Introduction to Prime for Life

Welcome back to another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour. I’m your host, Jake White. And today we’re hanging out with Derek Jordan from Prime for Life. So Derek is a trainer, coach and growth guru for Prime for Life, which is one of the best alcohol and drug prevention programs this side of the Mississippi. Derek, I love it.

That’s silly because that’s silly because prime for life is taught really all over the world. you know, I don’t, I live on this side of the Mississippi, which is the East side of the Mississippi, but it’s taught on the West side of the Mississippi as well.

Right? Well, if you, if you start at the Mississippi and you just fly in any direction, you’ll eventually get around the world. Right. So you’re not wrong.

And if you, yeah, and I guess whichever way you go, you could be like, well, I’m on this side of the Mississippi. And another person will be like, I’m on this side of the Mississippi. And they’re both right. And whatever that means. So.

Well, Derek, please tell us, first of all, just kind of what is prime for life? And then please tell us how you specifically got started into this world of prevention.

Prime for Life. It’s interesting. Since 1983, this this program has kind of been around and it’s been defined in a bunch of different ways, a bunch of different times. And still we struggle, I think, sometimes to really like nail down what is prime for life. But it’s a it’s a program. It’s a curriculum that gets taught, like I said just a little bit ago, all over the world and partly because the organization that that develops prime for life and supports it, has developed it, but it’s always in development, making updates and stuff. That’s why I said develops. That creates Prime for Life, supports it, trains people to teach it. That organization has, like I said, it’s been around for a long time. And I lost my train of thought a little bit there, but basically it’s a program that gets taught all over the world. And what is this program for?

Well, it’s for people who maybe are thinking about reducing they’re maybe are thinking about reducing their use of alcohol or drugs. It’s for people who might not be thinking about that, but you know, maybe other people, maybe they should be thinking about it. And who’s to say what anybody else should be doing. Sometimes it’s a judge maybe that says it like, Hey, you need to be thinking about doing something differently. Maybe it’s a significant other that cares about us. Right? So prime for life is a program that gets taught to people from we say from 12 years old to 102, I mean, people of all ages can benefit from Prime for Life. Jake, I know the name of the podcast here, know, Drug Prevention Power Hour. And it’s like so much of what people in prevention do and focus on, rightly so, is youth. And yet we know that people throughout their lifespan can struggle with alcohol or drug issues. So Prime for Life is geared to help people across that span. And again, kind of people that maybe don’t have a problem, but maybe are interested in like going away. I don’t really have a quote, problem, but are some things not going quite right in my life or Hey, I actually don’t have any problems. And I want to keep it that way. Crime for life can be helpful for people all over. So that’s kind of a roundabout big answer there, but Yeah, well, I’ll definitely ask you to dive in deeper in a little bit because I’ve been told about Prime for Life. And then we met at CADCA and I got to learn a little bit more and I see it as a really, really helpful tool. So I definitely want us to dive in. Before we do though, how did Derek come into the picture for this? Have you been with them since what, 83 or did you join at same time and why?

Derek’s Personal Journey and Motivation

Yeah, it started when I was two years old in prime for life. Dating myself there a little bit. It’s a great question and it’s not, it’s honestly, there’s parts of it that’s not an easy answer, but I’m really happy and willing to share. I don’t know that happy is the right word because it’s sad, but Jake, when I was 20 years old in college, a lot of things looked really good. I was you know, plugging away, you know, three point something GPA, had a couple of jobs, helping pay myself through school, had been on the swim team for a bit, had great relationships with my family, my parents, my siblings, my friends, you know, had, like I said, relationships, life was going great. And I was making some high risk choices around alcohol and drugs.

And one night, I tried to drive home when I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t have done it. I had been drinking, kind of hanging out with some older friends and stuff. a dear friend of mine had a birthday on the other side of town and I just had to be there, you know? And so I went over there and then I had to drive back across the other side of town. And I chose to do that. And when I drove, tried to drive home, I didn’t make it. I got into a crash and I had been drinking. And it was a bad crash and someone died. His name was Daniel and so then I was facing, was 20 years old and facing almost 20 years in Florida prison. And you know, I had never been in any kind of legal trouble or anything like that.

