September 23, 2025 • 31 mins
Kids And Sobriety is a heartfelt and honest podcast exploring the intersection of parenting and the sober journey. Whether you're newly sober, sober-curious, or maintaining long-term recovery, this podcast offers real conversations, practical tools, and shared experiences from parents who are navigating the highs and lows of raising kids without relying on alcohol or substances. From managing stress and setting boundaries to building connection and breaking generational cycles, Kids And Sobriety is your companion in creating a more present, conscious, and empowered parenting experience.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
Hello and welcome to the Sober Town Podcast.
Let's hop on that sober train and ride into the magical, wonderful world of sobriety.
Hey everybody, peanut here today and I am thrilled to introduce two of my favorite people that are going to be guesting and really co-hosting with me today.
(00:31):
And we have Bug and Bear Cub.
These two young ladies met with Drifter and I four years ago on Sober Town Podcast, and it was.
The first of its kind where adults chatted with young girls at the time about all things sobriety, addiction, everything.
(00:57):
So excited to have them both here today.
We've got bug and bear cut bug.
Say, Hey.
Hi.
I and I going seventh grade and I'm 12 years.
I've been co-hosting with my in.
A passion for substance awareness and prevention.
(01:18):
I've had opportunities to learn and grow alongside my mom on this journey.
When I'm not advocating for substance-free living, you can find me expressing myself through music.
I play baritone and I'm a BA band member.
My faith as a Christian also plays a big role in my life, and I'm driven to help others in need.
Awesome.
So glad to have you here with us today and Miss Bear Cub.
(01:42):
How are you today? I'm doing good.
Hello everyone.
My name is Bear Cub.
I'm 15 years old, a volleyball player, Christian, and the last time I was on here, I was 12 years old.
Three things that I love is sharing stories, spreading awareness, and helping people.
Those three things are my passion because I feel like doing that makes me feel better as a person.
(02:03):
So now you all know why we have these two incredible beings back with us today.
I'd like to start kind of where we left off last time, back in the day, four long years ago.
That was early in my sobriety and drifter, and I had you both on, and we talked about, dare I say, roadblocks, and that was kind of the thing that.
(02:28):
You were both into, and we talked a lot about how technology, how our phones, how they can be addictive.
Are you both still playing Roblox? Is that even a thing now as you've grown up? Tell me.
Um, yeah.
It's still a thing.
Sometimes I play it and sometimes I don't.
(02:51):
And that's really similar for me, honestly.
Like sometimes I'll play with my friends on a call or something, but I don't play anywhere near how much I used to.
It's not an active thing anymore.
I feel like I'm more on different socials.
Okay.
All right.
That's where I'm going with this.
Now, curious, do you still wanna spend money on Roblox stuff or are you just like kind of over that? Um, sometimes I'll spend if I have extra, but usually it's not that often.
(03:25):
And what about you bug? I kind of just stopped putting my money to our Roblox or Roblox money where you can buy clothes or whatever you want to buy, and sometimes I still think about it and I just usually got gift cards or something, but I never really spend my money on it anymore.
So if somebody was like, Hey, let's go play Roblox later, would that be like cringe or would that be like, okay, cool, let's pop on.
(03:51):
Honestly, it's not really that cringe anymore.
Like some people will still play it, some people won't.
It just depends honestly.
Honestly, I don't think it's like cringe at all.
I don't think it's something that people talk about a lot anymore.
If someone asks you to play Roblox later, if it's like my best friend, of course I'm gonna play with her.
(04:13):
I don't find it cringe at all, and it's still fun to play.
Obviously it's just a video game.
I know that one of the things we talked about with Roblox was the possibility or.
The, the definite probability that someone may want to friend you, dare I say, you know, old dudes or old people trying to essentially seem like they're a young kid and.
(04:44):
That's what adults get worried about is going into these little rooms.
I know that was something that you had to deal with in in Roblox, but are you guys on different social media now? Tell me a little bit about what you do now and about what you have to deal with.
I have a story about that.
A couple years back I had Snapchat and I was like adding my friends, and then I came across this one person who added me and he.
(05:18):
Showed me a couple pictures of him and, and, um, just his face and all.
And then over time we became friends.
And then sometimes he would call, sometimes he wouldn't really talk that much, but we would just call and talk.
And then over time, eventually he.
(05:39):
Wanted me to meet up with him at the mall nearby my area.
So I declined because I thought it was kind of suspicious.
And then one day I came home from school and my dad told me that the person who I was talking to who wanted to meet up with me was actually a child ped.
(05:59):
I was really concerned because I was thinking like maybe we were friends.
I thought he was my age.
He lived around the area and he wanted to meet up.
And to me, I feel like with such an addiction to social media, there can be very big grave dangers that come along with it, especially if it's children on the platform.
(06:25):
It's very risky.
How did your dad find out about the guy? Did they know like he was a friend, or how did that all go down? So my dad, he tried to like do some research because the guy had his location on and my dad, he tried to find the Facebook of the person who owned the house and he found their Facebook and then, then he just started texting him and he was like, I know you're an adult.
(06:55):
And then the guy like fully admitted it and then he like blocked my account.
So yeah.
How did you know not to meet up with him? Like did you have a gut.
Instinct.
Did you just have a bad vibe? How, how did you know that he wasn't legit? Well, he would, he told me that he liked me and he would send like paragraphs, but I knew they were AI generated because they're very long and I could tell that they're probably put into chat GBT or something like that.
(07:25):
And then like over time, he wanted to meet up with him and his friends, quote unquote.
And I.
Didn't really want to because I knew my dad would not want me to meet up with a stranger, and at the same time, I didn't really feel like going alone.
And I just didn't wanna do it in general.
(07:46):
And also at the same time, usually those kids around my age back then, they would like use a lot of slang and stuff.
And he was like way different.
Like he was very formal and I just had a feeling, 'cause he talked very weirdly and I was like, you don't really talk like the other kids.
(08:06):
Mm-hmm.
