June 17, 2024 • 38 mins
Understanding the Root Causes of the Drug Crisis: An Interview with Christina Dent
In this episode of the Prisoner's Pardon podcast, host Michi J welcomes Christina Dent, the founder of End It For Good, to discuss the misunderstood root causes of the drug and addiction problem in the U.S. Christina shares her personal journey from a typical upbringing in Mississippi to becoming an advocate for drug policy reform. Through her experience as a foster parent and interactions with individuals affected by addiction, Christina provides insights into why current solutions have failed and offers alternative approaches. She emphasizes the importance of looking deeper into addiction as a health issue, the inefficacies of incarceration, and potential solutions like legally regulated drug markets and the CRAFT model for family support. Christina's book 'Curious' aims to shed light on these issues and inspire change. Additional resources and offers, including free book copies and educational materials, are provided for listeners.
00:00 Understanding the Root Causes of Drug Problems
00:51 Introduction to the Guest: Christina Dent
02:26 Christina's Personal Journey into Drug Policy
06:30 The Impact of Criminalizing Drug Use
16:42 Exploring Solutions: Legal Regulation and Quality Control
22:48 Support Systems for Families and Individuals
34:06 Final Thoughts and Resources
Website:
https://enditforgood.com
https://www.facebook.com/EndItForGoodMS/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I think We have misunderstood,, the root causes of a lot of
(00:03):
the problems we're facing.
And we look deep enoughat those root causes.
We would get some verydifferent solutions.
And I think that's why.
We haven't seen the solutions we want.
We have, overdoses atits highest rates in U.
S.
history.
Illegal drug use has doubledin the last 20 years.
Overdose is now the leading causeof accidental death in the U.
(00:24):
S.
So we have these increasing harmsinstead of things getting better.
I think We havemisunderstood, , the root causes
(00:51):
Hello and welcome to aprisoner's pardon podcast.
This is Michi J and I am so glad tohave everyone listening today because
we have a great guest here today.
Her name is Christina Dent.
Christina is a speaker author.
She's the founder of theorganization End It For Good.
(01:13):
You have to understand we're goingto talk about what this is all
about, because you need to hear this.
She's a mother.
She's a wife.
She's out of Jackson, Mississippi.
That's not far from wheremy people were raised.
So that's interesting in itself.
And she also, she has a BA.
in biblical studies outof Mississippi as well.
(01:33):
It's.
so great to have her herebecause Christina is talking
about drugs and addiction
.Welcome Christina.
Thank you.
I'm really excited to be with you.
Oh, I am excited to, tohave you here as well.
Now, Christina has been everywhere.
You guys, I was looking at her bio.
She has done Ted talks and shehas been in front of criminal
(01:58):
justice, people, churches.
She has been across the whole gamut.
Now she is talking tomy audience, which is.
Mostly, people that's been incarcerated,their families, , as you all know, I
have a brother that's incarcerated whohas been dealing with drugs as well.
And I needed thissolution a long time ago.
So I am so happy to have you here.
(02:19):
So Christina, tell us more.
It's something I miss about what you do.
Yeah.
So I'll give you the storyof how I got into it.
Then we'll talk about what we do.
So I grew up here inMississippi, uh, born and raised.
I've lived in Mississippi my whole life.
Um, and never was close todrugs and addiction growing up.
(02:42):
I didn't have that in my family.
Um, my friends weren't using inhigh school or anything like that.
And so, uh, it really didn't Come closeto me until I was in my early thirties.
Like you said, I have a degree in Bible.
It just wasn't part of my,wasn't part of my world.
Um, you know, I was about as wild aslike popping popcorn and watching a movie
on the weekend kind of thing like that.
(03:04):
This wasn't my, it just, itnever came into my field.
And so, um, I kind of got to my earlythirties with this idea that is a,
uh, kind of the cultural idea ofpeople who use drugs are bad people.
And so I had kind of just picked that up.
I don't remember anybody everspecifically saying that to me.
(03:25):
It was just kind of what I pickedup from all the things around me is
this is kind of a, um, you know, uh,uh, low character or moral failing
of some sort, that sort of thing.
And so when, um, I was in myearly thirties, my husband
and I became foster parents.
And through that experience, we endedup fostering a couple of different
(03:45):
children, but one of them was alittle boy who was born, um, to his
mom, who was struggling with a, um,methamphetamine addiction at the time.
And she wasn't able to, Beat thataddiction during her pregnancy.
And so when he was born, he wasremoved from her custody and put into
foster care and she would have theopportunity to regain custody of him.
(04:07):
Um, and he was brought to our houseand we became his foster family.
So he arrives and, um, after a coupleof days, uh, I take him to go visit his
mom at the child welfare office for herone hour visitation time in the little
visitation room and I, um, Pull into theparking lot of that office and I pop his
(04:30):
car seat out of the car and turn aroundin the parking lot and suddenly I'm
Watch this woman come sprinting acrossthe parking lot towards me, weeping.
And she runs over and just startskissing this baby and talking to him.
And I'm still kind of awkwardlyholding his car seat, wondering
what the heck is going on.
(04:50):
Um, and this is his mom, Joanne.
And this is the first time I've met her.
I feel very suspicious, uh,uncertain of You know, it's real.
If she really loved him this much,you know, I was using drugs while
she was pregnant and just didn'treally know how to understand that.
And so, you know, I did what Ithink humans do when we encounter
(05:12):
something that doesn't fit with whatwe already believe, we kind of try to
look for a reason to stop listening.
Like, how could I, how couldI make my life easier by like
disregarding this in some way?
I'm looking for some reasonto say this isn't real.
So I left him for hishour of visitation time.
I came back and picked him up and, um,he was just laying on his mom's shoulder.
(05:32):
She's just sitting there on that couch.
She's not playing onher phone or anything.
She just is drinking in this momentthat she has with him, this one
hour of time before she has toleave for inpatient drug treatment.
And he comes back to my house.
Mhm.
So they got there one hour, she wentto treatment, um, but then she would
call me from there and she would askme to put her on speakerphone and
(05:55):
she would sing to him over the phone.
It was just this incredibleexperience of her vulnerability.
To let me see her as she really isnot to hold me at arm's length, not
to push me away or to be combativebecause that's a hard relationship.
(06:16):
I thought, you know, somerandom person has your child.
Um, instead she just let me see her.
And that was life changing for me becauseI started to wrestle with, wait a second.
I know we're putting women like herin prison and men all the time for the
exact same thing that she was doing.
(06:37):
If she had been caught in possessionof that methamphetamine, um, she
would have had a very differentoutcome than what she was able to
have because she was able to go totreatment and she wasn't caught first.
So I started wrestling with thatand really began this learning
journey that ended up happening.
Changing my mind completely abouthow we could get the best outcomes
(06:57):
related to drugs and addiction.
That's everything from people likeJoanne that were struggling with an
addiction, as well as everything fromhow do we stop the overdose crisis?
How do we reduce the amountof crime that's related to
that underground drug market?
It's all wrapped up in this bigquestion about what are the best
tools to use for drugs and addiction.
(07:18):
And that's why I wrote the book.
Curious is to take people on that learningjourney with me and to say, I think we
have misunderstood, um, the root causesof a lot of the problems we're facing.
And we look deep enoughat those root causes.
We would get some verydifferent solutions.
And I think that's why.
We haven't seen the solutions we want.
(07:39):
We have, um, overdoses atits highest rates in U.
S.
history.
Illegal drug use has doubledin the last 20 years.
Um, overdose is now the leadingcause of accidental death in the U.
S.
So we have these increasing harmsinstead of things getting better.
