Ask Dr. Drew - 14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484

Episode Date: May 24, 2025

“The more I suffered, the more medical treatments I was convinced I needed, but the more treatments I received, the more I suffered,” writes Laura Delano, author of the memoir UNSHRUNK. At age 14, Laura Delano was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prescribed mood stabilizers and antidepressants. Despite academic and athletic success, she struggled with rage and despair. Over 14 years, she received multiple diagnoses and 19 medications. But her condition worsened and was deemed “treatment resistant.” Delano chose to stop medications, challenging psychiatric norms and exploring an unmedicated life, and details the results – and her critique of the mental health and pharmaceutical industries – in her memoir Unshrunk, available now at https://amzn.to/3YWgWfg Important: suddenly stopping a psychiatric medication can have harmful side effects. Always consult a trusted health professional before starting or stopping medications. Laura Delano is the author of Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance, a speaker, and consultant. She founded Inner Compass Initiative, a nonprofit helping people navigate psychiatric diagnoses, drugs, and withdrawal. A leading voice in the movement away from medicalized mental health, she supports individuals and families globally with the withdrawal journey and life post-psychiatry. More at https://x.com/lauradelano and https://lauradelano.com Autumn Smith is the co-founder of Paleovalley, a company focused on nutrient-dense foods. She advocates for rethinking meat consumption and promotes the benefits of bone broth and tallow through Paleovalley’s offerings. More at https://x.com/paleovalley and https://drdrew.com/paleovalley 「 SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS 」 Find out more about the brands that make this show possible and get special discounts on Dr. Drew's favorite products at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://drdrew.com/sponsors⁠⁠⁠⁠  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • ACTIVE SKIN REPAIR - Repair skin faster with more of the molecule your body creates naturally! Hypochlorous (HOCl) is produced by white blood cells to support healing – and no sting. Get 20% off at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://drdrew.com/skinrepair⁠⁠⁠⁠ • FATTY15 – The future of essential fatty acids is here! Strengthen your cells against age-related breakdown with Fatty15. Get 15% off a 90-day Starter Kit Subscription at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://drdrew.com/fatty15⁠⁠⁠⁠ • PALEOVALLEY - "Paleovalley has a wide variety of extraordinary products that are both healthful and delicious,” says Dr. Drew. "I am a huge fan of this brand and know you'll love it too!” Get 15% off your first order at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://drdrew.com/paleovalley⁠⁠⁠⁠ • THE WELLNESS COMPANY - Counteract harmful spike proteins with TWC's Signature Series Spike Support Formula containing nattokinase and selenium. Learn more about TWC's supplements at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twc.health/drew⁠⁠⁠⁠ 「 MEDICAL NOTE 」 Portions of this program may examine countervailing views on important medical issues. Always consult your physician before making any decisions about your health. 「 ABOUT THE SHOW 」 Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Kaleb Nation (⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kalebnation.com⁠⁠⁠⁠) and Susan Pinsky (⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/firstladyoflov⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠e⁠⁠⁠⁠). This show is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only, and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's not just the light. Later in the hour, we're gonna bring back Paley Valley's Autumn Smith. And I have a really interesting story to tell you all about what happened at the airport with a agricultural sniffing dog. I'm sure Autumn will like that. First up, however, though,

we're gonna talk to Lauren Delano. She is the author of Unshrunk, a story of psychiatric treatment resistance. She's a writer, a speaker. She's active at the Brownstone Institute, and she was rendered, what you call, iatrogenically ill. The medical system made her ill. And she has a really interesting story to tell us.

It's interesting, sometimes I walk by the Museum of Psychiatry that the, what's the name of the, the Scientology group has put together, and I think, they have a point, what's the name of the, Scientology group has put together. I think they have a point. There's been some excesses here. And I worked in a facility for 30 years,

which was like a museum of some of that stuff. So we'll get into all that, the controversies. First, I have something to tell you about former president Biden. Stay with us. Our laws as it pertain to substances are draconian and bizarre. The psychopath started this.

He was an alcoholic because of social media and pornography, PTSD, love addiction, fentanyl and heroin. Ridiculous. I'm a doctor for, where the hell you think I learned that? I'm just saying, you go to treatment before you kill people. I am a clinician.

I observe things about these chemicals. Let's just deal with what's real. And we used to get these calls on Loveline all the time. Educate adolescents and to prevent and to treat. You have trouble, you can't stop and you want help stopping, I can help. I got a lot to say, I got a lot more to say. Why do fintechs like Float choose Visa? As a more trusted, more secure payments network, Visa provides scale, expertise, and innovative

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It's non cytotoxic. So when you're putting it on, you're killing the bacteria, but you're not using any harsh antiseptics. It's non cytotoxic. So when you're putting it on, you're killing the bacteria, but you're not hurting any of those healthy cells that your body's producing to actually help heal itself. I have been using Active Skin Repair's Hyaluronic Serum on my face and the results have been great. So the only products I can use, try them both by picking up the bundle for 20% off at drdrew.com slash skin repair. That again is drdrew.com slash skin repair. That again is drdrew.com slash skin repair.

Yeah, interesting. I sliced my arm completely up when we were in Europe. Did you post Susan the pictures of that? This is the healed product, thanks to hypochlorous acid. It was a big one. It was with me the whole trip. You don't seem very interested.

So you're like, meh. I had it on hand and it came in handy. Very much so. Did you post it? All those pictures? No, no, I sent it to Caleb though. Caleb's going to do a new one. All right.

So before we get- We need our cute little granddaughter to be in the new. I think that's a better, you're right. That's a better image than my bloody arm, which I sliced in Italy because they have no rules, man. They don't care about function. I was putting some weights down on a rack and the upper rack was, you know, just leaned against it.

It was like a razor blade. Anyway, enough of that. I want to talk a little bit about former President Biden and what I've said publicly about this. Here are some of the facts that I want to set a little bit about former President Biden and what I've said publicly about this. Here are some of the facts that I want to set this up for you in terms of my suitedness to talk about this topic. A, I have prostate cancer. I've had a prostatectomy radiation, SBRT.

14 years ago was the, the prostatectomy was probably 12 years ago now. SBRT about three or four years ago. Doing fine, thank you. But I'm very involved with an organization with the Prostate Cancer Foundation. We fund research on prostate cancer. I listen to scientific lectures on the topic

of prostate cancer on a bimonthly basis. Number three, I've treated prostate cancer for 40 years. I remember prostate cancer being a sleepy illness that we just would tell people, oh, you'll die of something else or you're gonna die of this thing. Nothing we can do about it. 40 years. I remember prostate cancer being a sleepy illness that we just would tell people, oh, you'll die of something else or you're gonna die of this thing. Nothing we can do about it.

Now, thanks to Michael Milken and the Prostate Cancer Foundation, it is a highly treatable condition. And there is a bit of controversy here. So let me try to parse things out. First, Nicole Sapphire, who I respect and love immensely, has gone on the record saying that they would not have done a PSA

on a man of President Biden's age, which I disagree with in the strongest terms. It's possible that he and his doctors may have elected not to do it. I doubt it. It's routine care. I know there's a little controversy around it. Of course I'm well versed in that,

but a president of the United States is gonna get a yearly PSA. That's just what's gonna happen. Then the fact that they said they found a nodule. We found a nodule. Oh, lo and behold, there's metastatic disease. No, that did not happen. They don't even, you don't really even do

the digital rectal exam anymore. We follow the PSAs. What is that there, Caleb, you're putting up? I can't quite read these things sometimes. Oh, it's a post from Matt Walsh that was talking about the topic about Biden suddenly having cancer, which doesn't make sense that,

it just seems like the timing is strange because they waited until days before that big book is coming out. Right, for sure the time, but I'm telling you clinically, it does not work like this. It just doesn't show up like that all of a sudden. It's usually, it can present about 2% of the time,

maybe even 4% of the time it can present in a more advanced state, but usually it's an aggressive tumor that kind of gets away from you. Over the course of a year or two years or five or seven years, hard to predict, he has a grade nine of Gleason scale. I had a grade six, which is a low grade.