So I just had a gut feeling that maybe I shouldn't meet up with them.
Luckily I had that feeling, 'cause that feeling saved my life.
I, I love that.
And as the mom of the group, as the old lady of the group, I wanna say how important and how amazing you are that you listened to your gut and you trusted your instincts.
(08:33):
And now I almost think that was a lesson here that you now know.
When your instinct or your gut or something pops up and says, Hey, bear Cub, this isn't right.
You're gonna know it going forward.
So hey, bug, tell us.
Tell us your thoughts.
Jump in.
(08:54):
Okay.
So personally, I've literally never had someone online try to contact me that wasn't my age or someone that I didn't know, because honestly, on Snapchat.
I literally never read someone unless it literally says they're from my contacts or they're firsthand there with me and show them that it's that they have their account and I know it's them because I am so scared of stuff like that 'cause it's happened to so many girls and it clearly didn't end well for them.
(09:36):
That's something that they have to live with now, and I never wanna live with that.
But not on social media have I ever been approached, but in real life, I physically have.
It was my cousin's baseball game.
The park really close to our house, so it was like kind of just chill and low key.
And I brought one of my like best, best friends with me and my other girl cousin, and we were all just kind of walking around the three of us.
(10:04):
And kind of just hanging out.
And we saw this really suspicious man and he was like trying to get close to us and there was like a statue we were climbing.
And then we couldn't get down if he was gonna try to come near us.
So we like got down and walked to the completely other side of the park.
'cause we thought maybe we're just overreacting.
(10:25):
He's probably just trying to walk.
He's an old guy.
Like it's not even a big deal.
Like we just need to relax.
So we just started walking around the whole park, like the playground field, the every area.
And then he started literally following our exact tracks.
He had like really weird black gloves on too, so that didn't make us feel good either.
(10:50):
And he was like picking up wood chips and stuff, and the tracks that we were walking and smelling them, and it literally scared us so bad.
So we were like.
Our parents are on the direct other side of the area where the baseball game's happening, so we're basically stuck up here 'cause we can't go in his path 'cause we don't wanna be near him obviously.
(11:18):
So we went up to the area where like the playground was and there was like a bunch of moms with kids and he saw us go up there and, and he got really weird and kind of started walking away.
So then we took that as an opportunity to like walk back as fast as we could to the baseball area.
And we like literally were on complete different sides of the field and we passed him and.
(11:40):
When we got back, I was like, mom, like there's some really weird guy following the three of us and we're kind of getting nervous.
And then she was like, okay, then just stay here and let's just make sure nothing happens.
And then we were being stupid, so we decided we should go back out and go play again.
So we snuck back and then started playing again and it happened again.
(12:02):
And this time he got even closer and even closer.
And.
It was so scary.
'cause we were like, what was gonna happen to us? We didn't even know.
We were so scared.
So then I told my mom and I was like, we are really scared, but we wanna keep hanging out.
So then she just like mobbed up on him.
Let me tell this part of the story.
The three of the girls that were there are pretty b ba.
(12:25):
If you're with a crew of your girls, people aren't gonna probably mess with you.
Right? That's why we have the buddy system.
That's why you knew that you didn't wanna go meet the.
Guo by yourself.
So I know that with Bug and the other two girls, they can hold their own, but I always want to be a resource if God forbid anything happens.
(12:46):
So I start to walk over to the guy.
He jumps in his car.
And the area where we're at is like very family friendly.
So typically, and we know, right, we're in a car, somebody walks over, you're gonna probably look up and at least make eye contacts, give a head bob or whatever.
So I start to walk up on him and uh, he basically puts his head down, like, we'll not even look at me.
(13:08):
And I'm like, Hey buddy.
Hey.
And he like, would not look.
Would not look, you said perfectly trusting your gut, knowing your intuition.
Whenever you get a ugh, like an it or like an ick, you know, that's legit.
Right.
And I knew.
He was up to no good since he wouldn't even look at me.
And we can move on to other topics.
(13:28):
I don't wanna belabor this any longer.
We don't wanna give any more acknowledgement to people who are bad people, right? We don't wanna bring that energy into our space, but.
What I really want to say here is I always, always, always, always, always a million, always want you to, to trust your guts and never feel, and, and remember, bug just said we didn't wanna think we were overreacting.
(13:53):
You are never overreacting if you get a bad vibe.
Now, if that means going to a party or going to meet up with people, if you get a bad vibe, I want you to trust that no matter what, you're never overreacting if your energy is telling you something.
I have another quick one.
I was at a 4th of July party with one of my like lifelong best friends 'cause it was one of our parents' work parties and it was not a good area.
(14:19):
And it was on the other side of the park where the party was at.
And there was this really weird guy like literally standing out of the porta potty waiting for us to come out of the Boarda potty.
But he was being really weird and like he didn't do anything.
So we were just kind of like.
That's really weird.
Like why is he doing that? So then we just went over to the park and played and he stayed in the same spot just watching us.
(14:45):
And then he got, he kept like inching closer.
So I was, yeah, up.
We need to go, we need to go to the other side.
Back where your parents are.
And she was like, it's only even a big deal.
I was like, get up, come on.
So then we ran back to the other side where the parents were and he lived across the street and went back in and we just stayed on the other side of the, where the actual party was, where everyone was.
(15:08):
And he lived right across from the street, like the neighborhood houses by it, the park.
And he was literally looking out the window every couple minutes at us.
It was literally terrifying and it, it felt so uncomfortable.
I wanna acknowledge being uncomfortable, but I also wanna say definitely can feel uncomfortable around like older, older, weird dudes.
(15:35):
But if you also get the vibe of younger kids, right? Because bad things can happen with kids your own age too.
So still going into the whole thing of trusting your gut and knowing when it's not a good vibe, I am wondering what if you do go to like party.
(15:55):
You feeling like, I don't really know if I wanna go.
And maybe your parents aren't really psyched about it, or maybe they don't really know you're gonna go to a party.
