Ask Dr. Drew - Ask Dr. Drew - Duncan Trussell - Episode 16

Episode Date: May 6, 2020

Ask Dr. Drew with Duncan Trussell: podcaster, comedian, and co-creator of Netflix's hit show The Midnight Gospel! Missed the live show? Get an alert next time Dr. Drew is taking calls: http://drdrew.tv • Duncan Trussell is the host of The Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast and creator of Netflix’s hit animated show The Midnight Gospel. Watch episode 1 of The Midnight Gospel to see Dr. Drew as a gun-toting, zombie-killing tiny president! More: http://duncantrussell.com/ Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Kaleb Nation (@KalebNation) and Susan Pinsky (@FirstLadyOfLove). THE SHOW: For over 30 years, Dr. Drew Pinsky has taken calls from all corners of the globe, answering thousands of questions from teens and young adults. To millions, he is a beacon of truth, integrity, fairness, and common sense. Now, after decades of hosting Loveline and multiple hit TV shows – including Celebrity Rehab, Teen Mom OG, Lifechangers, and more – Dr. Drew is opening his phone lines to the world by streaming LIVE from his home studio in California. On Ask Dr. Drew, no question is too extreme or embarrassing because the Dr. has heard it all. Don’t hold in your deepest, darkest questions any longer. Ask Dr. Drew and get real answers today. This show is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. All information exchanged during participation in this program, including interactions with DrDrew.com and any affiliated websites, are intended for educational and/or entertainment purposes only. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Our laws as it pertains to substances are draconian and bizarre. Psychopaths start this way. He was an alcoholic because of social media and pornography, PTSD, love addiction. Fentanyl and heroin, ridiculous. I'm a doctor for.

Say, where the hell you think I learned that? And you say, 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. 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 might help stop it.

I can help. I got a lot to say. I got a lot more to say. Hey buddy, welcome. Ask Dr. Drew. I'm very excited today to welcome my dear friend, Duncan Trussell. I'll get to him in just a second. I want to remind you, this episode is courtesy of Needle Destruction Device.

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I am going to sort of skip over, I think, the update on coronavirus today. I don't have much in the way of update from the University of Washington. Everything is essentially the same, though I am noticing on the data from COVID Tracking Project that there is a slow in cases in Texas, Georgia, and Tennessee. And these are states we need to all watch very carefully because they have elected to open up. And Georgia particularly opened up at exactly the wrong moment when their graphs were increasing. So if things continue to slow down there, either they're doing something right, then there's no difference between quarantining in place

and careful hand washing and masks and all that stuff, or the virus is backing off as the season develops here. Again, weird stuff going on in California. It's sort of a political nature. Maybe Duncan and I will get into that a little bit. But let me get right to the brains behind the Midnight Gospel on Netflix. I urge you to check it out now. It is one and only Duncan Trussell.

Hey, buddy. Hi. Hey, man. Hey, how are you doing? Great to see you. It is good to see you too. I mean that. You know, there's somebody on the stream here

called the Trickster Coyote, and it caught my eye because a coyote just crapped in my front yard after somebody drove in and scared the, literally scared the crap out of the coyote. It's on Twitter. It's on Twitter right now. Thank you, Susan.

But the trickster coyote also said, he or she, I don't know whether it's a he or a she, watched the eighth episode with your mom and sobbed uncontrollably, which has been a common reaction to that episode. That something? Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty amazing to me that somehow my mother ended up getting just spread around the entire planet. It's really, really one of the... It's weird. When did you do that podcast with her? So it's a mix of two podcasts.

One of them was probably three weeks before she passed away that's the one where she was really getting deeply emotional on on on life right yeah that's right and in the way only someone who's come to terms with the fact that they're gonna die can and by the way in a way do, I have to tell you. Because Susan, our producer and my wife, who I'm sure will like to ring in here right now, literally was sobbing. It's funny, but it's not.

She was right. She was sobbing. She's right. She's right. She's right. Uncontrollably. Uncontrollably sobbing. And went on for a while after that.

And I was deeply moved by your mom and the way you guys portrayed her. Did you feel good about it? Yeah, I couldn't believe it. This is the power of animation is that somehow they didn't, it's not like they filmed her. It's somehow by drawing her and translating what she was saying into art, it created, it brought her back to life in the most incredible way. It was one of the biggest moments of my life when I saw it for the first time, and it was just so wonderful, yeah. And what was the guy's name,

sort of the brains behind it? That's Pendleton Ward. Pendleton Ward. And was Pendleton the guy with the beard that would sort of ring? You and I were doing voiceover stuff, and he'd ring in and go, how about you try it like this? And he'd be exactly right.

He'd be like, okay, okay. And I ran into him in the parking lot. You and I did a podcast later. I ran into him in the parking lot that day, and I told him how much I enjoyed just seeing him work and what a genius I thought he was and how he just knew the right notes all the time to strike. And he just sort of shook his shoulders like, thanks. But it really is extraordinary what that guy can do.

Yeah, I am so lucky I got to work with him and watch the way that he not just draws and the way he looks at art but the way he's such a great director his ability to work with people and you know artists are eccentric I mean that that is a true stereotype and so learning how to connect with all of them and how to you know he's empower them because Pendleton is essentially worshipped because of Adventure Time and people recognize what a genius he is and so it'd be easy for him to create some hierarchy you know like to do like a what Kubrick did or whatever when he was making films that that kind of thing where like he's like the emperor of the production but instead he created an honest, equal collaboration with everybody, and it was really cool to watch.

He reminds me of Seth MacFarlane, not in terms of style, but in terms of his ability to – have you ever been over to Family Guy? Seth is involved with everything, and he sits in – just like Pendle did it. He sits in on all the voice work. He's there adjusting Stewie, you know, adjusting, you know, Stewie shoulder, if it's not in the right place and coming up with the new story, it's, it's, it's incredible. Yeah, it's incredible.

And especially when it comes to animation, it's such a, the field itself is just, it's crazy that they're, you know, when it, before I did this, I would watch an animated show and think, God, it sucks, or roll my eyes at it, having no idea how much work goes into every two seconds, how many weeks are in every frame. It's just an incredible art form. Somebody is actually yelling on the restream, for the love of all that is holy, and I don't know what this is about, Duncan, so forgive me if I'm opening up something problematic. Ask Duncan about NASA Jim. Oh, my God. Yeah.