And I hope that Curious, um, uh, is onepiece of shining a light on why that is
(08:01):
and how we could, uh, reverse that trend.
I love the name curious because itcaptures a person attention and say,
like, um, you want to see what's in here.
You want to find out what the solutionis because, you know, we do have so many
families struggling and wondering how,what to do and, you know, constantly
(08:27):
going to drug treatments, you know,because the family goes along with them.
So.
In your, um, estimation, like,what does Curious, in a nutshell,
how do you approach this solution?
What is the solution for this?
Yeah, so I think it's a it's a multipronged solution because different
(08:49):
parts of the solution impactdifferent parts of the problem.
So usually people when they're thinkingabout how do I help my loved one
overcome an addiction, they're notthinking about why are cartels South of
the border, creating lots of violence.
Like they seem very disconnected,those, those problems.
They seem like, well, yeah, they'reboth kind of like related to drugs,
but they're totally separate.
(09:11):
Um, but they're not totally separate.
And so part of what I do in Curious isjust take people through what happens
when you use the criminal justicesystem, whether it's for consumers of
drugs or whether it's for drug markets.
So, um, When you force a drug underground,when you ban it, um, or schedule it,
(09:32):
something that makes it where there'sno legal market for it, it doesn't go
away, but it does move underground.
And so you have, um, now the onlypeople that can get money from that
are people who are willing to breakthe law in order to sell those drugs.
Sometimes those are people whoare just struggling with an
addiction themselves and tryingto make some money to pay for it.
(09:53):
Sometimes if you go far enough up thefood chain, you'll get back to, um, you
know, cartels or terrorist organizationsor somebody like that who is selling, um,
uh, drugs in order to profit from that.
In a much larger sense.
And so what we've done is we'vebanned so many different drugs that
now the underground drug market isworth about 500 billion every year.
(10:18):
So you think about this hugepile of cash, 500 billion.
And basically what we've saidis we just hope that nobody is
going to go get that pile of cash.
Like we just don't want anybody to, to, tosell it, you know, to, to earn the money.
Well, what do we knowabout human behavior?
Humans are not good atleaving cash unearned.
(10:40):
They, there is cash to be made.
If there are consumers holding outmoney, you're, there will always be
somebody who is willing to sell thosedrugs for a whole variety of reasons.
But it's, it's always because there's cashinvolved, there's money to be made there.
And so that ends up incentivizing crime.
And when you have.
(11:01):
Lots and lots of crime andit's an underground market.
You can't call the police.
If somebody rips you off, you'vegot to go handle that on your own.
Um, and you can't, it's not a.
In a, you know, you think abouttrade routes and things like that.
Well, that's the way you getthat is just through force.
You got to just defend your territory.
You got to, if you want toexpand the piece of your pie,
(11:22):
you got to take that by force.
And so it ends up creating lots ofviolence, lots of crime from the market.
Fighting amongst, amongst itself, um, andthat ends up playing out in the streets.
And generally that violence is mostfelt in the most vulnerable communities,
whether that's, uh, our vulnerablecommunities in the U S or whether
(11:43):
that's vulnerable communities outsideof the U S, um, that tends to be where
most of that is, uh, is centered.
And so that was a reallychallenging thing for me.
Cause I hadn't, I have alwaysthought, you know, If a drug can cause
harm, you just ban it, and then itgoes away, but it doesn't go away.
It actually creates a lot of crime,and then it also, um, you don't have
(12:08):
any kind of regulatory control over it.
So, when we think about the fentanylcrisis that we're in right now
with people dying from overdose.
About 90 percent of people whodie from an opioid overdose today
have fentanyl in their systems.
But that's happening because there'sno regulation around the drugs
that they're getting on the street.
(12:29):
They can have whatever in them.
They can have fentanyl in them.
They can have nidazines in them.
They can have xylazine in them.
They can have brick dust, rat poison,all kinds of things that are used
as additives and cutting agents.
Um, and there's no quality controllike you would have in a legal market
where you can look at the package andyou know, the ingredients, you know,
(12:50):
the potency dose it appropriately.
So I'll tell you a little storyabout this, because fentanyl is
such a huge problem right now.
And so many people are dying and we,so we think of fentanyl as a lethal.
drug, like fentanyl kills people.
But when my son, my youngest son, whenhe was four, it's just a couple of years
ago, um, he cut his finger really badlyand had to go to the emergency room.
(13:15):
So we go to the emergency room andhe's going to have to have stitches.
And the nurse comes in with a littlesyringe and she says, Hey, I'm
going to give him some fentanyl.
It's going to help him feel betterbefore we do these stitches.
Simultaneously, you have a fouryear old, tiny little four year
old who's going to get fentanyl.
And you also have these 40 year old menwho are dying from fentanyl overdose.
(13:39):
It's not the fentanyl that isThe real problem, it is the lack
of quality control and the lackof dosing, appropriate dosing.
So in a medical setting, youcan dose fentanyl appropriately.
Fentanyl is used every single dayin every hospital in this country,
uh, over and over and over again.
It's a very powerful opioid,which makes it useful for pain
(14:02):
relief in a medical setting.
When it's on the street and peoplecan't dose it appropriately, it
is so potent that the The risk ofoverdose is just so much higher
because the margin of error betweengetting high and dying is razor thin.
So you've got all of this harmcoming from these underground
(14:23):
markets that move underground andcreate a lot of crime and violence.
You get a lot of overdose that happensbecause of contamination and Um, you
can't dose it appropriately and then youhave what happens to consumers, which I
would imagine there's probably a lot ofpeople who listen to your podcast that
have been affected in some way by, um,incarceration related to drugs, whether
(14:44):
that's a paraphernalia charge or apossession charge or, uh, you know, intent
to distribute or whatever it might be.
Um, and so when I started lookingat that and thinking about for
people who are using drugs.
What is the likelihood that anincarceration, that an arrest is going
(15:05):
to deter them from using drugs again?
I started learning about addiction andwhat, what causes addiction and, and
more importantly, what heals addiction.
Because the, the wholepurpose of using the criminal
justice system is people need.
You know, they need that hard stop.
They need that pain in their life.
(15:25):
They need to feel it, uh, harshly, andthat will help them to kind of snap out
of it and quit making those decisions.
Um, and what I learned is that'sactually the opposite thing of what
people need to be able to heal becauseso much addiction is driven by.
Pain in a person's life.
(15:45):
Mm-Hmm.
, emotional pain.
Uh, mental health issues.
Um, childhood trauma, loneliness,disconnection, isolation.
Those are the things that createvulnerability to addiction.
And so in using the criminal justicesystem, we're actually adding more
pain and trauma into a person's life.
(16:07):
More difficulty, more disconnection,and then were confused as
to why that didn't work.
And I think what we know now aboutthe drivers of addiction explains
why that has not worked well for us.
There are a few people for whom Itwas the thing that changed their life.
And there are thousands and thousandsof people cycling in and out of
(16:30):
the criminal justice system becauseit's not helping them to heal the
deeper reasons for their drug use.
It's just adding more pain and more hurtand more difficulty into their life.
So are you for legalizing it or what doyou have a solution in that area or yes,
we would say yes, that moving towardslegally regulated markets again is going
(16:55):
to be the best path to regain controlof the market, take it away from, uh,
cartels and other criminal organizationsand also to regain some quality control
and ability to, uh, To control theproduct that people are using, as well
as things like protecting childrenthrough age restrictions on purchasing.
(17:16):
Um, you know, one of the interestingthings I used to think about, you
know, prohibiting a drug is kind oflike the ultimate form of regulation.
Like if it's bad, boy, we're justgoing to regulate the heck out of it.
