Inside Your Kid's Mind: Hidden Pain Behind Substance Use, with Brad McLeodInside Your Kid's Mind: Hidden Pain Behind Substance Use, with Brad McLeod
Hopestream for parenting kids through drug use and addiction
Brenda Zane talks with Brad McLeod about his journey from ADHD, psychiatric wards and opioids to recovery, jail and building a meaningful sober life. Their conversation highlights the hidden pain behind substance use and why sobriety is only one part of long‑term change.
58:11•14 May 2026
Inside Your Kid’s Mind: Brad McLeod on Hidden Pain, ADHD and Finding a Reason to Stay
Episode Overview
- Substance use often starts as a logical escape from long‑standing emotional pain, anxiety and feeling like a misfit, rather than from simple curiosity or rebellion.
- ADHD, especially when poorly understood or inconsistently treated, can fuel risk‑taking, low self‑esteem and a powerful drive for dopamine and acceptance.
- Parents’ past interventions and treatment efforts may seem to “fail” at the time, but the skills and ideas can resurface years later and support lasting recovery.
- Sobriety is just the beginning; purpose, structure, relationships and recovery capital are crucial to make a substance‑free life feel more valuable than going back.
- Change doesn’t always follow a single rock bottom moment; accountability, repeated attempts and small shifts in thinking often add up to a turning point.
“Stopping drinking and drugs is literally the starting line. I had to zoom out and figure out, how do I begin to build a life that is more valuable than the alternative life?”
Curious about how others manage their sobriety journey? This conversation between host Brenda Zane and guest Brad McLeod pulls back the curtain on what might be happening inside a young person who’s using substances, long before the drugs even show up. Brad, host of the hugely popular Sober Motivation podcast, traces his story from being a twin born to a 16‑year‑old mum, through childhood ADHD, school suspensions, suicidal thoughts and multiple psychiatric hospital stays.
He shares how he felt like a lifelong misfit who was “destined to find an escape”, and how medication, learning centres and therapists never quite touched the core problem: he didn’t know how to talk about what was going on inside. Parents get a rare, detailed view of how a seemingly “behavioural” kid ends up finding relief in cocaine, Percocet and heroin, then methadone, and why each step made sense to him at the time.
Brad explains how his victim mentality and chronic low self‑esteem made failure feel safer than success, and why a year in jail and eventual deportation were the accountability shock that finally made him ask, “Do you want to live like this?” He and Brenda also swap thoughts on rock bottom, with Brad pointing out that change often doesn’t happen at the worst moment, but much later, when skills and support finally catch up.
He talks about rebuilding life in Canada, working as an addiction counsellor, managing ADHD again as an adult, and why sobriety is just the starting line: without purpose, relationships and “recovery capital”, he says, staying sober is almost impossible. If you’ve ever wondered what your child’s substance use might be numbing, or worried that past treatment was a waste, this honest story offers another lens and plenty of hope.
What could shift for you if you saw your child’s behaviour as hidden pain rather than just defiance?
Do you want to link to this podcast?
Get the buttons here!
More From This Show
The latest episodes from the same podcast.
Related Episodes
Similar episodes from other shows in the catalogue.