I don't know. A lot of times people say that I had some involvement in some kind of viral YouTube video that popped up related to the last words of a dying NASA scientist. Some people got really into it and I guess they somehow have, you know, decided I, me, Duncan Trussell, like I would go on YouTube and create some kind of fictional YouTube account about a dying NASA scientist revealing revealing aliens i'm sorry dr drew you know me i'm a professional i would never do a thing like that block that person what's super ironic to me what's super ironic to me is that you're such a lover you you have but you have an uncanny affection for conspiracy theories so here you go have that well yeah yeah i don't even

i don't know what it did block that person and mute them and have their have their account deleted all right i'm gonna block them that's what me to do no don't really hold on hold on i'm just following directions sir so so talk about how this happened to you how midnight Midnight Gospel happened. I didn't even know what the story was behind it, how this came to be. Well, in the early, I was podcasting when you still had to tell someone what a podcast was in the early days of podcasting. And this was still the early days. And I think we knew that it was doing, that podcasting was beginning to grow into something maybe we didn't expect it to but i was still not i guess the way to put it i was just looking at it as something exciting that i did and i i couldn't imagine that someone like pendleton ward was listening to it but he just

reached out to me via email one day and said he enjoys the podcast and we started to become friends and at some point after he left Adventure Time, he said that he had an idea for the a way to turn my podcast into a cartoon and my heart leapt in my chest. It was it seemed like it was going to be this. I mean, it's what how cool to you know work with him. Oh my god. And so, we went we went to coffee and we talked for a little bit. And at the end of that, he said to me, I don't think I have time to do this. And I, my, I was so, I tried to act cool about it. I'm like, no problem, man.

You know, but then I heard from him a couple of years later and he said, let's do it. And so we started developing this idea, which started off with a concept of what happens if you replace the dialogue of Indiana Jones with podcast dialogue. What? How would that work? Yeah. Well, that was ideas like, you know, if you take like the kind of conversations people have on a podcast. Yeah. Oh, I see.

I see. You know what I mean? Like they're going on an adventure during the podcast, which is exactly which was our zombie adventure. That's exactly right. Yeah, that was it is, you know, some there's something funny and also something sometimes really poignant about people having podcast conversations in the midst of an apocalypse. That's what that's what we grew the

concept into crazy. I could not when you first asked me to come in and do some work i could not i could not figure out what you were talking about you're like yeah man my podcast they're making a cartoon of my podcast don't worry about it just show up that's so funny because i was dr drew i was googling to see if i could find anywhere where you said fuck because we had curse words in the script and I'm like I don't know does he curse does Dr. Drew curse and I couldn't find I couldn't find I found one thing on Corolla that was barely a curse but then I we were so thrilled when you just dove right into it and didn't censor yourself I don't know I just just did what you

guys told me so yeah but you did great you did great man you're it was really there you are it was really glasses man it's the best oh my god it's so crazy it's so wild but but um and by the way it it, it was an uncanny reflection of my life at the moment, frankly. Susan, you want to fill that out a little bit? What, shooting zombie trolls? Yeah, batting zombies off. That seemed to be what my life had become recently. You needed the first lady there with the gun, too.

Are you on? Are you doing another one? Are you going to do it again? We don't know. I hope so, but we don't know. If you do, please do use at least some of the Rogan podcasts that you were on last week. I was thinking about, I was thinking while you were, while I was listening to it, I was thinking about what it would look like to visualize some of the stuff you guys were saying. I mean, certainly out of three and a half hours, you can find something to animate.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's for sure. I mean, to be fair, an hour and 20 was talking about shitting on people and how and how assholes should be our new fingerprints. Now I get it. Hold on. Susan, Susan, this hope for the last is keeps texting. Talk about shit with Dr. Drew.

And I didn't know why she was saying that. And I was trying to be polite. I had no idea. So it's really confusing. Now I get it. You're getting that from the rogan podcast where he was talking about like fetishes and that turned into the idea and a half hour on uh the puppet you know the the matt and trey puppet movie um oh yeah yeah it was a

great podcast by the way thank thank you for that thank you uh thanks for reminding me i get so stoned on those things that i've sometimes i don't remember what we talked about like this i'm like i'm remembering now oh yeah do you guys get high together and do it is that what happens yeah we get stoned before the pot i like it's and i always forget because joe has i mean obviously marijuana is legal in california yeah but whatever marijuana Joe has is, I don't know what it is. It's so powerful and it sneaks up on you. You know what's interesting? It's funny we're discussing this because I was thinking about Joe and cannabis and how it doesn't seem, some people like their brain is sort of galvanized.

Like pot, they just get high. It has no really adverse effect on them. And you can't even tell Joe's high really when he's high. I can't tell. And other people, if they get high like that, it screws them up for a couple of days or it stops them in their place. And it's kind of interesting, isn't it? Yeah. Well, don't you think that has something to do with tolerance? You know, if you are smoking marijuana for the first time and you aren't aware of the fact that marijuana has become so powerful that just barely a hit is probably going to be enough to send you close to the edge yeah you know versus if you if you have a tolerance then eventually smoking marijuana but the state of being stoned

just becomes normal life it explains some of the conspiracy stuff you were getting into that you were high because you got way deep into some stuff about the cia oh shit that's right you know because that's a game so that's a game sometimes when i'm on his podcast because i love reddit conspiracy i know and i it's so it's such a great website. But also, sometimes in Joe, just so everyone was Joe's not in the CIA. No, he's a comic I've come up with. He's not just not. But I know sometimes I try to entrap him. So that you internet conspiracy theorists are like, holy shit, Joe's in the CIA. So that that was all I was trying to do and then he caught me

and basically turned the tables on me he's like you're in the cia that's right but so i didn't it didn't work this time but still on twitter of course i've been getting the occasional tweet from people being like well well well it's the show for the cia it's like no i'm not i'm not smart enough to be in the fucking cia used you filled out an application yeah but i filled out you can fill out an application for anything it doesn't mean you're gonna get in you know and we gotta i i'm pretty sure that someone in the cia posted on my message board because it was this long message on my red my subreddit it was this long message of like and it started off with i'm not in the cia and then it

was followed by the most brilliant breakdown of the different intelligence services and you know what he's studying some kind of something like isometric isolateral warfare and you know he's like if any if you or any of your fans want to really understand what is going on in the field of intelligence ask here it's like that's the cia and they're trying to like and he was really up front he's like look i know you and joe are comics even right now the president doesn't like no one seems to understand what we're doing but i just want to set it straight it was really well written too yeah i mean i think but i don't know if the person's well well, he probably is. I've met lots of CIA agents over the years and they're usually super nerdy

guys. Like they're not, they're not the 007 by any mean. They're guys you would never pick out of a crowd. Right. Yeah. Well, that's the idea, isn't it? I mean, they are like, let's face it. The CIA is creepy.