And it’s tough to kind of wrap my head about what had happened, why had it happened, what needed to be done, what was going on with the system and the legal stuff and all of that. It took a couple of years. Like I said, I was in college and my parents supported me. I stuck it out and I stayed in college, even though I was really in this weird space of uncertainty of what my future was going to hold and all of that. But I was able to graduate college just before I ended up going to Florida prison for my sentence was six years. Six years in prison and then eight years of, it was called house arrest was what they termed it as. And when I was incarcerated and even before then I started thinking, hey, this was terrible. I knew how bad it was for me. Here’s kind of the way I’ve thought about it over the years. I can only speak, like with real accuracy and truth and not sometimes maybe not even accuracy because I can’t communicate the words or articulate the feelings that I’ve got right. But I can try to speak how I feel and what my experience is. And then I can really, I can hear from other people to kind of gauge what their experience is. And so like my family, I knew how this hurt them. I had an older brother, still have an older brother, younger brother and a baby sister, my mom and dad, like all my friends that knew that this happened, how it touched them. And so I got like, I couldn’t say for sure that that’s how they were feeling, right? But I have a good sense of how it was, how it was painful for them. And then there’s Daniel’s family and that I haven’t really spoken with them at all. Just, there was one occasion where I met them in a courtroom and we got to not really talk to each other. Although there was some direct conversation there or not conversation, but comments that were made, we got to hear from each other, I guess is maybe a way to put it. And, but generally I haven’t spoken with them at all, but I could only imagine I have a younger brother. Well, Daniel had an older brother and so Daniel was a younger brother. also had a twin sister. I could only imagine what they went through then, what they still go through today. That’s been over 20 years and I imagine that’s something that they still go through. Holidays, birthdays, anytime, every day possibly. What they go through with the loss of their brother, their son, their friend. Yeah. So you asked, you know, how did I get into this? Part of it was I imagine, I knew the pain that I went through. I could kind of see what my family was going through and imagine what Daniel’s people were going through. And none of it was good. All of it was terrible.

And I thought, how do I prevent this from happening to other people? I mean, it’s the name of your part, prevention. How do I prevent this from happening for other people? And so I just started writing letters. Like if my mom, you know, at our church where I grew up going to, she would, she would say, oh, someone, you know, little Jake has been making some, you know, been drinking. Can you write them a letter? And I would write a letter to so-and-so’s son or whoever, write a letter to the high school newspaper where I graduated. Started writing letters.

And I got an address for prevention research Institute, prevention research Institute. was like, okay, prevention, got to, what do they do? And what they do or what they had largely done at the time is help people prevent problems with alcohol and drugs. And a lot of it was through people where there were words, where there was an impaired driving offense. And so I wrote them a letter and they wrote me back a guy named Frosty. wrote me back.

And we started a dialogue, a pen pal kind of relationship for a couple of years. And a few years down the road, he came to the facility I was at in Florida and videotaped a part of an interview, an interview. And part of that went on this prime for life program. It was a small fraction of a larger program, but it was an important piece. And so when I got out, I just got in touch with them and I stayed in touch with them.

Though at some point I tried to put this all kind of behind me. I was like, I’m just gonna live my life, do something completely different. Some mysterious power kind of brought me back towards this space. And so I reconnected with Prevention Research Institute, it’s PRI, reconnected with PRI. And I’ve been working with the Prime for Life program very closely for over eight years now, helping people know a little bit more about it. So that’s what got me into this. And I’d said, I’m not happy to tell that story. I’m happy when people hear it though and think, yeah, I don’t want to do that. You I want to do something different. That’s what brings me joy. It’s not joy in the memory of it though, you know?

Right. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. As I could imagine it, right? It’s not your favorite story to tell and probably hurts, but thank you for being someone who does share it and that it’s led you, that pain has led to part of your purpose and how you can help others avoid that now. And yeah, I love the fact that you’re in prevention and restoration and things like that, that it does give people a second chance.

