Let's try that again. So in today's session, we're going to talk about the dynamics of addiction and criminal behavior. Over the next hour, we're going to examine the parallels between addiction and criminal behavior, discuss the benefits of both, identify the drawbacks to both, and describe what an effective, comprehensive reintegration model would look like. Before I left the agency that I worked for in Florida, we had gotten a SAMHSA grant, and we called it the No Wrong Door Initiative. But basically, people were released from jail or prison 30 to 90 days prior to their actual ending date. They came into treatment with us, and they were with us for three months to six months, during which time we helped address any underlying mental health issues, addiction issues, life skills issues. We helped them work with job coaches. They had to get a job in order to successfully complete the program. So there were a lot of things that helped them reintegrate into society in an attempt to try to reduce recidivism. And we're going to talk about one theory, not necessarily all comprehensive, but one theory about why recidivism is so high. Before we do, I do want to point out that 16.6 million adults, about one in every 12, suffer from alcohol abuse and dependence, and 6.9 million are addicted to drugs. So that's roughly 23 million people. Of that 23 million each year, right around 1.6 million are arrested for drug law violations. OK, so that's a big disparity there.  So let's say one out of every five people committing a crime actually gets caught. So 1.5 times 5 is nowhere near 23 million. So we know that not all people who use drugs or use alcohol are committing other crimes. Now, obviously, if you're using an illegal drug, technically it's a crime. So the number may be a little bit higher. But I really want to focus on those people who are doing more than personal use and they're experiencing multiple negative effects from it and why the recidivism level is so high. Before we go into this too much, I want to define a couple of terms. Drug-defined offenses are those offenses that people go to jail for directly relating to a substance, possession of cocaine, possession of marijuana, manufacture of methamphetamine. Something like that, the crime itself has to do with the illicit drug. Drug-related offenses are offenses which the drugs were involved somehow. Either the person was under the influence when they committed the drug, under the influence when they committed the offense, or they were trying to get the drug, and something happened.  I can't possibly hypothesize all the things. Or they were distributing or buying drugs and they got involved in violence or something like that happened. So there are drug-related offenses and drug-defined offenses. Both of these, we really want to consider when we're looking at recidivism because drugs were involved. I mean, people are using the drugs and their involvement with these drugs is causing them problems in one or more areas of life. Now, this drug-using lifestyle, the definition sort of is that the likelihood and frequency of involvement in illegal activity is increased. It's not a one-to-one correlation, but it's increased because users, people who use illicit substances and or alcohol, may have increased exposure to peers, environments, and situations that encourage crime. So if you have someone who is steeped in addictive behaviors, they may be doing multiple different types of crimes in order to get enough money to get the drugs. They may be impoverished. They may be having difficulty maintaining a job because of the drug use. Now, remember, the vast majority of people who are alcoholics are actually employed full-time. So we're talking, again, about a minority. I want to not lump everybody together. Drug-using lifestyle is characterized by an emphasis on short-term goals. And when we think about addiction, we think addiction, people in their addiction are very impulsive. They want whatever they want right now. They're not looking at good orderly direction or the long-term. So drug-using lifestyle is characterized by short-term goals, peers who are involved in illegal activity, and a culture of criminality. Now, when we talk about addiction, we're talking about peers who are involved in addiction and a culture of addiction where the people you hang out with and the things that you do are underscored or are enmeshed with the addictive behaviors. So you can kind of see that there's a parallel. OK, so when we talk about drug-defined offenses, one of the things I want you to ask if you're working with someone in probation and parole or you're just working with a client who has a history of possession, ask yourself and ask them, why were they using? What was it that you got out of using? My guess is that it was some sort of relief, some sort of escape. Distribution. OK, now this is getting away from what we typically think of as our typical addiction where they're self-medicating. So what was the benefit to distribution? And most people's first reaction is they made money. For those of us who grew up watching Miami Vice and those types of shows, we think of it as a lucrative activity when it's not. The average drug dealer. Now, we're not talking the big cartels, but we're talking the average drug dealer makes $20,000 to $30,000 a year. And I put the link in there to a very, very nice article that was done trying to look at what are the financial gains for people who are involved in drug trafficking? So there are not a lot of financial benefits to it. So what are the other benefits to distribution? If you are the person holding the stuff, then you gain a certain amount of importance within this particular community. You gain a certain amount of your revered in a certain sort of way. Because people know they've got to come to you.  Manufacture, the same thing we're talking about. Manufacturing isn't as not lucrative. Well, whatever I'm trying to say.   But by the same token, they're still not making a whole lot of money. We're talking maybe the difference between $30,000 and $40,000 a year. Because you're cutting out the middleman and you're able to have multiple dealers, sort of a pyramid sort of thing, and you're able to control the quality of your stuff and cut it to a greater or lesser degree. So manufacturer does give you a little bit more liquidity, if you will. But it's still not fulfilling a whole bunch of needs, probably, because there's a lot more risk that goes along with manufacturer. So all that being said, we're looking at the reasons why people use. Why would they manufacture? Well, to get money, it may be a step up after distribution that you may decide, well, Jim Bob's making it. So I can make it too. Bear in the back of your mind, every action is done because its rewards are greater than the alternative. So when we look at addiction, and we're going to look at the parallels here, tolerance and or withdrawal. So we have psychological and physiological withdrawal. When we talk about substances, people will tend to need more in order to get the same high. And even certain addictions that tend to produce an adrenaline rush, think of gambling. People don't stay at the niggleflots for too long. They move up, and they start gambling more money. They need to have a bigger win. They need to take a bigger risk to get the same rush. Same things are going on inside their brain as inside the brain of somebody who's using cocaine or something else, where the neurotransmitters are trying to balance out. And every time they think they're balanced, they get flooded again.  So there's physiological tolerance that develops, which means when you remove the addiction, when you remove whatever it is, the substance or activity, the person doesn't feel normal. Because their brain has gotten used to being flooded all the time.  Because the doors don't automatically open back up and go, OK, we're not going to be flooded anymore. So we can open our doors again. So physiological tolerance and withdrawal can happen with chemical or behavioral addictions. Psychological tolerance or withdrawal, there is a benefit. Sometimes it numbs people. Sometimes it makes them happy. Sometimes it makes them feel like they're their uber selves. Sometimes it gets rid of the anxiety. We have to ask, what is underpinning? What is causing those feelings? And address those things in order to address the reasons for use. And then continued use or engagement in the behavior despite negative consequences.  