Preventing Youth Substance Use: Angie McDonald's Insights

I think the best thing I can say about this youth substance use prevention work is that we go into it with all the information and trying to do our best, but sometimes we're going to miss the mark, but we just keep at it. It's a lot like sobriety and recovery. It's a continuum. It's not like, you know, it's a jagged line. Like you have ups and downs. It's the same thing with raising kids. We all know I could be the greatest parent in the world and my kids are still going to make huge mistakes, huge mistakes, you know? So there's no like prescription do this and this, and we promise you won't get a child with addiction. You know, we know what works best, you know, and then a perfectly clean environment we could get there, but who has like, you know, who has nothing else going on in their life? So I think, you know, I do believe knowledge is power. And then I think what you were saying, Kezia earlier is we find like a tribe of people who are also thinking the same way we are. You know, I mean, I loved Kim already when she started the podcast and she was talking about spending weekends sober. And then when we started about kids, talking about kids and like, how are we going to do this? It was like another level of connection. And I think that's why you want to like surround yourself with other people. Does that mean that I'm going to have kids who don't drink till they're 25? There's probably, I'm going to have a few more heartbreaks, I'm sure over my kids, but at least, um, you know, doing my best at it.