hello, i'm ivette torres, and welcome to another edition of the road to recovery. today, we'll be talking about young adults in recovery, meeting the needs of the millennial generation. joining us in our panel today are ... ben chin, co-founder, ptr associates, washington, dc;

alison malmon, founder, active minds, inc., washington, dc; vannasang souksavath, ladder project coordinator, the institute for health and recovery, cambridge, massachusetts; jim williams, executive director, the association of recovery schools, houston, texas. ben, the millennial generation goes 18- to 25-year-olds, more or less. talk to me about what are the major characteristics of this cohort? i really think our ability to connect using social media and all the other technology resources are really a strength and a defining characteristic of this age group. very good. alison, obviously, we have heard of the many challenges in the mental health area that this generation faces. can you describe some of those challenges for us?

sure; this generation is facing mental health challenges that we haven't seen in generations past, and i think ranging from them growing up with instances like 9/11, columbine, virginia tech, some of the more prominent mental health and tragic situations have really just caused young adults to grow up in a different environment, in a different world. and at the same time, there's more awareness around mental health issues, and there's some more talking about it. and so young adults are little more knowledgeable about what they may be going through, what friends may be going through, a little more willing to seek help and to help the friends around them. and vanna, beyond the mental health challenges, or the mental health problems that they may face, there's also issues with illicit drugs and alcohol use? yes, there's both. young people are using prescription drugs and cocaine and heroin at higher rates at this young age, and

they're starting younger, as well, meaning by the time they get to young adulthood, they've already used for a number of years. well for alcohol, for example, among the 18- to 20-year-olds, it's 31.2 percent, and it really, really escalates when you get to the 21- to 25-year-olds. we're looking at rates such as 45.4 percent, and these are 2010 figures. is this because they're mostly in school and they're binging, or what are we looking at? we're looking at young adults who are entering college, and college drinking and binge drinking and heavy drinking is more normative in the college culture, so they are using more, and college students are using more than their young adult counterparts who are not currently in college.

yeah. it's very true, jim, that the college scene is really something that presents a very big challenge, not only for the colleges and the administrators within the colleges, but for the parents when they send their kids off to school, correct? correct. and what we've seen is about 80 percent of the college population is drinking, and about half of that-or 40 percent of the total population-is binge drinking, and it's traumatizing, and the impact is seen not only for those kids but for the kids around them. and so they suffer consequences, in regards to their friends going out, binge drinking and then, you know, having to support them, either cover for them, whether it be academically or with their parents. the ramifications are immense. and let's talk about what options in terms of the challenges for the young people, is it not to find ways

in which to prevent them getting into problems because as you look at the numbers when the 14- to 15-year-olds, for example, have a much lower rate-i think it's like 5.7 percent-and the 16- to 17-year-olds have a 15 percent of alcohol-and i go back to alcohol because i think alcohol is probably the most accessible pollutant, i think, for our young people, in terms of underage drinking and substance use disorders. so, if we're looking at, ben, that there's less of a problem when they're younger, does that argue for more prevention? i wouldn't necessarily say it argues for more prevention, although prevention messages are really important because we do know that the earlier the intervention or prevention message is heard, the less likely a chance for dependence is for youth and young adults, but i would say that there are

youth getting into treatment as early as 14 or 15 and that there needs to be also a recovery message at that age, as well. so, it really needs to be, vanna, a combination approach, would you say? absolutely. that way it's well-rounded, and they have all of the information and resources that they need, especially if their substance use may become more severe later on in the future. as you're working with families -and not only the young people, but with their families-how early do you think that we need to begin to send those messages to young people, vanna? i think as early as middle school going into high school because what we're hearing from our young people in treatment-and there we're working with them as young adults-is they didn't know what treatment was, they didn't know what recovery was, but if they had that information during the high school years, maybe even beginning as early as

middle school, then down in the future, they're able to at least have some of that background information. and the families have it, as well. alison, how should parents approach the whole issue of mental health? because as you know, we know that addiction is so much ingrained in, you know, drug free zones, and so on, but the mental health area is really an area where parents may not be as alert, correct? that's such a great question, and it's one of the biggest challenges that both parents and young adults and young people face in general. i think a really important message is that we may not all have mental illness, but we all have mental health, and so we can start talking about a young person's mental health as early as 4, 5, 6 years old, and start talking to kindergarteners about coping strategies and challenges that they may face. and, you know, when you are having a bad day, what do you do? do you journal? do you run? what are different coping skills that you can develop young?