And that’s so important because there’s a lot of people that this stuff could happen to and we don’t know whether it’s gonna be us or not, right? Like there’s a lot of people who did drink or who did get behind the wheel and lucked out and nothing bad happened, but you’re helping reduce that in the world. And that’s our world. So yeah, just thanks again for being vulnerable and sharing that story with us and our listeners.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity. I, again, happiness might not be the word, but there is a sense of, I’m honored to be able to tell it. I, you know, I, I hope that, that it does, does some good. does, like you said, kind of help. It’s something that’s very senseless. When I look back at what happened, it feels like, Jesus, there’s just that everything about it was bad in to be able to come now, whatever 20 something years later and think, look, is there actually some good coming from this? There’s that hope at least, right? And when you talk about prevention, it’s one of those things that is just, it’s such a, it’s almost a miss in some ways, there’s a real mystery to it. It’s like, we never hear about the car crash that didn’t happen. Right? When we do prevention, do prevention, whatever that means, means different thing to different people. But it’s like, we just don’t even really, we sometimes we don’t really see the fruits of all the labors, right?

And so I’ve been just to like dive in deeper into Private Per Life as a program is I get this question all the time, speaking at schools and helping youth realize they can have fun and feel good without using drugs. But it’s one thing to come in and share and you always want to leave them with a program. So like we have a peer led program that they can start and they can do peer to peer education and throw drug-free events and stuff like that. But the one thing that’s missing is people ask like, what’s a really, really great curriculum that we can keep going throughout the school as we can run with our students? And I’ve been hearing about Prime for Life. Can you tell us why, like, why is it different or why does it work so well amongst programs that do this? Like, what’s the sauce? What’s in it?

Understanding Prime for Life’s Approach

Yeah, to nail it down to one thing would be tough, but it’s built on a little bit of a different model. there is evidence-based programs. You might hear that term. It’s an evidence-based program. There’s science that goes into building it. And then there’s the science and the study and the evaluation that, does it work? And there’s 30 plus years of all of that that says, hey, it does work. It works pretty well with pretty high rates of success. We can talk about how we measure that, what success actually means.

But there’s pretty high rates of success if it’s done to what we call fidelity, right? To an evidence-based program. so the sauce is maybe that it’s that model, the lifestyle risk reduction model. one part of what it says, and I’m simplifying some things here, but we all have a biology. It’s the stuff we’re born with. We can’t change that. That came down from our parents, from lineage, from generations, right? And here we are and we’ve got it.

And we were born with some stuff. It’s our, you know, set of cards, right? It can create some real, well, for some of us, our biology gives us really good things, you know? It’s like, yeah, I got good bones or, you know? It’s funny. I was like thinking about this. My mom said this the other day, my grandmother, she passed down bad teeth. I’ve had a couple of cavities in my life, right? And she was like, well, that’s from your grandmother. You can thank her for that. Thanks mom, you know? Cavities, all right.

But so, so it can create really good, like it can give us some real strengths, but in a lot of ways, especially when it comes to alcohol and drugs and stuff that we’re talking about here, our biology also can create vulnerabilities, right? It can create those risk factors. So that’s why they, when I go to the doctors, they ask me, you know, about your medical history, about your family history, because a lot of that comes through there. So it can create risk for certain problems. Alcohol and drug problems are in that category.

Right. It can really create risk for that. So if I’ve got some family history, some other biological factors that can increase my risk. So that’s a part of it. We all have a biology and it can be a sense of vulnerability and risk. But where do we all have some power? Our choices, the choices that we make, we get to make, have to have to make choices. We have to make them because opportunities, if we step out the door in the morning and sometimes you don’t even have to leave the house, opportunities to drink or use or whatever will present themselves. And so we will not, I say have to, but get to make choices. You know, it’s a real blessing that we have that autonomy as individuals, mostly. So we all have a biology, but our power comes from the choices we make. Now those choices don’t just all, we say they don’t live in a vacuum, right? Like I don’t just make them just like, well, you said this, then I’ll do this. No, because there’s all this stuff that goes around when I’m going to make a choice, both inside my head and just the world around me are social sort of environmental influences and psychological factors. What I like, what I don’t like, what I’m thinking about myself in the current moment, what my ego says, I don’t know, all sorts of things that can affect what the choice I make in this moment is, or the choices are. And so with our biology, then plus our choices, kind of leads to the outcome. And that’s a big part of what the Prime for Life program’s built on, helping people understand, okay, so what is my vulnerable spots? What do I need to be able to look out for for myself? And what are my choices that help me protect the things that I care the most about? And Prime for Life goes through a program, a system to kind of help each individual analyze that for themselves. And then each one of us gets to walk out the door at the end and go, okay.