I actually went on active surveillance. It's possible they put him on active surveillance. There's a lot of possibilities here. The point is they are being extremely obscure and not giving us the details and none of what they're saying really makes sense. Now, you could ask the question, oh, isn't he entitled to his own confidential healthcare?

I disagree. I think if somebody is getting into the pilot seat of an aircraft and I or other physicians see some degree of impairment or concern about that person's ability to fly the aircraft, not only do we have a right to ask questions, we have an obligation to get on that and figure out what's going on. And I would argue that the president of the United States

is the pilot of this entire ship we call the United States and us not asking questions is Unethical and frankly the fact that they don't give us information is disgusting now people go home. There's always been Presidents of hidden scandals. Yes, they have and those are disgusting, equally disgusting. They're not okay. They've never been okay. The fact that Woodrow Wilson had a stroke and was out of it for six months, not okay. The fact that JFK had a psychotic episode on amphetamines,

look it up, it happened. Not okay that we didn't know that. Imagine if that was during the missile crisis, for God's sakes. Point is, we need to know about our leaders and what their condition is, and we need to be able to discuss it and talk about it, and physicians need to have opinions about it.

My opinion, I'm giving you now, this is my opinion, I'm entitled to it, and it's no longer okay for people to shut up, people who have opinions and expertise. You can take the opinion, leave it, do what you will with it, I have an opinion, I will be offering it. So, the thing that concerns me is we've seen him decline

over the last two years rather significantly. And one of the things that happens with metastatic disease, the first line of treatment is something called androgen deprivation therapy. That is where we block the testosterone essentially. We used to actually castrate men with this, but now we do a androgen deprivation therapy, ADT. Side effect of ADT is cognitive slowing,

sometimes frank dementia, falls, muscle wasting. If somebody's Parkinsonian, they're more likely to fall. All the things we have seen over the last couple of years could be explained on the basis of androgen deprivation therapy. By the same token, there's a lot of controversy about the auto pan and should he have used it or did he know what was going on? Parkinsonisms makes you lose the ability to write your name very often.

They would have a perfect defense there just by saying you know what the president no longer signed his aims we had to use the auto pan he approved every single one of these parts and said we don't know what happened. I don't believe he was impaired to the point of you know commitment or you know that a legal system would find him impaired to the point of commitment or that a legal system would find him unable to take care of himself, but clearly he was significantly diminished. And if indeed the antigen deprivation therapy

had been initiated, we should know that because it explains the continued decline. So whatever is going on here, there is my opinion. I don't treat the man. I don't know what's going on. I'm trying to read the tea leaves that they give us, but it is rather disgusting that a president does not open the books

on their healthcare. I think that needs to be a standard. I think every president should take a Montreal cognitive inventory. I know President Trump has done that a few years in a row. He should do it publicly. We should see it being done. So that is my opinion, Susan, am I clear enough?

Any questions about this? Did I? Totally clear. I just feel like he could have helped educate other men to get prostate cancer awareness. Oh, that is another point, yes, thank you, Susan. Correct. Which is absolutely the opportunity to say this,

that every man over 50 every year should be getting a PSA. If you have a first degree relative, that should begin at age 40. If one of your first degree relatives has prostate cancer or certain Norwegian descents. And here's the bigger thing. Joe Biden claims to be a man concerned about the African-American community's wellbeing.

Here's a perfect opportunity to say something very clear to black men. You need to be screened. Black men, when they present, usually have more advanced tumor and more tumor. They are less likely to be screened properly. And I understand there is a fear that somebody's gonna take my prostate out,

it's gonna affect my manhood, blah, blah, blah. Doesn't happen. That's an old world way of thinking about this. The fact is African-American men, we were doing a very poor job of adequately screening them so they don't have more advanced disease. Genetically, they're more prone to presenting with more advanced disease.

So the screening needs to be as vigorous as it can possibly be so that more advanced grade of tumor doesn't become a more advanced stage of tumor. The grade is the Gleason score, the stage is whether it's localized or spread. Okay, so they didn't do that. And doesn't that speak volumes about what they're really concerned about?

Very interesting, very interesting. All right, we're gonna switch gears. Now have I said enough, Susan? Susan was always worried about what people were saying about me online. My position these days is, it is my opinion. I'm titled to my opinion. I'm, I'm do research on this.

I am a patient and I've treated it for 30 years. What the hell if I'm not entitled to an opinion in the United States of America? It is really, it's over, buddy. We got to start speaking up. I attend five years ago, three or four years ago, I was saying it's time to be courageous. I was shocked.

I was having to say that. Now I'm at the next stage, which is speak up, speak loud, have your opinion. Fine, let's debate it, but don't let people push you down for having an opinion, especially when your opinion is based in tons of experience. Give me a break, speaking of experience. Laura Delano, was this striking back again?

A story of psychiatric treatment resistance, unshrunk writer, speaker, consultant. She founded Inner Compass Initiative to nonprofit, helping people navigate psychiatric diagnoses, medication, withdrawal, leading voice in the movement away from medicalization of mental health. She supports families families and especially particularly

their withdrawal journey from medication. X.com Laura Delano, one word D-E-L-A-N-O and lauradelano.com. Laura, good to see you. Welcome to the program. Thanks Dr. Drew. It's great to be here. So I think we should start with your story

and what happened to you, it's great to be here. So I think we should start with your story and what happened to you, it's rather dramatic. I don't know if that's, if I'm taking the wind out of the sail of unshrunk by asking for that, or if there's a way you can tell the story that they'll entice them to want to read it even more. But let's hear, what happened to you and how did you end up where you are?

So I was an intense, sensitive, big feeling kid and at age 13 ended up having, what I now see was a profound kind of crisis of self where I realized, I don't really know who I am, I'm just performing these roles in school. And I had this total collapse internally where I just, I felt convinced that I didn't have, I didn't know who I was

and I didn't have an authentic sense of self. And so that eventually led me to begin. It sounds, by the way, that just sounds like, let's just call that, I think it has a name, let's call it adolescence. Yeah, seriously. It's what adolescence is, right? But you see Dr. Drew, this happened at a very

opportune moment in the history of adolescence psychiatry. This was in the mid-90s. So you probably recall there was this huge push at the time to take angry, irritable, uh, despairing kids and, and give them a bipolar diagnosis. And so that's, that's what happened to me at age 14. And so what, you know, was in retrospect, I see a very typical, if intense version of adolescence, you know, I was cutting myself and I eventually was talking about and thinking about death and, you know, I was cutting myself and I eventually was talking about and thinking

about death and you know, I was an extreme, I needed help and my parents were overwhelmed. So I ended up getting this diagnosis within an hour of meeting a psychiatrist who I'd never spoken to before. I just poured out all my pain to her. And she concluded I had this incurable mental illness called bipolar disorder. And that began what was a nearly decade and a half relationship with the mental health industry. And with each passing year. When does fast grocery delivery

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Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. That I invested more and more deeply in this idea that I was sick and that my difficulties were all symptoms of this illness. And two meds became three, three became four, four became five. My life just began to fall more and more apart. And every step of the way, my parents and I were being told that my illness was just

progressing and, and eventually I reached the point where I was declared treatment resistant, because I was basically the story, you know, was I was just so sick that even all these this great treatment and all these great hospitals, because I was going to the top doctors at the top institutions in New England, even all of that wasn't able to help. And so that story of treatment resistance led me to- Let me ask a really challenging question. And I don't mean this to out the system or be pejorative because I want this to be as balanced as possible but it just occurs to me and particularly in the 80s and 90s.