and so that can parlay into a greater conversation about a young person's overall mental health and mental well-being and emotional state as they get into the teenage years, the high school years, the college years, so that students, when they do start struggling with whatever they struggle-depression, eating disorders, cutting, just thoughts of just not feeling like themselves-they feel like they have that open place to talk with their parents. so, i think it's really important that parents start a conversation even before they're really worried about their kid, and they can just start a conversation about, you know, "i don't have good days every day, and you don't have to, either, and you don't always have to put on a happy face, and i'm here for you to talk to, if there's something that you need to talk to me about." can i? i want to interject there, too. i think it's really important to understand that frequently, when it comes to substance abuse, there can be mental illness prior to. one of the debates we have in the recovery school world is what comes first: the learning disability

or the substance abuse? and so, we see kids, you know, attending school struggling with dyslexia and undiagnosed dyslexia, or dysgraphia or something along those lines. they struggle through school and all of a sudden, you know, they can't keep up and ways to cope, then, in regards to dealing with the academic delay or the learning disability, is to turn to drugs and alcohol. and so, i think we see that similarly in regards to mental health issues, when a kid struggles with, you know, "i hear voices" or, you know, "something doesn't seem right." and all of a sudden substance abuse is one of their only-it's really kind of a self-medication process. and the parents, jim, because that is an incredibly good point. you know, sometimes parents may be somewhat dismissive when the young person, or their child, is demonstrating those characteristics that you just pointed out, correct? and what should they be paying attention to?

i think it's not only dismissive, but it's also stigma, and frequently people, they're just embarrassed, they're concerned, "oh, my child's different." there's an initial grief of loss of that "normal child," so to speak. before they can even get to a point of reaching out and asking for help and seeking recovery, they've got to go through the denial process of, "wow, my kid may have some mental health issues." and so, until they can get into that place of acceptance, there's no way for them to seek help and find recovery. ben, you're in recovery yourself. and from a perspective, and we've talked about some of the dynamics that go on in families that really are not as supportive as one would want them to be. what would you say to young people that are in a difficult family situation, facing tremendous challenges? i would say that it's really important to find a support

network that supports you in your efforts to seek recovery and maintain your recovery. i was very fortunate to have a very supportive family, and going off of what jim and what alison just said, you know, my mother ... i was diagnosed with ocd at age 11, and it was a couple years before my mother came around and was able to assist me in seeking treatment for that mental illness. and then, i also suffer from a substance use disorder, which developed a few years after my mental illness diagnosis. and you know, i had to seek help-not just in my family because my father wasn't very supportive-but i had to find friends who were in recovery and also treatment professors and counselors who were able to help me. very good. and when we come back, we'll continue to talk about the challenges facing the millennial generation. we'll be right back. [music]

peer supports are really important for young people who are in recovery. there are more and more young people who are taking control of their addiction and getting into recovery earlier than before. this is good. peers are people that young people listen to. we know they listen to each other in many ways and many times much more often than they'll listen to others. peers are important about engagement, engagement in discussing the issue of addiction and in discussing the approach to recovery. they're really important in helping young people know ways to socialize, to live their lives free of alcohol and free of illicit drugs, so peers are really critically important. and young people have to engage in their own recovery. we can treat them, we can help provide services, but at some point, they have to manage that recovery on their own, every day, and peer support and mutual aid is a hugely important part of that process.