Cool, I got a little bit of a better sense about what’s important in my life and how to protect it. And I get to make the choices, do I want to, or am I willing to risk some of this stuff?

Wow, okay. That’s cool. Is it you mentioned from basically 12 years on up is what kind of partners are and I guess, so the ones listening right now are coalitions and schools. How are they specifically using Prime for Life? In what setting? Is it one-on-one? Is it group? Is it virtual? And what cases are they probably using it for?

The Unique Aspects of Prime for Life

A couple of different things I can talk about there is Prime for Life for a very long time has been designed as an in-person group experience, right? A program or the curriculum, the instructor would go in. They’re a trained instructor. It’s a fidelity, you know, fidelity is important and matters. And so trained instructors, PRI trains the instructors.

And those can be teachers or counselors or someone that doesn’t work inside the school, but comes from an agency or a coalition or some other provider in the community that brings that curriculum in and they get a classroom together. Maybe it’s seventh grade health class. Maybe it’s the 10th grade volleyball team, like, you know, whatever, or just people that would sign up for it or parents that would sign up for it or whoever and can deliver that curriculum, just one slide at a time. There’s a PowerPoint style kind of presentation that comes along with it. And just go through those steps, those slides, one at a time and talking about those things. And just again, presenting that information. It’s not just information, there’s activities and things that go along. So that’s one way to go about it. That’s how Prime for Life is designed. And it goes back a long way. Even before it was Prime for Life, it was called talking with your kids about alcohol and talking with your students about alcohol.

Twicca and Twicca were the acronyms which weren’t super creative, but it got to the point. Actually, it’s funny because we’ve talked about branding a little bit. It’s like, what is Prime for Life? It does create some curiosity for people. There’s a reason we landed on that name. We get into that, maybe not that important, but Twicca, was talking with your kids about alcohol. It’s very specific as to what it is.

But anyways, so that is largely how the program has been taught for, like I said, around 40 years. And it still is today. And technology has advanced a lot, partly because of a partnership with the military where soldiers in overseas theaters were in kind of in need of some assistance and some programming but didn’t have a prime for life instructor right there next to their base in Afghanistan or whatever, that we partnered with them and created an online version of prime for life. So it’s called MyPrime. And it’s a very individualized, one person sits down at a computer connected device and goes through the program. So a lot of schools are using MyPrime for, for instance, if someone got busted vaping in the bathroom or something like that, this student needs to complete MyPrime on their own time.

Maybe if they got suspended, they might need to complete this before they are and show a certificate of completion before they return to school. It might almost like their ticket back in. Some schools are using it that way, but the program can range from four hours of universal, what we call universal prevention. So again, if that was the seventh grade health class, it might just be like, we’re gonna do this for an hour a day this week. And then each day this week.

So there’s different ways that schools are using it and it kind of depends on what the population is. For simple terms, kind of go, have they gotten in trouble yet or not gotten in trouble? And that’s just indicated prevention or more of a universal thing.

Okay. Okay. I haven’t heard that term that indicated or universal, but I’ve heard of primary prevention, meaning they haven’t used and secondary, meaning they have used. Is it just another word for that or is that something different?

Implementation in Schools and Communities

It might be the way that we talk about it with indicated prevention. To me, it says there’s an indication to whatever the helper or the system or whatever. There’s an indication that this person’s making some high risk choices. And that indication could be like, they got a policy violation or an arrest, for instance, or their commanding officer or something, or their teacher’s songs come out of the stall and there was smoke going to or whatever, that could be an indication of high risk choices. And then the other side of it is universal, is like everybody in this group and maybe universal might be different from primary in this regard, although I’m not quite sure just because I don’t use that term as often is in a universal population, statistically, there’s going to be some people that are making high risk choices already.

It’s just not why they’re there. They’re just there because this was just everybody in like, as you know, you know, ninth grade orientation or, you know, freshmen orientation at a, at a university. Some of those students will likely be making at, well, statistically and likely be making high risk choices. Almost guaranteed in any university freshmen orientation population, someone there’s probably making some high risk choices, but it’s not why they’re there. They’re there because they’re for freshmen orientation. Yeah. And so the universal kind of and so some of those people might need additional assistance or programming.