We're going to ban it.
And it's actually, when youban something, you lose all.
Control of it.
I mean, you can, people cansell whatever they want.
(17:36):
So you've got whoever wants to can sellit, whoever wants to can buy it and they
can sell whatever product they want to.
And there's no telling what they'reputting in that bag that they're selling.
And so, um, it's actually aprohibition is an absence of control.
It's not.
The ultimate form of control.
(17:57):
And so, um, so I say that hesitatinglybecause it still makes me uncomfortable.
You know, we have an organizationthat's inviting people to consider this
because we think it is the best wayto reduce global harm as well as local
harm related to drugs and addiction.
But the idea of even adults having.
Um, legal access to some of thesepopular recreational drugs still
(18:20):
makes me really uncomfortable.
Um, cause I don't want people using drugs.
I just, I want, except for medicalreasons or whatnot, and I recognize
people can use recreationally andthat's, you know, plenty of people
do that with alcohol legally today.
Um, but the risk is there.
There's certainly risk thereof what, what will happen.
(18:41):
And will we be able to educate people?
about the risks and help themto make healthy decisions rather
than, than unhealthy ones.
Um, but when I look at what, what thepath is for us to continue down this
path and what the path is to actuallysolve the root causes of those problems,
(19:05):
I think people, if you ask them what'sthe biggest problem happening with.
Drugs today, most people are goingto say overdose because they're
hearing about it all the time.
They know people who haveoverdosed and died now.
They know fentanyl is out there.
So how are we going to fix that?
You can't fix that by just puttingmore police officers on the
street and finding more drugs.
(19:27):
As long as there's people who want drugs,there's going to be drugs available.
There's no way that you can takeenough drugs off the street.
To stop people from using drugs.
It is, it is absolutely impossible.
It's like, um, it would be like thinkingwe could like empty Walmart shelves
and we just steal enough merchandise.
Kind of like Walmart knowshow much merchandise they're
(19:48):
going to lose to shoplifting.
And they just send that muchmore merchandise because they
want their shelves to be full.
The same is true of the drug market.
There is no shortage of drugs.
Their shipping is pretty good.
As much as they need for whatever themarket demand is in a particular area.
Um, so we can't, there are no othergood solutions to some of these.
(20:14):
problems that we're facingto, to address fentanyl.
We have to allow some form ofquality controlled, um, option
for consumers to use so that theystop using contaminated drugs.
That's going to be hard.
It's going to be hard to figure out.
What's the best way to do that?
(20:34):
Is it through prescriptions?
Is it at a pharmacy?
Um, Are there certain low dosagesthat people could access without
a prescription but from a medicalprovider in some way from a pharmacy
where it still can be regulated?
And those are hard questions, but I thinkthe The time has passed for us to say
(20:56):
the, the solutions are too difficult.
And we just want to kind ofkeep going down the same path.
If we keep going down the same path,we're going to keep getting not just the
same results, but actually worse results.
Because if you look at what has happenedwith, um, contamination, let's say,
so it used to be that contaminationhappened, but it wasn't a huge problem.
(21:16):
The potency of the drugs wasnot strong enough where you had
lots and lots of people dying.
But now.
Fentanyl's on the market.
Nidazines are actually farmore potent than fentanyl.
They're coming in, they'removing them all around the U.
S.
Um, we're on a, a march towards higherand higher and higher potency drugs on
(21:37):
the street, and that's not going to stop.
Um, people are going tocontinue to die because they
can't dose them appropriately.
You look at the, um, the rate of how muchmoney is going to criminal organizations.
People are still buying drugs andthat money is going to go to criminal
(22:00):
organizations as long as we do notallow those markets to operate in
some sort of legally regulated way.
Um, so the answers are hard, butI think if we're, if we sit long
enough with the root causes of theproblem, um, we might be willing to
begin that process of figuring outhow do we roll back this criminal
(22:22):
justice approach so that we can treat.
Drugs and drug use and addictionas health issues, which I
think is what they really are.
Mm hmm.
Okay, so that's what Curious is goinginto is, you know, um, the legal system.
What about the root causesfor with the person itself?
How does it address thisparticular issue health wise?
(22:47):
Mm hmm.
Yeah, so one of the things that Iwould encourage for any family member
who has a loved one who is struggling.
With addiction is to goto allies in recovery.
So we're not financiallyconnected to them in any way.
We just know who they areand they do fantastic work.
They're a national organization,allies in recovery.
Um, and they offer training, supportgroups, um, practice groups, all
(23:12):
kinds of support for family members.
with a loved one strugglingwith an addiction.
And they teach a model called C.
R.
A.
F.
T.
So it stands for CommunityReinforcement and Family Training.
And C.
R.
A.
F.
T., yeah, C.
R.
A.
F.
T.
was developed, uh, a couple of decadesago, probably 25 years ago now.
And it is a, it's a model that hasbeen studied extensively and has been
(23:38):
shown to increase the family's health.
As addiction is a incredibly stressfulevent for the whole family unit.
So, CRAFT increases the family'shealth as well as it actually
makes their loved one more likelyto seek help for their addiction.
So for families thataren't sure, what do I do?
(23:58):
Like how do I, I don't want toenable them, but I also don't want
to just cut off this family member.
Be That I love, but I, what, how do Iengage here in a way that's helpful?
Craft teaches you how to do that.
It teaches you how to engage withyour loved one in a way that is not
enabling, but does offer them positivereinforcement for making positive choices.
(24:23):
And it's really transformative.
I, I hope everyone knows about it.
And I hope that we getto a point one day where.
There's craft support groups, just likethere are AA support groups or Al Anon
support groups or anything like that.
Um, because one of the challengesof, of the groups that are available
(24:44):
currently is they tend to say.
They tend to teach you how toseparate from the situation, but
not how to actually engage inthe situation in a helpful way.
And so that's what CRAFT does.
So for any family member, highlyrecommend checking out Allies in Recovery.
Um, they have so many different resourcesand just do phenomenal work resourcing
(25:07):
families who are trying to walk withtheir loved one through an addiction.
Um, and then for people who arestruggling with an addiction, I think,
you know, Part of the research for thebook, and the book really is a memoir.
So if people are thinking, I'm notinterested in like a drug policy
book, this isn't a drug policy book.
This is a memoir.
Um, this is just my, my, my journey, mystory, what I learned and what I think
(25:31):
could, could, um, help us in the long run.
Um, but one of the things that was sointeresting to me is how many people.
Who have struggled with an addictionthat went through that addiction, having
no clue what was happening to them.
Like, why, what is, whyam I making these choices?
Why can't I stop?
(25:52):
Why, even though I love my family,why did I just steal money from them?
Like these things that are, that are soagainst their values, their internal.
Um, character and yet they'rebehaving in ways that are not in
line with who they want to be andwho, who they are at their core.
(26:14):
Um, and I think Curious offersthem a way of learning about that.
Um, I talk about Rat Park, which was a,uh, experiment that was done a number of
years ago to, um, to help, uh, figure out,is it the drug that is so powerful or is
(26:36):
it something else that's actually the realreason why people are using that drug?
So I tell that whole story and experiment.
It's fascinating and, um, curious,but it helps give people answers.
My mom always used to say hooksto hang things on, like a way to
understand, um, what's happening,whether that's a loved one or
(26:56):
whether that's a person in addiction.
And I've actually had a lot ofpeople in recovery who have read
the book and said it was a reallyhealing thing for them to read.