Did your parents have a lot of money? Because the psychiatric system. Yeah, the psychiatric hospital business back then was primarily directed towards private resources, people who had money. And I noticed when I first started working in psychiatric hospital in 1985, there were only two populations of people there. There was the very rich and the very poor.

And to some extent, they had common issues, which is kind of interesting just by itself, but the system wasn't interested in them because they were insurance patients or Medicare patients and they could only stay in three or four days and what are you gonna do in three or four days while the patient's paying cash would stay for a month and we could really help them.

It's such a good point. And I often say, I do think socioeconomics is a huge piece of the puzzle here when it comes to struggles just generally. And when it comes to the power that the American mental health industry has over our society today. And because I had access to the best that the American mental health industry has over our society today. And because I had access to the best of the best,

I was going to McLean Hospital, New York Presbyterian. I was seeing Harvard Medical School professors for consultations. We believed all the more deeply in everything we were being told because who would we be to question these leading experts? And so at the same time, we went so deep in,

because I think of this faith we had in all of these top doctors, but when I did eventually have my awakening, you could say, and I realized this story of incurable mental illness, needing lifelong treatment is just a story and it's actually one that's not based in much scientific evidence.

And I eventually decided to come off all of these. Let's flip to that. Let's flip to that right now because it's a good place to do that, which is something I've complained about forever on the addiction literature side is the time horizons of the research. The medication research for psychiatry,

the treatment research and addiction medicine, I would say never goes more than six months. Never is a reasonable thing and often goes six weeks. Typically, in fact, six weeks. And if it goes a year or two years, it's way rare. And I run to those studies when I see them because I figure they're gonna tell me something different or interesting. But this was never meant as a long-term,

it kind of reminds me of the vaccine therapies, right? Where we're like, well, it's being used on everybody and it's working, so let's go. And that's sort of what happened with psychiatric meds. Totally, and I had no idea that the average length of a psychiatric drug trial was six to eight weeks when I was started on these drugs. And I also had no idea that there's zero evidence base

for polypharmacy. These drugs have never been, you know, the safety and efficacy of these drugs have never been studied in combination with one another. And yet there I was on multiple psychiatric drugs for well over a decade. And I just assumed, I just took for granted if my doctors are prescribing me this, this way,

there must be an evidence base for it. Otherwise they wouldn't do it. And of course, you know, I eventually learned the hard way that's not true. If you don't mind, Laura, I want to, this is so interesting to me because I lived it and you did too and we lived it from different sides of the table.

And I want to kind of parse this out as carefully as we can. So forgive me for interviewing me and for interrupting you. But the one, two things I noticed is psychiatry back then, because I was there when that all was happening, would run to the newest pharmaceutical agent. I mean, I was shocked as soon as this stuff was coming out and the next day I would see patients being given it.

And at the time, I looked at it rather carefully because it's so different than general medicine where you have to see a track record and then everybody starts using it. And I thought, and at the time what I thought I was seeing, and I think it's still true, is that psychiatrists didn't, for a lot of patients they didn't have a lot to offer

and they were desperate to do something. And then to me that was just a sign that whatever they had was really kind of not working. So they were just running to the next thing. So that sort of one thing. I don't know if you've noticed that. And then the other is the combo thing, you're right about the combo research,

but the combo now, I would say we're now 30 years later, does have some track record to it when appropriately applied. So I'm going to defend combination therapies a little bit, but your point is well taken. So what do you think about this idea of them rushing to the latest pharmaceutical agent? I completely agree. And in many ways, I feel for the tough position

that we've put psychiatrists in over these past 30 decades that the psychopharmaceutical revolution has taken hold. The more prominence these drugs have come to play in the treatment of struggling people, the smaller the toolbox that psychiatrists have at their disposal and because they manage- Say that again, say that again, because I think you're saying something profound

when you say that, say that again. So the more promin psychiatric drugs have come to have as the kind of one and only first line treatment for people who are struggling, the fewer tools that psychiatrists end up having at their disposal until literally all they have is their prescription pad. So I want to shine a little light on what you're saying there is that we have not even trained psychiatry in other treatment modalities or it's available to them. They can do fellowships in psychotherapy

and fellowships in this and that, but primary training is medical. And we're advising you to read Un-Shrunk. There's another book called Shrink. You ever seen that book by Jeffrey Lieberman? You read it? I've seen it. I have not read it, but I know it.

It's a great book. It's a great book. You would be fascinated by it because it'll bring you into the history of psychiatry and where you arrived, where you, he's very honest about it. That the, I'll just sort of, I'll shrink the story about shrink,

which is that as much as we've gone completely to this extreme with the medical model, we were the exact opposite extreme 50 years ago, where psychoanalysis, and we were the only country in the world, Austria did it for a minute, but we were the only country in the world that psychoanalysis became the one and only treatment

for human suffering, whatever that is. And in fact, there's a apocryphal story I've told many times here that when they were very anxious to get Sigmund Freud over here because he was their one and only. And when he arrived, they asked him, what do you hope to accomplish here in America? And he goes, well, I hope to come to an understanding

and raise understanding of the difference between genuine mental illness and ordinary human misery. And I thought, oh man, have we lost track of that. And you were just having ordinary misery as an adolescent. And that was pathologized. Indeed. And I would go so far as to say that a lot of what gets called serious mental illness,

you know, the kind of stereotypical person on the subway who's acting in a scary way, that at some point in that person's past, they also were having ordinary, typical, you know, perhaps on the extreme end of the spectrum of human suffering and then had enough time pass of not getting what they really needed or getting a lot of what they didn't need that things have kind of spiraled to the point where they look like they're in this separate class of suffering that's different than normal struggling.

Well, let's parse that out a little bit too, because you're right, but if that person started getting into hallucinogens or methamphetamine, they have now damaged their brain. They are now truly in a different state. They are in a neurologically induced psychotic state. And that's a very different thing than the suffering they started with.

Oh, I totally, I totally, I totally agree with that. One road to the subway. The other road to the subway, there is such a thing as paradise schizophrenia. But paradise schizophrenia research has shown you can develop the ventromedial prefrontal cortex to help them understand their delusions, see their delusions, manage their delusions,

and there are ways psychotherapeutically to go at that, that we skip entirely. We don't, that could obviate the need for a lot, and the other thing we need to treat early and often, because as you say, if you go further down the road, again, you're back in the brain damage zone. Yeah, and there's a large movement of people around the world who actually challenge

the idea of schizophrenia even, even something as severe in our minds as that diagnosis, that people who've realized, they've heard voices, they've been psychotic, they've had all kinds of delusions, and they've actually realized these experiences that I was having were actually rooted in trauma, in especially early childhood trauma, and they became as extreme and intense as they became

because they didn't actually address the root, the origins of what eventually led to this kind of severe unmanageable situation. And so I think, you know, this idea that there is a separate class of people who have, I agree with you completely that psychoactive drugs can cause brain, can cause neurological injuries that can have lasting effects.

But that, I kind of put that in a separate category. I think we are culture is- Very common. Oh, I think you're right. Very, very common. I mean, I think a lot of young men especially get a schizophrenia diagnosis when they're actually like smoking a ton

of really intense pot that spun them out. 100%. 100%. Yeah, for sure. 100%, that was a lot. Yep. And I think what I, because I grew up psychiatrized, as I like to put it, I grew up basically believing that every single mental and emotional challenge

that I had, and I had extreme challenges, I tried to kill myself for goodness sake. I mean, I was on a psych ward four times. I was what you would call a severe case of bipolar disorder. But when I look back now and I see that believing so deeply in this medicalized framework of understanding myself actually taught me to kind of give up any belief

in my own capacity to grow, to change, to evolve, because I believed I just was at the mercy of this brain disease. And I do think for a lot of people out there, with all kinds of different diagnoses, that medicalized story can have this disabling effect. And the problem is, when you're also on these very powerful meds, like you said, are only, you know, it really intended for short-term use. Speaking for myself, my ability to step back and think critically about this was impaired because I was on five meds.

You'll appreciate this, Dr. Drew. In the end, I was on lithium, lamictal, abilify, effectsor, and Ativan. Five psych drugs. And this was considered like a sophisticated regimen. I couldn't think, I couldn't. It's a lot. But this is the standard of care for bipolar diagnosis. I know it's a miracle.

So two things I want to again bring up. You mentioned the early childhood trauma and subsequent psychiatric symptoms. ADHD in my opinion is in this country today is most commonly childhood trauma. That's something that is not discussed. And there's another one that if you go at the trauma you might be able to help with the ADHD

without slapping somebody on a psychostimulant, number one. And so I do agree with you that trauma, it's kind of navigating these things. It's making sure that we stabilize somebody short term, get them out of dangerous way, but give them a long term sort of the kinds of solutions they need to grow out of it. Now, much like you, I have heard your story a few places,

and much like every other important moment of change, the same kind of things happen to patients that have been through what you've been through, where they hit some sort of bottom. Like there was a moment where they go, okay, that's it. Did you have such a moment? Well, I had the bottom where where I decided to kill myself because you know this life with treatment resistant mental illness wasn't worth living and then I had my I Wouldn't call it a bottom as much as an aha moment where I realized this story of self that this this

future of you know psych wards and more and more meds and not being able to work and not being able to take care of myself, you know, when I began to educate myself about the, what we know and don't know about these drugs, I realized, my gosh, like, what if this doesn't have to be my fate? What if this story of, you know,

treatment resistant mental illness and that's why my life is the mess that it is, what if it's actually the treatment? And so that was really the turning point for me where I realized I have to give myself a chance here. I could always kill myself. I mean, that's the head space that I was in. I was like, if I try to come off these drugs

and it doesn't go well, I always have that. But I knew I had to give myself a chance. Sometimes that's reassuring for people. Ironically, I totally agree. Thinking about suicide ironically kept me alive for years because it was like the one- I understand. Yeah.

Yeah. And so- I hear that where people go, oh yeah, that was this one thing that I was like, I had to security, like I can always do that. And it felt okay. But if you wouldn't mind going more into the, this the moment of change,

because the bottom again, doesn't have to be a, you were thinking about like a bottom, the way addicts have bottoms, it's a little different in this condition that you went through, this experience you went through. Oftentimes, like I'm thinking of a friend of mine who was literally in a locked room in a straight jacket this long time ago, who just went,

this is not my life, I'm going to do something about this. Like there's this moment of forward thinking. And there's, but there's oftentimes, and people miss this, leading up to that, a novel relationship, somebody who got you thinking or somebody who was getting through to you or somebody who was supporting you so you could start to have independent thoughts.

Was something like that happening at the time? I would say what jolted me out of my, and you know, psychiatrized slumber, you could say, was I did have a few experiences like what you're describing. And these experiences all had to do with the power that a psychiatrist has to strip you of your rights. So I was forced to go into the hospital when I didn't wanna go in.

I actually did wanna go in, I just wanted to get my belongings first. And there was a whole kerfuffle with me and my psychiatrist and security guards were called and I was escorted over to the ward and given the so-called choice of going voluntarily or involuntarily. That was the first thing in me that just went, what is this? Like I had known

intellectually for years that people were forcibly hospitalized all the time. I had watched it happen, but I had never imagined that I would be that person. And when it actually happened to me, it forced me up against this previously unquestioning faith I had had and all of these well-meaning mental health professionals to take care of me. And I realized they also have control over me. I've given them this power over me. So that was the first of a few experiences

with force and coercion. And then what really was my big turning point was actually finding a book. That was the equivalent of, you know, a supportive person. For me, it was a book by a journalist named Robert Whitaker. The book is called Anatomy of an Epidemic, and it looks at the long-term evidence base for psychiatric drugs and makes a compelling case that if you actually look at outcomes, they're much poorer in people who stay on these drugs long term. And that was what really jolted me awake. And there I was on five drugs,

and my life had fallen apart over the previous decade. I was totally dependent on my family, totally disabled, couldn't work, had no friends, was just in crisis after crisis. And that book is what helped me step back and say like, what if it's not treatment resistant mental illness? What if it's the treatment? And that set me on the path that I've been on ever since.

So let's talk about that path, but we're going to take a little break first. Let me just check on timing here where we are. My computer core doesn't reach far enough, so I'm a little bit lost here. So what we're going to do is take a break, and we're going to have Autumn Smith in here a little bit later, but right now we're going to keep talking to Laura.

You can follow her on Laura Delano on X, get the book on Shrunk, put it up there, Caleb. Make sure you get it, read it, it's dramatic, and she's leading a crusade, a crusade for health. And it sort of fits very nicely into so many of the other, what should we say, reconsiderations of some of the health considerations of the last 50 years. We're just looking at things a little differently,

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but we also were happy to have packed our Paley Valley snacks on our trip to Europe, especially since we forgot to bring our bone broth, which I've been just, I don't know if you're aware of this, because I've been going nuts on it lately. And the superfood bars are made with the bone broth. That's the basis of the grass-fed finished beef broth is the basis of these bars,

made with real bones, not hides. We love the lemon meringue, which is why I'm holding up the red velvet, because you don't have any more lemon meringue. I ate it all, they around coming in around 200 calories we also have supplied protein sticks was served to tide us over between meals and i'm gonna have a Story for autumn when she gets in here about the sticks Bayley valley's beef sticks are pasture raised venison are our favorites as well. They're fermented made with organic spices non-gmo

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Or 20% off when you subscribe. It is at doctordrew.com slash paleo valley. Right now, however, we're talking a little psychiatry with Laura Delano. She, the book is called Unshrunk. You can follow her at laurdelano.com. And you're gonna talk about your road to recovery and what your work is now.

Where shall we, I know that's a huge topic. Where would you like to go with that? Well, maybe I could quickly kind of walk walk your listeners through how I got myself off of these drugs and which led me to the work that I do and you know, just to just to set the the Stage out the gates the issue of tapering off of psychiatric drugs is a hugely important one And I think right now especially as more and more people in our current cultural climate are beginning to step back and question their

relationship to pharmaceuticals. By my account there's somewhere between 65 and 70 million Americans on psychiatric drugs so the issue we have here is that getting on these drugs is very easy, but getting off them can be very hard. And there are very few visible places where you can turn in our society and certainly within the mental health system itself to actually get good, safe, reliable information about how to taper off these drugs. And so when I decided in 2010 in my late 20s to come off the five meds I was on, I had no idea that that because I'd been on these drugs for so

long, my central nervous system was completely dependent on them. No one had told me that. It had never occurred to me to educate myself. And so I also didn't know therefore that stopping these drugs too quickly would cause debilitating withdrawal symptoms. So I came off five drugs way too fast in about half a year, which is basically cold turkey, and had a brutal time. Spent the first year, you know, it was a big success if I took a shower, I was just, I was just a mess. And I would say the first few years off the drugs, you know, it, it really took that long, it took years for my, my body to recover from what I call pharmaceutical trauma, because

these are potent psychoactive chemicals. And when they've been altering your body for many, many years, it takes a lot to heal from them. So I just want to say that out the gates, that it's a really serious decision to make. It's dangerous to start a psychiatric drug and it's dangerous to come off one. And what I ended up discovering a few months, year, a year in was that the people who knew the most about how to safely taper off of these drugs

were not actually doctors, they were lay people. They were people who had to figure it out for themselves because they had no support from the mental health system itself. And so I began to connect with other people who were trying to come off these drugs. I was writing online about my experiences leaving behind the mental health system.

And so people were finding me through my blog. And I just, I realized that my story is a much bigger story. What happened to me is not unique to me. This is happening at scale to so many people around the world who start psych meds for all kind of reasons and then years later when they want to come off of them, they have a hell of a time. And so I eventually started a non-profit organization called Intercompass Initiative that now my husband Cooper

runs and our mission is we're not anti medication, we're not anti psychiatry, we're about helping people get good information about the drugs that they take and about how to safely taper off of them. And I think to me, the most important part of what we do is around helping people kind of take back the power and the ability to help themselves and one another in a mutual aid capacity.

Because I know for me, as someone who grew up in the mental health system, I believed for so many years that the only kind of valid help there was came from a professional. And there are some great therapists out there. Some of my closest friends are psychiatrists. I'm not bashing them, but they've professionalized help as such a monopoly in our culture.

And I think a lot of us have realized that going through difficulties yourself, taking these drugs yourself and coming off of them actually gives you a kind of, a different kind of expertise that can be really helpful to other people. So much of what we do is about helping people help each other.

Well, I agree with you wholeheartedly that brains heal other brains, right? That's just how humans work. Brains heal brains, brain bodies, embedded brains in bodies. And mutual aid, it's free. It's now available by Zoom, wherever you look. And the mutual aid, let me say it again,

is free and effective. I've been an advocate of 12 step forever. And now it's ridiculous. For a while it was under attack, just so you know. I don't know if you're aware, but mutual aid was really under attack in the early 2000s. And it's just like, it's disgusting.

This is free and it works. Is it the only thing? No, you may need other forms of therapeutics. As you're saying, particularly getting a therapist or somebody who has some expertise and whatever you're trying to manage, so much the better. But yes, mutual aid is a great way to go. The other thing is some, we live in a time

of spiritual vacuum in this country. So some sort of spiritual something can be very, very helpful with what humans are going through these days. And then finally, I would remind people that hubris, doctors with hubris have done immense harm to people. And psychiatry maybe more so than anywhere. Look no further than frontal lobotomies, which poor Rosemary Kennedy was subjected to.

Rose Kennedy, who is John F. Kennedy's mom, believed that, as apparently said on the record, that yes, it was terrible losing two cents, but what we did to Rosemary was the real disaster. And they did that at the bedside with absolute hubris, with no, it was just, it was, I mean, look, if you think questioning vaccines is a big deal,

it was a big deal to question lobotomies back in the day. So please everybody, be very careful with- Yeah, Moniz won a Nobel Prize. Correct. Moniz won a Nobel Prize for that. He wasn't though, but he trained an American who was excessive with it. It was going to cure everything.

It was just, and the neurosurgeon stood back and went, oh my God, we don't want to talk about this. It's so awful what they're doing. So that's that. But then on the withdrawal side, I want to again shine a little light on what you were saying, which is it depends, you know, each medication has its own withdrawal.

Larazapam, benzodiazepine have a terrible, terrible withdrawal for a year. I don't know what kind of dosing you were saying, which is it depends, each medication has its own withdrawal. Larazapam, benzodiazepine have a terrible, terrible withdrawal for a year. I don't know what kind of dosing you were on, but man, that can be bad. The SSRIs and SNRIs, that zap, the zap syndrome that people get in their neck and head is miserable. And that can be managed and it can be mitigated

if it's done carefully and properly. And then there's sort of the mood stabilizers and things like that, which yeah, sometimes you can come off of, sometimes you can't. So you have to have somebody really watching that with you very carefully. Yeah, and I think one important point to make here is that because people are often brought off way too fast

without realizing it, and the doctors don't realize they're tapering people too fast either, when people have a hard time after they've come off, they get told, oh, you're having a relapse of your illness because, oh, we tapered you slowly. We tapered you over a few months. A few months is actually very fast. And so people will end up staying on these drugs long-term because every time they think they're coming off slowly, they feel horrible.

And then everyone tells them, see, this is why you need to be on them. And that's where public education is so important. And that is not being studied. I'm not aware of it at all. And that will be a perfect thing for psychiatry to look at. Like, how do we get people off? What happens when they come off?

What are the criteria we use to come off? There's so many things to be studied there. And pharmacy is, to some extent, picked it up. The pharmacy profession, they have a whole discipline of what they call de-prescribing, and it's not just psychiatric meds. They're worried about the over-prescribing of all meds as we all are, so that's a real thing.

So, all right. So, I kind of have this feeling that I want you to stand back philosophically and tell me what you think. Have you been through all this? You know, what's going on here in this country and the over-reliance on professionals and the medicalization?

What's your sort of philosophical take on what you've been through and what's going on right now in this country? Well, I think, I mean, when I look at my own experience, I see that all the struggles I was going through were actually very meaningful responses to what was happening in my life, around me, in the culture of the town I grew up in.

And when I eventually came to believe that my struggles were symptoms of an illness, I cut off the ability for my suffering to mean anything else. I stripped it of context. I depoliticized it. I basically came to see it as these meaningless symptoms of faulty pathology. And so when you think about how many people are engaged with the mental health system today in our society, again, just people on psychiatric drugs alone, it's almost one in four adults and something like one in 10 kids.

And you think about how many of them are also like me, believing that their struggles are symptoms of an illness instead of responses to their lives. You know, maybe it's related to nutrition and diet. Maybe it's related to bad things that have happened to you. Maybe it's related to bullying or, you know, a meaningless job or loss of social connections. There's so many reasons why people have challenges. Sometimes they're biological in nature, thyroid issues and, you know, this, of course, there can be real biological factors. But I think because our culture is so medicalized in how we think about struggles, we end up not only perpetuating the suffering because we're all convinced that we can't really do anything about it because it's just faulty pathology, but we also end up, you know, disempowering ourselves from actually changing our world.

I think if you look at COVID, for example, and how many people ended up on anti-anxiety drugs and antidepressants, that anxiety and despair was actually a really healthy response to have given to what was going on. And yet people ended up coming away from that thinking they were sick. So I think the consequences are significant and we have to step back and say, is this really the best way to make sense of our struggles or are there other more humanizing ways and contextualizing ways to think about it? Yeah, I want to say that a lot of the people that ended up on benzodiazepines and antidepressants

were young people and they're actually angry and they should be angry about what was done to them. I want to see that they should be furious. Hear, hear. Make sure it never happens again. Yeah. But I want to be a little positive as we just go to wrap this thing up,

which is that, you're not alone in this struggle. I'm sure you've had lots of support and lots of people are interested in you say, there's a mutual aid. There's also your professional, there are a lot of professionals that are, they're worried about the excesses and want to find other ways of helping people

and don't always want to use a pharmaceutical agent and want to rely on mutual aid and exercise and diet and brains healing other brains and a spiritual landscape of some type. I think we're in the early days of moving in that direction. I really do. There are certainly armies of non-prescribing mental health professionals out there.

I worry that they're going to over-medicalize, over-pathologize things. But even those guys, I've noticed a lot of them are going towards use of things like exposure therapies. So just to put a sort of shine a light on something you just said about these are meaningful responses. They should be leaned into. They should be used as these miseries

that humans have in order to make change. And I'm seeing mental health kind of move that direction where we have to move away from safe spaces and into exposure and realize that ordinary misery is good. It's good, it's informative. It's how we develop grit and resiliency and learn. And we have to let that happen for God's sakes. We have to let that happen.

Here, here, especially for our young people. And growing up in therapy, I think for a lot of us, certainly for me, taught me to focus a lot on myself and a lot on whatever emotion I happened to be feeling that day and kind of prioritizing it over everything else. And I think you're seeing the effects of that in our culture too, where young people feel a strong emotion and then see the world around them

only through that emotion. And there's a lot of kind of, that itself can be quite immobilizing. And I think for me taking back my power and realizing I have to take responsibility here for what I do with how I feel. I think more young people are actually waking up from this like therapeutises,

this therapeuticized way they've grown up and realizing like, I don't know if I want to keep doing this anymore. And I want to actually kind of step back into the driver's seat of my life and take responsibility for myself and not just, you know, be angry all the time at everyone and, and, you know, demand change just so I can feel better because life is hard. Life is really hard. And, and- Exactly. It's a great, it's a great way to end this. And tell people where you want them to go

and whom you'd like to see and where. Well, please come visit me at lauradelano.com. Our nonprofit, Inner Compass Initiative is theinnercompass.org. We have a free self-directed tapering manual. We have a community there. We have tons of information and find me on my socials. You can get all of that on my website

and please read Unshrunk and let me know what you think of it. Great. I've looked forward to this conversation for a while. I appreciate you being here and hopefully we'll stay in touch and we'll talk soon. I hope so too. Thanks for having me.

You got it. Laura Delano, the book is Unshrunk. You should so too. Thanks for having me. You got it, Laura Delano. The book is Unshrunk. You should get it. You should read it. Read Shrink alongside of it. Laura, you should read Shrink also. It'll help you understand the historical sweep of what you got dragged into there.

It's really kind of like everything. Everything happens in a historical socioeconomic context. And her experience was part of that, interestingly. All right, we're going to switch gears and we're going to talk about nutrition and I've got all our good stuff here ready at hand That autumn has kindly Given us something we use on a regular basis, which is her beef tallow. Can you see? Wrong. There we are And as I said, I blew through these super food bars

and I am a strong advocate of the grass fed, finished beef bone broth. What's that Susan? She's going to get some beef sticks, but let me bring Otto Smith in. You can find her on X at Paleo Valley and at drdrew.com slash paleo valley. Autumn, welcome back.

Hi, Dr. Drew. Always so much fun to be here. Excited to talk about bone broth or whatever you want to talk about today. Oh my gosh. We are, oh, Susan's bringing me beef sticks too. So let me tell you our funny beef stick story. So we are going through, you know,

we're going through customs, or you just get back in the country and this was agricultural sort of stop. And they had one of these Beagles going through and sniffing everybody's stuff. And this Beagle got very excited about my carry-on bag. Guess what I had in my carry-on bag. And I knew it too.

I was sort of saving it. And I thought, he couldn't. I said, look, you must have something. What did you buy over in Europe? I said, no, no, no. I brought them with me over and brought them back and this is my last one and it's not open, it's not even open. And damn Beagle could smell the,

and he, you know, that was what the Beagle wanted, was mine. He wanted to eat it. He really wanted to eat it. He gave me these big doggy eyes. Well, if you remember the guy goes, find it. He was like, ah, ah, ah, and he goes right into my bag.

And so, yeah, there we were. And then some guy walked up behind us and said, oh my God, I love Paleo Valley beef sticks. I have those too. That was, isn't that nice? That was the part I wanted to tell you. I love to hear that. That makes me happy.

Yeah, he was standing way over, he was way over at the turnstile. We were sort of back, they pulled us out, you know, and he comes over and goes, I've got my Paleo Valley beef sticks to there in my luggage. And I went, good, good, get the superfood bar, try these. Because I'm looking, yeah, hang on a second.

I'm looking for a prep thing here while I'm getting through it. But they really kind of saved me quite a bit in Europe, because I, well, tell them about the superfood bar and what's in in Europe because I, well, tell them about the Superfood Bar and what's in there because I'll tell you what, because I know it's based in the bone broth, but you have cashew and you have broccoli and blueberry.

I have trouble describing all the nutrients in there because there's so much. You know, spirulina, right? Don't you have all that in there too? We do, we do. And that was the point whenever we found superfood bars, we realized it was more like a carbohydrate bar with some artificial sweeteners.

And so we really wanted to create something that had all of the different ingredients. So we have bone broth protein powder, which we know is so many benefits that we'll probably touch on today for your hair, your skin, your nails, your joints, your gut. And then we've added other superfoods, cashew butter, we have spirulina in there, ocerola, broccoli powder, kale, blueberries.

And so it really is kind of just an infusion of superfoods with every bite rather than having to choke down something that tastes like cardboard and it is just really carbohydrate heavy or will make your gut distended after you eat it. It's actually really nourishing. And it becomes a healthy flavor. It tastes good. Yeah. It tastes good and we like the meringue one.

But every time I eat your bars, I think to myself, why aren't other bars like this? I mean, you're able to do it. You know what I mean? You're able to put all these nutrients. And I know you have, you're able to do it. You know what I mean? You're able to put all these nutrients in. I know you have, you know, sort of, we'll talk about the bone broth in a second, so you have that as a base,

but I just think, well, this should be no brainer. This should be an A nutrient bar. I know. I think everyone has different priorities and a lot of people are looking at macronutrients. Oh, you think, well, but you think of those kind bars, right? That's supposed to be a, like, they're candy bars. Mostly they end up being candy bars.

So I'm imagining, yeah, so I imagine that they're just interested in selling bars, I guess, as it boils down to. If it's yummy, it sells a little bit better, but it's certainly not better for you. Exactly, and I think it came through my lens of having severe digestive issues for my life that were then remedied through a food-based approach

and realizing, oh, well, this is a tool. You can create health every day. Food can be medicine, food can be poison. And so we're very attention and detail-oriented. So we're not going to put anything in the bar that's just for flavor. Our lens is the priority of health rather than profit. And I think that makes us just a very,

very different company. Oh, and again, you know we're enthusiasts, but let's talk about collagen for a second. What is it about collagen? What is it? And by the way, I think, am I right that one of the things that makes your bone broth different is it really tastes good and my understanding it's hard to your bone broth different is it really tastes good?

And my understanding is it's hard to make bone broth taste good, right? Yes, and that was the point because we love an ancestral approach. Not everyone's there yet. So if you don't like the flavor of bone broth, you still don't want to be missing out on the many benefits of collagen because collagen is something that's gone by the wayside in our modern diet because we don't eat nose to tail anymore. But it was something we ate a lot of and it has so many benefits. So if you have sagging skin, joint pain, gut issues, your decreased bone mineral density, slow to heal your wounds, slow recovery, these are all things that collagen can dramatically improve. And we

lose about a percent, 1% of our collagen every year after the age of 20. So by the time we're 40, we've lost 20% of it. So if we're not giving our body the building blocks to produce it, we just age more rapidly. And there's also something that I love to put on people's radar. I think a lot of our symptoms of our aging are actually tied to an amino acid deficiency that you get from collagen and it's called glycine. So, an extensive body of literature on glycine.

It is technically conditionally essential, but a paper in 2009 showed that we don't make enough to meet our metabolic demand. Most of us are running around with about a 10 gram glycine deficiency per day. And when we don't have enough glycine- I did not realize that. It's really fascinating. It's a lot. And it was a paper by Enrique Melendez-Javier.

And he said, we make about three grams a day. We eat about three grams a day, but that we need at least 10 grams more to produce glutathione, which is important for dampening oxidative stress and helping us detoxify to make collagen. So getting that youthful skin and our healthy joints. Also, Dr. Drew, you'll love it. It's a calming, it has an inhibitory action in the nervous system. So they've used it for OCD, anxiety, schizophrenia, and very large

doses. It also improves sleep, improves blood sugar control. So it's essentially like the Swiss army knife of healthy aging. And it's something most people don't even realize they are under consuming. So I think for those reasons, collagen is something to have. Yes!