Why do you keep doing something that you can clearly see as harmful? Because it's better than the alternative. In addiction, often it's numbing pain, self-hatred, emptiness, guilt. And it's the one thing the person can control and keep from leaving. The bottle of Jack Daniels is not going to get up and walk away. It's there, and it's going to numb the pain. You may have to drink a little bit more, but it's going to do its job. Whereas your friend Bubba may or may not answer the phone when you need him. Spending more time or money planning, using, or recovering from the use of the substance or engagement in the behavior. As tolerance develops, more is needed. And this is really easy to envision when we're talking about substances. People needing more substances, thinking about it more, and then having a longer time to recover from using so much cocaine or so much methamphetamine. But think about gambling. If you're going to increase your bets and if you're going to increase your risk in gambling, there's an anticipation that builds up for when you're going to go. You're thinking about it. Then you've got to figure out how you're going to get enough money to buy into the game. So figuring out where that money is going to come from, getting that money, and then getting to the game and making those bets or whatever the case may be. That's exhausting. It's draining. And most of the time, this is happening at night, so you're not getting any sleep either. But that's an aside. So when all of it is over, it takes people quite a while to recover, even if they won. Their dopamine has just been completely depleted because it's been excreted and reabsorbed and excreted and reabsorbed so many times, and there's very little left in the brain to do that. So it's going to take them a while. They're going to be pretty exhausted. There are other reasons that cravings may increase with behavioral addictions. Obviously, tolerance, like I said, when you have those neurotransmitters and the receptor starts closing down the doorways, so it can't overload the system. It takes a while for the system to realize, oh, we're not going to get artificially flooded anymore. So we have the neurochemical tolerance. There's also increase in cravings due to increased pain in life. When people come out of their addictive behavior, and I don't say sober up because sobriety is a lifestyle. It's not just not using. So when people withdraw, when people are clean, if you will, and they look around and they see all the destruction that's caused because they have neglected to pay bills, they've neglected to go to work, they have hawked everything in sight, whatever the case may be, they may want to crawl right back into that addiction, whether it's the bottle or the pills or the gambling table, to forget about it. So there's cravings in order to forget, in order to distract from whatever's going on. And there's also an increase in the number of triggers. As people use, more and more things become associated with using. Maybe it was just gambling on Fridays at the poker game. And then it became gambling on Fridays and Saturdays at the poker game. Then it became gambling on Fridays and Saturdays at the poker game and gambling online on Sunday nights as well. So you see how now it's not just the poker game, now it's the computer. The computer says, you want to gamble. You want to gamble. And it serves as a trigger. The more triggers there are, the more frequently the person is going to be reminded of the pleasure from the addictive behavior and go, ooh, I want that. I mean, kind of think of somebody putting up, thinking your favorite food, whatever it is, for me it's brownies.  And it can be something as obtuse as a grocery store reminding you of brownies. It can be something as obtuse as a grocery store reminding you of gambling, because what can you get in the grocery store? Lottery tickets. Unsuccessful efforts to quit or cut down. Neurotransmitters are wonky. And yes, I'm getting to the point of the criminal behavior in a minute. Neurotransmitters are wonky when you first stop using because it's gotten so, your brain's gotten so used to being flooded and protecting itself from that flood. Think about if you live in a place where there's a lot of rain and every time there's a lot of rain it floods, you put up the sandbags.  Same basic thing goes on in your brain. Those sandbags are going to stay up for a while until the body goes, OK, maybe it's actually, maybe we need to rebalance a little bit on our own because we're not going to get that artificial influx. The chaos created by use has made sober life unpleasant. You're trying to do the next right thing, but oh, wow. The guilt, the shame, the depression, the anger, the sense of helplessness. And a lot of the friends that you made during your addiction are not as supportive of sober fun. If most of your friends are your gambling buddies, you may not have anything in common outside of gambling. So if you don't have a lot of friends who have other activities and other interests, if life around you is kind of difficult to deal with and you're starting 20 yards back because you're already depleted of your happy chemicals, it's going to be hard to stay clean and sober. So there's a risk for relapse. And there's also a loss of other interests because people start chasing that high. The feeling they got the first time they had the big win, the first time they used whatever the drug was. It's just is not the same rush anymore. And using friends don't share their similar interests. So if you're using friends, don't share those interests, but you want to use and you want to hang out with them, then all those other interests like hiking and football or whatever, go to the wayside. So that bearing all that in mind, let's look at drug offenses. Most people that I've worked with and most of my career, I've had at least two or three drug court programs, escalating sale use or involvement in drug related activities. Very few people stay at the same offense where you see they were arrested for possession of a dime bag. They were arrested for possession of a dime bag. They were arrested for possession of a dime bag. No, it goes up from there, either with different drugs or different offenses related to drugs. Why? Because they need more kick to get the same escape, whether it's more risk because they're getting involved in sale or it's more risk because they are using more illicit drugs or it's more kick because they're becoming more powerful, more popular and richer. A lot of our clients with addictions talk about how lonely they are because when they stop using and they have to sit with themselves, there's just this big void. They don't know who they are. They need that external validation constantly. We see sort of the same thing when we're working with a lot of the offenders who have drug offenses. There are a lot of bravado. There are a lot of facade. But once you get down under it, they're just kind of a big pile of I don't know what I am. So we need to look at that. Engagement and risk your behavior to increase the rush of getting away with the offense. Some people do it for the adrenaline. Like other behavioral addictions, it activates reward pathways in the brain, whether it's because you're the big man on campus and everybody wants to be your friend and that makes you feel important or because you're getting away with something, you're getting it over on the system, if you will, where you may have some animosity. There are a lot of different reasons. People get into this particular lifestyle and a lot of different reasons people find it rewarding. So we have to ask our offenders, our clients, whatever you want to call them. What was it that you liked doing that? And most of the time, they'll give you this very confused look when you start talking to them about what did you like about this lifestyle? Some of the answers that you will get pretty much consistently are I didn't have to answer to anybody else and I could set my own schedule, I could do what I want when I wanted it, yada, yada. The person defines themselves based on their drug-involved persona. A lot of our clients really take on that persona as being a dealer, the enforcer, the distributor, or even the addict. So asking them to give that up is asking them to give away or get rid of or, if you will, kill a part of their own personality. And what are they if they are not a dealer? Tell me about who you are, not related to drugs. A lot of times people will just look at you and go, I don't understand what you're asking, because that is who I am. It also provides a sense of power for people who felt powerless, useless, or disenfranchised. If they were growing up in an environment, most of our offenders are not going to come say, yeah, I had a great mom, I had a great dad, I had everything in life, and it was just wonderful and ducky. I just decided I wanted to manufacture meth. There was a reason for it. Some things said this illicit behavior is more rewarding than what you've got. So we want to say, what was going on? Is it giving them a sense of power? Is it making them feel successful? Did they have difficulty in school? Did they always get picked on? Did they feel useless? Were they told by their parents they were useless? And it can provide a sense of self-esteem being smarter than the cops or the big man on campus. A lot of times addiction and criminal behavior run in the family. One of the things we fail to consider with a lot of our drug court programs, and we're going to talk about this more later, is the fact that sending people to jail a lot of times is really not that much of a punishment for some of our clients. Because that's where their friends are. That's where their Uncle Bob is. Yeah, I had a client who told me one time, I don't mind going back to jail because that's where my Uncle So and So is. And I'm like, OK, that made me think for a second. Because to me, going to jail would just be like, oh my gosh. And to him, that was just part of life. I mean, it was kind of like going to the doctor and getting your annual checkup or something. Understanding the behavioral components of this, what's rewarding and what's punishing, and making sure it's punishing for them, and making sure that sobriety is rewarding. Drug offenses still. Continued use or engagement in the