The RockStar SuperStar Project was founded by Kris Kancler and his twin brother Marc. Rock Star and Super Star are on a mission to teach teens that living a life without drugs and alcohol is the only way to achieve your dreams. Furthermore, Super Star tells his story and shares his message about the impact of substance use. He has been in recovery for the past five years, after a 15-year addiction to cocaine and crack.
I’m pleased to share my interview with Super Star!
What is the RockStar SuperStar Project and what inspired you to start it?
Super Star: It started out as a band consisting of my twin brother and me with the RockStarSuperStar Name. It was a project of musical sorts initially. That was a band that featured not only us, but other childhood rock star heroes that we had grown up with such as Kiss, Heart, and The Goo Goo Dolls.
We constantly got them together and wrote some songs alongside them to convey the sense of self-love, sobriety, charity, and self-respect. The band morphed into a project similar to D.A.R.E that you see in schools. It has more of a rock and roll flare.
Furthermore, I’ve incorporated it into a club base format which I believe instills values in teens about the importance of a great work ethic, creativity, and self-reliance. It encourages them to go out there and pursue their dreams.
Through these clubs, we give teens the tools on how to pursue their dreams responsibly. They are springing up in schools across the country and we’re really excited about that.
What can a school expect in your presentation? What do you hope teens come away with?
Super Star: What I like to bring into these schools is the message of prevention and my own story. The presentation lasts for approximately 45 to 90 minutes. I love doing questions and answers. I share with my kids through my story the dangers of going out there and getting involved with things that are destructive.
My story conveys the importance of sobriety and going out there and achieving your goals. I not only touch on substance abuse disorder but also bullying, self-mutilation, texting, and teen pregnancy.
The three focus points are substance abuse, responsibility, and dream catching/goal setting.
I tie in those things because while we’re out there being constructive, we’re not destructing our minds by doing things that we shouldn’t be doing. I want kids to walk away with a feeling of encouragement that they too can overcome their obstacles.
I’m trying to create opportunities for them to go out and express where there might be discontentment in their life to the closest adult that they trust. My hope is that they can find the answers to some of their most difficult and challenging questions. They can put some of those things behind them, learn how to deal with them, and then go out and pursue the things that are the most important to them.
A contribution is something that is extremely important, so I love to have kids walk away with the understanding that it is so valuable to give back to everyone in our community. Extend a hand to other people that might be struggling with a disorder or a problem, so if they see their friend is being bullied, they’ll know what to do about it.
Those are some of the tools that I want kids to be able to walk away with.
Why do you think you because addicted?
Super Star: The bullying that I endured during school led me to try to find other things that would quiet my mind because I didn’t understand how to deal with the bullying.
I didn’t understand why a girl would want to break up with me. I put so much emphasis on leaning on other people to make me feel better and when I was no longer able to find that, I became confused, my mind wandered a lot and it got rather loud inside.
Drugs were an option for me to quiet my mind. Something as little as a cigarette at that time was larger than life for me and I ran to that as a means to escape. I would be very uncomfortable with my thoughts.
I used drugs to deal with those feelings. The bullying, the breakup, the yelling between my mother and father at night when I got home after school was something I just couldn’t bear. I would close myself in my room and when my music became not enough for me to escape, I ran to those other self-destructive devices.
What gave you hope in your darkest hour?
Super Star: I did have a moment where I saw that other people are accomplishing their wildest, craziest dreams and making things their reality. I’m blessed to have my health. Why can’t I go out and do those things?
I gained some momentum and created some opportunities. People were responding in a positive way towards my initial work out there in the field. That was enough hope for me to try again the next day.
The hope was out there and came from the opportunities that I began creating for myself.
Tell us about your book, The First 30 days to Serenity: The Essential Guide to Staying Sober.
Super Star: It was a monster undertaking. I went to rehab three times. Every single rehab facility that I went to, there was somebody there nagging me and telling me to put down what I had in my head at the time.
That very first day when I finally did decide to get clean and sober, I began to write about my experiences.
Collectively 30 days in a row I wrote about my first 30 days in sobriety, my day-to-day account. It was extremely enjoyable and very therapeutic.