Well, I'm probably not under consuming because I love the bone broth so much. But I was not aware that that's an issue for people. I mean, it's this, it's the laxity that people don't like, that I don't like, that is collagen deficiency and breakdown of collagen and elastin. Is elastin rebuilt too with collagen supplementation? Yes, with the elasticity.

And it comes in, it like signals the production of more collagen and elastin. And so it gives you that suppleness of that bounce back, that elasticity, and it also holds more water. And they've shown that it like decreases the depth of crow's feet. And these effects take about two months. And it's not even from topical collagen, it's from drinking it. Because we know if you can address beauty from within, address inflammation, that's another thing that glycine's great at, kind of counterbalancing that inflammation process. Yes, and also, like I said, joint pain. If anyone loves to play pickleball or sometimes doesn't get out of bed and want to work out

because they're not recovering as quickly. And bloating and gas, and this has also been shown in clinical trials to be improved. The symptoms are improved by collagen. So many things. It's like a Swiss army knife, like I said, of healthy aging. Well, and the glutathione, I think that's really, really interesting. I have really just decided that the primary enemy of aging is oxidative stress. You just got to get the oxidative state of the cell

to push it in the direction it doesn't wanna go. The way I think about it is, you know, that entropy is always increasing in the physical universe except with one exception and that is life. For a minute, entropy orders itself, but then it reasserts itself through oxidation. That's really how it's doing it. And I think we can just we push oxidation the other direction.

Glutathione is really one of those molecules that can do that. And when you mention inflammation, I immediately go to seed oils and things. And we are just, we're butter and beef tallow. That's it, period. But man, it's hard. The seed oils are in everything.

Oh my God, you can't, I have to, I've just gone down to oil and vinegar in my salads because you can't find a salad dressing without seed oil. Absolutely not. I know. Or garlic. Garlic. That's such a high-profile salad.

I have a sensitivity to garlic. I have a sensitivity, yes, I do. Really? Me too. You do too? I do too, it's impossible to eat out. Yeah, I bring our olive oil with us to restaurants. Let me tell you what, it's gonna get worse as you get older, Autumn, I'm sorry.

It really gets worse as you age because the enzyme in the brush border that metabolizes alliums just becomes more deficient as you age. It doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, and I think, Paolo, my big goal too, is I think we need to ban the use of seed oils in fryers,

because that is a well established body of literature for the dangers there. And so that's one of the things I think, restaurants just shouldn't be using it anymore. Cases of lung cancer are going in places like China in non-smokers. And their thinking is it's because they're dangerous. We know that seed oils at a high temperature

is carcinogenic. That's not something that is debatable. We just know it's so. And the fact there are somebody with some big organ, some big chain did switch to tallow recently was like Wendy's or something, but it's starting to happen. I think with RFK in there, sounding the alarm about these kinds of issues,

I think he will bring it around perhaps, hopefully. I think so too. I'm more hopeful than ever that that will be on our radio. Steak and Shake. Yes, Steak and Shake. Steak and Shake is the one that did it? Steak and Shake. Yeah, and we have a burger restaurant.

Have I missed anything? No. Yeah, keep, and we have a burger restaurant. Have I missed anything? No. Yeah, keep going. You have a burger restaurant you like? In Burger, no, in Boulder, we have a burger restaurant. That is seat oil free. We only use salad. So there's an option for the Denver area people as well.

In Boulder, of course. We're not all as lucky as to be enlightened like they are in Boulder. But have I missed anything? Was there other topics you wanted to get into? I could sort of get into stuff with you all day. Well, the only other thing I like to tell people is how to use it for best results.

And so when we want to improve collagen, tendon, we want to do it around a workout because they don't have a blood supply. So taking it pre-workout, awesome. Also taking it with a meal improves your blood sugar control. And then taking it before sleep actually drops your body temperature

and improves the quality of sleep, the depth of sleep. And then also it improves cognitive capacity the day after, even if you don't get great sleep. So that's just how I like to use it, our bone broth protein powder. And, but you can use it in other ways, of course. Would you get an adequate dose with a bar? Like let's say I use the powder in the morning

with my coffee, which I do, and the bars are sort of what come into mind later in the day. Is that kind of the way to do it? Is that okay? Or is that enough to end up bone broth here? Well, I always like to try to meet that glycine equivalent, you know, that 10 gram glycine.

I like to try to fill that. And so that's gonna look like for me to serve the bone broth protein powder, and then a bar. That will get you there. This is gonna have probably like three grams of glycine, and then you're gonna have more here, you know, seven grams or so.

So five to seven grams, depending on. It's interesting, your products, your products are really addictive once you get going with them. So thank you. They could be addicted to something worthwhile, good, healthy. But it took me a while to get the superfood bars going.

But once I was in it, I was like, oh, I'm all the way into this. Because first I didn't know what they were really. And then I read the label and I'm like, oh my goodness, this is like, this is a superfood bar, it truly is. And then when I forgot the bone broth, well, now we're all the way in.

I have to eat superfood bars. I miss my bone broth. And of course, whenever we went to the White House, Drew, that's when I had a stack of them in my backpack. That's what I ate all day. Tons of these Paleo Valley beef sticks and the venison sticks. Delicious, kept me going all day. I love to hear that.

You don't know, you can't imagine, I mean, not everyone is doing a lot of traveling like I do, but man, to have a nutritious option that carries with you, it's just so good. It really, it solves a million problems. And you feel better, you're sleeping better, you're paying, I try to pay attention to my nutrition and you feel like you're doing it by doing so.

All right, Autumn, again, we are grateful for all you've done with this. I hope it's catching on, it deserves to. These are great products. We are so, so, so- And there's more than just the bone broth, the beef tallow and the bars and the beef sticks. She has a whole line of products there

that you can check out. Oh, where do we go? PaleoValley.com? DrDrew.com slash PaleoValley. Okay. Is there some favorite there you've come upon? What do you want to tell people about? I'm still working with the foods.

Go ahead. Well, I really like if you're looking for more energy or something, our organ complex is awesome. It's nature's multivitamin in a capsule. So you don't actually have to eat organ meats, but you can still get all of their energizing benefits. And I also really like our vitamin C. It's a food-based vitamin C because most vitamin C is made from genetically modified corn. And this is just three super foods, Almond Berry, Camu Camu. And again, food has different reactions in the body. It has a synergy. It has like a magic. And

so we like to get all of our nutrients from food And so those are two of my other favorite products But we also have a super greens that won't make you bloated like other greens powders because they don't have seer grasses which Humans weren't designed to consume. So Those are some my fix. Well, I want to highlight the viscera idea because if particularly people on paleo are in carnivore It's really important to get those viscera nutrients in there for all of us really. And I know many people, I'm a big fan of viscera,

whether it's liver, heart, pancreas, you know, back in the day, it used to be these things called glandulars, the people you take a lot of. This is not that, this is just balancing out the vis, this nutrients in Vistra that again, back in the day, well, as you said, when we would eat nose to hooves, we would get these things.

We would get the pancreas, we'd get the brain and now you can take it in a pill. So there is the, Kayla was putting up the website. There's all the stuff, the tallow, I mean, no one should be without the tallow. They have an olive oil too. Oh, I didn't know that. Tell me about that.