Okay, that’s helpful. That’s helpful to understand. Okay, and then I think for me, when I think of prevention, there’s this common thought, and maybe it’s just by funding streams that I think this way. People are like, we want opioid prevention. We want alcohol prevention. We want cannabis products and THC. To me, it’s all preventing high-risk behaviors. I’m wondering for your program, I don’t want to get into like substance specific prevention because it’s constantly changing and it’s not the core reason why someone used. sounds like prime for life is just helpful because it tackles the root of the problem instead of kind of the latest trend or something. But a lot of times people, want that specific information and maybe you have an answer to this, maybe you don’t part of prevention and restorative programming like Prime for Life.

What is it important to have the substance use specific, like the substance specific information? How important is that or why is that important as well?

The Broader Context of Prevention

And it’s an interesting question the way you framed it. I suspect that there’s maybe some individuals where that might be more important. And by the individual, I would say the person receiving the intervention or the prevention, that that might be more important for some than for others possibly, especially if someone is very much into a specific substance and they need to figure out how to stop that specific thing, then maybe they’re is some real benefit to that for an individual. If we broaden it out, part of why, this kind of goes back to the naming of the program, Prime for Life, versus talking with your kids about alcohol. Well, it’s not just about alcohol. And it became about more than that. So Prime for Life, prime if you think of like, okay, we wanna prime the pump. You’re getting ready and ready for life. Now I’m ready to go on and do this. Also, P.R.I. Prevention Research Institute. P.R.I. is the first three letters in time. And there was someone who said, well, I feel like that program and now with me, I’m ready for life is part of how that name of the program came about. P.R.I. plus me for life. I like that.

But if we, yeah, it was kind of clever, you know, whether it’s the best or whatever, who knows, we could discuss, but when we think about specific substances, what we can see in the research, and we’ve got the Prime for Life programs based on about 1800 studies that our analysts at PRI, we’re a small little nonprofit, but have been really looking hard for those four decades at the various research that comes out.

Is there some principles that apply across substances? Tolerance, for instance. Most substances, the more I use it, the more tolerance I have to it, the less sensitive I am to it. The more I drink, the less sensitive I am to alcohol, the higher tolerance I have. I can drink more without feeling it. Doesn’t mean that I can drink more without having risks of problems from it, but I can drink more without feeling as impaired.

My brain is adjusting. That’s what tolerance is, right? My brain’s sort of adapting to this level of stuff I’m putting into it. And tolerance, that can be true for other substances as well. It can be a little different, but the principle is generally the same. Other bits of research kind of apply across all these different substances. What’s the thing that they all have in common? Well, if I make choices, high risk choices to use these things, it increases the chances of me having problems that it intersects with my biology somewhere. And it moves me towards what we call a trigger point towards, towards a point where problems are more likely. And that’s true across the board, whatever the substances are, the more I use, the more I use and more often the more likely I am to have, have problems.

So again, is it important? It might be important for some populations, but what we really look at is, can a person that experiences this program go, okay, now I see how to apply these principles to all the choices I’ve got to make. And here’s something that’s, this guy actually, I think is really cool. I’m a big bicycle rider and partly this is a little bit by, because I have a love for bicycles and partly because it was a need, I didn’t have a driver’s license for a really crime for life changed the way I rode my bicycle. I started seeing things as I was riding my bicycle as this would be low risk, but this would be high risk, right? And so it changed the way, not just how I thought about alcohol and drugs, what’s low risk or high risk, but how I rode my bicycle, even when I’m on dietary considerations. So not only is it like across substances for me, it’s like across life, these sort of organizing principles that help me understand the world we live in, you know? And I think that’s an effect that the program has on others as well.

That’s cool. That gets me excited about various programs. As you see, it’s like the lifetime value of what you’re going to learn and how it’s applicable across multiple things, no matter what your life is going to look like. But you can use this tool now to help make it better and make those choices. I’m excited to dive more into Prime for Life. And if someone listening right now is also thinking that, hey, where can I go? Can I get a demo or a sample or how do I learn more? Where would you like to send them?