Okay, maybe we don't really want you to go party with these older kids.
Or like bear cub, you're in high school, right? So maybe some seniors are like, Hey, why don't you come to this party? Uh, and you go to the party and there are some substances.
(16:22):
What? Do you think you'll do? For me personally, I wouldn't want to take any substances because like my biggest fear is like I just know how it substances like that can ruin people, so I would just pass.
(16:44):
On everything.
And if like anyone tries to peer pressure me, I would just like walk off.
I don't really care if they think I'm weird about not taking it.
I would not wanna take anything.
I don't trust it because I am afraid it would be laced with something that's like very dangerous and I wouldn't wanna take it.
(17:06):
Awesome.
What about you bug? What if somebody I have.
Offered you like a drink.
Hey, hey bug.
I got you this soda.
Here you go.
I have a huge fear of getting laced.
It's like one of my number one fears that freaks me out so much.
I know that when people green out, it's some of their worst experiences of their lives.
(17:28):
And if I'm in a place that I don't feel comfortable, it's not gonna be fun and I don't wanna be seen stuff.
In somewhere I'm not comfortable or like at all.
I don't wanna, I don't want to that to happen because hearing horror stories of people getting laced when they like try like nicotine or something and it was actually laced with something else that's like extremely dangerous or makes people trip really bad, that terrifies me so much.
(18:01):
I'm so scared of that.
But if someone hands me a soda.
It might have alcohol in it.
I would honestly say no.
Two.
'cause one, if I'm underage drinking, I'm going to get caught and that's gonna suck for me.
And then two, it's just not good at all to do that.
(18:24):
And maybe, I guess it's a possible thing to.
Try something.
'cause I don't think that all substances are totally bad if you have a medical condition where you need it or like a mental thing where you need it.
I, I completely understand that.
And in that situation, I would use substances.
(18:47):
'cause I know that there's certain like pens to help with like.
Mental needs and stuff, but overall, if I was at a party where I'm not comfortable, I'm not taking anything, I'm leaving.
What about you bear Cub? Are you gonna be like, I'm gonna call my dad, or I'm gonna get an Uber? Or how, how do you handle it? And then, then bug, I want you to answer next.
(19:11):
So me personally, it honestly depends.
Obviously I wouldn't wanna take anything, but like if someone that I really trusted handed me a drink, I would first like want them to try it and then I would like.
Wait, or I would just like take it friendly and not drink it.
I would just take it and dump it out somewhere.
(19:33):
I'd probably tell my dad or my mom like, what's happening? If it just like kept continuing, they'd be like, Hey, take this substance.
Hey, smoke this.
Like, Hey, drink this.
Then I'd be like, okay, no, like I don't want to, and then I'd probably try to get out of there as soon as possible because I wouldn't trust it.
'cause if it's someone, if it's with sketchy people that I do not trust, I wouldn't wanna take anything.
(19:55):
I love that.
What about you bug? Um, my favorite trick would be to text my mom or something, or text someone, say, call me and act like something bad just happened so that I can leave.
Mm-hmm.
So I'd be like, okay, can you call me in like two or three minutes and then just.
(20:18):
I'm gonna act shocked.
I'm like, I have to go.
So then I wait and then they call me and I'm like, oh, really? That happened to that? What? Okay guys, I'm sorry.
Something really bad happened.
I gotta go.
Okay.
Because.
So this, I'm, I'm sorry, I've got this just popped into my mind.
I've gotta ask.
So let's say you're at the party, you're both like, no, no, no, I'm not gonna drink it.
(20:40):
If, if you're gonna have a beverage, you're gonna go get the soda yourself, you're gonna open it yourself, you're gonna drink it, right? Because people can slip something into the drink.
What happens if you're at a party? One of your friends does take a drink.
It could be one of two things, right? Maybe they do wanna get a little buzz on, maybe your friend wants to party or what if they take something and they didn't know it, or they took a drink outta something and it had bad stuff in it? How are you gonna handle it? What will you do? So me personally, if I knew someone slipped something into it, I would like try to tell 'em, be like, Hey, spit that out.
(21:17):
Like, do not drink that.
'cause there's something in it.
And if they're like, well, what if I want it to be laced? I'd be like, well, you should like take something that you know what's in it.
If it's laced or something that can kill you or possibly get you hospitalized or addicted, like you shouldn't take it.
First of all, I would try to get them to not do crazy stuff because like I'm not really into it.
(21:42):
I wouldn't want them to get into it.
I know I can't control people, so I would do my best to persuade, but I would definitely try to force them to not take anything and I could possibly harm.
Love that.
What about you bug? What are you gonna do if one of your besties and maybe either scenario one of your besties is like, hell, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go for it tonight.
(22:04):
Like, I wanna party, I'm gonna get a little buzz on.
How are you gonna handle that? Are you gonna be there with them? Are you gonna, we call it babysitting.
And then the other scenario is, what if they do take it? They don't know, and all of a sudden they start to drop off and then maybe they wanna go party with a dude.
How do we handle this? What if we're in the moment? I know you girls won't do anything.
(22:27):
I know you're gonna make the choice not to.
At this time in your life, and maybe in the future you might, and we address that then.
But what happens if you're in it and you are in a crisis mode? What do you do next? Bug.
So I'm just gonna take them outside.
I'm gonna make them breathe.
I'm gonna hold their hair up.
(22:47):
If they throw up, I'm gonna be there for them.
I'm gonna help them through it.
I'm gonna keep reminding them, you're okay, you're okay.
And then maybe like.
We have a sleepover or something.
Yeah, you call me or you do the thing.
You call and say call.
I don't know, uh, bear Cub if we told you about it, but Bubs and I have like a little code where she sends me a text, Hey, have you put my face mask out for the night? And that's my code for me to call and be like, you're coming home right now.
(23:19):
No, you ping, you know, drop me a pin and I'm gonna come get you.
And so it's kind of her way of saying like, I'm in trouble without being like, oh mommy, I'm in trouble.