I think just, um, Yeah, that, thathas really touched me that it has been
helpful, even though I'm not a person whohas experienced a substance use disorder
(27:17):
myself, um, but in talking to so manypeople and telling so many other people's
stories in the book, it's, it's mystory, but there's also lots of different
people's stories who were included in it,um, including parents of children who have
struggled, um, parents who've lost lovedones, Just lots of different stories.
So I think it is for anyonewho is touched with this issue.
(27:40):
Um, my experience has been, I'vebeen hearing from people who
have said, this is so helpful.
It's so hopeful, gives us a, away to see a different future
that we can be part of where.
There's a lot more healingand a lot less harm.
Mm hmm.
I like that.
Yeah.
It's because, yeah, we do need betterapproaches and not just, I'm a believer
(28:05):
that prisons are not actually, youknow, biblically speaking, it's not,
it wasn't designed to cure anything.
It was.
Designed for, um, punishment in a way notto try and treat the person, but, um, but
yeah, but we've lost that way, I think,and that's and we're finding that out
(28:27):
because a lot of people are not changing.
It's not meant to change the person.
Right?
So it can't change the person.
So with.
You know, I love this training craftand just getting into things like that.
Maybe they can bringthat into the prisons.
Do they have that at all?
Well, that's for the family members.
But what about, you know, um, whatwas the other one for individuals?
(28:51):
Is there any individual one?
Well, there are different, um, sothere are prisons or jails that do
have different recovery programs.
Some of them run celebraterecovery programs in there.
Um, there are some jails thatare starting to offer medication
for opioid use disorder.
That's a really helpful tool for a lotof people to stabilize their lives.
(29:13):
Um, and not be usingcontaminated substances.
There are some jails that arebeginning to allow that in, in jails,
which is a, is phenomenal becauseit is, um, at this point, the most
effective form of treatment thatwe know of for, um, an opioid use
disorder that is available at least.
And so, um, yeah, there'slots of different.
(29:35):
options.
Very few tend to be availablein jails and prisons.
And, you know, to your point,I actually was just reading,
um, a study that came out.
It was an analysis of like 116 otherstudies on the role of incarceration
on, um, recidivism, like on a person,whether or not they're going to
commit another crime in the future.
(29:57):
And they found that incarceration hasno different impact on the rates of
recidivism than like Um, probation does.
So, being, to your point, incarcerationis, um, it really is only useful as a
separating of someone from the community.
Like, if they are so dangerous thatthey, they must be held in a specific
(30:21):
location away from the community.
for joining me.
It can do that, but it does not impact.
It does not help people make better futuredecisions any more than just being put on
probation would, which is pretty shocking.
I mean, that's, we've got lots of peoplein prison for whom the, the reason we
put them there is because we're hopingit changes their future behavior.
(30:42):
Um, and yeah, it's not designed for that.
It can't, it's not doing that.
It really can't do that.
I mean, you're, you're asking peopleto find healing for deep wounds.
In a place where violence and abuseand, uh, and drugs are rampant,
people can get drugs easily in prison.
(31:03):
And so it's not helping themovercome their addiction.
There certainly are a few people whohave a life changing experience there,
but the vast majority, um, do not.
And it makes life, um, a whole lot harder.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
Now, if we can just get people tosee that point and, uh, help find
the solution, you know, and use.
(31:24):
The tool of prison appropriately,you know, just like you said,
some people don't need to be thereand they need to be in treatment.
Maybe it's, you know, but it's, itjust depends on the circumstances and
the person, you know, it's not foreverybody, but yeah, this is very good.
I like that you took the time, you didthis memoir cause I was going to ask
(31:47):
you, you know, how did you know this?
How did you know, and justlistening to people's stories.
And I think it's going to resonate.
With you know people that haven'tbeen exposed to this because
how would they know you know?
Yeah, you're making judgments without muchinformation, and that's just a tendency.
We all have yeah No, we're gonna feelit was something if we don't know so
(32:10):
that's right So we just make it up youknow so and then we like well, that's
that's That's not what I believe in.
And, uh, thank you for seeing thatit was a difference in a person.
Uh, the mother is an individual thatis going through some things and, and
we do really need to get to the core,like what's the fundamental problems
(32:33):
and start addressing that, and a lotof times I'm seeing all these government
programs meant to help is always harmful.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Always turns out to be very harmfulbecause, we have not the right
things in place and some of the peopleare not curious, not reading your
(32:55):
book and just doing the research.
They're just throwing it out there.
I just got this degree in here andthere and I know what I'm doing.
And it's like, you, how can you Dothat and you haven't even looked at
it and don't even, you know, it'snot working cause they, they don't
go back and look at the stats andstuff like, Hey, you need to fix this.
It's not working.
(33:15):
So yeah, this is wonderful.
, is there anything else?
, as we wrap this up, you want tosay to the audience about curious,
I know I'm going to put it in theshow notes, how to contact you.
I actually joined and subscribed to getyou because, you know, just to stay.
Posted on what's needed.
(33:36):
It seems like you've got a really goodhandle on, , the lawmakers and what's
coming out and hopefully getting them to.
, to write some better bills, um,some laws and put it in place.
And hopefully we do something, I hateto say it about that border, how it's
getting in here, but what, what would you,what else would you say that's really,
(33:57):
you want to say to the audience to aboutcurious about, uh, especially people who
haven't been exposed to drugs at all.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I'd say, um, so I've got somefree copies for your listeners.
So the first five people that email us,we'll send a free copy of curious to you.
You can email us atcurious at end it for good.
(34:21):
com.
That's like E N D.
And it for good.
com.
So curious at, and if we're good.
com shoot us an email, first fivepeople will send a free copy of it too.
Um, you can also get it on Amazon.
The audio book will be outin just a couple of weeks.
There's a Kindle version.
Um, and there's also, we havejust some resources on our
website that you can get to.
You can go to end it for good.
(34:41):
com slash freebies.
And we have three ways you can helpsomeone struggling with an addiction.
We also have one called, um,five keys to having productive
conversations on polarizing topics.
If you've ever tried to, ever triedto share your passion about something
with someone and you just feel likeyou hit the brick wall, um, we've,
we've learned a lot doing, uh, lotsof events and lots of speaking and
(35:04):
talking with lots of people about how.
How can we help people be, becurious about whatever our issue is?
For us, this is this issue of drugsand addiction, but for other people,
it's other passions and that's great.
So if you have a passion for somethingand you're trying to figure out how to
help other people be open to listening,um, we wanted to just help people.
(35:26):
Be able to, to share their passionswith the world in a more productive way.
And so you can go to end it for good.
com slash freebies.
And yeah, we would love to hear from you.
Um, uh, this, this type of thing, everymovement in history, it starts with.
Just regular people, regular people whomake it their passion, who make it the
(35:48):
thing that they're going to put sometime and effort into, um, into sharing
it with other people, we grew intoan organization because people just
invited other people, Hey, you shouldcome and come to one of these events.
Hey, you should read this article.
Hey, you should read this book.
Um, it's not because.
We can reach everyone, it's becausethrough all of the people who have
(36:09):
connected with this movement, theyare now taking the movement and
helping to reach other people with it.
Um, and that is how all movements grow.
And we hope this is one where we lookback in 50 years and we all just shake
our heads and say, I cannot believe thatwe used to think that incarceration was
going to solve addiction, that it, thatit becomes just something that seems,
(36:32):
um, unbelievable to us, that that wouldhave been a time in history and that we
would leave that behind, just like we'veleft a lot of other things behind that
have needed to be changed over time.
And we have realized when we, when welearn something new, when we know better.
It's time to do better.
Um, and I think this is one of thoseareas where we can, that's excellent.
I love this approach because, you know,what you're doing is helping with the
(36:57):
communication because it has to startwith the communication and being able
to listen, you know, be able to see.