behavior despite negative consequences. OK, so you go to jail. So you can't get a, quote, normal job. What are the benefits to this behavior if it's going to close some doors for you? Money, power, control, status, recognition, and being somewhere that you know. A lot of the people that I work with had been to jail so many times. They knew the corrections officers by name. They knew the people that were in there. They had a social circle there. They knew how to behave. They knew what to expect. And they had become institutionalized, if you will. Because growing up, so much of their life they'd spent in jail, they didn't know the different types of behaviors. They didn't know the different types of attitudes that were expected on the outside. Spending more time or money planning or using or recovering from engagement in the behavior and loss of other interests. So I glumped those two together here. Dealers will try to make bigger deals. They'll want more territory to defend. And life revolves around maintaining an image. Now, again, this is more for your drug-related offenses. But people don't usually just stay at low-level user and get arrested. If they're using consistently and to that extent, then they start losing their job. Then they may start getting involved in other riskier activities and becoming enculturated in this culture of criminality and addiction. Unsuccessful efforts to quit or cut down, sale, use. There's no rush. If they like it, the only thing I can make a parallel to is taking a cop who's used to having those rushes all the time. And once they retire, a lot of cops really have a hard time adjusting because they don't know how to deal without having the rush, without being the one that's important, without being the one that's in control. Same sort of thing, if you will, for the dealer within his or her community. And there's no external validation. Again, for cops, they're seen, sometimes it's negatively. Sometimes it's positively. But the positive is very positive. And they're seen and revered by some. Same thing for dealers. Some people see them negatively. Some people see them positively. But those that see them positively tend to put them up on a pedestal. So what can we do about this? I mean, addiction, we've talked at length about. And the fact that people are doing this is a method to survive. But I really want you to look at recidivism and criminal behavior and think about it in terms of, do our clients who have offended have any tools other than what they had when they went in that will help them survive once they get out of prison or out of jail? And the answer is no, generally they don't. Prison and jail are defined, not defined, are characterized by what we would consider in the addiction recovery arena as stinking thinking. There's a lot of impulsivity. There's a lot of need for external validation. There's a lot of jockeying for power, minimization, rationalization, denial. All those things that we talk with our clients about in addiction treatment are just rampant in jails and prisons. And why is this? Because they're jockeying for position. They may not be able to have their drugs. So they've got to find a way to feel important. They've got to find a way to feel OK, whatever OK means for them. So physically, we want to educate them first that when you stop using or getting involved in this behavior, it may seem pretty dull for a while because your brain chemicals are kind of wonky. And getting pleasure from legal activities may be a little bit harder because it's not meeting quite the same need, which is why we need to ask them what need was it meeting and really drill down to figure out whether it was power, self-esteem, validation. What was it for them? We need to ensure they have access to safe housing and employment away from negative peer influences.  We've seen the same thing in residential treatment. And they are determined they are going to do the next right thing. And for whatever reason, however they got to that point, they're like, I'm not doing that again. I'm going to do the next right thing. I'm going to make my family proud, whatever. And within three to six months, they're back doing the same old thing because they go out and they are exposed to the triggers. They don't have any new friends yet. So they fall back into hanging with the old people. They have difficulty getting employment. And for somebody, whether it's because of an addiction or because of criminal behavior in the past, they may have difficulty getting a job and getting a job that is what they consider worthy of them. And a lot of this bravado comes out because they define themselves externally. They define themselves by what they do. They define themselves by how important they are. So Flippenburgers and McDonald's is not going to do. Getting paid minimum wage is an assault to their general attitude. We want to ensure that they can have pro-social places that they can go. We do need to educate about basic life skills. Why is sleep important? Why is it important to keep your circadian rhythms kind of in check and not stay up all night for three days? Why is nutrition important to helping your body rebuild itself? And then time management, especially for people who haven't had to go to work because they've been either involved in sale or dealing or they've just been using so much. Time hasn't really been an issue for them. So helping them learn that if you're going to maintain a job and do what needs to be done, get to your meetings, et cetera, you have to have some level of time management. These are the three basic things, aside from coping skills, that we really honed in on in the first part of the recovery process for the No Wrong Door program. Emotionally, you need to start talking with them about issues like resentment. Who do they resent? And it can be people. It can be agencies. It can be institutions. Generally, with both people with addictions that have not been arrested and people with criminal behavior who also have addictions, we're looking at some significant resentment somewhere. Grief. If they are recovering, if they are giving up this persona, there's a certain amount of grief letting go that old lifestyle. There's even, think about going from being single or single and childless to being married with children. That single childless lifestyle ceases to exist. You're not going to be doing that anymore, most likely, because you have other responsibilities now. You're taking on a new persona. So there's a grief process. And if it's something you're doing willingly and you have support for it, it goes pretty smoothly. In the case of criminal behavior, if everybody in your social circle really engages in that, then you're actually having to lose family and friends or kind of push them to the wayside in addition to losing a part of your identity, if you will. Anger. Remember, anger is part of that fight or flight. So that means somebody perceives a threat to themselves, to their identity or to their family. People don't like to be told what to do, especially people with addictions. And in most cases, people who commit crimes have similar control issues. They don't like being told what to do. So anger comes out because they feel disempowered when they are forced, if you will, to act or behave in a certain way. And shame. Shame is there. It takes a while to get down to it and have somebody actually talk about shame in most cases. But there is shame about what they did, what they haven't done, who they let down. One of the greatest motivators, especially in early recovery, is identifying some of the people that have been hurt by the addiction or the criminal behavior, who they want to do better for, taps a little bit into that shame. I try to stay away from some of these really charged topics and emotions in early, early recovery until they've got some stronger coping skills and a pro-social support network under their belt before we really start poking the bear. But in the meantime, we could help them identify things that make them happy. If being around your kids makes you happy, then let's figure out what you can do to be around your kids, because most likely, you're not going to be using or committing criminal offenses while you're playing on the playground with your kids. So, solves both of our goals and help them identify reasons for staying clean. This is, again, early recovery. It's sort of a superficial band-aid, but it starts giving people hope and direction. Cognitively, we need to address cognitive patterns such as entitlement. I deserved this, or I didn't deserve that. Nothing is... Life isn't fair, and as soon as they wrap their heads around that, it'll be a little bit easier going, but helping them deal with a sense of entitlement is one of the first steps. It means a lot of times that will rear its ugly head when they start feeling vulnerable. All or nothing, thinking. Everything is bad, everything is good. A lot of times, it's focusing on everything is bad. Anytime you have that dichotomous thinking, it can become really stressful. The impulsivity, they've got to have it now. Well, that's not in line really with recovery. We need to look at good orderly direction. We need to look at where you want to be six months from now. Yes, right now, you may want to escape, and it may be right there, but is it going to hinder you from reaching the goals that you want to three months from