Come get me.
I'm scared.
Or, you know, my bestie is sick because she got, you know, laced or whatever.
And so that's kind of something that we've been doing, I guess.
Bear Cub, would you feel comfortable calling your folks or something if, if stuff started to go sideways? Me personally, I wouldn't be afraid to be like, come pick me up.
(23:46):
There's something mad happening.
I don't wanna be here anymore because honestly, I don't really care what others would think about that.
Like, if I feel uncomfortable, I would, I would even call my parents right there.
I'd be like, Hey, come pick me up.
These people are weird.
I don't like it around here.
They're telling me to take stuff without, like, you know, they're peer pressuring me telling to take stuff.
(24:07):
I wouldn't really be afraid to do that.
Awesome.
Well, good, I'm, I'm feeling extremely positive about this conversation.
I have one more question.
Do you think you girls will ever wanna try like, right, maybe not now.
I'm too young now in middle school and in high school, but like do you think if you get older you might wanna try to party a little bit or? I mean, me personally, it just depends.
(24:33):
I'm not really into that stuff right now.
But also people change.
Maybe I would try something, but also I just.
I'm not afraid to try new things, but I'm scared to get like addicted to it 'cause I've seen million peop, like millions of people, people in my family get addicted and just like, that's what my fear is.
(24:58):
Do you think you have control over if you get addicted or not? Me personally, I feel like.
When you do get addicted, people try to tell themselves that they're not addicted and that they can stop whenever they want.
But I feel like also when they do stop oh, anymore, like I'm craving more and that's like what I don't want for myself.
(25:20):
Yeah.
Yeah.
What about you bug? Honestly, I can kind of see myself doing it when I get older.
Doing what? Doing what? Pardoning, partying, okaying.
Are we talking.
Alcohol.
Drugs, definitely not drugs.
Okay.
I will never, ever catch myself doing drugs.
(25:43):
What about pot? Does that sound as a drug? I honestly don't know, to be honest.
'cause who I am now.
Me right now, I would never, ever, but you might have a drink, but when I'm older, yeah.
Yeah, I might like have a shot with my best friend.
I feel like that that's probably something I would do.
(26:06):
I can just kind of imagine that for some reason I'm a curious person, so I would want to see what happened, you know? But if I was in a situation where I was uncomfortable, I wouldn't try anything.
I would get out and I wouldn't be uncomfortable either saying, mom, get me right now.
(26:28):
I need your help.
You need to come get me.
Right now.
I'm terrified.
Good.
But like can definitely see myself going to house parties and not even drinking, just like going to hang out with people.
I feel like I would definitely do that and I would now like just to hang out with my friends from school.
I would do that.
(26:49):
So one last question and then I will let, let us wrap up.
What about vaping? I know we talked about this bug.
What about you bear cope? What do you think about vaping and not even getting high? Just the nicotine aspect.
Me personally, so I have really bad anxiety as is, and I know nicotine.
(27:12):
Can any pot, marijuana, any stuff can make you paranoid.
It can make you relaxed.
I feel like I wouldn't want to, because I know popcorn lungs is a very critical thing and like it, there's no cure for it.
It's permanent and I feel like stuff like that would make me very, like, I wouldn't wanna try it.
(27:33):
I know I have family members who smoked like and vaped and me personally, I just, I wouldn't.
I don't want to, especially with all the metal in your lungs.
Just I wouldn't, I love it.
Bug.
I know you said you might try it.
I have a, I would, I would possibly try pot maybe, but I am so terrified of popcorn lungs.
(28:00):
Like you don't under what is, tell me more about popcorn Lungs.
Educate me.
Oh.
Oh, it's terrifying.
Hello? It's.
Your lungs basically are destroyed.
You can from vaping.
Yes.
It's so bad and I feel like vaping, like sometimes it's kind of just a useless situation where like once you get addicted it's bad.
(28:22):
Like some kids my age are addicted already 'cause they've been exposed to stuff like that when they were younger and that, I actually can't believe it.
It's insane.
Wow.
Well, I think we have covered some great topics today.
I mean, I've got other topics I wanna quiz you guys for weeks.
(28:44):
Anything else you want to bring to the forefront? Anything else that's coming to mind that we didn't really touch on in this segment? And we can make this a regular segment bug and bear Cub come back to talk about.
Sex, or I mean, oh my God.
Ah.
Or, you know, talk about driving drunk.
I'm saying in the future, your young ladies, it may happen.
(29:07):
You know, so maybe we come back and discuss it or not.
Anything else you guys would like to say or chat about before we wrap up today? Um, no, not really.
I really did like this though.
I definitely think we should do this more often.
I agree.
Yeah, I agree.
I think we also touched really good topics, and I think that there's so many more topics that we could touch about this.
(29:34):
Um, but like, I guess I do have like one more thing.
Like if you're in a situation where like you don't want to consent to like someone, like touching you or something, like what would you do? Ooh.
Do we wanna come back for another episode on that? Because I feel like that is a long discussion.
(29:59):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Okay.
Then maybe next time we, I have talk about.
Self harm.
We could talk about mental health issues.
We could talk about consent.
We could talk about, I know I always like to talk to you guys about the darkness.
You know when you're in a dark place and maybe it seems like there's no way out, what do you do? I like to talk to you girls.
(30:24):
And to kids about it because I don't think my generation talked about it very much.
So maybe Bear Cub, if you'd be down, we could have you back with bug and we could talk about some of these other topics.
Yeah, I love that.
Yeah.
Okay.
Awesome.
Well, I just want to thank you both so much for taking time.
(30:46):
With me today with both of us, uh, all three of us.
It's been awesome.
I'm super touched that you came to hang out with me today and I am already looking forward to our next chat.
And so maybe this might be a weekly thing, monthly thing.
I'm excited.
So you girls are.
(31:07):
Extremely brilliant, intelligent, articulate, young ladies, and I feel like you sharing your stories can touch a lot of people.