Translate, be able to receive if youdon't have a good receiver, you're
not going to understand the knowledge.
So this is really, really good.
I really thank you, Christina audienceagain, the first five people get
(37:18):
free books and tell them prisoners.
Pardon me, TJ sent you.
So I really thank you for coming.
Thank you for sharing your knowledgeand your experience and just being
honest and open yourself about what.
We don't know what you don't know.
So, and we all need to do thatbecause we don't know everything.
(37:39):
We need to just listen at times.
So, and thank you all for listening.
Well, that's it for today.
Thank you for listening.
And may you have a weekfilled with blessings.
God bless.
I think We have misunderstood,, the root causes of a lot of
(00:03):
the problems we're facing.
And we look deep enoughat those root causes.
We would get some verydifferent solutions.
And I think that's why.
We haven't seen the solutions we want.
We have, overdoses atits highest rates in U.
S.
history.
Illegal drug use has doubledin the last 20 years.
Overdose is now the leading causeof accidental death in the U.
(00:24):
S.
So we have these increasing harmsinstead of things getting better.
I think We havemisunderstood, , the root causes
(00:51):
Hello and welcome to aprisoner's pardon podcast.
This is Michi J and I am so glad tohave everyone listening today because
we have a great guest here today.
Her name is Christina Dent.
Christina is a speaker author.
She's the founder of theorganization End It For Good.
(01:13):
You have to understand we're goingto talk about what this is all
about, because you need to hear this.
She's a mother.
She's a wife.
She's out of Jackson, Mississippi.
That's not far from wheremy people were raised.
So that's interesting in itself.
And she also, she has a BA.
in biblical studies outof Mississippi as well.
(01:33):
It's.
so great to have her herebecause Christina is talking
about drugs and addiction
.Welcome Christina.
Thank you.
I'm really excited to be with you.
Oh, I am excited to, tohave you here as well.
Now, Christina has been everywhere.
You guys, I was looking at her bio.
She has done Ted talks and shehas been in front of criminal
(01:58):
justice, people, churches.
She has been across the whole gamut.
Now she is talking tomy audience, which is.
Mostly, people that's been incarcerated,their families, , as you all know, I
have a brother that's incarcerated whohas been dealing with drugs as well.
And I needed thissolution a long time ago.
So I am so happy to have you here.
(02:19):
So Christina, tell us more.
It's something I miss about what you do.
Yeah.
So I'll give you the storyof how I got into it.
Then we'll talk about what we do.
So I grew up here inMississippi, uh, born and raised.
I've lived in Mississippi my whole life.
Um, and never was close todrugs and addiction growing up.
(02:42):
I didn't have that in my family.
Um, my friends weren't using inhigh school or anything like that.
And so, uh, it really didn't Come closeto me until I was in my early thirties.
Like you said, I have a degree in Bible.
It just wasn't part of my,wasn't part of my world.
Um, you know, I was about as wild aslike popping popcorn and watching a movie
on the weekend kind of thing like that.
(03:04):
This wasn't my, it just, itnever came into my field.
And so, um, I kind of got to my earlythirties with this idea that is a,
uh, kind of the cultural idea ofpeople who use drugs are bad people.
And so I had kind of just picked that up.
I don't remember anybody everspecifically saying that to me.
(03:25):
It was just kind of what I pickedup from all the things around me is
this is kind of a, um, you know, uh,uh, low character or moral failing
of some sort, that sort of thing.
And so when, um, I was in myearly thirties, my husband
and I became foster parents.
And through that experience, we endedup fostering a couple of different
(03:45):
children, but one of them was alittle boy who was born, um, to his
mom, who was struggling with a, um,methamphetamine addiction at the time.
And she wasn't able to, Beat thataddiction during her pregnancy.
And so when he was born, he wasremoved from her custody and put into
foster care and she would have theopportunity to regain custody of him.
(04:07):
Um, and he was brought to our houseand we became his foster family.
So he arrives and, um, after a coupleof days, uh, I take him to go visit his
mom at the child welfare office for herone hour visitation time in the little
visitation room and I, um, Pull into theparking lot of that office and I pop his
(04:30):
car seat out of the car and turn aroundin the parking lot and suddenly I'm
Watch this woman come sprinting acrossthe parking lot towards me, weeping.
And she runs over and just startskissing this baby and talking to him.
And I'm still kind of awkwardlyholding his car seat, wondering
what the heck is going on.
(04:50):
Um, and this is his mom, Joanne.
And this is the first time I've met her.
I feel very suspicious, uh,uncertain of You know, it's real.
If she really loved him this much,you know, I was using drugs while
she was pregnant and just didn'treally know how to understand that.
And so, you know, I did what Ithink humans do when we encounter
(05:12):
something that doesn't fit with whatwe already believe, we kind of try to
look for a reason to stop listening.
Like, how could I, how couldI make my life easier by like
disregarding this in some way?
I'm looking for some reasonto say this isn't real.
So I left him for hishour of visitation time.
I came back and picked him up and, um,he was just laying on his mom's shoulder.
(05:32):
She's just sitting there on that couch.
She's not playing onher phone or anything.
She just is drinking in this momentthat she has with him, this one
hour of time before she has toleave for inpatient drug treatment.
And he comes back to my house.
Mhm.
So they got there one hour, she wentto treatment, um, but then she would
call me from there and she would askme to put her on speakerphone and
(05:55):
she would sing to him over the phone.
It was just this incredibleexperience of her vulnerability.
To let me see her as she really isnot to hold me at arm's length, not
to push me away or to be combativebecause that's a hard relationship.
(06:16):
I thought, you know, somerandom person has your child.
Um, instead she just let me see her.
And that was life changing for me becauseI started to wrestle with, wait a second.
I know we're putting women like herin prison and men all the time for the
exact same thing that she was doing.
(06:37):
If she had been caught in possessionof that methamphetamine, um, she
would have had a very differentoutcome than what she was able to
have because she was able to go totreatment and she wasn't caught first.
So I started wrestling with thatand really began this learning
journey that ended up happening.
Changing my mind completely abouthow we could get the best outcomes
(06:57):
related to drugs and addiction.
That's everything from people likeJoanne that were struggling with an
addiction, as well as everything fromhow do we stop the overdose crisis?
How do we reduce the amountof crime that's related to
that underground drug market?
It's all wrapped up in this bigquestion about what are the best
tools to use for drugs and addiction.
(07:18):
And that's why I wrote the book.
Curious is to take people on that learningjourney with me and to say, I think we
have misunderstood, um, the root causesof a lot of the problems we're facing.
And we look deep enoughat those root causes.
We would get some verydifferent solutions.
And I think that's why.
We haven't seen the solutions we want.
(07:39):
We have, um, overdoses atits highest rates in U.
S.
history.
Illegal drug use has doubledin the last 20 years.
Um, overdose is now the leadingcause of accidental death in the U.
S.
So we have these increasing harmsinstead of things getting better.
And I hope that Curious, um, uh, is onepiece of shining a light on why that is
(08:01):
and how we could, uh, reverse that trend.
I love the name curious because itcaptures a person attention and say,
like, um, you want to see what's in here.
You want to find out what the solutionis because, you know, we do have so many
families struggling and wondering how,what to do and, you know, constantly
(08:27):
going to drug treatments, you know,because the family goes along with them.
So.
In your, um, estimation, like,what does Curious, in a nutshell,
how do you approach this solution?
What is the solution for this?
Yeah, so I think it's a it's a multipronged solution because different
(08:49):
parts of the solution impactdifferent parts of the problem.
So usually people when they're thinkingabout how do I help my loved one
overcome an addiction, they're notthinking about why are cartels South of
the border, creating lots of violence.
Like they seem very disconnected,those, those problems.
They seem like, well, yeah, they'reboth kind of like related to drugs,
but they're totally separate.
(09:11):
Um, but they're not totally separate.
And so part of what I do in Curious isjust take people through what happens
when you use the criminal justicesystem, whether it's for consumers of
drugs or whether it's for drug markets.
So, um, When you force a drug underground,when you ban it, um, or schedule it,
(09:32):
something that makes it where there'sno legal market for it, it doesn't go
away, but it does move underground.
And so you have, um, now the onlypeople that can get money from that
are people who are willing to breakthe law in order to sell those drugs.
Sometimes those are people whoare just struggling with an
addiction themselves and tryingto make some money to pay for it.
(09:53):
Sometimes if you go far enough up thefood chain, you'll get back to, um, you
know, cartels or terrorist organizationsor somebody like that who is selling, um,
uh, drugs in order to profit from that.
In a much larger sense.
And so what we've done is we'vebanned so many different drugs that
now the underground drug market isworth about 500 billion every year.
(10:18):
So you think about this hugepile of cash, 500 billion.
And basically what we've saidis we just hope that nobody is
going to go get that pile of cash.
Like we just don't want anybody to, to, tosell it, you know, to, to earn the money.
Well, what do we knowabout human behavior?
Humans are not good atleaving cash unearned.
(10:40):
They, there is cash to be made.
If there are consumers holding outmoney, you're, there will always be
somebody who is willing to sell thosedrugs for a whole variety of reasons.
But it's, it's always because there's cashinvolved, there's money to be made there.
And so that ends up incentivizing crime.
And when you have.
(11:01):
Lots and lots of crime andit's an underground market.
You can't call the police.
If somebody rips you off, you'vegot to go handle that on your own.
Um, and you can't, it's not a.
In a, you know, you think abouttrade routes and things like that.
Well, that's the way you getthat is just through force.
You got to just defend your territory.
You got to, if you want toexpand the piece of your pie,
(11:22):
you got to take that by force.
And so it ends up creating lots ofviolence, lots of crime from the market.
Fighting amongst, amongst itself, um, andthat ends up playing out in the streets.
And generally that violence is mostfelt in the most vulnerable communities,
whether that's, uh, our vulnerablecommunities in the U S or whether
(11:43):
that's vulnerable communities outsideof the U S, um, that tends to be where
most of that is, uh, is centered.
And so that was a reallychallenging thing for me.
Cause I hadn't, I have alwaysthought, you know, If a drug can cause
harm, you just ban it, and then itgoes away, but it doesn't go away.
It actually creates a lot of crime,and then it also, um, you don't have
(12:08):
any kind of regulatory control over it.
So, when we think about the fentanylcrisis that we're in right now
with people dying from overdose.
About 90 percent of people whodie from an opioid overdose today
have fentanyl in their systems.
But that's happening because there'sno regulation around the drugs
that they're getting on the street.
(12:29):
They can have whatever in them.
They can have fentanyl in them.
They can have nidazines in them.
They can have xylazine in them.
They can have brick dust, rat poison,all kinds of things that are used
as additives and cutting agents.
Um, and there's no quality controllike you would have in a legal market
where you can look at the package andyou know, the ingredients, you know,
(12:50):
the potency dose it appropriately.
So I'll tell you a little storyabout this, because fentanyl is
such a huge problem right now.
And so many people are dying and we,so we think of fentanyl as a lethal.
drug, like fentanyl kills people.
But when my son, my youngest son, whenhe was four, it's just a couple of years
ago, um, he cut his finger really badlyand had to go to the emergency room.
(13:15):
So we go to the emergency room andhe's going to have to have stitches.
And the nurse comes in with a littlesyringe and she says, Hey, I'm
going to give him some fentanyl.
It's going to help him feel betterbefore we do these stitches.
Simultaneously, you have a fouryear old, tiny little four year
old who's going to get fentanyl.
And you also have these 40 year old menwho are dying from fentanyl overdose.
(13:39):
It's not the fentanyl that isThe real problem, it is the lack
of quality control and the lackof dosing, appropriate dosing.
So in a medical setting, youcan dose fentanyl appropriately.
Fentanyl is used every single dayin every hospital in this country,
uh, over and over and over again.
It's a very powerful opioid,which makes it useful for pain
(14:02):
relief in a medical setting.
When it's on the street and peoplecan't dose it appropriately, it
is so potent that the The risk ofoverdose is just so much higher
because the margin of error betweengetting high and dying is razor thin.
So you've got all of this harmcoming from these underground
(14:23):
markets that move underground andcreate a lot of crime and violence.
You get a lot of overdose that happensbecause of contamination and Um, you
can't dose it appropriately and then youhave what happens to consumers, which I
would imagine there's probably a lot ofpeople who listen to your podcast that
have been affected in some way by, um,incarceration related to drugs, whether
(14:44):
that's a paraphernalia charge or apossession charge or, uh, you know, intent
to distribute or whatever it might be.
Um, and so when I started lookingat that and thinking about for
people who are using drugs.
What is the likelihood that anincarceration, that an arrest is going
(15:05):
to deter them from using drugs again?
I started learning about addiction andwhat, what causes addiction and, and
more importantly, what heals addiction.
Because the, the wholepurpose of using the criminal
justice system is people need.
You know, they need that hard stop.
They need that pain in their life.
(15:25):
They need to feel it, uh, harshly, andthat will help them to kind of snap out
of it and quit making those decisions.
Um, and what I learned is that'sactually the opposite thing of what
people need to be able to heal becauseso much addiction is driven by.
Pain in a person's life.
(15:45):
Mm-Hmm.
, emotional pain.
Uh, mental health issues.
Um, childhood trauma, loneliness,disconnection, isolation.
Those are the things that createvulnerability to addiction.
And so in using the criminal justicesystem, we're actually adding more
pain and trauma into a person's life.
(16:07):
More difficulty, more disconnection,and then were confused as
to why that didn't work.
And I think what we know now aboutthe drivers of addiction explains
why that has not worked well for us.
There are a few people for whom Itwas the thing that changed their life.
And there are thousands and thousandsof people cycling in and out of
(16:30):
the criminal justice system becauseit's not helping them to heal the
deeper reasons for their drug use.
It's just adding more pain and more hurtand more difficulty into their life.
So are you for legalizing it or what doyou have a solution in that area or yes,
we would say yes, that moving towardslegally regulated markets again is going
(16:55):
to be the best path to regain controlof the market, take it away from, uh,
cartels and other criminal organizationsand also to regain some quality control
and ability to, uh, To control theproduct that people are using, as well
as things like protecting childrenthrough age restrictions on purchasing.
(17:16):
Um, you know, one of the interestingthings I used to think about, you
know, prohibiting a drug is kind oflike the ultimate form of regulation.
Like if it's bad, boy, we're justgoing to regulate the heck out of it.
We're going to ban it.
And it's actually, when youban something, you lose all.
Control of it.
I mean, you can, people cansell whatever they want.
(17:36):
So you've got whoever wants to can sellit, whoever wants to can buy it and they
can sell whatever product they want to.
And there's no telling what they'reputting in that bag that they're selling.
And so, um, it's actually aprohibition is an absence of control.
It's not.
The ultimate form of control.
(17:57):
And so, um, so I say that hesitatinglybecause it still makes me uncomfortable.
You know, we have an organizationthat's inviting people to consider this
because we think it is the best wayto reduce global harm as well as local
harm related to drugs and addiction.