Well, I would say you could just easily go onto the website. It’s P R I E F O R L I F E dot org. So it’s prime for life.org or just shoot me an email. It’s a Derek D E R E K at ask P R I dot org. That’s a good way. I’ll respond. Maybe not as quickly as you want me to. I always, you know, I got a little baby at home, so I’m a little slower on of response time these days.

Okay, cool. Congratulations. Awesome. And then just to close, if you could give one piece of advice for your friends in prevention out there, what would you leave us with?

Thank you, well, Jake, was partly why I think I was so excited and maybe drawn to what it is that you’re doing is something that we had in common. It’s that if if I’m doing prevention, whatever doing prevention means.

And I don’t know. It’s like, if, I’m doing that and I don’t look like I’m having much fun, why would anybody want to buy onto what I’m selling? So a big part of people, you know, working in prevention is, I bringing joy? Am I, I mean, really it’s not just bringing, am I experiencing joy in when I’m doing this? Because I think that is.

I might be to mention this in an email to you, but we’ve talked about it as like, we are the ambassadors of fun. And I think what I’ve seen from what you guys do, Jake, is that it’s like you bring that, you are showing people how to have fun in a place where, in a low risk way, you know, and what we would call by making low risk choices and still having a good time. And if we can do that also as prevention people and, you know, versus coming in and okay, welcome class. Here’s this and follow along in the book and I’m gonna read this word for word. That doesn’t sound like much fun and it doesn’t sound like something I wanna pay attention to or something I wanna sign up for. So I know, I feel like that would be my, that’s a big kick I’m on is. And partly because I’m a guy that likes to have fun. know, I’m partly, you know, that’s why I was out and about that night that I was.

We call it a sensation seeker. You know, that’s what we talk about it in the program. I’m looking for new experiences. I want to be having fun, you know? So I mean, hey, I don’t know. Maybe we’ve got to go here, but those things that if I’m a sensation seeker that can increase my risk and that that can be a sort of a personality trait. One of those psychological factors that can increase my risk for more problems is something good for me to know about.

If I’m a sensation seeker, have increased risk of alcohol and drug problems. How do I channel that sensation seeking? And that’s part of what I think you’re doing is, you know, like, Hey, we can have fun in other ways, you know?

Yeah. man. I love that. That is the perfect way to end this thing. Cause as you said, if we, if someone wants to get that sensation or they’re looking for something and they’re using a substance, well, if we just stop that substance, what’s going to take its place? How great is it that us in prevention get to model healthy coping skills, having a ton of fun, having great relationships to show what’s available on the other side of that choice. So

All right, dude, Derek, I love that.

That’s very cool, I’m happy. I was like super stoked to meet you because it’s like, man, what this is what you’re like an important mission you were on. And it’s not like the main thing at prime for life. Like let’s make sure everybody’s having fun. That’s not our mission. We’re our mission is more of like reduced incidents of alcohol and drug related problems in the world, you know? But, know, having fun doing it is, is, is kind of key.

Final Thoughts and Advice

Yeah, and it adds to your unique way that you do this, you know, and your unique flavor. So with that said, everyone, did you have another thought, Derek?

But just because you brought it, you said your unique flavor. I mean, a guy that we work with is a brilliant mind. And he said, that’s one of the cool things too about Prime for Life is, as I said, it’s an instructor led program. Prime for Life is, it’s an instructor led group experience. And each instructor gets to bring, and that’s what he said. We get to each bring our own spice on the chicken, you know?

Need to get to do our own flavor of what prime for life, what like I feel like prime for life today is going to relate to the people in front of me. Like that’s what I get to bring to it. Because if I was, you know, I live in Southeast Georgia, but if I was in Alaska, the way I might present some of this information might be a little different. Or if I was working with a bunch of Marines in Okinawa, that might be a little bit different, you know, but here I am with these kids today. How do I make this relevant to them? And that’s again, that’s that little unique flavor that you’re talking about. So just made me smile that you said that.

I love that. Well, if you’re listening to this podcast, hoponprimeforlife.org, check out that. can email Derek D-E-R-E-K and find out all about their program. See if it’s a good tool for you because as you know, we’re all better together. We can’t fix this problem alone. And it’s way more fun if we do this together. So hoponprimeforlife.org. And if you need any help in the future or now, just send us an email.

We’d love to support you and we’ll see you on the next episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour.