When Your Child Is Using: Kim Porter on the Fear, the Chaos, and How to Save ThemWhen Your Child Is Using: Kim Porter on the Fear, the Chaos, and How to Save Them
The Addiction Podcast - Point of No Return
Kim Porter talks about her son’s substance use disorder, the family’s intervention, and how this led her to create support and education for other parents. The conversation looks at practical ways to talk with young people about risk, why families often miss early signs, and how parents can find their own path to recovery and support.
23:34•29 Jun 2026
When Your Child Is Using: Kim Porter on Panic, Parenting and Finding Support
Episode Overview
- Addiction can function as a temporary solution for emotional pain, so early substance use may be hard for parents to spot until consequences grow.
- Explaining addiction to children using simple ideas like allergies and family risk can open honest conversations without shaming anyone.
- Traditional “just say no” messages often backfire; young people need accurate information and space to ask questions instead of dogmatic rules.
- Parents benefit from connecting with others who share similar experiences, especially in groups designed specifically for families of children using substances.
- Family recovery includes parents getting their own support, understanding trauma, and recognising they cannot fix a loved one’s addiction alone.
“It was working for her. There was some pain… So it’s working until it doesn’t work anymore.”
What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol and other drugs when it’s their own child at risk? This conversation with Kim Porter, CFRS, gets right into the fear, the chaos and the small moments of hope that parents know all too well. Speaking with host Joanie Sigal, Kim shares how her life changed when her son developed a substance use disorder as a teenager.
She describes the family’s intervention in 2010, his ongoing recovery, and how that crisis pushed her to leave a career in graphic design to focus on educating families about addiction. As she puts it, for many people, substances are “working until it doesn’t work anymore” – first as a solution, then as a serious problem.
You’ll hear Kim explain addiction in plain, practical language, including why some people react to alcohol and drugs as if they have “an allergy”, while others don’t. She and Joanie compare ways to talk with children and teens about risk without shaming them or turning “just say no” into a forbidden-fruit invitation. There’s a strong focus on genetics, early warning signs, and the reality that many parents simply don’t see the use until consequences start piling up.
Kim also talks about Be a Part of the Conversation, the non-profit she co-founded, describing its free community events, parent partnership meetings, and a three-part Family Recovery Course covering Addiction 101, family impact and family recovery. The tone stays warm and honest, offering comfort to parents who feel they’ve failed and stressing the importance of their own support and healing.
If you’re a parent, relative, teacher or simply someone worried about a young person, you’ll find practical language, real-life examples, and a clear message: you don’t have to handle this alone. Who could you share this kind of conversation with today?
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