But the idea of even adults having.
Um, legal access to some of thesepopular recreational drugs still
(18:20):
makes me really uncomfortable.
Um, cause I don't want people using drugs.
I just, I want, except for medicalreasons or whatnot, and I recognize
people can use recreationally andthat's, you know, plenty of people
do that with alcohol legally today.
Um, but the risk is there.
There's certainly risk thereof what, what will happen.
(18:41):
And will we be able to educate people?
about the risks and help themto make healthy decisions rather
than, than unhealthy ones.
Um, but when I look at what, what thepath is for us to continue down this
path and what the path is to actuallysolve the root causes of those problems,
(19:05):
I think people, if you ask them what'sthe biggest problem happening with.
Drugs today, most people are goingto say overdose because they're
hearing about it all the time.
They know people who haveoverdosed and died now.
They know fentanyl is out there.
So how are we going to fix that?
You can't fix that by just puttingmore police officers on the
street and finding more drugs.
(19:27):
As long as there's people who want drugs,there's going to be drugs available.
There's no way that you can takeenough drugs off the street.
To stop people from using drugs.
It is, it is absolutely impossible.
It's like, um, it would be like thinkingwe could like empty Walmart shelves
and we just steal enough merchandise.
Kind of like Walmart knowshow much merchandise they're
(19:48):
going to lose to shoplifting.
And they just send that muchmore merchandise because they
want their shelves to be full.
The same is true of the drug market.
There is no shortage of drugs.
Their shipping is pretty good.
As much as they need for whatever themarket demand is in a particular area.
Um, so we can't, there are no othergood solutions to some of these.
(20:14):
problems that we're facingto, to address fentanyl.
We have to allow some form ofquality controlled, um, option
for consumers to use so that theystop using contaminated drugs.
That's going to be hard.
It's going to be hard to figure out.
What's the best way to do that?
(20:34):
Is it through prescriptions?
Is it at a pharmacy?
Um, Are there certain low dosagesthat people could access without
a prescription but from a medicalprovider in some way from a pharmacy
where it still can be regulated?
And those are hard questions, but I thinkthe The time has passed for us to say
(20:56):
the, the solutions are too difficult.
And we just want to kind ofkeep going down the same path.
If we keep going down the same path,we're going to keep getting not just the
same results, but actually worse results.
Because if you look at what has happenedwith, um, contamination, let's say,
so it used to be that contaminationhappened, but it wasn't a huge problem.
(21:16):
The potency of the drugs wasnot strong enough where you had
lots and lots of people dying.
But now.
Fentanyl's on the market.
Nidazines are actually farmore potent than fentanyl.
They're coming in, they'removing them all around the U.
S.
Um, we're on a, a march towards higherand higher and higher potency drugs on
(21:37):
the street, and that's not going to stop.
Um, people are going tocontinue to die because they
can't dose them appropriately.
You look at the, um, the rate of how muchmoney is going to criminal organizations.
People are still buying drugs andthat money is going to go to criminal
(22:00):
organizations as long as we do notallow those markets to operate in
some sort of legally regulated way.
Um, so the answers are hard, butI think if we're, if we sit long
enough with the root causes of theproblem, um, we might be willing to
begin that process of figuring outhow do we roll back this criminal
(22:22):
justice approach so that we can treat.
Drugs and drug use and addictionas health issues, which I
think is what they really are.
Mm hmm.
Okay, so that's what Curious is goinginto is, you know, um, the legal system.
What about the root causesfor with the person itself?
How does it address thisparticular issue health wise?
(22:47):
Mm hmm.
Yeah, so one of the things that Iwould encourage for any family member
who has a loved one who is struggling.
With addiction is to goto allies in recovery.
So we're not financiallyconnected to them in any way.
We just know who they areand they do fantastic work.
They're a national organization,allies in recovery.
Um, and they offer training, supportgroups, um, practice groups, all
(23:12):
kinds of support for family members.
with a loved one strugglingwith an addiction.
And they teach a model called C.
R.
A.
F.
T.
So it stands for CommunityReinforcement and Family Training.
And C.
R.
A.
F.
T., yeah, C.
R.
A.
F.
T.
was developed, uh, a couple of decadesago, probably 25 years ago now.
And it is a, it's a model that hasbeen studied extensively and has been
(23:38):
shown to increase the family's health.
As addiction is a incredibly stressfulevent for the whole family unit.
So, CRAFT increases the family'shealth as well as it actually
makes their loved one more likelyto seek help for their addiction.
So for families thataren't sure, what do I do?
(23:58):
Like how do I, I don't want toenable them, but I also don't want
to just cut off this family member.
Be That I love, but I, what, how do Iengage here in a way that's helpful?
Craft teaches you how to do that.
It teaches you how to engage withyour loved one in a way that is not
enabling, but does offer them positivereinforcement for making positive choices.
(24:23):
And it's really transformative.
I, I hope everyone knows about it.
And I hope that we getto a point one day where.
There's craft support groups, just likethere are AA support groups or Al Anon
support groups or anything like that.
Um, because one of the challengesof, of the groups that are available
(24:44):
currently is they tend to say.
They tend to teach you how toseparate from the situation, but
not how to actually engage inthe situation in a helpful way.
And so that's what CRAFT does.
So for any family member, highlyrecommend checking out Allies in Recovery.
Um, they have so many different resourcesand just do phenomenal work resourcing
(25:07):
families who are trying to walk withtheir loved one through an addiction.
Um, and then for people who arestruggling with an addiction, I think,
you know, Part of the research for thebook, and the book really is a memoir.
So if people are thinking, I'm notinterested in like a drug policy
book, this isn't a drug policy book.
This is a memoir.
Um, this is just my, my, my journey, mystory, what I learned and what I think
(25:31):
could, could, um, help us in the long run.
Um, but one of the things that was sointeresting to me is how many people.
Who have struggled with an addictionthat went through that addiction, having
no clue what was happening to them.
Like, why, what is, whyam I making these choices?
Why can't I stop?
(25:52):
Why, even though I love my family,why did I just steal money from them?
Like these things that are, that are soagainst their values, their internal.
Um, character and yet they'rebehaving in ways that are not in
line with who they want to be andwho, who they are at their core.
(26:14):
Um, and I think Curious offersthem a way of learning about that.
Um, I talk about Rat Park, which was a,uh, experiment that was done a number of
years ago to, um, to help, uh, figure out,is it the drug that is so powerful or is
(26:36):
it something else that's actually the realreason why people are using that drug?
So I tell that whole story and experiment.
It's fascinating and, um, curious,but it helps give people answers.
My mom always used to say hooksto hang things on, like a way to
understand, um, what's happening,whether that's a loved one or
(26:56):
whether that's a person in addiction.
And I've actually had a lot ofpeople in recovery who have read
the book and said it was a reallyhealing thing for them to read.
I think just, um, Yeah, that, thathas really touched me that it has been
helpful, even though I'm not a person whohas experienced a substance use disorder
(27:17):
myself, um, but in talking to so manypeople and telling so many other people's
stories in the book, it's, it's mystory, but there's also lots of different
people's stories who were included in it,um, including parents of children who have
struggled, um, parents who've lost lovedones, Just lots of different stories.
So I think it is for anyonewho is touched with this issue.
(27:40):
Um, my experience has been, I'vebeen hearing from people who
have said, this is so helpful.
It's so hopeful, gives us a, away to see a different future
that we can be part of where.
There's a lot more healingand a lot less harm.
Mm hmm.
I like that.
Yeah.
It's because, yeah, we do need betterapproaches and not just, I'm a believer
(28:05):
that prisons are not actually, youknow, biblically speaking, it's not,
it wasn't designed to cure anything.