They have a really warped history and God only knows what they're doing these days. But they're also it's fascinating. And I, you know, if I met a CIA agent, I wouldn't run away or anything. It'd be cool to like at least have lunch with them. Here are people saying Joe Rogan Experience is a CIA program. So I

if I've never been on Joe's podcast, I'm such a fan of his. I'm so mortified that I've not been. I guess I'd have to get high if I went on there, right? You don't smoke pot. Well, if it meant the Joe Rogan experience, maybe that would be the environment I'd do it. That would be amazing, Dr. Drew. I think that that's the angle is you go on there and you smoke weed for theoretically the first time.

I don't know if you smoke pop here's the problem not since college and it gave me panic attacks back then so i could just imagine what would happen now with the power of this stuff what were you panicking about nothing it just would open it opened that circuit it does that's it's known to do that it just causes panic attacks they're very uncomfortable they're miserable miserable. But anytime I've had a panic, we talked about this on the roof of the White House. Anytime I have a panic attack on marijuana, we were fighting zombies. Don't you remember? That's why I brought it up. You know, whenever I get paranoid, usually the paranoia is attached to something that's a

legitimate life concern that i have it's a it's not like i'm just having a panic attack with no thought patterns that are telling me what's wrong usually there's some thing that i haven't dealt with and that's the reason the panic attack is happening i i get that that's not me it literally is just lightning bolt out of the blue it just opens that circuitry for me. Now, to be fair, I have much less anxiety generally these days, although lately I've had a bit more, but generally less. And so maybe I wouldn't.

Maybe I wouldn't have a pack attack. I don't know. I've always been afraid to use it ever since because I seem to have had – and I didn't like it either. That's the other thing. You like it. Well, yeah. I mean, so – yeah, and I didn't like it either. It's the other thing. You like it. Well, yeah, I mean, so, yeah, and I love it.

But, you know, when I was, years ago, I went to this wonderful psychedelic conference where there's actual psychiatrists and doctors who are working in all the different fields that are opening up right now because they've stopped the prohibition of studying not just marijuana, but most psychedelics. I could sit here.

Yeah, and he was telling me that they hope that at some point they'll be able to scan your DNA and tell you statistically what psychedelics might work for you and what psychedelics might not work for you. That makes sense to me. That makes sense to me as something that would be appropriate and might work. I like that. What's that organization called? I've interviewed many people, including some of the lead physicians from that. What's it called again? It's got three letters. I like that. What's that organization called? I've interviewed many people, including

some of the lead physicians from that. What's it called again? It's got three letters. MAPS. MAPS. Yeah, MAPS. It's MAPS. Yeah. No, it's a great organization. It's very interesting. I actually was going to do a documentary about it at one point. I'm fascinated by it. I'm fascinated by the therapeutic use of hallucinogens. I can't recommend it yet because we just don't have enough science, but I really feel like that's going to have utility one day. I do. Well, you know, that was,

that was, I was going to say when we first met, I was so ready to get into a fight with you on my podcast because I thought that your stance on psychedelics was going to, or in marijuana, was going to be completely different than what it actually is and i remember sitting in your office you your desk was stacked with medical journals that were related to addiction and to marijuana and i realized oh he's a scientist he's just he just he just goes off of what the current data out there seems to be indicating and you're not anti or for that was a really cool moment for me i really love that about you is that you know though i disagree with you and i think it's wonderful and i highly recommend marijuana if it doesn't freak you out but i totally we need

people like you who are just you know looking at what the data sets that are out there interpreting them in a rational way and i think that's really frustrating for some people because you know i you know most scientists when they give an answer it usually isn't a this is right or this is wrong it's just an interpretation of data yeah it's logical we're observing here's what we're seeing in it may not be a complete picture of reality it may not be accurate but here's what we see. And that's it for me. And that's why even in the cartoon, you remember I was going over something that I feel very strongly about, which is that people try to vilify molecules, which I think is the most bizarre thing in the world. Like LSD, bad molecule.

No humans should touch this. What? That's bizarre. There's no such molecule. It humans should touch this. What? That's bizarre. There's no such molecule. It doesn't exist. But there are things about what happens to humans when they take it or the relationship they develop with it that we should be clinically concerned with, but not because the molecules has a good or bad. Think about that. Putting a moral stamp on a molecule. Think how bizarre that is yeah that's bizarre right yeah it's bizarre and it's no one's fault i mean we were we this isn't a conspiracy theory we did just go through

a government-sponsored propaganda program called the war on drugs where people didn't have data on these substances because they stopped the studies but they were still putting out there that all drugs were the same this is your brain this is your brain on drugs that's what it's like and a lot of that stuff was propaganda and completely not based on any data sets other than like watching someone shit their pants and eat it in a woodstock video you know and that's one person you can't therefore say lsd is evil but yeah i would say that person's having an adverse reaction just the way i would say if somebody had a you know hypertensive crisis from some antidepressant medicine or something or serotonin syndrome yeah that's shit that happens because we are

physiological yeah yeah and you that's a frustrating response because it's not sensationalist that's the thing like people like me who are sitting late at night watching tv we want to get freaked out man and so when a doctor comes out and just says yeah you know it's so this is a response and we don't really or even how about this answer we don't know yet yeah there's not enough data yet that kind of stuff people like me it pisses us off because it's like i want to see the ufos i want the proof i want to know what's right and wrong so you know i think that's one of the must be one of the rough parts of your tv being a tv doctor is you're always being met by some disappointment or people trying to make what you say and sensationalize it yeah you

know what i mean because Because that sells tickets. Yeah. Duncan, you're hitting the nail right on the head. They either project something onto me where they're reading my mind, right? They are reading my motivation, which is never accurate. They never get that right. Somehow it's inconceivable that somebody could just want to use media to try to help, try to be good.

