid is has gotten in trouble, that the administrators, the counselors, I love having the medical staff and any other adults that identify as being like, it might be a coach. It might be a, you know, somebody that knows this kid, put that kid out on the table. I mean, you know, like in black and white, and say, what’s going on for this kid? What do they need? You know, out of those needs that I listed, right, whether it is just like fun and activity or purpose or confidence, right? And what can we do on our watch, on this campus, to to help the kid better meet those needs? What can we point them towards? What can we provide them? What resources can the the parents, do the parents need to be able to do this better? But there’s a lot of, you know, growing movement of, and I’m coaching or consulting increasingly, with schools on the on the policy piece, because schools are starting to do more innovative things that are based in again, if we know why kids are using, that’s what we want to address to change their behavior.

Lauren 45:43
Right, and we know what’s not working, what we’ve done for so many years in the past.

Kriya 45:47
It has backfired, right? Has even backfired.

Lauren 45:50
And that ends up being like when it’s just the administrator, like issuing out a consequence or something, instead of looking at the whole child. I love what you’re saying about including those values pieces, because every kid is different. Like, we need to press in on this confidence button. Like, where can we grow their confidence in the school? Give them more roles and responsibilities and leadership, whatever that is, when you have those adults who know the student around a table, you really could probably come up with some really creative ways to help the student.

Kriya 46:18
Yeah, absolutely. And so I’ve seen, you know, school, what I would, I suggest, are things around sometimes there can be, there can be, like service learning projects. You know, they can have conversations with people that are struggling with addiction or that are struggling with lung, you know, lung issues. They can do intensive, like research projects on real kids like them and what has happened. They can be peer educators. Part of their project is to do educational programs for, you know, for for others on on campus. Of course, we have, like, sort of, we can do short, brief motivational interviewing style things right, where we’re kind of checking in on how we’re not, we’re not being substance use therapists again, but we can again, help to sort of, at least get them maybe to a point where they’re receptive to some interventions, or that they are they’re wanting to make a change. We also, we know that about 70% almost of kids that are vaping at this point want to quit, especially particularly nicotine. They didn’t mean to get addicted, and they’re angry about the fact that they are.

Lauren 47:20
Then you show them all those other things in the classroom, like you did, and they are fired up, I’m sure.

Kriya 47:24
But it’s like, if we’re gonna lead them to water, we gotta give them the water. So you know, we as counselors can, can be those advocates for the referrals, for their being other like prevention specialists or intervention specialists or cessation programs on campus, there’s some great ones that I list them all in the resources on my website. But things that people can can get briefed, any staff member can get trained to lead a cessation program, you know, after school. But we want to have as much as we can these, these things happening on school grounds, and we’re going to be the strongest, most informed voice to advocate for those things happening on campus.

Lauren 48:02
Yeah, that’s a great point.

Kriya 48:03
To help kids change their use, yeah.

Lauren 48:06
Well, this was seriously awesome. I really appreciate you taking some time to talk about this.

Kriya 48:11
Yeah, I appreciate it.

Lauren 48:11
We’ll point them to all your resources there.

Kriya 48:13
Awesome.

Lauren 48:14
Thank you so much for being here.

Lauren 48:15
Did I not tell you that was going to be amazing? All of Kriya’s resources that she talked about are linked in the show notes, really easy to get to. I clicked through them. What a great wealth of knowledge she was, and she’s a bank full of resources. Because I’m not going to have all of these things memorized, I would be a little nervous to have these conversations with students, but her resources are going to equip you to have the conversations, have the hard conversations, and know where to go next when you have this in front of you.

Lauren 48:46
And chances are it’s already been in front of you, this issue does not only pertain to one type of student, as she mentioned, but as you also know in your building, substance use and abuse is not just for a certain type of student, it is affecting all of our students, and so the more we can be knowledgeable about the situation at hand, and the more we can be empowered to have the conversations and to help students understand what is going on around them, what’s going on in their brain as they’re using and abusing alcohol and drugs, the better resource that we can be to our students and our families. So I know that you are going to take away a lot from this conversation, and feel free to reach out to Kriya. I know that she has so much information, and she would be a great person to either bring into your school for a PD, or just be someone to continue the conversation with, ask her questions. So reach out and connect all of her resources and all her contact information is in the show notes. We’ll see you next week.

Lauren 49:48
Thanks for listening to today’s episode of High School Counseling Conversations. All the links I talked about today can be found in the show notes and also at counselorclique.com/podcast. Be sure to hit follow wherever you listen to your podcasts, so that you never miss a new episode. Connect with me over on Instagram. Feel free to send me a DM @counselorclique, that’s C, L, I, Q, U, E. I’ll see you next week.