now? You may see something that would be so easy to make this drug deal or to do this right here, but is that going to get you closer or drag you back into where you don't want to be? Need for external validation. This is one of the first places I start with cognitive interventions, because until somebody starts to like themselves, until they start to realize that they are more than their job, until they start to realize they are more than somebody's dealer or somebody's client, they're going to have a hard time staying clean and sober on their own. So helping them figure out who they are and why they're good and why they deserve better than what they're getting for themselves right now. And personalization, taking everything personally, thinking that anytime someone says something to you, they're insulting you. In many cases, it comes back on people and makes them want to regress to their old way of thinking and their old way of behaving because they're using friends are not accepting of their current new behaviors. And we want to help them develop problem-solving skills. When this happens, when you encounter somebody from your past, how do you handle it? What is it that you need to do to get you toward your goals? When you feel disempowered or disenfranchised, how do you cope with it? All of these things can be rehearsed and you can talk about examples of when it happens in group and have people brainstorm or share, how they've dealt with similar situations in order to help your clients figure out how they're going to navigate the non-criminal world. Interpersonally, improving communication skills, including listening and empathy. Now this is true for everybody, but especially in the cases of criminal behavior that involved offenses against other people, they weren't just drug offenses. Many times the offenders had to learn how to cut off that empathy so they could offend against somebody else that also goes with the entitlement. If you're taking money from someone, if you're forcibly extracting something from someone because you believe you deserve it, but you also have to cut off the empathy when you're doing that. So bringing them back to empathizing with others and listening, hearing what other people have to say, not jumping to conclusions, not getting defensive. We'll get down to defensiveness in a minute. Improve self-esteem to reduce the need for approval and defensiveness at perceived slights. If you take someone who has low self-esteem, think about one of the clients you've worked with who every time something happened, they would bow up. And I think we've all worked with, if you've worked in addictions especially, but I think anytime you've worked in mental health or addictions, you've worked with clients who just, I mean, they seem to want to fight all the time and they would bow up the moment you pointed something out. Why is this? They felt vulnerable, okay? So they felt vulnerable. Why is that so bad? Some people when they feel vulnerable, feel weak, they feel like they need to protect themselves. So working on this self-esteem, so they feel like they're strong, feel like they're resilient, feel like they are good enough and can accept the fact that they make mistakes because we all make mistakes. We need to help them identify clean and sober friends and they may not have any. They may have to figure out where they're gonna find them, whether it be at meetings, at church, at work, figuring out where they can find people to hang with that have similar interests that are not using or at least not engaging in criminal behavior. And exploring pro-social recreation. I can't tell you how many times people, when we ask people what they do for fun, they're like, I don't know, I used to go fishing or something. Okay, what do you do for fun now? Nothing. All right. So a lot of times people have been involved in this lifestyle, whether it's criminal behavior or addiction for so long and I really, I think you see where I'm bringing them both together. They're pretty much one in the same in many cases. They need to figure out what they enjoy doing. Occupationally, this is one of the biggest bugaboos. Using a decisional balance exercises to improve motivation for mainstream employment. So often, I've worked with people and I said earlier, who have been like, I'm not working for minimum wage.  I'm not gonna do this. I'm not gonna do that. When in reality, because of their criminal history or their employment history or their educational history or because of something, that's the best they're gonna do for right now. Helping them understand it's a foot in the door. You don't have to stay flipping burgers forever. You just need to kind of prove that you'll show up for work and you'll do a good job and that you have some longevity. You're not gonna stop showing up after three months. This is where a job coach comes in really, really handy because when people feel like they're working in a position that's below them or beneath them, sometimes their attitude can suffer a little bit. Having a job coach help them focus on the positives, do the next right thing, see the light at the end of the tunnel, if you will, where they will soon be able to get out and do their own, not their own thing, but get into a job that they like better. These are important. The job coach will help maintain that motivation for going to a job even if it's one that they aren't really crazy about right now. It will also help employers to keep that person employed and understand different ways they may help work with that person. A lot of times it's by providing that positive reinforcement, by making them feel important, making them feel noticed, things we should do with employees, period, but for people who really are unhappy about the job that they've got, that can go a long way to help making it tolerable. Another thing we would do is conduct a job analysis, identifying all their skills of mastery, and I use this term loosely because many of my clients are extremely resourceful, amazing salespeople, great marketers. They were just doing it for cocaine. So we need to take those skills and say, okay, how can we translate this to something that you can use in your new life? They have a lot of skills. They dealt with adversity. There's a lot of stuff that they actually did learn and we just wanna use it for good instead of evil now. Helping them see what skills that they do have is great. Now, the caveat I will put out there, I've worked with some great salespeople and they could sell water to a fish in the sea. They're that good, but they're also that good at convincing you that they're fine when they're really not fine and they're relapsing all over the place. So while understanding your skills and using them in this new life is great, we also have to make sure those skills aren't also used to cover up or minimize, rationalize, or justify the onset of a relapse. So the benefits to criminal behavior and or drug use outweigh the drawbacks of jail or other sanctions. So people are doing this for a reason and generally it's a reason to make themselves feel better.  There's a reason for it. And they've weighed the risks, whether it's really quick or whether they've actually sat down and weighed the risks is irrelevant. They're doing it, it fulfills a need and it's better than the alternative, which is legal sober living. So like an addiction, criminal behavior is rewarding to an extreme for some, not for all. You know, not everybody reoffends. We need to look at what are the rewards they're getting and how can we replace those to reduce recidivism? Reducing recidivism and or relapse, because I mean really recidivism is relapsed into criminal behavior. Understand and eliminate what motivates that behavior. What are the benefits to it? Make those go away and make them go away in a way that is meaningful to the client. You know, like I said before, if I were to go to jail, that would be huge. You know, I just, that would be a huge punishment for me and I would probably change my behavior. Making other people go to jail, especially if it's just for like a weekend, which is what a lot of drug courts do, they can send people back to jail for a weekend or even a month may not be all that punishing. Understanding and improving. So in addition to taking away the motivation for the criminal behavior, we need to understand and improve what is unmotivating about pro-social activities. Why is this other lifestyle so bad? Why do you not like going to a job and how can we fix that? Why do you not like obeying the law and how can we fix that? Oftentimes the specific offenses will give you a better idea and will help the person explain to you and give you a better idea about why they do it and why it is, why they're likely to relapse. So we need to make sober living, not using and engaging in this pro-social lifestyle. We need to make this really rock out and be motivating. If the criminal behaviors or substance use are serving to help the person escape or avoid pain and continue to be done despite negative consequences and produces physiological or psychological withdrawal if they feel uneasy, if they get depressed, if there's a lot of anxiety, then it would qualify as an addiction. So we're looking at another potential behavioral addiction just like some people can gamble and not have problems. Some people can commit crimes and not become addicted. Others, it provides enough