Number one. And then number two, I select the things I say very, very, very carefully. And if you take a piece out of what I said, it's wrong. It can always be wrong because I always qualify and follow with things like, you know, make sure you check this, make sure you look at that. Because I know just the way information science is, you can never be right all the time. You just try to be as accurate as possible and always qualify it with other sources of

information. What's going on over here? I feel like there's a whole... She's going to screen some calls. Oh, okay. Susan's going to go screen some calls. She was crawling up behind the computer here and it felt like the whole world was coming undone.

So lots of really interesting people are attracted in here today by you, Duncan, and I appreciate that. I'm looking at some of the comments and they're thoughtful and they're good. Give them a little bit on your theory on hallucinogenics and the insight that can be garnered from them and how you also have to do the hard work that follows, if that makes sense. Okay. Is that a viable question? Sure. Yeah.

Yeah, I think so. I mean, first of all, not to be a complete psychedelic nerd, but even the term hallucinogenics is a little blurry these days. And so we've, but that makes sense because, you know, it's an evolving science when it comes to understanding psychedelic therapy and ways that you can use it to treat PTSD, end-of-life depression. So I like the term empathogen a lot, which is usually used for MDMA, which is this is a thing that opens your heart. And let me sort of punctuate what you're saying. So MDMA has been approved for couples

therapies. Acid and mushroom, psilocybin, are both being used for what's called end-of-life dread, which I'm convinced if I were young and had some sort of end-of-life diagnosis, I think I would need to use something like that. And it really works. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it does. It's a, you know, these substances, I'm going to give you the hippie answer. I'm sure you can give the neurological answer for what's happening. Cause you know, sometimes I fall, I fall into the trap of trying to give neurological answers when I don't understand that shit at all. Well, you do, you have some understanding, have some a little bit you know i've had friends explain the synaptic cleft to me and i think it's a cool term but i don't

really understand it but to me i know anecdotally that anytime that i've found myself in a place where i'm depressed where i'm stuck uh and certainly a lot of that is, for me, has been linked to trauma on stuff I haven't dealt with, that psychedelics have either brought that trauma to the forefront, and challenged me to deal with it. And if I deal with it, then there's some remission of the anxiety and depression that was related to that. But if you don't deal with it, if I didn't, you have a bad trip. So that's, I think a lot of times when people are taking a psychedelic, suddenly they don't realize that what they're dealing with is trauma. They're dealing with some, yeah, you know. Well, I've talked to some of these people that call themselves shamans that give people these trips with the plants, plant-based stuff.

And they believe the plants, I forget the language they use but but it's a language i'm not familiar with and it's essentially saying that the plants bring the trauma forth to be looked at in a different way is that does that make sense that you you can well get at it different yeah i you know that that's another you know another thing i've learned about over the course of my podcast is that there's people who call themselves shamans. That's an easy thing to do. As far as I'm aware, there's no supportive certification for shamans, but then there's actually shamans, which is, you know, a tradition of medicine in South America, all over the

planet and many indigenous cultures. It's very similar to the role of a midwife and it's not just related to psychedelics it's related to all plant medicines and yes i think depending on the particular lineage of shamanism there's various explanations for why the healing happens and some of it seem reminds me a little bit of um uh what it what's it called uh when you get the acupuncture that it's a different energetic model than the current one that you use which and i think it's kind of based on this idea that darkness ends up getting stuck in you like we're a sponge for everything and if we soak up really dark shit it sticks with us in some physical way and the plant medicine and like

pushes it out of you it like somehow and that's just their model i mean right whether that's true or not no you're right but that's the kind of language they use right it's not it's not a language that i i can make sense of but that is the way they describe these things those sorts of things and uh you know the other thing is you thing is, in addition to trauma, the other thing is, and this is more the end of life stuff, is it connects you to, it gives you a, it shuts down your sense of self and connects to you something bigger than yourself. That be an accurate way to say it? That's right. Yeah. That's an accurate way to say it.

And that connection is, I think, innately healing. So whether has a mystical experience and it's amazing to see the mystical experience being broken down into the language of science because they have to do that because you know it's a people people keep returning this report of contacting god and if you look at these studies it's so funny to see the scientific like here are 10 aspects of the mystical experience on mushrooms. It seems really dry, but it's a translation from, you know, the language of poetry and religion into the language of quantification that science requires. So people could understand, but in general, they just say, if you, if you end up talking to God on mushrooms, the odds are you're going to quit smoking, which is pretty cool.

I want to look into this. I'm thinking about doing some sort of documentary or something where we do scans and see what's actually changing in people's brains and see whether it persists, that kind of thing. There's a lot of people doing this out there. I know that. And so I feel like we kind of have to figure out what's going on because people are doing it. You know what I mean? Also, somebody brought up the issue of ketamine who would have thought the ketamine is now a significant treatment for depression that no one I mean this is again this is where this is what's so exciting about this particular field is we're discovering all of these that these chemicals have so many uses particularly ketamine it's so magical in

the sense that it's not just used for treating depression. It's been used as an anesthetic for how long? How long has it been used for putting people under? It's like a- For a long time. Yeah, all over the planet. Yeah, it's used primarily in adolescents because they tend to, for whatever it is about the adolescent brain, it responds better to this stuff as an anesthetic.

It's called a dissociative anesthetic. It puts you sort of out of body and disconnects you from everything. Sometimes adults find that unpleasant. In the doses they use for the depression, there's different things. There's a nasal spray and there's also an infusion that you can get. People do not report adverse. I've not seen any reports of adverse experiences from that. And damn, sometimes it really works for depression.

Worked for me. You had a formally treat or you did it on your own? Yeah, formally treated. Wow. You know, with a dose of intermuscular ketamine. I think that my experience is not what the research is showing generally people need like five five or six of these sessions mixed in with therapy but for me one one seemed to do the trick and uh to you know i'm not saying this isn't a miracle cure anything like that but having suffered from depression my

whole damn life uh whenever i you know i would get depressed the way i get a cold you know where it's like here we go the difference being with a cold you're like this is going to be a month with depression you're like i don't know how this could be a year this could be two years unless i go you know get antidepressants which i don't like because i can't come on them at least the ones that i've tried and so this uh this ketamine it was the damnedest thing to suddenly in the afternoon after the treatment to begin to experience the remission of the symptoms of my depression which are usually just absolute numbness tiredness not wanting to do anything you know just a just a low level despair. And it was, it just, it didn't fix it.