Those 30 days of writings turned into a book. I do recall vividly thinking many times that if this is going to be a book, this is going to be a fantastically received book. It ended up being just that. So many people, such as prevention and addiction specialists have embraced the book. I’m so very proud to have gone through that process.
It’s so important and I convey this to my students too, I didn’t have a dollar when I started all this.
Seventeen years of running and using drugs, I had spent everybody else’s money around me. I conjured up all these ideas with relationships, the book, and the CD. I didn’t have a dollar to my name to put towards these efforts.
When I finally did end up finishing it, I shopped it around to the 200 publishers and they all said, “No, thank you.” I wanted that book on the shelves bad enough where I learned that industry rather quickly and found a printer who would publish my book on credit. He believed in my story enough to print 1000 books for me.
I convinced the distributor at Barnes and Noble to pick up my books. They were on the store shelves, truly without a dollar to my name. However, I was able to pay that printer back. There they are now. I’m very proud of that.
This is that goal nugget that is so valuable that I do share with the students. Many of them are faced with financial challenges. Just because you don’t have the cash to do something, doesn’t mean that it can’t be accomplished. It’s about finding and working the angles, networking, and believing in yourself to find that next rainbow across that dark cloud.
What suggestions do you have for parents?
Super Star: Take the time to have a conversation with your child. It doesn’t need to be every single day, but consistency in their lives is so very valuable. With that comes a sense of comfort, belief, and trust. They feel that it might be OK to open up, dig a little bit deeper and share what might be going on in their life. Making yourself available for a conversation with your child so very valuable.
I’m in the suburbs of Chicago where baseball and softball with the kids are so rampant. These kids are outside on Sunday morning at 7 am playing soccer in the rain in a field. I don’t know how healthy that is for many of them, because I’m not sure what home life is like for a lot of these kids.
There could be a lot more balance with the teens today. whether it’s them being forced to do well academically and hence not having time at home to do something that they love or enjoy as a means to escape.
That could be a problem. Balance is about taking a look at life’s problems and figuring out ways to solve them and having time to do that is essential. Leave time for your teen to express themselves creatively and do whatever it is that brings them happiness.
I think it is very important for kids to have some time in a world that is so stressed.
What are kids doing to deal with stress? A lot of kids use drugs to escape the stress of peer influence. Kids need to find better mentors and influencers.
Peer pressure is a big one.
My mother expressed her discontent with some of my friends. At the time, I didn’t like it. One particular friend did make me look at that relationship during that time in my life. I did steer clear from hanging out with that person.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I learned that this one specific person is in jail for the rest of his life. It did make a difference when my mother spoke up with her discontent with this person.
The genetic predisposition to addiction is definitely a reality, right?
We have to pay attention, to what’s going on in our family. Our bloodline is something that has reared an ugly head with some of our family members.
In addition, our children need to know that the genetic predisposition is, in fact, a reality. They need to know what they might be up against. It doesn’t mean that we’re going to become addicted every single time. However, if our uncles or fathers were addicted, it certainly doesn’t help.
I wish that I would have known that. It may not have made a difference. However, I would imagine statistically it would make a difference to somebody out there. They might spend a little extra time and think twice.
Super Star, yes that’s his legal name, is a musician, author, and motivational speaker. He was a former owner of a successful, cutting-edge computer consulting firm and lost it to drug addiction.
Today he lives with a commitment geared toward anti-substance abuse campaigning. He encourages others to overcome obstacles with creative boldness and live with purpose just as he has.
He penned the critically acclaimed book, The First 30 Days to Serenity and co-created Serenity, a CD featuring musicians from the bands: KISS, Heart, The Goo Goo Dolls, Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Super Star shares his message to school assemblies and community groups speaking on Rebranding Sobriety, Personal Responsibility, and Dream Catching. Super Star also hosts a Rockin’ Recovery Tour for National Recovery Month. Each September at various venues across the country music from Serenity is performed along with an inspirational message.
What do you think about teen peer pressure, bullying and substance abuse? What can we do to help our kids during this critical time? Let us know in the comments.
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