of a rush for whatever reason or fulfills enough of a need for whatever reason that they will continue to do it despite negative consequences. We need to evaluate our clients for an underlying mood disorder, whether it's caused because of addictive substances they were using or it pre-existed or whatever the case. Evaluate it. It's going to be hard enough to do all of the things that are required when you're on papers. If you're happy, let alone if you have underlying anxiety, PTSD, depression, yada-yada. And especially evaluate for bipolar because a manic episode is just one step closer to going back to jail and doing something that you probably wouldn't have done normally. Address cognitive distortions. Start easy. We're not talking about talking about all of the traumas and all that stuff. We're talking about how they perceive the world today and how they interpret it. Let's look at your cognitions. Improve self-esteem. Help them figure out why they are all that in a bag of chips. Ensure that their work and home environment is free from negative influences. I talked earlier about reintegrative shaming. When people come out of jail and they start trying to do the next right thing, and the system, the dysfunctional system that they came from pulls them back into the fold. They shame them back into returning to their old behaviors. What, you're too good to hang out with me anymore? Tell me more about that. There are a couple studies on reintegrative shaming, but it is important to recognize that if we want someone to integrate into a totally new environment and social circle than they've ever been a part of before, we're going to have to do a lot more than just suggest that they make new friends. There's going to have to be a lot of active case management linkages, et cetera. Provide frequent rewards and validation for doing the next right thing, even small things, and remove the benefits of criminal behavior. A lot of it is very similar to straight-up addictions treatment, but it is important to remember that you're asking people to develop a whole new lifestyle that they've never had before, which means they're probably going to need skills that I haven't even begun to cover here. Talk with them. Have them explain to you what they need, what they do and don't have, and sometimes they won't know, which is why having them come to treatment on a regular basis helps, because then we can intervene as soon as they identify a skill deficit. Are there any questions?


start and then I do have a sketch in my sketchbook. If you saw that over on Instagram or Facebook then you've got a preview of what I am going to be painting. As long as this works we're hoping this is going to continue to work. We'll see how that goes. I should probably plug in so it doesn't drain my battery. But do you have any questions? Because you know first time live here I try to keep up with questions on my YouTube videos. I use an app that allows like even if you comment on old things it allows me to see the comments in real time so that sort of thing. Favorite watercolors are Daniel Smith by far. You can use a lot of others but how do I seal my watercolor cards? I don't seal them. Favorite media I like all the mediums. Recommend watercolor brushes good as good like the silver brushes but aren't made with squirrels. That I don't know. I haven't found any others that I find of the quality of the silver brushes. Except wait there is one hold on there is one but no it's not this one. There's one and I will show you this brush. This one I have not even used yet because I'm afraid to use it and it is called a Windsor and Newton. You can see that. Is it going to focus on that? Maybe it's not going to focus on that. A Windsor and Newton series 7. Sable. I don't know is Sable still squirrel? Anyway this sucker was three hundred dollars. Three hundred bucks and it holds water the same way and even better than the silver brushes but I don't think anybody else wants to buy a three hundred dollar brush. So this thing is a beauty and a wonder and I have to I have to use it. I have to use it. I can't just buy it and then sit there and look at it. Try to use watercolor ground to paint on boxes. Can't get good coverage. I use the Tim Holtz little round tool the little round one to apply it on there. Hobbies that don't include crafting. Gosh no I don't have time for anything. Saying I'm afraid of something. Yes I'm afraid just like everybody else is. Yeah crazy for one brush. It is like ridiculously crazy. Oh so you bought the four and the six. Are they good? Have you compared them to the silver brushes? Once you finish the watercolor card can the colors bleed after scent? Generally yes because watercolors can be rewet so if somebody squirts it the colors may move. Get a smooth coverage with the little stamp or yes. I cut really smooth coverage. If you look at my video go back month or two during the CHA time frame.  I know I know I have to do it. No I don't really do acrylics. I haven't really gotten it into acrylics that's like I'll know their whole thing to buy and get into and I don't really have much. They're about the same as the black velvet brushes. Okay and I haven't compared prices on the smaller ones. I only when that was the one that was recommended by a teacher it was like I think I'm gonna try it because I had all the other stuff for class and I was prepared to spend a couple hundred dollars if I needed to on paints so since I didn't have to spend on anything else I thought well let me just spend on a brush so and I hope you guys don't mind I'm wearing my jammies. I put my jammies on after I walked the dogs and we had baths because I got soaking wet. I just put my PJs back on because it's Sunday. Do I love watercolor now as much as Copics? I probably even love it more right now because I'm learning and the fact that I'm learning makes me love it. I love my Copics. I'm never gonna stop loving them but yeah for PJs every day size six and seven about $80 each or together because yeah they are pricy. Need to watercolor it is Daniel Smith heavy package of small tubes. Yes if you go to the Ellen Hudson site and well you can actually click through my site yesterday's post. I have a link to a whole kit if you want to get the whole kit because Ellen put these together and it's called the Sandy All Knock Bundle which is kind of crazy. Somebody has a product with my name on it but it's a group of things. It's watercolor paper and this little set of paints. It's a little set of six paints and the reason that it's a bundle is because I have my watercolor class my exploring watercolor on my blog yes it's on sale as well and in that class I teach you how to use just three warm and three cool colors red yellow and blue red yellow blue so if you want to take that class you can do that so yes you get 10% extra off the price that's already off so do it now and I don't know if they've sold out of the or given away I guess whatever all of the dot cards but I have my Sandy All Knock card and they are giving away I think they had a hundred of them so depending on how many orders have been placed you might still be able to get it six and seven were $80 together okay that's not too bad given what brushes are do I ever do plen air painting I do sometimes I want to do more but I need to either break free of the dogs a little bit maybe I'm gonna go take a class or something to get myself out there and doing it really new subscribers since yesterday well you're probably my newest subscriber and yes there is a watercolor class coming on flowers at some point I'm asking fluid okay let me get back I had a question that I was starting to answer and then I lost it it disappeared so re-ask if I've missed your question watercolor flower class is going to be coming and I will tell you guys I've told you on for the little tiny number of you who subscribe to my second channel it's called two things in a rant and on my page my YouTube page down in like the bottom right corner I think it is as associated channels you can find that one okay the dot card yes I will explain that if you go to my other channel there's a video over there and I do kind of vlog things over there and little short videos and puppy videos feeling puppies and on that channel I talked about a new website so now all of you on YouTube get to hear about my new website I hope you don't crash it there's nothing that you can see up there yet but you can sign up for notifications I did send out my first notice to everybody who already subscribed had a couple hundred subscribers already which is exciting and it's called art-classes.com so you can sign up there for more information there is a new class that's ready to go it's all of all of the classes that exist right now on my blog are going to exist over there and you're gonna be able to just take the same class you don't have to rebuy it however I'm having like I have to figure out how to import all of you and all of the classes you already bought so that they're live when you get over there that's the next big challenge we've got the content up and so now that we've got the content there if you happen to go to that website and you see like the whole site more than just the little coming soon box on the front page then don't buy anything yet until it's all live because if you buy something it might not stay there because we're we're still working through it so you'll be in my house