I don't want to say that fixed it. That would be ridiculous, but it did. It, I don't know. It did something that no, and yeah, that's the word for it. Got me over the hump. How, how long did it last? Well, you know, I, because I haven't gotten depressed since then. I mean, I, I'm not to say that I don't get like completely stressed out and blue or weird or whatever,

but I have not experienced any depression after that. So I don't know, man. If it's placebo, I'll take the placebo. Fuck depression. It's the worst. It is the worst. I know it exceeds placebo efficacy. So believe me, it's not typically placebo is the worst i know the it it exceeds placebo efficacy so believe me it's not typically placebo that's for sure um let's talk about other fun things if you don't mind

um your son is doing well yeah thank you for asking today he started man he's really talking every day it's new words but today i taught him how to say so he's saying he's been saying that and it's the greatest thing to hear he loves it he recognizes the power of that sound oh my gosh okay here's let me get a call in here duncan here we go i got more well let me ask before i get the calls um you have you done any drunk histories lately? Well, we we. Yes, I did. I don't know how much I can talk about it, but I know that it got the production got halted because of COVID.

So they were shooting it. I was going to go watch them on the day of the shoot. I couldn't because I haven't simultaneously. Yeah. How come he didn't let me drink with you? I'm so pissed off about that. I know. You know what? I can't give it away. There's actually a

reason that it doesn't involve a rejection of you because I know Derek loves you and I love you and like just getting drunk with Dr. Drew, it was really a highlight of my life. To get drunk with Duncan was a highlight of mine and talk about dolphins. And then having Shiri Appleby play the scientist was especially ironic, I thought.

She's so good. I'm a huge fan of Unreal. And if people don't know it, I believe that it was Duncan Trussell's original drunk history about Tesla that made drunk history a series. I really believe that. It's online. You can find it. Just look up Duncan Trussell, drunk history, Tesla, and you will see the best drunk history ever, ever done. But it almost destroyed you. It almost killed you, but it really was a great drunk history. That one seemed intense. After that one, they had to do a nurse like because i got so drunk because we didn't know absinthe had the alcohol content

at so and i was trying to look cool so that's a recipe for death that was death that was not no uh and what else have we done together uh we've done the cartoon we've done the drunk histories did we do anything else their television together well my our podcast but other than that no television i'm so happy we became friends though you're like one of my favorite hollywood friends i need when i was younger i never expected i'd be friends with you but you know i look i don't want to be cheesy or whatever but i hope people give you a goddamn break. No offense for those Christians in the listening crowd, but you're a sweet human being. And, you know, I know there's not a million years you would ever want to hurt anybody. And so I'm sorry that you're in the midst of some maelstrom right now, because being your friend, having been to your house,

you're such a, you know, a, you know, before midnight gospel, you're so generous and you're like, I don't know. I just, I hope people give you a break because you didn't mean that, you weren't trying to hurt anybody. You just wanted to help. No, I was worried about exactly what's happening. I was worried that we'd end up with numbers like the flu,

which is what has happened, and that we would create a huge panic and, you know, cause untold damage other ways, which it looks like we're happening. And we got weird shit going on in California where the governor is in some sort of power struggle with local authorities and whether a beach should be open. It's really bizarre, don't you think? Yeah. I mean, also, might I just add just add remember I text you told me that it was okay to do shows you were wrong but I'll tell you what that's okay because you're allowed to be wrong you're you know what I mean you weren't saying that it's not like you flipped a coin and you were like yeah Duncan you can go do shows I know you and I know that you were looking at all

the data out there and we were all looking at it. It seemed like you could. Let me tell you what I based that on. I talked yesterday to the head, the clinical director of the Department of Health for LA County. And I said to her, I said, throughout human history, throughout medical history, quarantine was something you did to people who were sick. You quarantined sick people. Never before had a population been quarantined or asked to shelter in place. Do you know where that idea came from? Any idea? A 14-year-old high school student in New Mexico in 2006 did a science project where she concluded that shutting down schools would help reduce transmission of pandemics. Her father then built a computer program that helped reinforce that.

This is an entirely new idea. And the clinical director admitted to me that we don't know that there's a difference between hand washing and masks and social distancing and quarantining. We don't know there is a difference between those two to this date. So when I told you it was okay to do shows, I was talking about, but maintain social distance and wear your mask and all that good stuff. But literally at this moment,

we don't know that quarantine is actually more effective than that. Isn't that crazy? There you go. That's why people get mad at you because you're not supposed to say that you're not supposed to know, but you're, but you can't you, you, you, you're not because it, because the ID, because there, here's the reason number one, there's so many parallel ideas that are happening at the same time. We don't every say every single day I pendulum from thinking to myself, well, I hope they do martial law.

I'm terrified. I don't want to have a stroke. I don't know what this is. I don't want to like some kind of insanity where I'm like, I'm just going to run naked outside. I don't care. And, you know, because it just depends on what you're watching. And I think people are feeling a justified frustration and the last thing you want to feel when there's a pandemic is frustrated confusion which i think is what any if you're not experiencing that then you're probably at a

reptile you're probably in the illuminati that's why here's what i'd recommend to you and to everybody is rather than run naked down the street, just listen to the CDC. That's who you listen to. They're the most reasoned body out there. They're going to be a little conservative, but that's their job. They should be that. And they get us through this. They never recommended a quarantine. They never did.

Really? The governors decided to do that. And my feeling on that is, fine, it will work. I'll sign up for it on behalf of being a good citizen on behalf of one another we should do it and it did work it really worked in california but it was not the cdc's explicit recommendation at least i never saw them make that recommendation maybe somebody can check fact check me on that i could be off but even now when you go to the website they're not recommending quarantine they're recommending hand washing masks safe distance that's what they're recommending so when the

governor freaks out about beaches guess what there's almost zero out of 350 cases in china there's one case of of it being transmitted out of doors and and there's good evidence now that it dies in sunlight so the best place you could be is outside in the sunlight, wearing a mask six feet away from somebody. Indoors, wearing a mask six feet away, worst place you can be. So to sort of come down on beaches, that is not science.

That is not science. I wish they made us wear masks over our stomachs too because I feel fat at the beach. That would be so cool to finally be able to wear a onesie and be like, I'm being safe. Dustin, I did not say it was not transmissible human to human. I said there had been one case out of 350 documented in China of out-of-door transmission. One case. And the CDC director here last Thursday, a week and one ago said he had zero evidence of out of door transmission.

