Randy Haveson | Parent & Youth Substance Abuse Education, Self-Esteem Vs Ego and TED Talks

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Parents & Addicts in Need’s Founder Flindt Andersen and Jason LaChance sat down with author, Tedx Speaker, addiction and mental health advocate Randy Haveson.

Randy Haveson had a childhood that was better than most, coming from a wealthy family who invested in real estate. As a teenager, he had everything he could ever want growing up, he even got a new car for his 16th birthday. He had disposable money, so he started buying expensive drugs like cocaine & quaaludes at the age of 17. He says that it would make him feel normal, that it would actually help him with his severe ADD. Eventually, he would become a full-blown addict, spending thousands of dollars every month on his habit.

He got fired from his pizza delivery job. He got kicked out of college. He was drinking heavily, doing cocaine, mushrooms, quaaludes, and marijuana in excess. He ended up even more depressed, and started to contemplate suicide. When he was 24, he held a knife in his hand and was contemplating how to cut himself to get it over with. He looked at himself in the mirror and realized that he needed help. He called a suicide hotline, the person he talked to inspired him, and was able to start his road to recovery. He went back to college and got his master's in counseling. He starting working in treatment centers and started building his private practice.

Randy is all about dissolving the ego & raising your self-esteem. In his TED talks, he makes the point to differentiate between “Ego” and “Self-Esteem”, noting that ego is everything outside of us, and self-esteem is everything inside of us. Cocky vs. Confident. We need to nurture our self-esteem more and forget about the ego. He says “Ego’s turn hurdles into walls”, basically meaning that your ego will make whatever problem you have 10 times worse than it has to be. Another point he says is a major life-changing thing, is to eliminate “Can’t”, “Try” and “Should” from your vocabulary. These words are self-defeating, and procrastinate what you should be doing today. He now looks at every day as a gift, to be grateful for what you have and what you are able to do to give back. Treat yourself like your best friend, and let yourself be human, no one is perfect.

Now Randy has his own daughter, who is now 16 years old. He suggests when talking to your kids about drugs, talk about the behavior and consequences of your past. He makes the point about saying you are disappointed, instead of angry at them. He didn’t immediately punish her when he caught her, instead, he threatened to take something like driving privileges away if he caught her again. He is now a public speaker & author of the self-help books “Party with A Plan” and “The Ego Cleanse: Becoming Your Own Best Friend”. Make sure to check out www.randyspeaks.com for all his resources.