It was.
Designed for, um, punishment in a way notto try and treat the person, but, um, but
yeah, but we've lost that way, I think,and that's and we're finding that out
(28:27):
because a lot of people are not changing.
It's not meant to change the person.
Right?
So it can't change the person.
So with.
You know, I love this training craftand just getting into things like that.
Maybe they can bringthat into the prisons.
Do they have that at all?
Well, that's for the family members.
But what about, you know, um, whatwas the other one for individuals?
(28:51):
Is there any individual one?
Well, there are different, um, sothere are prisons or jails that do
have different recovery programs.
Some of them run celebraterecovery programs in there.
Um, there are some jails thatare starting to offer medication
for opioid use disorder.
That's a really helpful tool for a lotof people to stabilize their lives.
(29:13):
Um, and not be usingcontaminated substances.
There are some jails that arebeginning to allow that in, in jails,
which is a, is phenomenal becauseit is, um, at this point, the most
effective form of treatment thatwe know of for, um, an opioid use
disorder that is available at least.
And so, um, yeah, there'slots of different.
(29:35):
options.
Very few tend to be availablein jails and prisons.
And, you know, to your point,I actually was just reading,
um, a study that came out.
It was an analysis of like 116 otherstudies on the role of incarceration
on, um, recidivism, like on a person,whether or not they're going to
commit another crime in the future.
(29:57):
And they found that incarceration hasno different impact on the rates of
recidivism than like Um, probation does.
So, being, to your point, incarcerationis, um, it really is only useful as a
separating of someone from the community.
Like, if they are so dangerous thatthey, they must be held in a specific
(30:21):
location away from the community.
for joining me.
It can do that, but it does not impact.
It does not help people make better futuredecisions any more than just being put on
probation would, which is pretty shocking.
I mean, that's, we've got lots of peoplein prison for whom the, the reason we
put them there is because we're hopingit changes their future behavior.
(30:42):
Um, and yeah, it's not designed for that.
It can't, it's not doing that.
It really can't do that.
I mean, you're, you're asking peopleto find healing for deep wounds.
In a place where violence and abuseand, uh, and drugs are rampant,
people can get drugs easily in prison.
(31:03):
And so it's not helping themovercome their addiction.
There certainly are a few people whohave a life changing experience there,
but the vast majority, um, do not.
And it makes life, um, a whole lot harder.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
Now, if we can just get people tosee that point and, uh, help find
the solution, you know, and use.
(31:24):
The tool of prison appropriately,you know, just like you said,
some people don't need to be thereand they need to be in treatment.
Maybe it's, you know, but it's, itjust depends on the circumstances and
the person, you know, it's not foreverybody, but yeah, this is very good.
I like that you took the time, you didthis memoir cause I was going to ask
(31:47):
you, you know, how did you know this?
How did you know, and justlistening to people's stories.
And I think it's going to resonate.
With you know people that haven'tbeen exposed to this because
how would they know you know?
Yeah, you're making judgments without muchinformation, and that's just a tendency.
We all have yeah No, we're gonna feelit was something if we don't know so
(32:10):
that's right So we just make it up youknow so and then we like well, that's
that's That's not what I believe in.
And, uh, thank you for seeing thatit was a difference in a person.
Uh, the mother is an individual thatis going through some things and, and
we do really need to get to the core,like what's the fundamental problems
(32:33):
and start addressing that, and a lotof times I'm seeing all these government
programs meant to help is always harmful.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Always turns out to be very harmfulbecause, we have not the right
things in place and some of the peopleare not curious, not reading your
(32:55):
book and just doing the research.
They're just throwing it out there.
I just got this degree in here andthere and I know what I'm doing.
And it's like, you, how can you Dothat and you haven't even looked at
it and don't even, you know, it'snot working cause they, they don't
go back and look at the stats andstuff like, Hey, you need to fix this.
It's not working.
(33:15):
So yeah, this is wonderful.
, is there anything else?
, as we wrap this up, you want tosay to the audience about curious,
I know I'm going to put it in theshow notes, how to contact you.
I actually joined and subscribed to getyou because, you know, just to stay.
Posted on what's needed.
(33:36):
It seems like you've got a really goodhandle on, , the lawmakers and what's
coming out and hopefully getting them to.
, to write some better bills, um,some laws and put it in place.
And hopefully we do something, I hateto say it about that border, how it's
getting in here, but what, what would you,what else would you say that's really,
(33:57):
you want to say to the audience to aboutcurious about, uh, especially people who
haven't been exposed to drugs at all.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I'd say, um, so I've got somefree copies for your listeners.
So the first five people that email us,we'll send a free copy of curious to you.
You can email us atcurious at end it for good.
(34:21):
com.
That's like E N D.
And it for good.
com.
So curious at, and if we're good.
com shoot us an email, first fivepeople will send a free copy of it too.
Um, you can also get it on Amazon.
The audio book will be outin just a couple of weeks.
There's a Kindle version.
Um, and there's also, we havejust some resources on our
website that you can get to.
You can go to end it for good.
(34:41):
com slash freebies.
And we have three ways you can helpsomeone struggling with an addiction.
We also have one called, um,five keys to having productive
conversations on polarizing topics.
If you've ever tried to, ever triedto share your passion about something
with someone and you just feel likeyou hit the brick wall, um, we've,
we've learned a lot doing, uh, lotsof events and lots of speaking and
(35:04):
talking with lots of people about how.
How can we help people be, becurious about whatever our issue is?
For us, this is this issue of drugsand addiction, but for other people,
it's other passions and that's great.
So if you have a passion for somethingand you're trying to figure out how to
help other people be open to listening,um, we wanted to just help people.
(35:26):
Be able to, to share their passionswith the world in a more productive way.
And so you can go to end it for good.
com slash freebies.
And yeah, we would love to hear from you.
Um, uh, this, this type of thing, everymovement in history, it starts with.
Just regular people, regular people whomake it their passion, who make it the
(35:48):
thing that they're going to put sometime and effort into, um, into sharing
it with other people, we grew intoan organization because people just
invited other people, Hey, you shouldcome and come to one of these events.
Hey, you should read this article.
Hey, you should read this book.
Um, it's not because.
We can reach everyone, it's becausethrough all of the people who have
(36:09):
connected with this movement, theyare now taking the movement and
helping to reach other people with it.
Um, and that is how all movements grow.
And we hope this is one where we lookback in 50 years and we all just shake
our heads and say, I cannot believe thatwe used to think that incarceration was
going to solve addiction, that it, thatit becomes just something that seems,
(36:32):
um, unbelievable to us, that that wouldhave been a time in history and that we
would leave that behind, just like we'veleft a lot of other things behind that
have needed to be changed over time.
And we have realized when we, when welearn something new, when we know better.
It's time to do better.
Um, and I think this is one of thoseareas where we can, that's excellent.
I love this approach because, you know,what you're doing is helping with the
(36:57):
communication because it has to startwith the communication and being able
to listen, you know, be able to see.
Translate, be able to receive if youdon't have a good receiver, you're
not going to understand the knowledge.
So this is really, really good.
I really thank you, Christina audienceagain, the first five people get
(37:18):
free books and tell them prisoners.
Pardon me, TJ sent you.
So I really thank you for coming.
Thank you for sharing your knowledgeand your experience and just being
honest and open yourself about what.
We don't know what you don't know.
So, and we all need to do thatbecause we don't know everything.
(37:39):
We need to just listen at times.
So, and thank you all for listening.
Well, that's it for today.
Thank you for listening.
And may you have a weekfilled with blessings.
God bless.
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