So thank you so much for tuning in to Sober Town Podcast today.
Make sure you hop on over to the website and check out all the incredible resources that Sober Town has to offer.
(31:29):
Different podcasts, different things for your toolbox on this beautiful, incredible world of recovery.
See you next time.
Hello and welcome to the Sober Town Podcast.
Let's hop on that sober train and ride into the magical, wonderful world of sobriety.
Hey everybody, peanut here today and I am thrilled to introduce two of my favorite people that are going to be guesting and really co-hosting with me today.
(00:31):
And we have Bug and Bear Cub.
These two young ladies met with Drifter and I four years ago on Sober Town Podcast, and it was.
The first of its kind where adults chatted with young girls at the time about all things sobriety, addiction, everything.
(00:57):
So excited to have them both here today.
We've got bug and bear cut bug.
Say, Hey.
Hi.
I and I going seventh grade and I'm 12 years.
I've been co-hosting with my in.
A passion for substance awareness and prevention.
(01:18):
I've had opportunities to learn and grow alongside my mom on this journey.
When I'm not advocating for substance-free living, you can find me expressing myself through music.
I play baritone and I'm a BA band member.
My faith as a Christian also plays a big role in my life, and I'm driven to help others in need.
Awesome.
So glad to have you here with us today and Miss Bear Cub.
(01:42):
How are you today? I'm doing good.
Hello everyone.
My name is Bear Cub.
I'm 15 years old, a volleyball player, Christian, and the last time I was on here, I was 12 years old.
Three things that I love is sharing stories, spreading awareness, and helping people.
Those three things are my passion because I feel like doing that makes me feel better as a person.
(02:03):
So now you all know why we have these two incredible beings back with us today.
I'd like to start kind of where we left off last time, back in the day, four long years ago.
That was early in my sobriety and drifter, and I had you both on, and we talked about, dare I say, roadblocks, and that was kind of the thing that.
(02:28):
You were both into, and we talked a lot about how technology, how our phones, how they can be addictive.
Are you both still playing Roblox? Is that even a thing now as you've grown up? Tell me.
Um, yeah.
It's still a thing.
Sometimes I play it and sometimes I don't.
(02:51):
And that's really similar for me, honestly.
Like sometimes I'll play with my friends on a call or something, but I don't play anywhere near how much I used to.
It's not an active thing anymore.
I feel like I'm more on different socials.
Okay.
All right.
That's where I'm going with this.
Now, curious, do you still wanna spend money on Roblox stuff or are you just like kind of over that? Um, sometimes I'll spend if I have extra, but usually it's not that often.
(03:25):
And what about you bug? I kind of just stopped putting my money to our Roblox or Roblox money where you can buy clothes or whatever you want to buy, and sometimes I still think about it and I just usually got gift cards or something, but I never really spend my money on it anymore.
So if somebody was like, Hey, let's go play Roblox later, would that be like cringe or would that be like, okay, cool, let's pop on.
(03:51):
Honestly, it's not really that cringe anymore.
Like some people will still play it, some people won't.
It just depends honestly.
Honestly, I don't think it's like cringe at all.
I don't think it's something that people talk about a lot anymore.
If someone asks you to play Roblox later, if it's like my best friend, of course I'm gonna play with her.
(04:13):
I don't find it cringe at all, and it's still fun to play.
Obviously it's just a video game.
I know that one of the things we talked about with Roblox was the possibility or.
The, the definite probability that someone may want to friend you, dare I say, you know, old dudes or old people trying to essentially seem like they're a young kid and.
(04:44):
That's what adults get worried about is going into these little rooms.
I know that was something that you had to deal with in in Roblox, but are you guys on different social media now? Tell me a little bit about what you do now and about what you have to deal with.
I have a story about that.
A couple years back I had Snapchat and I was like adding my friends, and then I came across this one person who added me and he.
(05:18):
Showed me a couple pictures of him and, and, um, just his face and all.
And then over time we became friends.
And then sometimes he would call, sometimes he wouldn't really talk that much, but we would just call and talk.
And then over time, eventually he.
(05:39):
Wanted me to meet up with him at the mall nearby my area.
So I declined because I thought it was kind of suspicious.
And then one day I came home from school and my dad told me that the person who I was talking to who wanted to meet up with me was actually a child ped.
(05:59):
I was really concerned because I was thinking like maybe we were friends.
I thought he was my age.
He lived around the area and he wanted to meet up.
And to me, I feel like with such an addiction to social media, there can be very big grave dangers that come along with it, especially if it's children on the platform.
(06:25):
It's very risky.
How did your dad find out about the guy? Did they know like he was a friend, or how did that all go down? So my dad, he tried to like do some research because the guy had his location on and my dad, he tried to find the Facebook of the person who owned the house and he found their Facebook and then, then he just started texting him and he was like, I know you're an adult.
(06:55):
And then the guy like fully admitted it and then he like blocked my account.
So yeah.
How did you know not to meet up with him? Like did you have a gut.
Instinct.
Did you just have a bad vibe? How, how did you know that he wasn't legit? Well, he would, he told me that he liked me and he would send like paragraphs, but I knew they were AI generated because they're very long and I could tell that they're probably put into chat GBT or something like that.
(07:25):
And then like over time, he wanted to meet up with him and his friends, quote unquote.
And I.
Didn't really want to because I knew my dad would not want me to meet up with a stranger, and at the same time, I didn't really feel like going alone.
And I just didn't wanna do it in general.
(07:46):
And also at the same time, usually those kids around my age back then, they would like use a lot of slang and stuff.
And he was like way different.
Like he was very formal and I just had a feeling, 'cause he talked very weirdly and I was like, you don't really talk like the other kids.
(08:06):
Mm-hmm.
So I just had a gut feeling that maybe I shouldn't meet up with them.
Luckily I had that feeling, 'cause that feeling saved my life.
I, I love that.
And as the mom of the group, as the old lady of the group, I wanna say how important and how amazing you are that you listened to your gut and you trusted your instincts.