That was his quote. So again, fact check me and all that. You're happy to do it. And you Tony says, I have a buddy at the CDC is that they are very conservative with this. Yes, they are very conservative. That's their job to get us through this safely. Look, I was alongside Anthony Fauci during the AIDS epidemic and we were all championing we were chanting that there were

going to be 10 million dead people and those people changed their behavior ended up being more like 175 000 we were off by a factor of a hundred and we congratulated and we congratulated ourselves for that because do you know the reason i got on the radio was Fauci? Do you know that? No, I had no idea. It was early 1980s. I was deep in the working in the AIDS epidemic, and it was the most horrific experience you could ever imagine. Everybody was dying, and Fauci was saying, we got to get on the radio. You got to get out there and teach.

You got to get out there and tell everybody to change their behavior. And so I took that very seriously, and when I had a chance to go on the radio, that's what I talked about this thing that we had just stopped calling grids and now we're starting to call aids uh we didn't have we had htlv3 if you remember that we had barely causative agents and stuff like that very interesting well let's go to some calls here my friend here we go uh here we go we're gonna talk a little psychedelics from uh dean dean what's going on buddy hi dean hey man how are you guys that's going great um so i'm just calling in from massachusetts uh i'm an art student and um i love everything they got doing that show first of all

fucking amazing thank you sorry i'm not sure if i'm supposed to curse. No, go ahead. You can curse. It was fucking amazing. It really was truly amazing. When I saw it, I was... Duncan, I'm having a hard time not calling you Clancy now. That's how... I'm not kidding. I was sort of taken away by it. You can call me Clancy. You don't know how much I

appreciate that, though. The development of that character in the show entirely, holy crap and i i've listened to what you said on broken and shit and i just want to say that you're probably i mean you are so right about how it is to make a video game i've been involved with making video games in the past at my school over the past three years and it goes hard the whole time. I bet. But you know what? Yeah. Yeah.

But going into the question I was going to ask, I want to know, do you think psychedelics help people regain compassion or maybe some kind of understanding that the status quo may block people from being able to see? Dean, that's a profound question. I'm going to put you back in the queue. You can listen to the answer. I know Duncan has a lot of strong feelings about this. Go ahead.

Well, I think in Buddhism, there's a concept called fundamental goodness. And it's essentially the idea that humans are good, that every single person, it's such a dumb way to describe it, but we're all, oh man, this's such a dumb way to describe it but we're all oh man this is such a dumb way to describe i'm sorry to all buddhists it's like we're all the we're all iphones they have too many apps running in the foreground and a lot of those apps are the different experiences we've had throughout our lives, the expectations we have for the way things are going to be,

and all the judgments we have that are not really necessarily based on the way things are, but the way they used to be when we were more impressionable than we are now. And so we end up getting covered with all this static, but underneath it is a kind of primordial state, which as one of its qualities is just instantaneously compassionate. So I think that psychedelics have the potential to turn all your apps off for a moment so that you experience sort of what you are as you are before even language.

And I think that state is generally a compassionate state. And do a little primer on your elevator analogy and other forms of enlightenment. Oh, right. Well, this is a, you know, if you go back and read Ram Dass writing about what it was like when he was at Harvard and when they were experimenting with LSD, they were getting really frustrated because they were having these profound experiences but they weren't able to stay in that space they kept coming down that was the problem that's how much they loved lsd a lot of people think ramdas went to india because he thought drugs were bad or he's finding a new path or something like that and he it was because he was tired of coming down and he was tired of having

these incredible mystical experiences but then in a few days suddenly being solidified back in his identity and so the analogy he uses an elevator that um psychedelics can be like an elevator that takes you into this incredible party so the door is open, there's this beautiful landscape, but then it takes you back down, and you're back to who you were. And so, the idea, the question is, do we even need these substances to achieve that state? And I think, you know, Ram Dass and much of what he teaches is like, actually, the psychedelics are pale in comparison to what's possible through other, you know, practices. Somebody's asking, do I think compassion is something more than the functioning of our mirror neuron system?

So Mark is asking, does compassion exist outside of brain? And, you know, I'm a physicalist, naturalist, and I do believe that it's all a human experience, but that I believe there's a value in it above its biological basis. And I believe that value may be something interesting and transcendent, and it's interesting to think about it. Right? Think about it, right? There's ways to think about the nature of the thought, the epistemology, and the oncology, the oncological aspects of it. What is its existence? Well, Dr. Drew, one of the things you talk about in Midnight Gospel, which I love, and we've talked about it privately, is the connection between people. Yeah. Right?

That. I think compassion, maybe it lives in that connection between people. Right? That. I think compassion, maybe it lives in that connection. And that connection naturally is outside of you in the sense that you're connected to another person. So you could say, yes, compassion is in the connections. I think most important human experiences, including consciousness, I don't want to get too deep in this. You and I have had other podcasts about that. Maybe it'll be a future midnight gospel.

But I think it all happens between and amongst people. Important things. Meaning of life, your very self-function, compassion, love, all these things is about humans in social connectedness with other people. And the deeper we are open and available for that, the more meaningful it is and the more nourishing it can be.

Is that about a good way to describe it? Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a great way to describe it. And I think psychedelics have the ability to illuminate that connection. It's always there, but something about the psychedelic

can show it to you in this way that you forgot. And it's easy to forget. Well, and psychedelics has a little different piece too. It's also, there is a transcendent something that we're all part of too, that I don't know is or is not social or, I don't know. But that's a part that's harder to get into into your day in,, day-out life.

Amanda, you have a question. Go ahead. Oh, my gosh. Hi. Hi. Dr. Drew, love you so much. Thanks, Amanda. Since the late 90s.

Been a fan for years. Just wanted to say your wife was super nice on the phone. She's awesome. She is awesome. Thank you. phone she's awesome yay and um but thank you yeah so my question and then uh wanted to yay um i want to thank duncan for his openness and everything going on but um i'm a long-winded person i'll just get to the point of my question sort of i guess i was just going to ask was that um basically i've dealt with like depression, over the years and struggled with minor depression, anxiety, and panic attacks ever since, like, I've just had a lot of tragedy over most of my life. things that your mom's um your mom's house i listen to that um all that too uh how comedy how

i just never i deal with where i get sad instead of laughing things off and i'm just wondering like what could help because sometimes i get stuck in triggers yeah where i get real like sad and panic attacky are you and anxiety and everything going on. Amanda, how old are you? I'm 41. Are you on any medication? I'm 41. Any medication? No. Okay.