we know that for young people 18 to 25, that that's a big period for a lot of psychological issues, as well as substance abuse issues. so, if we only talk in terms of prevention, then what we're ignoring is the daily struggle that a person has. we have to think in terms of prevention, and we have to think in terms of treatment as prevention, and recovery as prevention. [music] before, addiction and depression kept me from living my life. now, every step i take in recovery benefits everyone. for information and treatment referral for you or someone you love, call 1-800-662-help. brought to you by the u.s. department of health and human services. [music]

it's powerful to know that my experiences as a student, you know, involved in substance abuse and substance use disorders, in both middle school and high school-and college, as well-that that experience can then become a positive experience to help potentially lead and give other kids out there struggling with similar issues an opportunity to seek recovery and to benefit from my own personal experience. being a leader of a recovery organization or, you know, an advocacy organization for youth in recovery, is not something i ever thought i would do. i'm not one for the limelight. but you know, it has really allowed me to gain a lot of fulfillment in knowing that there weren't some services that were provided to me when i was out there struggling with addiction, but now that since i'm in recovery, i can assure that some of the services that have allowed me to maintain my recovery are available for more youth and young adults. and so that really, really drives my effort to be at the forefront and be a leader of this kind of movement. ben, you were speaking about your own personal story, and

i want to continue with that. as you were experiencing this, and given that you're currently in recovery, let's take a look at the panorama. based on the issues that we spoke about, of this generation, what is the panorama from prevention, treatment, and recovery that the service delivery system needs to be looking at? i think there needs to be a more integrated approach between prevention, treatment, and recovery, and i think we need to bridge the gap between the services provided in the prevention world, the treatment world, and the recovery world. and i know for myself there was many prevention messages that i was exposed to, you know, as a middle schooler and high schooler, but these messages didn't take. and i often know that when i went to treatment from the age of 15 to 17, i was in treatment a number of four times. when i left treatment, there was no recovery support services available. there was no recovery high school. there was no alternative peer group. you know, i think i met with the substance abuse counselor only

a handful of times at my high school. and so, i really think there needs to be a more integrated approach to how we are delivering these services to youth and young adults. vanna, talk to us about what your agency does in terms of pulling in the families and the youth when they're running into trouble. the institute for health and recovery incorporates family treatment and family services and case management into all of our programs, whether we're working with young adults or families or women or individuals. so, that's a very important component because we know that that's where our young people thrive, is within their families, if their families are supportive and educated on the same information that we're providing to the parents. for example, our treatment model, we're using acra, which stands for adolescent community reinforcement approach. we work with the families and any of the treatment skills-the

skills that we're providing for our young people-we also do with the families, so that they've both learned the same skills, they're both using problem solving skills and communication skills. where do you get your referrals from? our ladder project is actually very specific. we get our referrals for young people from section 35. so, in massachusetts, there's a section 35 law that says that any individual can be civilly committed up to 90 days, if their alcohol or drug use is a danger to themselves or to someone else. so, they're court referrals? so, they're court-referraled. right. yep, so, we get our referrals from the treatment programs in which that they're sent to. do you find that mandated treatment is equally as effective as if the family brought in the youth? mandated treatment is important, and we're also talking about

individual's level of motivation and readiness, so they may not want to be in treatment, but they're there, so it gives them a time for sobriety to begin to look at any issues or problems related to their substance use, and maybe begin to move their level of motivation if they weren't ready. so, that is an important part. yeah. and alison, talk to us about active minds. how do you-you're one of the founders-it is an incredibly important program for young people, correct, i mean? yes, so, active minds is a national organization that's dedicated to empowering students to speak openly about mental health issues in order to educate others and encourage help seeking. and so, what we do is we do most of our work primarily through an on-campus, college-based model, led by students, student volunteers, who lead groups on campus that promote awareness