(08:33):
And now I almost think that was a lesson here that you now know.
When your instinct or your gut or something pops up and says, Hey, bear Cub, this isn't right.
You're gonna know it going forward.
So hey, bug, tell us.
Tell us your thoughts.
Jump in.
(08:54):
Okay.
So personally, I've literally never had someone online try to contact me that wasn't my age or someone that I didn't know, because honestly, on Snapchat.
I literally never read someone unless it literally says they're from my contacts or they're firsthand there with me and show them that it's that they have their account and I know it's them because I am so scared of stuff like that 'cause it's happened to so many girls and it clearly didn't end well for them.
(09:36):
That's something that they have to live with now, and I never wanna live with that.
But not on social media have I ever been approached, but in real life, I physically have.
It was my cousin's baseball game.
The park really close to our house, so it was like kind of just chill and low key.
And I brought one of my like best, best friends with me and my other girl cousin, and we were all just kind of walking around the three of us.
(10:04):
And kind of just hanging out.
And we saw this really suspicious man and he was like trying to get close to us and there was like a statue we were climbing.
And then we couldn't get down if he was gonna try to come near us.
So we like got down and walked to the completely other side of the park.
'cause we thought maybe we're just overreacting.
(10:25):
He's probably just trying to walk.
He's an old guy.
Like it's not even a big deal.
Like we just need to relax.
So we just started walking around the whole park, like the playground field, the every area.
And then he started literally following our exact tracks.
He had like really weird black gloves on too, so that didn't make us feel good either.
(10:50):
And he was like picking up wood chips and stuff, and the tracks that we were walking and smelling them, and it literally scared us so bad.
So we were like.
Our parents are on the direct other side of the area where the baseball game's happening, so we're basically stuck up here 'cause we can't go in his path 'cause we don't wanna be near him obviously.
(11:18):
So we went up to the area where like the playground was and there was like a bunch of moms with kids and he saw us go up there and, and he got really weird and kind of started walking away.
So then we took that as an opportunity to like walk back as fast as we could to the baseball area.
And we like literally were on complete different sides of the field and we passed him and.
(11:40):
When we got back, I was like, mom, like there's some really weird guy following the three of us and we're kind of getting nervous.
And then she was like, okay, then just stay here and let's just make sure nothing happens.
And then we were being stupid, so we decided we should go back out and go play again.
So we snuck back and then started playing again and it happened again.
(12:02):
And this time he got even closer and even closer.
And.
It was so scary.
'cause we were like, what was gonna happen to us? We didn't even know.
We were so scared.
So then I told my mom and I was like, we are really scared, but we wanna keep hanging out.
So then she just like mobbed up on him.
Let me tell this part of the story.
The three of the girls that were there are pretty b ba.
(12:25):
If you're with a crew of your girls, people aren't gonna probably mess with you.
Right? That's why we have the buddy system.
That's why you knew that you didn't wanna go meet the.
Guo by yourself.
So I know that with Bug and the other two girls, they can hold their own, but I always want to be a resource if God forbid anything happens.
(12:46):
So I start to walk over to the guy.
He jumps in his car.
And the area where we're at is like very family friendly.
So typically, and we know, right, we're in a car, somebody walks over, you're gonna probably look up and at least make eye contacts, give a head bob or whatever.
So I start to walk up on him and uh, he basically puts his head down, like, we'll not even look at me.
(13:08):
And I'm like, Hey buddy.
Hey.
And he like, would not look.
Would not look, you said perfectly trusting your gut, knowing your intuition.
Whenever you get a ugh, like an it or like an ick, you know, that's legit.
Right.
And I knew.
He was up to no good since he wouldn't even look at me.
And we can move on to other topics.
(13:28):
I don't wanna belabor this any longer.
We don't wanna give any more acknowledgement to people who are bad people, right? We don't wanna bring that energy into our space, but.
What I really want to say here is I always, always, always, always, always a million, always want you to, to trust your guts and never feel, and, and remember, bug just said we didn't wanna think we were overreacting.
(13:53):
You are never overreacting if you get a bad vibe.
Now, if that means going to a party or going to meet up with people, if you get a bad vibe, I want you to trust that no matter what, you're never overreacting if your energy is telling you something.
I have another quick one.
I was at a 4th of July party with one of my like lifelong best friends 'cause it was one of our parents' work parties and it was not a good area.
(14:19):
And it was on the other side of the park where the party was at.
And there was this really weird guy like literally standing out of the porta potty waiting for us to come out of the Boarda potty.
But he was being really weird and like he didn't do anything.
So we were just kind of like.
That's really weird.
Like why is he doing that? So then we just went over to the park and played and he stayed in the same spot just watching us.
(14:45):
And then he got, he kept like inching closer.
So I was, yeah, up.
We need to go, we need to go to the other side.
Back where your parents are.
And she was like, it's only even a big deal.
I was like, get up, come on.
So then we ran back to the other side where the parents were and he lived across the street and went back in and we just stayed on the other side of the, where the actual party was, where everyone was.
(15:08):
And he lived right across from the street, like the neighborhood houses by it, the park.
And he was literally looking out the window every couple minutes at us.
It was literally terrifying and it, it felt so uncomfortable.
I wanna acknowledge being uncomfortable, but I also wanna say definitely can feel uncomfortable around like older, older, weird dudes.
(15:35):
But if you also get the vibe of younger kids, right? Because bad things can happen with kids your own age too.
So still going into the whole thing of trusting your gut and knowing when it's not a good vibe, I am wondering what if you do go to like party.
(15:55):
You feeling like, I don't really know if I wanna go.
And maybe your parents aren't really psyched about it, or maybe they don't really know you're gonna go to a party.
Okay, maybe we don't really want you to go party with these older kids.
Or like bear cub, you're in high school, right? So maybe some seniors are like, Hey, why don't you come to this party? Uh, and you go to the party and there are some substances.
