WHAT ARE WE TEACHING OUR KIDS 023

What Are We Teaching Our Kids?

A message recorded the morning after Santa Maria lost five of its kids.

Before You Watch… I recorded this video a few hours after we got the news. It’s not polished. It’s not scripted. I didn’t write anything down. I just hit record, because I’m a father in this town, I’m a man in recovery, and I’ve lived on both sides of alcohol.

If you’re here because someone shared this with you - welcome. This page exists because people asked for a place to send it.

Santa Maria lost five kids last night. In a single-vehicle accident. Right in the heart of our town.

There are five families - parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, probably hundreds of friends - who are wailing and gnashing teeth right now. And man, my heart goes out to you. This is tragic. This is tragic.

And it happens. But it doesn’t have to. It doesn’t have to.

We’re going to spend a lot of time saying they should never have been out there and nothing good happens after midnight. But I’m going to ask you something harder, parents.

What have we spent the last ten, twenty, thirty years showing our kids about how to have a good time?

When was the last time you had a big get-together, or even a small one, where you weren’t drinking? Where people didn’t bring their own stuff? Where you didn’t line it up on the bar, or in the garage, or on the buffet?

When was the last time you showed your teenagers, your junior high kids, your elementary school kids, that you can actually have a great time without drinking?

You’ve got to really sit with that.

I’ve got a sophomore and I’ve got a twenty-year-old at home. I’ve got friends out there with kids who have known each other for decades. We don’t have to show up like the only way to have fun is to drink.

Think about the times you went off for a weekend with the baseball team, or the basketball team. How did you let loose? How did you show your kids how to have fun? By drinking?

It’s everywhere. It’s all the time. And it doesn’t need to be that way.

So what do you have to lose? What do you have to lose…booze? Show them that you can actually have fun sober.

And if you can’t - if you’ve tried, or you can’t see a future without it - call me. If you’re one of my friends, you’ve got my number. Call me. Shoot me a DM. There’s a way. It’s a way better way. And it doesn’t involve alcohol. In fact, it doesn’t involve any of the false stuff we put in our lives.

Seriously - what do you have to lose? Because what you start losing might be the best loss of your life.

And if you get through your kids’ high school years without drinking at every party - at the very least, you’ll know you did everything you could to show your kid that it doesn’t have to be this way.

Again: if you’ve tried, if you can’t picture a future without it, if you think you might need help - call me.

I kicked it six years ago. I’m living a wildly different life. Way better than I ever thought it could be.

Call me. 805-310-8740