No, I lost my mom when I was seven, and my dad died of cancer when I was like 20. Okay, we'll struggle with this because it's an interesting question. A lot of your mom's house stuff I was doing initially with After Dark was examining comedians. And they always had trauma. Like, they always have trauma in the background. And how comedy solved that. They usually, most of them had a moment where they got hooked.

Like, you know, I was 19. I went on open mic. And that laughter, you know, pulled me into some transcendent experience that I had to have more of. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, I know a lot of comics, it's that it's for them. That's one of the only times they don't feel crazy is when they're in front of a group of strangers, which is implicitly insane. Right. That's that's crazy. yeah that's gonna be crazier hold on there and it's a group of it's a group of strangers who are signaling aggression which is what primates do they smile when they're feeling aggressive and then they have a collective discharge of mirth which we have no idea what that

really is and that's when comedians feel alive yeah it's it's true. But then a lot of them don't have that kind of, you know, I guess you could say stereotypical schmaltzy sort of like mystification of it. They just love doing it and they love the evolution of it. You know, comedians are all different for sure. Most of them that I've run into do have some kind of brutal thing in their past that is shaping a lot of their life philosophy and stuff. And I think the alchemy of it is so incredible in the sense that they're alchemizing their trauma into something that is making people feel laughter. But damn, I don't know if that solves a problem for them. I think it's a temporary fix which is why sadly you know we lose comedians a lot you know it's a job where i've i've lost uh god i've lost two friends to who have been comedians one to a drug overdose and one to suicide and they were brilliant and they were

funny so i don't know that they're getting on stage was necessarily the balm that was you know healing them but it does create a temporary distraction from pain when you're on stage that's for sure brody you're talking about yeah brody yeah and he was brilliant he was so funny so funny he's got some of my favorite jokes of all time but you know i think that when your question there's like a there's a inside the question is a really great question which is how do i fix this like how do i fix the suffering how do i fix my pain is there and is there a way to just fix this and i think the problem is there isn't one way it can't just be one thing i think it's a lot of different uh diff different methods depending and the first one for me has always been letting people in my circle

know that i'm not feeling good telling my wife that i feel like you know because i when this pandemic started i was trying to make her think i was fine and i was secretly freaking out man and then finally one morning i told her you, every morning I'm waking up and I feel like I'm getting run over by society. It's such a claustrophobic feeling. And she did. She's like, you're feeling bad. Like the whole time she's been telling me how rotten she feels.

And instead of being like, I feel like a terrible too. I was like installing lamps, you know, trying to see him, you know, like doing household projects. I'm fine, honey. I was suddenly like Ward Cleaver, you know, or whoever the dad was, you know, like, like I'm never like that. I don't install lamps. And but I was isolating her.

And also I wasn't opening myself up for her to comfort me so I think that you know the very first step is like doing what you just did calling Dr. Drew asking for help and then listening to the response that you get not from just the doctor here but from your family and friends and then following through with other people so sunshine exercise maybe some purpose which is hard right now, and then connecting with other people and finding somebody who actually cares and is willing to listen to you, and then you unload on them. I'm glad your wife is keeping you in line from the standpoint of your conspiracy theories.

I heard you say that on Rogue, and I thought, oh, good, somebody's keeping him. Somebody's keeping him because God knows where you would have spiraled into in this whole epidemic if she weren't around, right? I feel – I have told her that if not for her if she's like if if you know i think if you're like in if there was a bet in vegas and like i was in line with two other people and the bet was who's most likely to get sucked in to an apocalyptic cult i'm gonna be the first person that people bet on and they're right so it's nice to have a rational person in your life because you know it's i honestly half of me thought we were gonna get hit by an asteroid on wednesday i'm not even joking it's embarrassing i really thought that

and the whole my wife has been making fun of me all the way through. Every single time. Look what happened. We didn't get hit by an asteroid. Healthy, healthy. We've got a bunch more questions for you if you don't mind. Taylor, go ahead. Taylor. Hey, Dr. Drew. Also, Duncan Trussell. I'm a big fan of both of you guys.

I first found out about Duncan Trussell. He was on This Is Not Happening on Comedy Central and Dying on Acid. That was the most hilarious thing I've ever seen on Comedy Central. Thank you.

My question is what was the inspiration behind the universe in your show Midnight Gospel and what inspired the design behind the characters in your show midnight gospel and what inspired the design behind the characters in the show and and the giant vulva that you stick your head into i wondered about that too is that what that was i didn't see it you saw that isn't that what that is i don't i don't see you you think that looks like a vulva what we didn't intend that at all

i eat see that or an asshole. I figured Volvo looked a little more appealing. You sound like me when I'm drunk. Hey. Anyway, to answer the question, I would have to speak for 120 artists on the show. It was a real collaboration, meaning that it was a group mind. And I think some archetypes naturally appeared to answer the multiverse simulator question,

which does look like a vulva. And I can only speak for my opinion. I'm not speaking for Pendleton or jesse moynihan or mike mayfield or any of the other brilliant animators and artists on the show but you know if you're if you want to conceptualize uh something that a universe would exist within uh what better image than a vulva the womb what better image than you know the because obviously i mean no spoiler here i don't know if you know this i imagine you do but when you come inside of a vulva it makes a baby and

that's an amazing thing yeah dr drew you didn't know this oh my god oh my god so crazy oh my god it's so crazy i just found out a couple of days ago but the um just weird because i have a son but uh the but the the you know so what's what is the universe held within you have to if you're creating a multiverse simulator you know i think originally my idea was just some kind of computer or something and i think maybe it was i don't want to say it was Penn's idea, but maybe I think he had this understanding of like with a goddess. And I don't know. Again, he never said he never said those terms. So I hesitate to talk about it too much because also I don't want to rob people of their own interpretation.

But a lot of the universe was Jesse Moynihan. You can check out his incredible graphic comics forming. They're amazing. And I'm just thinking about what happens to Clancy when he puts his head in the vulva. He goes into a womb and is transported to other places, right? His transport vehicle is a womb, right? Yeah, that's exactly right. He goes into the fetal position as he's rocketing through the multiverse. Of course, as's exactly right. He goes into the fetal position as he's rocketing through the multiverse. Of course, as is the custom. Yes.