around mental health issues and activities and create a dialogue on campuses-both high school and college-that let students know that they're not alone if they're struggling with mental health issues, feel comfortable talking about what they may be going through, feel comfortable reaching out to friends about whom they may be worried, and know where to get help and really feel comfortable seeking out that help. one of the things that we have found to be very important is that a large majority of the students who are part of active minds are students who have struggled with mental health issues themselves, and they use this level of activism and advocacy as a form of recovery for themselves- absolutely. along with a lot of the other, you know, whatever their support system and whatever their recovery model is for them. you know, active minds is made up of students who have lost loved ones to suicide, who have struggled themselves, who are interested in mental health professionally, and so it's a range of the people who come together. and i think what's really important too is that we create a community of, "it doesn't necessarily matter why you come,

but you recognize that issues are real and they're important." and we have grown now onto 400 college campuses over 10 years because of the interest and the ingenuity and the dedication of young adults, who really are approaching mental health issues differently than i think a lot of their parents or grandparents have. alison, talk to me about how you started it, and why. when i was a freshman in college myself, i lost my brother to suicide. he had been a very successful high school and college student who started experiencing his own severe mental illness in his freshman year of college, but he didn't feel comfortable telling anybody. he masked it, still maintained a high gpa, became president of a variety of student groups, so still was living that ideal college life that we think of. he finally went and sought help in his senior year, and at that point he told the family what he was going through. he took a voluntary leave of absence and started some pretty intensive treatment, but he took his life about a year after that. and as i said, i was a freshman when he died, and the emotion

that struck me most was fear: recognizing that if it happened to him, it could have happened to me. because nobody on my campus was talking about mental health issues, and had i started experiencing what brian had-which was a combination of depression and psychosis-if i had started experiencing that, i wouldn't have known what to do or say, and i wouldn't have felt comfortable telling anybody because everybody else seemed to have everything together. and it scared me that he had gone through so many years in college feeling as though he couldn't tell anybody and feeling as though he couldn't get help. and then you look at the numbers and you find that the incidents of mental health disorders and mental illness and substance use among young adults and college students is just so high, and it's the highest prevalence of any age group throughout the lifespan. and so there's a need for bringing about awareness and bringing students into this conversation. and that's absolutely true. i mean, among young adults age 18 to 25, there's 30 plus percent of them facing a mental illness.

those are the least likely to seek mental health support, as well, and i think that's an important key to understand. with the programs such as alison's, that peer support leads them to conversation, which then leads to potentially identifying a problem and seeking that solution. so, from a developmental standpoint, that is the key in having those peers be the people that they can reach out to and connect with. within the whole context of recovery schools, you start out at the high school. talk to me as to why it was important to start at the high school area. well, i think that in regards to academics, we talked a little bit earlier about learning disabilities and those kinds of things. i think from an academic perspective, that's your priority. your job as a high school student or as a teenager is to get your high school diploma. and so, if a student is struggling with substance abuse issues, frequently, their primary place to gain access to

those substances can be in the high school environment. and so inevitably, what we've come to learn from a treatment perspective is treatment is the initiation of recovery, and recovery really begins after treatment is over. and so, what we need is we need that kind of supportive environment. and from an academic perspective, who better to serve those kids, who better to give them the supportive environment, the recovery-based kind of group processes that are necessary to continue to move forward in their recovery. how many recovery high schools are there around the country? we have 30 members in our organization. we are also aware of several other schools that are out there from a high school level. we also have 18 collegiate members, and there are other organizations that also support those college campuses, as well. there are a number of college programs that are available, and so in regards to capturing that number, i would probably

guesstimate somewhere between ... 25 to 50 collegiate support recovery campuses out there. but again, 30 high schools that are members of our organization, plus several that we're still working with in regards to building and establishing membership within ars. well, i want to come back and continue to talk about the whole system, both in the high school as well as in college campuses because we need to get into the whole area of recovery support that ben brought up earlier, and alison as well, because i think that is a critical aspect of making sure that people do remain sober and living healthy and having well-being in their life. we'll be right back. [music]