tomorrow huh don't do that okay dot card let me grab one and I will show you I don't actually have my own dot card which is a little ironic because one would think I would have a stash of them she told me they were going to give me a bunch but I have Shirley Trevina's palette so a dot card is this it has a whole bunch of little dots of paint these are actual paint they take the paint they splooge them on these are all done by hand say again the name of the website art-classes.com and then you can take your brush and you can wet that and actually use that as paint and the reason you want to potentially get my dot card which you can get for free if you buy a Daniel Smith product while supplies last on these dot cards then you can actually get this and try out my colors and decide if you think I'm full of crap in the colors that I picked it was hard picking 18 and whoever you are L craft I wish you would go away that would be really nice I don't know if I can block you but I'm going to as soon as the video is done so if you're looking to be blocked from my channel you scored okay how long do those last well it depends on how long you use the paint the paint dots are like that you can see that up close so you know depends on how much you paint I paint a whole bunch you reported them thank you can I block them here oh look at that I can do that right here on my screen hopefully that means they're gone I don't know why people come when they're unhappy there's also another video on my other channel if you want to read that one or read one watch that one that's all about being kind to each other and that was not kind so there you go all right what other questions did I miss because I was yammering I answered the dot card thing thank you for reporting and you either gone good I wasn't sure if blocking only blocked it for me or blocked it for all of you don't let the negative steel art joy absolutely yeah I'm not in my best-looking phase right now which is probably kind of silly I should have maybe I dreamed about cheese no nope sorry Brian not a cheese dreamer best place to get Daniel Smith paints right now they're on sale at Ellen Hudson so I would recommend that how long do the dot cards last it like I said it depends on how I like pie love pie how much you paint with them because there's a little bit of paint on there just not very much thank you for being so real well good well we'll see if Justin's gonna behave himself love the videos painting and Copic skills are awesome thank you very much for that ever use the grounds yes look on my channel for the word grounds if you do a search then you can find a video showing how I did it so for the person who is trying to apply them you can watch that video to find out how I smush the color on using the Tim Holtz application tool hello Netherlands and everybody else of course I'm so excited there's like all these wonderful people here it's like I'm I have you all in my studio yay digital images smear when you're watercoloring you have to have a printer with ink that works with watercolor because my printer doesn't either so I can't use digital's and do watercolor another from Washington State yay oh I'm your first choice for a live video yay what I recommend to beginners wow it depends on what you want I recommend that you look at a lot of different things and see what appeals to you most and don't just buy what I say yes the colors are listed on my blog yesterday don't listen to just what I say or just what one other or two other people say watch a bunch of things and see what mediums appeal to your eye the most personally I think colored pencil is the most controllable for new people who have never done any art before watercolor pencils are the second easiest one because you have the ability to do like a pencil you're used to writing so it's a hand motion that you're familiar with and then you just add a little water to it that kind of moves you toward watercolor well Pennsylvania and Georgia will Daniel Smith bleed through Bible pages nope they don't what I do with art impression stamps do I have a class with that eventually I do want to have a class with that but I have like a whole list of things I need to have classes with so we will see that's watercolor pencils okay here's another one of those it's like it's the same as the $300 brush issue because watercolor pencils you can go really cheap and you can go really expensive and a lot of circumstances like with Bibles the the least expensive ones work fine because you're not going to get really intense color in most Bibles anyway because of the paper and if you like a soft look then inexpensive pencils are great okay Brian I think you have decided you want to go away too so bye bye it's interesting questions but I'm a little tired of them so oh wait no I didn't block them I only deleted the message okay Brian if you put more questions up I am gonna hit the block button next time okay so watercolor pencils the ones that I like the most like my favorites are the expensive Karen Dash pencils they're from Sweden and they're like really fabulous okay so I think it's just is it Justin you guys want me to get rid of so watercolor pencils you can go low-end you can go high-end one of the kind of medium ones that I like a lot are the Albrecht Durer ones and if you can get a set of those then that that often kind of splits the difference but if you're willing to spend $4 a pencil and go for the fancy ones because what I do find in general with any kind of stuff that you use any kind of art supplies you use the more you pay the better quality you get same with paper same with craft supplies same with anything if you're looking to be cheap it's just gonna be what it is unfortunately your kind respected man has a lot of power and likes oh goodness okay you definitely want to be blocked bye bye another one bites the dust hey hey brushes again with brushes if you get a good brush you're gonna have a whole lot better luck with with spending more money on a good brush the silver black velvet brand is the one that I like the best so when I use the most you can go back and watch the early part of the video and see $300 brush if you want to spend $300 on a brush but probably not boy there are trolls out like crazy a lot of people have said once I turn them on to the silver black brush black velvet brushes they just won't go back now favorite watercolor paper arches and I like the rough because I like texture but a lot of people don't Princeton Neptune I've had a lot of trouble with the bristles falling out so I haven't really liked them and they don't hold water the same way that the silver brushes do I get the brushes from I shop at Ellen Hudson for just about everything unless I'm like physically in the Daniel Smith store because then everything leaps into my chart my cart favorite kind of paper for ziggs you kind of need something a little smoother for the ziggs because they don't work super well with lumpy paper even though I use them sometimes with that silly children will just ignore them block them as I can and yes Ellen Hudson ships faster other crafty stores that take forever I've ordered things from some of them and it takes like two to three weeks I am not patient I'm just gonna tell you that right now I need everything right away when I want it well hello Emma yes you can ask a technique question glitter mama I don't know if I can verbally explain it or if I would have to demonstrate something print on watercolor paper without jamming your printer that I don't know it really depends on your printer and how it takes paper and all that kind of stuff so yes Ellen is definitely one of the faster shippers like I can order one day and it will be at my house the next because I live really close but I can also order in the morning and drive to her shop and pick it up that is how bad I am best way to cover a mistake and repaint um I have been told now this is I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you this I have not tried this but in my last watercolor class that I took people talked about soaking the whole dang piece of paper in the bathtub and they just washed all the color off it if you have staining colors that won't necessarily work okay if I can find Maximilian when he comes across the screen I will do that and block him the the bathtub thing I have not tried yet most of the time it's just paper I start over I just toss it and throw at the recycle bin and start over you with some brands of paper you can use the other side so it really depends on that so many of an order you place from scrapbook store in July of 2016 exactly there you go kind of a problem right okay tip tippy you want to go bye-bye too and goodness gracious people there are just trolley trolls everywhere do I have it my own collection of watercolors coming out it's not a collection of watercolors but it is Daniel Smith watercolors this is not my card but I have a dot card and you can see that on my blog from yesterday there's a video yesterday that shows you how I put it into my palette and how I chose my colors and all that kind of stuff so when I find my inspiration whatever my mood is that day for the most part I try to be prolific because if you've ever heard the phrase that it takes 10 that 10,000 hours to get good at something just spend my 10,000 hours I just want to spend them and get done with it because I do not have that many hours left on the planet