From Transcript of Wise Counsel Podcast Interview, by David Van Nuys, Ph.D.

    Dr. David Van Nuys: Welcome to "Wise Counsel," a podcast interview series sponsored by mentalhelp.net, covering topics in mental health, wellness, and psychotherapy. My name is Dr. David Van Nuys. I am a clinical psychologist and your host.

    On today's show, we will be talking with Dr. John C. Fleming who is author of the 2007 book, "Preventing Addiction: What Parents Must Know to Immunize their Kids Against Drug and Alcohol Addiction." A native of Mississippi, and a graduate of the University of Mississippi Medical School, John Fleming, MD, currently lives and practices medicine in Minden, Louisiana.

    During his medical residency, he trained at the Drug and Alcohol Treatment Unit at Navy Regional Medical Center, Long Beach, California, which was then a pioneer in chemical dependency treatment. That program influenced his medical practice and also helped shape the way he and his wife Cindy raise their four addiction-free children. Now here's the interview.

    Dr. John Fleming, welcome to the "Wise Counsel" podcast.

    Dr. John Fleming: Thanks for having me today.

    David: Yes, well I have been reading through your book, "Preventing Addiction: What Parents Must Know to Immunize their Kids Against Drug and Alcohol Addiction." I think there's a lot of useful information in there. We'll be going over that.

    But before we get into it, let me ask you what experiences in your own life and background led you to write this book or form the backdrop for it.

    John: OK David, my training as a physician is in family practice. I actually did my residency out in your direction, which was in Camp Pendleton, California, at the Naval Hospital there from 1967-9. During my training, we were required as residents, to spend two weeks at the Long Beach Naval Regional Medical Center, drug and alcohol rehab center. I'm sure that that name doesn't mean anything to you, but I think probably Betty Ford and Billy Carter mean something to you.

    David: Yes.

    John: That's where they went for treatment.

    David: Oh!

    John: And, of course, Betty Ford later started her own facility. This was a pioneering facility. There were very few drug and alcohol treatment centers in those days. The only thing available for people was really just AA, which is great, but there are some little benefits of in-patient treatment.

    What it did for me is this. I had to go through the program almost as if I were a patient. I had to be involved in group therapy, I had to listen to lectures, I listened to the stories. One thing I was really impressed by and that is the fact that each and every alcoholic or drug addict began their drinking careers at a very young age.

    And that really stayed with me for many years, even in raising our kids who are now full adults as we speak, four kids. My wife and I really utilized that thought, that consideration.

    Then a couple of years ago, some major studies came out -- one that was done by the National Institute of Drug Abuse, the other came out in the "Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine." What it said was there is a direct correlation between the age at which kids first begin using alcohol and the ultimate risk for addiction.

    I can summarize it by saying that we know that kids who begin drinking alcohol hard at age 15, have a five fold increased risk of addiction to all substances, greater than kids who begin drinking after age 15.

    So, as you can see, that really spoke to me.

As no one had really published that, put it in writing, I really felt the need to do that.

Also sort of put together techniques that would work into this information that could be very useful.

    David: Well that's a very interesting statistic and I must say it's a study that I hadn't heard of so, I'm really glad to hear that. Hopefully, it will lodge itself somewhere in my faulty memory because that sounds like a really important study.

    One of the things that I like about your book is you do a lot of self-disclosure, both in terms of the problems of your family of origin, where I think you say that you saw some alcoholism, and then later some of the challenges you faced in raising your own teenagers. Maybe you can talk about those to us as additional backdrop to our conversation.

    John: Well, my grandfather, and an uncle, and an aunt were alcoholics. I can recall -- really, I must have been three and a half, four at the most -- when I would watch my grandfather stagger to the refrigerator, open it up, pull out a bottle of whisky and then turn it up and drink it pretty much the way I sometimes will turn up a carton of milk.

    Of course, as a child I found that very interesting. I had no idea why he did that, but my grandfather's wife told me that he did it for its effect, not because of its taste. And then I began to really learn about what alcoholism was. I noticed the kind of behaviors that were unpleasant and unwanted around the house.

    As I became older, I came in contact with an uncle, who was his son, who was also a very terrible alcoholic. He was always giving me trouble, stirring up trouble. Then, of course, as I got older I had to consider whether or not to drink alcohol myself. And you see growing up in Mississippi back in the 60s -- and that was, by the way, a totally dry state; it was illegal to drink alcohol of any sort or to buy it -- in those days, much different from today, of course.

    To me, the only people who would drink alcohol were alcoholics. I didn't know there was such a thing as drinking alcohol in a social way; that there was actually a responsible way to drink alcohol. So I, myself, never even considered drinking alcohol until I was a sophomore in college and it was introduced to me by my girlfriend. And, as you point out, I go into detail of what my first experience with alcohol was.

    David: And then you also, I guess, faced some challenges with your teenagers around...

    John: Yes.

    David: ...some drinking behavior. Is that something you feel comfortable talking about?

    John: Sure, yes, the outcomes were very positive. I'll just give you the example of my younger son. When he was 16, he got his license like most kids do. I bought him an inexpensive pick up truck and he went to events with his friends. But one night, he was not coming home at the appointed time; he wasn't meeting his curfew.

    I spoke with him. I got some sort of deceptive answers. I was not comfortable with what I was hearing, so I actually got in my car and drove out to where I thought he was. Didn't find him, but on the way home I actually pulled in behind him not realizing it.

I noticed that the truck was weaving a bit. I followed him home and we had a conversation when we got home. I smelled alcohol on his breath, I could see that his eyes were glazed over a bit, and I was very concerned about that because not only was he drinking at age 16, but he was also driving while he was drinking.

    We had a long talk and he promised he wouldn't do it. But I took it another step. I actually purchased online an inexpensive home breathalyzer. We sat down, and I said, "Son, from now on, when you come in, you're going to blow into this breathalyzer.

And of course, you're expected to be home on time. If there are any problems at all, then you will get further punishment until the privilege is loss, obviously, if you do it the first time. Eventually, I'll just take your truck away if we have any more problems."

    He was a little bit reluctant and unhappy with it, but he really didn't have much to say because I caught him red-handed.

   Transcript continued, with audio podcast, at Wise Counsel