Brian Crombie Radio Hour - Epi 1660 - Connection Before Correction: Addiction, Recovery, and the Hope We Give Each Other with Susan Raphael

On The Brian Crombie Radio Hour, the conversation explores one of the most difficult—and hopeful—questions any family can face: how do we help someone we love when they feel beyond our reach, and what allows people and even nations to endure and rebuild through hardship?In Part 1, Brian is joined by clinical psychologist Susan Raphael, author of What’s Wrong with My Teen? Finding Answers to Teenage Addiction and Family Crisis. Raphael speaks not only as a clinician, but from lived experience. After losing her mother at thirteen, she struggled with addiction, eating disorders, homelessness, and despair before finding recovery. Today, more than two decades sober, she supports teenagers and families navigating crisis and healing.Together, they discuss why teens often turn to substances as a way of coping with pain rather than seeking pleasure, how grief, trauma, bullying, and isolation fuel addiction, and the delicate line between helping and enabling. Raphael offers practical strategies for parents in crisis and emphasizes a guiding principle that shapes recovery: connection before correction.In the closing commentary, Brian reflects on a week of wide-ranging conversations spanning Ukraine, Canadian unity, youth mental health, and addiction recovery. Drawing on insights from Christian Thwaites in Ukraine, Professor Daniel Béland, economist Claude Lavoie, psychologist Susan Raphael, and author Susan Pinker, he explores a unifying idea: hope is not only something we feel—it is something we give each other.Referencing Pinker’s insight that “we need to see the whites of each other’s eyes to know that we belong somewhere,” Brian examines why human connection may be the most essential infrastructure any society has. Whether rebuilding a life, supporting a teenager, or holding a nation together, resilience is never built alone—it is built through one another.A deeply human conversation about addiction, recovery, and the quiet power of connection that sustains us all.