so oh did I miss him again shoot sorry sorry sorry okay Maximilian bye-bye see ya wait you didn't go bye-bye no that was just your message they got deleted well hopefully you got blocked too goodness gracious so I just try to keep creating and creating and creating sometimes that means just taking stamps and doing scenes and all that kind of stuff but other times I have one of the things that I have let me show you with all this watercolor stuff I'm doing I have a gajillion sketchbooks that I'm testing out and trying to see if I like them you had to only a troll patrol would be awesome and what I did was go to a folder where I have a lot of my vacation pictures that I've wanted to paint and printed them out at Costco and I also went to a site called paint my photo PMP comm I think is the URL for it and they have pictures that other people upload that you can paint so people who take gorgeous pictures put them there it's always a time this one's a fraud you didn't pay for any painting for me so you can go bye-bye troll troll troll make a water painting with oh goodness gracious what is wrong with people Prima confections watercolors I do not like they call them artist quality yes I have used the dart Martin duck martins hydras you can look on my channel for those they are coming from the internet yes they have no life the mouse over the comments so they go by to so they go too fast yeah periscope was bad but this is crazy they do need prayer we could all stop and pray for them right now okay I've lost it I have totally lost it yeah I think there's more pair more people here troll wise than periscope simply because there are more people on youtube than on on periscope and twitter it's just a bigger platform and they do sidetrack me which is kind of a problem but hopefully if we have a couple of live broadcasts and block them all then they won't come to the next broadcast trying new line watercolor yes it is challenging because you have to create your own outlines in some way whether you do that with a pencil or with doing a um watch my jiggy yeah block party big time just keep reporting these people as they come by if I miss them I love the video with Ellen Hudson yeah over on Ellen Hudson's channel I have a thing about painting trees so if you want to see a video about painting trees you can go watch that uh no I'm not really teaching anymore in person that just did not turn out to be my the best use of my time so for the most part I am uh wow goodness gracious uh facebook live with people you let join your page um yeah I could do that but you're reporting like crazy good for you for the most part this is where my people are there are 65,000 people here and there's only like 4,000 over on facebook so I'm hoping that in the first couple times we knock out some of the other people that we don't want here uh tips for using watercolor cakes not really sure what you mean by watercolor cakes uh to report people or block them you can just hit click on their name and they some little box apparently comes up um that brings me back to a question I know I did not finish somebody asked me about the prima watercolors on the packaging and on amazon and everything it says that they are artist quality watercolors and they are not just want to let you know that so um yeah and the cakes are pans but the cakes are like when you buy them they're a little dry cake as opposed to a pan that you can also fill pans come empty uh you can report people for being jerks being abusive just lost me you see a circle going around well hopefully I will come back and not be circling around anyway to get moderators uh wish there was I don't know if there is maybe somebody can tell me that I will um I'm hoping to get a meeting with my youtube partner person so that I can kind of ask some questions like that beginning watercolor kit yes if you go to my blog from yesterday there is a link to my sandy unlock bundle and that gives you a lot of the basics that you need uh favorite brushes and watercolors for brush calligraphy that I do not have an answer for because I'm not a calligrapher that's not my gig for some people that is I don't see a whole lot of reason for um for perfecting like hand lettering that for me it's not a thing like I know there's people that that's their whole business they do because they do calligraphy calligraphy on projects I never plan to do that I'm not going to be doing any wedding invitations so for me it's just fun it's not something that I want to dive into and perfect it's just something I enjoy I'm doing the 30 day bible challenge 30 days of bible lettering challenge right now and I do sometimes some of the bible journaling challenges that include some lettering and that sort of thing but it's just because I'm a font geek it's not because I have any interest in becoming a good letterist so oh you're very welcome for the inspiring post Dr. P.H. Martin's Hydrus I like them they're very intense color they're the watercolor equivalent of the um by my way blank the pencils the ink pencil ink tense pencils yes because they mostly stay put once they're dry they stay put and you can layer on top of them without lifting the layer beneath so if you're one of those people who's concerned about um your watercolors running when you send a watercolor card then you might opt for the p.h. martins hydrus because those won't run I missed a bunch of questions sorry last question if you print digital watercolor print shop that uses a regular ink copy you have to test I can't tell you what copy or your printer is going to use anyway thank you guys for answering each other's questions yay a blank chart no I don't have blank charts for anything but Copics I do have if you go to sandy on that comm slash charts there are all of the charts that I've done of all the different mediums so if you want to see what the colors are what the sets are how they break out all the ones that I've done so far are are there on that page saw a bible journaling question um eventually I may do another bible journaling class on the new site I'm not positive because I have another thing going that I can't tell you about but just pray I'm just gonna say that because it's a cool thing uh let's see what else intense or fun yes they are how often do I clean my watercolor brushes I rinse them every time I use them and that's it I don't actually do anything else uh use the smartphone app no I actually don't use the smartphone app because I have all the markers so I don't actually need to but have a sip of code guess I could do that let's see are there any other questions or should we do a little painting kind of up to you guys if you want to sit and answer questions and I will do my painting and post it on Instagram later that's fine is YouTube live a thumbs up I don't know we're going to see how this works I want to look at it afterward and see how it works do I recommend a book for beginners on something and I paint paint paint paint paint okay let's see if changing the orientation of the phone so that it's the other way actually works let's find out because I'm going to take it out of my stand and I'm going to put it this way you're going to be looking at the ceiling for a second so hang tight because I have to fix my stand so that things kind of work here right back for a second and now let's see if that will go now I need to turn the phone the other way goodness gracious this is just being a pain in the drain sorry guys I'm feeling incredibly disorganized over this okay can you see is it vertical is it what what happened here okay nobody is talking so that means I can't see anything which probably means it's telling me it's a giraffe tilt it um goodness oh my gosh I'm just seeing the bad words showing up let me move my stand and then I can reach this because right now the way I have it set up I can't reach it okay this is the reason why I said if this video goes sideways that we might not keep this video live on youtube okay how about that does that work can you see now it's still vertical did it work let's see no it's telling me to rotate my device it won't let me do it horizontal which is really irritating okay is that April the giraffe well yeah I know it's still vertical it won't let me go horizontal vertical is apparently the only option we have and uh yeah but I guess that's the way it is it's what we're gonna have to have I still can't get it up on my computer so I must not be subscribed to myself um I have no idea what an asmr video is and I have no idea if it's even a clean thing that I can talk about okay that was not the rush I intended to pick up a different one here I've used the uh Gansai Tambi's quite a lot oh sorry I missed venom because venom is trying really hard to get himself blocked working at it but I have to be looking up and looking at the paper and talking all at the same time well if you turn your phone it's bigger so there you go trying to scroll back to report feel free to report away okay there we go there he is bye bye block so I did this sketch using a photograph from that paint my photos website they should do a video reacting asmr I have no idea what that is I hope I have not said something bad by by repeating what you've just typed in there uh this is a size 12 round in the silver black velvet yeah sorry I'm trying really hard to keep up with talking and looking and reading all at the same time but that is not super possible trying to do it all at once yes this is probably one of my other favorite colors quinacridone gold it is in my dot card my dot card includes my favorite 18 colors that don't include the six basics because in my pack the reason I didn't pick them even though like new gambos is one of my favorites um favorite colors I didn't include it in the palette because it's in the set of six so I wanted to have some different ones so I picked instead the permanent yellow deep which is a very similar color but slightly different so uh somebody told me in a video somewhere out on the webs wherever wherever it was I think it might have been kelly eddington in a video she did talked about using uh can you buy the class without all the supplies you have them all absolutely you can you can actually use whatever paints you have whatever paints you want you can use your gansai tambi you can use anything um I recommend that you use the ones that I suggest because you're gonna get those results um I haven't been impressed with the