for more information on national recovery month, to find out how to get involved, or to locate an event near you, visit the recovery month website at recoverymonth.gov. [music] teen challenge provides an effective, comprehensive, christian faith-based solution to youth, adults, and families who have drug and alcohol problems. we want to see people return to their full potential: physically, spiritually, socially, emotionally, relationally, and every way transformed and made whole, so that they can contribute to society as they were designed to do. some people come to teen challenge to say, "i want to get off drugs," but that is really just the tip of the iceberg,

because at teen challenge, we don't just deal with getting off drugs. we believe that men and women who come to teen challenge become new people. we believe that there's an inner change that takes place in a person's life. when a person comes in, and they understand that our approach and our philosophy is that everyone is in need of recovery, it takes down some of the defensiveness, so they recognize, "ok, i need recovery in this area, but i'm not alone." and i think the isolation of addiction really causes young people not to move on to accessing recovery and receiving fully the benefit of what recovery has to offer. when i first got to teen challenge, i had committed to a week. i thought anybody could do anything for a week. what made me stay was the peer support around me, seeing the women that were there and how far they were and where they're coming from. and they were willing to commit more than a week, and so i was like, "ok, i'll do two weeks." and then it was, "i'll do a month" and do three months.

and so, it was really the peer support in teen challenge that kept me there in the beginning. and now i see that it was, you know, god giving me what i needed every step of the way. what program staff really did to help me in my process of coming through teen challenge was really coming alongside me, not just coming down at me and telling me what to do, but coming alongside me saying, "i'm here for you, to walk with you through these problems. we're going to get through this together." i am able to share with them what i've been through. and when they come to our program to interview, i know how they hurt: i've been there. a common element with people from 18 to 25 is the peer pressure, and what we offer through the social model at teen challenge is how to have true friends that can bring a positive influence to each other, those that are willing to say, "you know what: i realize i can't go back to those old friends. i'm going to find new friends." they're able to make that change. i think the thing that i like the most was the relationships

that i built, actually having true friends and a safe place where i could be so broken and completely myself. so, the relationship component, an aspect of it, is very, very important, not only with the peer-to-peer person who's helping them through the program, but also having a relationship with god. experiencing god's love can change a person's life, and then we watch people who learn to love themselves. then they understand the freedom of god's forgiveness, and then we learn to forgive ourselves. teen challenge has saved my life. i came through jail with no hope, and i was able to find hope in teen challenge. i was able to learn about god and how much he loved me. and when i left, i had learned to apply all the things i learned through the word of god to my life. when a person comes here, they are broken, they've lost everything, they have a sense of shame. and when they come to teen challenge they are built up with this hope that things can change, that things really can be different.

and when they begin to embrace that and allow god to come into their lives and allow other people to embrace them in their places of brokenness, then transformation begins to come, and it's a joy to see the miracles of teen challenge. alison, you spoke earlier that your organization provides peer support. how does peer support play a role in providing recovery support services for young people? i want to say that there's an important distinction. we don't actually provide support at active minds. what we do is convene groups that promote awareness and advocacy campaigns and programs on campus. so, we have groups of students who plan events that raise awareness around issues in mental health on campus. what that means, though, is that the students who are part of active minds end up becoming kind of a support network for each other. they become friends. it's a very easy word, but it actually means a lot to young adults, and these are friends who sometimes share common histories of connections to mental

health, mental illness, suicide. and what we have found is that students listen to students. young people, young adults, listen to young adults. there's a statistic that shows that two-thirds, 67 percent, of college students who feel suicidal tell a friend before they tell anybody else. and there's so much power, and there's so much influence in just a friend group, and in a peer group, however you define that peer. and so again, what active minds does is not clinical, but we just recognize the connection that young adults make with each other surpasses the connection they can have really with anybody. and as much as parents want to have that hand with their student, with their kid, students and young adults are creating their own identity, and oftentimes they want to shed that a little bit from their family, and they create that in their network of friends, as we heard from ben earlier. well, i do want to come back to ben now because, you know, you did say how important it is for young people that are in