(16:22):
What? Do you think you'll do? For me personally, I wouldn't want to take any substances because like my biggest fear is like I just know how it substances like that can ruin people, so I would just pass.
(16:44):
On everything.
And if like anyone tries to peer pressure me, I would just like walk off.
I don't really care if they think I'm weird about not taking it.
I would not wanna take anything.
I don't trust it because I am afraid it would be laced with something that's like very dangerous and I wouldn't wanna take it.
(17:06):
Awesome.
What about you bug? What if somebody I have.
Offered you like a drink.
Hey, hey bug.
I got you this soda.
Here you go.
I have a huge fear of getting laced.
It's like one of my number one fears that freaks me out so much.
I know that when people green out, it's some of their worst experiences of their lives.
(17:28):
And if I'm in a place that I don't feel comfortable, it's not gonna be fun and I don't wanna be seen stuff.
In somewhere I'm not comfortable or like at all.
I don't wanna, I don't want to that to happen because hearing horror stories of people getting laced when they like try like nicotine or something and it was actually laced with something else that's like extremely dangerous or makes people trip really bad, that terrifies me so much.
(18:01):
I'm so scared of that.
But if someone hands me a soda.
It might have alcohol in it.
I would honestly say no.
Two.
'cause one, if I'm underage drinking, I'm going to get caught and that's gonna suck for me.
And then two, it's just not good at all to do that.
(18:24):
And maybe, I guess it's a possible thing to.
Try something.
'cause I don't think that all substances are totally bad if you have a medical condition where you need it or like a mental thing where you need it.
I, I completely understand that.
And in that situation, I would use substances.
(18:47):
'cause I know that there's certain like pens to help with like.
Mental needs and stuff, but overall, if I was at a party where I'm not comfortable, I'm not taking anything, I'm leaving.
What about you bear Cub? Are you gonna be like, I'm gonna call my dad, or I'm gonna get an Uber? Or how, how do you handle it? And then, then bug, I want you to answer next.
(19:11):
So me personally, it honestly depends.
Obviously I wouldn't wanna take anything, but like if someone that I really trusted handed me a drink, I would first like want them to try it and then I would like.
Wait, or I would just like take it friendly and not drink it.
I would just take it and dump it out somewhere.
(19:33):
I'd probably tell my dad or my mom like, what's happening? If it just like kept continuing, they'd be like, Hey, take this substance.
Hey, smoke this.
Like, Hey, drink this.
Then I'd be like, okay, no, like I don't want to, and then I'd probably try to get out of there as soon as possible because I wouldn't trust it.
'cause if it's someone, if it's with sketchy people that I do not trust, I wouldn't wanna take anything.
(19:55):
I love that.
What about you bug? Um, my favorite trick would be to text my mom or something, or text someone, say, call me and act like something bad just happened so that I can leave.
Mm-hmm.
So I'd be like, okay, can you call me in like two or three minutes and then just.
(20:18):
I'm gonna act shocked.
I'm like, I have to go.
So then I wait and then they call me and I'm like, oh, really? That happened to that? What? Okay guys, I'm sorry.
Something really bad happened.
I gotta go.
Okay.
Because.
So this, I'm, I'm sorry, I've got this just popped into my mind.
I've gotta ask.
So let's say you're at the party, you're both like, no, no, no, I'm not gonna drink it.
(20:40):
If, if you're gonna have a beverage, you're gonna go get the soda yourself, you're gonna open it yourself, you're gonna drink it, right? Because people can slip something into the drink.
What happens if you're at a party? One of your friends does take a drink.
It could be one of two things, right? Maybe they do wanna get a little buzz on, maybe your friend wants to party or what if they take something and they didn't know it, or they took a drink outta something and it had bad stuff in it? How are you gonna handle it? What will you do? So me personally, if I knew someone slipped something into it, I would like try to tell 'em, be like, Hey, spit that out.
(21:17):
Like, do not drink that.
'cause there's something in it.
And if they're like, well, what if I want it to be laced? I'd be like, well, you should like take something that you know what's in it.
If it's laced or something that can kill you or possibly get you hospitalized or addicted, like you shouldn't take it.
First of all, I would try to get them to not do crazy stuff because like I'm not really into it.
(21:42):
I wouldn't want them to get into it.
I know I can't control people, so I would do my best to persuade, but I would definitely try to force them to not take anything and I could possibly harm.
Love that.
What about you bug? What are you gonna do if one of your besties and maybe either scenario one of your besties is like, hell, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go for it tonight.
(22:04):
Like, I wanna party, I'm gonna get a little buzz on.
How are you gonna handle that? Are you gonna be there with them? Are you gonna, we call it babysitting.
And then the other scenario is, what if they do take it? They don't know, and all of a sudden they start to drop off and then maybe they wanna go party with a dude.
How do we handle this? What if we're in the moment? I know you girls won't do anything.
(22:27):
I know you're gonna make the choice not to.
At this time in your life, and maybe in the future you might, and we address that then.
But what happens if you're in it and you are in a crisis mode? What do you do next? Bug.
So I'm just gonna take them outside.
I'm gonna make them breathe.
I'm gonna hold their hair up.
(22:47):
If they throw up, I'm gonna be there for them.
I'm gonna help them through it.
I'm gonna keep reminding them, you're okay, you're okay.
And then maybe like.
We have a sleepover or something.
Yeah, you call me or you do the thing.
You call and say call.
I don't know, uh, bear Cub if we told you about it, but Bubs and I have like a little code where she sends me a text, Hey, have you put my face mask out for the night? And that's my code for me to call and be like, you're coming home right now.
(23:19):
No, you ping, you know, drop me a pin and I'm gonna come get you.
And so it's kind of her way of saying like, I'm in trouble without being like, oh mommy, I'm in trouble.
Come get me.
I'm scared.
Or, you know, my bestie is sick because she got, you know, laced or whatever.
And so that's kind of something that we've been doing, I guess.