She did? Oh, our olive oil. Is that what I'm using? Yeah, I love our olive oil. Yeah, it's actually like bottled fresh and it's a single source. It's a family farm in Greece, very clean and low levels of olive oil can actually contain

little leic acid, which is the omega-6, but it's far lower than most olive oils because most olive oils are diluted and cut with seed oils. And so the polyphenol content is really high. The flavor is incredible and I love it. Yeah, I cook, I use that for salads, soups, stews, and then I like to use the tallow for the high heat cooking because it's just a very stable fat. I also

use our tallow on our skin because we're all talking about detoxifying our beauty care routine. I add essential oil to tallow, rub it, people use it as deodorant with a little baking soda. You just use it as a skin moisturizer. People also rave about its benefits for your face. So it's kind of like a twofer. You get a body care product and a very stable high heat cooking oil. Interesting. Well, again, gratitude. Thank you for being in our life and you've enhanced our wellbeing and our health

and many things. So we appreciate all your doing. Almost got him arrested at the airport. Yeah, the dog was named Lucky. Lucky, Lucky find it. And we're like, good. They took his name down. They said, what is your name? Yeah, yeah dog was named Lucky. Lucky, Lucky find it. And we're like, good. They took his name down. They said, what is your name?

Yeah, yeah, they took everything down. He said something like, and so the dog gets credit for having found it or something. I'm like, oh, what is he talking about? He said, the dog gets credit. Interesting. The dog was so disappointed he didn't get to eat it. It was funny.

It was, yeah. I swear. I wanted Caleb to show the video. It was so cute. Oh yeah. Do you have the video of the dog? No, I don't have it, but I can try to get it set up. It's a little beagle dog, but the astonishing thing

was the guy that came up to us and was like, oh yeah, pay the value. He didn't know that's what we were dealing with, I don't think, did he? He sort of brought it up sort of spontaneously. I love my beef sticks. Did he see that I had to pull out a beef stick? Okay, that's it.

So there you go. All right, Autumn, thank you so much. We'll see you again very soon. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Joe and team, I really appreciate you. You got it. Cheers. All right. And Emily Barsh.

And Emily Barsh for helping us with the paleo. But we appreciate Autumn. I'm really, really, I'm there's, we have people in our life that I'm just so grateful we have and she is definitely one of them. All right, you're calling out tomorrow. Tell me about that. Speed dating?

Oh, we're going to have a comedian and eight women do a psychic speed dating show. We're going to try to create a spiritual love attachment. I don't know. We're going to, I don't know what you call it. I know a love, a love, what do you call it? A match. A love match, yeah.

So we're going to, we're going to see if we can find this guy, you know, a friend. Okay. And we're hoping, we're hoping it works out. We're going to have three psychics. So we're going to be working from every angle. If he finds a friend he really likes, you might have a whole bunch of guys

wanting to be in that seat. Yeah. So, all right. So that starts at 11 a.m. Pacific time, 2 p.m. Eastern, right? Susan? Yeah, my show's at 11 to 1 p.m. Pacific, which is, let's see, that's 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern.

2 p.m. to 4 p.m. 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern. And then we'll be on a 2 p.m., 5 p.m. Christ 4 p.m. 2 p.m. To 4 p.m. Eastern and will be on a 2 p.m. 5 p.m. Christy Meyer Michael Walsh Let's just do Pacific 11 to 1 Pacific and then 2 to 3 30 Pacific on Wednesday Viva Fryman to head Amanda head Peter Downing Clayton Baker Next week. He's written a really good book I love the book and we when we decide it's time to get Li Meng Yan back in here. She has been Spitting fire. She's the expert on China if anybody is

wolf and Coulter Simone Gold, can you go up from there Caleb? Because I know Jenny McCarthy is on for the six I know but we had to reschedule anything too far out now because people were right bailing on us We were gone for three. Yeah, They need to move around, it's fine. But our friends are, they reschedule, they don't just abandon us. So thank you for that. Well then they feel guilty, so.

So good, we get some credit. So, Caleb, anything on your front? Simone Gold coming in. Nope, I, well, other than we have Susan's show, and then I also wanted to show you this that I found pretty hilarious This was a news report that was in let's see I'll show it to you This was a headline about RFK says he's exploring a crackdown on this perfectly safe medication

This was featured in Huffington Post. So I just went on Huffington Post and I searched the word Ivermectin They have a whole section here This is just one page of the fruit what three to seven pages that they have about Ivermectin they have a whole section here This is just one page of the fruit what three to seven pages that they have about Ivermectin yet another Perfectly safe medication that they had nothing to say about the you know cracking down on that Hypocrisy yet again weird and what is he talking about? What is the perfectly safe medication? He's worried about Is it Ivermectin? No, it's not Ivermectin. I have to find what it was.

I think it was something to do. I think it was a- That's very weird. Well, I forget. I don't know how to pronounce the name. Very odd. Well, I don't know what that's all about. I know.

How does Drew remember all the names for all these medications, and he can say them perfectly? I've used them many, many, many, many, many times. It's bizarre. They gotta remember, I was seeing 40 to 60 people a day for 30 years, 20 years.

And so it's a lot of, it's sort of like speaking a language fluently. It's just automatic. You know, it's just in you. Yeah, Coco on YouTube. We're going to bring Jenny McCarthy in on the sixth. I hope. Was that Caleb?

I'm just impressed that now I know how to spell bodhicharya so well, instantly. I know how to spell bodhicharya so well, instantly. I know how to spell bodhicharya. I don't. I don't. Yeah. Likewise. We are still suffering jet lag weirdly.

It's just, I look tired. I can see that and I am. It's just a weird thing. But we could fully adjust it to European timeframe. Anything we're gonna say about the trip? It was great. Oh my gosh, it was so good. We saw a few different new places in Croatia and Italy.

And it looks like all these places are thriving. People are happy. Nobody cared about COVID. I didn't see any masks. We were in big groups of people everywhere and we didn't come back sick. It was like shocking. We're on an airplane. This guy was sneezing over my head and I was really worried I was going to get sick, but it was just so nice to see the, and then we were in Rome right after the new Pope came in. So that was kind of fun. That was lovely.

Yeah. And, and Rome was thriving and everybody seems good in New York. By the way, next time, just, just as a quick aside, next time the Pope mentions that there shouldn't be any walls, there shouldn't be any borders, there's freaking five-story walls around the Vatican everybody. There are guards in your face if you get near it. So please, please stop it. Unless you break down those walls, I don't want to hear a damn word about walls and borders. So there's that.

Well, let me quickly look at the- We saw the Sistine Chapel again, that was kind of cool. It was beautiful. But we saw the outside museum, we spent more time there, and that was good because usually you'll go into the Sistine Chapel and you kind of skip over all that part, but I enjoyed that a lot.

All right, I'm looking at your guys' comments. Thank you, Coco, for pointing out that I look tired, I agree, which is weird, so I don't feel that tired pointing out that I look tired. I agree. I don't feel that tired, but I do look tired. The one I told that Jen is coming on. She said you look exhausted. I know I'm going to go back to your clip about Biden after this cause drew totally went off at the beginning of the show. If you guys missed it, you need to go back. I want Caleb to-

Clip it? Yes. Okay. Because you know what? What if you do Caleb, lucky you. So, so. Yay. Get your AI out and do some work over there.

I'll get it. Get your AI, have your AI. I got to learn how to do that thing, that AI stuff. That AI clip. All right, listen, we got to wrap up. We will be in 11 a.m. tomorrow with Susan's show, 2 p.m. I'll see you at 11 a.m. Tomorrow with Susan show 2 p.m. Eastern and we're gonna have some fun with love. All right. We'll see you then

Ask dr. Drew is produced by Caleb nation and Susan Pinsky as a reminder the discussions here are not a substitute for medical care Diagnosis or treatment this show is intended for educational and informational purposes only. I am a licensed physician, but I am not a replacement for your personal doctor and I am not practicing medicine here. Always remember that our understanding of medicine and science is constantly evolving. Though my opinion is based on the information that is available to me today, some of the contents of this show could be updated in the future. Be sure to check with trusted resources in case any of the information has been updated since this was published. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, don't call me, call 911. If you're feeling hopeless or suicidal,

call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255. You can find more of my recommended organizations and helpful resources at DrDoo.com slash help.