How is everyone? Good to see you. All right. How many of you are with the go-karts?  Right. So, it's so great to have you here. So, today I'm going to be sharing just some of your tips on front-end development. My name is Fenny, I'm a front-end developer and also have been a WordPress user since 2019. And I'm also an open source contributor. And for fun, I travel and I'm also passionate about conservation. And also a writer. I have a personal blog running on WordPress as well as on Hashtag. So, WordPress, any idea what front-end development is? Let's just have it like, let's make it interactive. Any idea what front-end development is? Yes, thank you. Thank you. There is back-end development and front-end development. Back-end development is mostly recording, like the making of themes and the making of the development of themes, the development of other software that we can use in the website. Front-end is mostly with designing and then arrangement of different resources. Round of applause. Thank you so much. So, front-end development is basically actually described both front-end and back-end. So, when you take a look at this picture, what comes in your mind? You think somebody is actually on air in a plane. That's what you see when this person shares this picture. But then when they share with you what is actually happening, this is what the actual guy is doing. So, this is how best I can explain front-end development in web development, basically what the user sees. And then back-end is what is happening, whether it is FBI's functionalities, the front-end is just when you go to any website, what you're seeing, that's the front-end, which is basically the layout, as you say, interface, the design and the dynamic behaviors and interactions. Thank you. So, now, my first tip for web development is that you just keep it simple.  So, you want to make sure that your website is very easy for someone, let someone access it. You want to make sure that it is loading fast, you want to make sure that they are able to navigate well. You want to make sure that everything is visually appealing to the users, the color choices, the font choices. So, you just have to make it simple. You can choose maybe one or two fonts. Another tip is make it mobile-friendly. Nowadays, many people access websites using fonts. So, there is what they call mobile-fast movement. That is like people are coming fast for the mobile user, and then the desktop comes after. So, you need to make sure that your website is accessible on all mobile fonts. So, you can use that by testing on your browser as you're developing the result you call DevTools by Chrome. So, you can check the responsiveness of your website from your browser before you actually put it out for people to see. So, you can use CSS Grid and Flexbox to align as an example of Grid, to align your items in the website. For those taking pictures, I would share with you the slides if you need them. Because I have some references about Grid and Flexbox in the slide. So, you take your time if you're looking to go into web development. These are one of the most important things, especially in CSS, for layouts and Grid to just kind of align your websites in a visually appealing way. So, my next tip is using JavaScript libraries. How many of you are JavaScript developers? We have another one, yes. So, if you've written JavaScript for some time, you notice that there are some frameworks like React, Angular, they come with readymade components for you to just implement some of these things we have talked about. Like the responsiveness, you can actually start developing your website, testing responsiveness from the beginning using some of these components. For example, React has React Bookstrap, and there's also VUJS, and also Angular for that. So, you want to make sure that your website is performing really great in terms of speed, in terms of navigation by the user, in terms of everything that is happening. So, by doing that, you can minimize HTTP requests by optimizing your images. When you log into some websites, you see maybe some images are not loading. You can use Lezyload if you implemented something like that to optimize the images. And also, you can check for performances on your website. Use that name, pay, speed.web.dev, you put the URL to your website there, and then it will give you a display of how your website is performing, whether something is wrong with it. So, using this tool will help you to kind of work on your site and make changes that will just make it better in terms of performance. Because, especially with loading time, loading speed, people don't want to go on websites which is taking like minutes to load. So, your website should take like how many seconds, David? The best speed for websites, yes. Yes, actually, zero seconds. A fast website should not be 0.2 seconds. More something like that. But when you use that tool, it will actually show you what is causing your website to be slow, and what is causing your website to whatever, and you'll be able to fix those issues. And then accessibility. Accessibility, make sure that you're developing it for the user. Now, one time, somebody asked for a review of a website with a building, and I had to go through that website from that to the last bit of it, and I wrote a honest feedback about each of that website. But then there were issues with the website. And I asked him, I said, every site is not working. And his response was, it works on my computer. Now, when you're building a website, you're not building it for yourself. Put this over here. You're building it for someone to use it. It might work on your computer, but then somewhere might be wanting to access it, and then it's not working on their devices. So make sure that accessibility is at a fingertip when you're trying to implement your front-end skills, and make sure that everything is working, and then it's very good to get feedback. Because it is from feedback, that is how you're going to improve either on your website or on your development skills. So make sure that you connect with people around you who are doing the same things. If you want to be, if you are already a developer and you're facing challenges with something, make sure you connect with developers. For example, we have one press here. There are people who are good at one front-end job met here. So connect with them and get feedback from them, show them what you have already, so that they can give you feedback. And then to make it again more accessible, make it host it online. Someone was mentioning some hosting platforms. We have Bluehost, which is one of the sponsors here. There was also Wendaki. So you can host it online so that it reaches a wider range of people. So another important thing is testing. Testing, testing, testing. Before you put your work up there, make sure that you have tested it. And it is doing exactly what you intended it to do. Don't just put it out there before testing it because issues are going to come and it's going to take you as a shock. So I really recommend before putting up your site or before hosting, you have to test. There are tools like browser stack and cross browser testing to automate some of this testing process. And unfortunately, we don't have a practical session for this. So anyone with any more tips? If you have any tips or any other questions, you can ask. The flow is yours. Thank you very much. My question is to take off. So basically, you are front end. Now I'm asking you, one tip, okay, for me out, then back to your moment. And I'm done with it.  Going to do that. Do I know front end or the environment? Because I'm not going to assign you. Okay, I understand right. Do you also get yourself involved in the HTML? Once you, front end is basically the user layout. So I think the perspective at which I was presenting was that perspective of a front-end developer. But then if you're working as a team, there is someone who is going to work on the back end. But then if you're full stack, that means you're going to handle all the HTML, all the CSS. And then you come back to the back end, which is maybe the JavaScript. But you can also use JavaScript in front end. Like I mentioned, there are these libraries that can help you with really amazing user interfaces. But then if you're full stack, that would mean you now use another JavaScript library called Node.js to implement your back end.