Bear Cub, would you feel comfortable calling your folks or something if, if stuff started to go sideways? Me personally, I wouldn't be afraid to be like, come pick me up.
(23:46):
There's something mad happening.
I don't wanna be here anymore because honestly, I don't really care what others would think about that.
Like, if I feel uncomfortable, I would, I would even call my parents right there.
I'd be like, Hey, come pick me up.
These people are weird.
I don't like it around here.
They're telling me to take stuff without, like, you know, they're peer pressuring me telling to take stuff.
(24:07):
I wouldn't really be afraid to do that.
Awesome.
Well, good, I'm, I'm feeling extremely positive about this conversation.
I have one more question.
Do you think you girls will ever wanna try like, right, maybe not now.
I'm too young now in middle school and in high school, but like do you think if you get older you might wanna try to party a little bit or? I mean, me personally, it just depends.
(24:33):
I'm not really into that stuff right now.
But also people change.
Maybe I would try something, but also I just.
I'm not afraid to try new things, but I'm scared to get like addicted to it 'cause I've seen million peop, like millions of people, people in my family get addicted and just like, that's what my fear is.
(24:58):
Do you think you have control over if you get addicted or not? Me personally, I feel like.
When you do get addicted, people try to tell themselves that they're not addicted and that they can stop whenever they want.
But I feel like also when they do stop oh, anymore, like I'm craving more and that's like what I don't want for myself.
(25:20):
Yeah.
Yeah.
What about you bug? Honestly, I can kind of see myself doing it when I get older.
Doing what? Doing what? Pardoning, partying, okaying.
Are we talking.
Alcohol.
Drugs, definitely not drugs.
Okay.
I will never, ever catch myself doing drugs.
(25:43):
What about pot? Does that sound as a drug? I honestly don't know, to be honest.
'cause who I am now.
Me right now, I would never, ever, but you might have a drink, but when I'm older, yeah.
Yeah, I might like have a shot with my best friend.
I feel like that that's probably something I would do.
(26:06):
I can just kind of imagine that for some reason I'm a curious person, so I would want to see what happened, you know? But if I was in a situation where I was uncomfortable, I wouldn't try anything.
I would get out and I wouldn't be uncomfortable either saying, mom, get me right now.
(26:28):
I need your help.
You need to come get me.
Right now.
I'm terrified.
Good.
But like can definitely see myself going to house parties and not even drinking, just like going to hang out with people.
I feel like I would definitely do that and I would now like just to hang out with my friends from school.
I would do that.
(26:49):
So one last question and then I will let, let us wrap up.
What about vaping? I know we talked about this bug.
What about you bear cope? What do you think about vaping and not even getting high? Just the nicotine aspect.
Me personally, so I have really bad anxiety as is, and I know nicotine.
(27:12):
Can any pot, marijuana, any stuff can make you paranoid.
It can make you relaxed.
I feel like I wouldn't want to, because I know popcorn lungs is a very critical thing and like it, there's no cure for it.
It's permanent and I feel like stuff like that would make me very, like, I wouldn't wanna try it.
(27:33):
I know I have family members who smoked like and vaped and me personally, I just, I wouldn't.
I don't want to, especially with all the metal in your lungs.
Just I wouldn't, I love it.
Bug.
I know you said you might try it.
I have a, I would, I would possibly try pot maybe, but I am so terrified of popcorn lungs.
(28:00):
Like you don't under what is, tell me more about popcorn Lungs.
Educate me.
Oh.
Oh, it's terrifying.
Hello? It's.
Your lungs basically are destroyed.
You can from vaping.
Yes.
It's so bad and I feel like vaping, like sometimes it's kind of just a useless situation where like once you get addicted it's bad.
(28:22):
Like some kids my age are addicted already 'cause they've been exposed to stuff like that when they were younger and that, I actually can't believe it.
It's insane.
Wow.
Well, I think we have covered some great topics today.
I mean, I've got other topics I wanna quiz you guys for weeks.
(28:44):
Anything else you want to bring to the forefront? Anything else that's coming to mind that we didn't really touch on in this segment? And we can make this a regular segment bug and bear Cub come back to talk about.
Sex, or I mean, oh my God.
Ah.
Or, you know, talk about driving drunk.
I'm saying in the future, your young ladies, it may happen.
(29:07):
You know, so maybe we come back and discuss it or not.
Anything else you guys would like to say or chat about before we wrap up today? Um, no, not really.
I really did like this though.
I definitely think we should do this more often.
I agree.
Yeah, I agree.
I think we also touched really good topics, and I think that there's so many more topics that we could touch about this.
(29:34):
Um, but like, I guess I do have like one more thing.
Like if you're in a situation where like you don't want to consent to like someone, like touching you or something, like what would you do? Ooh.
Do we wanna come back for another episode on that? Because I feel like that is a long discussion.
(29:59):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Okay.
Then maybe next time we, I have talk about.
Self harm.
We could talk about mental health issues.
We could talk about consent.
We could talk about, I know I always like to talk to you guys about the darkness.
You know when you're in a dark place and maybe it seems like there's no way out, what do you do? I like to talk to you girls.
(30:24):
And to kids about it because I don't think my generation talked about it very much.
So maybe Bear Cub, if you'd be down, we could have you back with bug and we could talk about some of these other topics.
Yeah, I love that.
Yeah.
Okay.
Awesome.
Well, I just want to thank you both so much for taking time.
(30:46):
With me today with both of us, uh, all three of us.
It's been awesome.
I'm super touched that you came to hang out with me today and I am already looking forward to our next chat.
And so maybe this might be a weekly thing, monthly thing.
I'm excited.
So you girls are.
(31:07):
Extremely brilliant, intelligent, articulate, young ladies, and I feel like you sharing your stories can touch a lot of people.
So thank you so much for tuning in to Sober Town Podcast today.
Make sure you hop on over to the website and check out all the incredible resources that Sober Town has to offer.
(31:29):
Different podcasts, different things for your toolbox on this beautiful, incredible world of recovery.
See you next time.
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