And I'm blanking on who is the voice of the computer. Oh, that's Phil Hendry. Phil Hendry. I just thought that's such a brilliant choice. He's so good. Oh, my God. Let's see. Uncle Jimmy. Uncle Jimmy.

Uncle Jimmy? Hey, how are you guys doing? We're good. What's up? Hey, are you there? Can you hear? Not much, but I love you, Drew. Duncan, I've got a movie to pitch to you,

and if you run with this idea, I want $10, okay? Okay. You got it. Let's hear it. You ready? So yeah, it's, it's this all American, all American surfer kind of guy. You know, he, he hangs out down in the beach. He surfs, he does great things in school. He plays high school ball, learns to find his inner self and his true strength, dedicates his life and decades to medicine and helping all kinds of people, and just gives and gives and gives. And then he makes one statement in his life that a couple people don't agree with, and

the whole world turns on him and wants to kill him. Hey, wait a minute. Is that a good premise for a movie? Maybe it's a documentary. How about that? That's what it ought to be. Duncan, what do you say? I mean, first of all, I mean, this surfer, it's like, for the script, the thing is like, how does he get that statement out?

What does he tweet? Is this a famous surfer? I just don't understand. You're missing the whole thing. When I was a kid, I was a beach bum. I was a lifeguard and kind of a surfer kid and dedicated my life to

helping people. And because I made a comparison between the flu and the COVID, it was... I was threatened. Wait, what? He was talking about me. Hold on. Wait. You made a comparison between the flu and COVID? I made a comparison. the flu and covid i made a comparison oh my god i take back what i said i take back what i said what a monster how dare you say that

are you kidding me i know oh that's a i don't know i think i think that's it i think well you know i know that sorry if i wrecked your joke but like you know i do think like somebody needs to do a documentary on this like this swarming thing that's happening yes because it like you know i do think like somebody needs to do a documentary on this like this swarming thing that's happening yes because it's you know and i don't know what that looks like but it sucks when you know when it happens to somebody who you know personally to be one of the sweetest people you ever met that really sucks man because i also know that even though you're putting on a appearance that you've gotten good at, I know it's probably eating you up a little bit at night.

Oh, it was a little bit. It was, listen, my family's safety was in jeopardy. It was very serious. It felt like we were being stalked. Oh, no. It was horrific like you can't even imagine horrific. And you can't respond. You're not allowed to respond because that only accelerates

it. So you just have to, you can't say anything anything you have to just sort of wait for it to pass like some sort of weird storm look we humans behave like this every so often let me be clear when narcissism takes off that's when mob behavior becomes um dangerous uh it happened in the french revolution just study your pre-revolutionary France. All kinds of childhood trauma, adults that then started killing people if they weren't perfect. And if you weren't perfect enough, they'd chop your head off too.

And so eventually everybody went up on the guillotine. And that's what we have happening now. If no one is perfect enough, witness what's happening to Joe Biden. He's getting sucked into a phenomenon where even he is going to get hurt by every, no one is perfect enough for the mob, right? And I'm not saying what Joe Biden did or didn't do anything. I don't have any opinion about that. I'm just saying- God, Jesus, you really are self-destructive here. You're going to do a Joe Biden thing

on the heels of your flu? Let's just admit you're done. You just going to do a Joe Biden thing on the heels of your flu? Let's just admit you're done. You just want to retire. Why just retire? Yeah. They'll pull that piece out. Another part where I'm saying I'm just using it as an example. I don't have an opinion about it. I just I'm neutral. I'm neutral. And then it becomes I said something bad about Joe Biden bryden so i mean we gotta we gotta figure out a way somehow and i don't understand how to do it because i have you know i have my own people that i i deeply dislike and i and their shit people do all the time that really bothers me but you know i've fallen in with these hippies who over and over

again really try to beat into me not literally because that would go against what I'm about to say, this idea that we have got to figure out a way to love everybody. And Ram Dass, who is one of the great hippie spiritual leaders of our time, he made a point of putting the president on his puja table where he meditated, a picture of the president.

And it wasn't just, so of course Obama was up there but also he had a whole joke about how you know he had George Bush up there and you know hippies were not big fans of George Bush and he would talk about on this puja table which is uh you know like basically you meditate in front of it he would have pictures of these Saints his teachers his friends his family and he would look at them and be like oh nim kharoli baba i love you or oh uh city ma i love you and then he would get to george bush and be like hi george you know but but what he was trying to do was to

to recognize that every single human has the karmic burden of whatever their particular predicament is and and we have got to figure out a way to simultaneously love someone without like excusing shit behavior that does you know and and i don't think the way to teach people is by you know mass humiliation necessarily it's like i i don't know what the answer is because i'm just a podcaster comedian dude but it is you know what are we what is it showing our kids if the answer to dealing with monsters is just to be monstrous towards them right again study revolutionary france it was just really where it's we're doing the exact same thing we're not doing it quite to the extent they did it but it's exact same behavior doing the exact same thing. We're not doing it quite to the extent they did it,

but it's the exact same behavior where we just eat ourselves, just eating ourselves, what I'm saying. Do you know, do you remember that I, I've told you this once, maybe you have forgotten, that I was working on a documentary on hallucinogenics with Ram Dass's niece,

Sasha Alpert. Yeah, you told me. Yeah, it's so cool. Never went anywhere, Never went anywhere. Another thing I wanted to ask you about that the, I was going to, I mean, I asked you an hour ago, but let me go ahead with it since it's on my mind. The story with your mom was so moving. I've never heard what happened with your dad.

Oh, yeah. He passed away. He had COPD, and it it just it killed him and it like happened really fast but you know he he didn't let me know until the very end that he was dying because he was you know he's the kind of person that just didn't want to he just wanted it to be between him and the universe i guess but i don't think he expected it to happen as fast as it did i did i don't think he realized that it would happen and but he had a he didn't want to he wanted he didn't want to be resuscitated he had you know he was under the care of hospice we could have when it

was happening we could have taken him to the hospital and we could have gotten him oxygen like you but he told us not to do that because he didn't. It would just be like a temporary respite. Right. Let's have. This is an important. You're a good person to have this conversation with. Susan and I had it a couple of times this week on these streams. Oh, boy.

Yeah, here we go. And this pandemic, it brought it to the fore for me. We don't deal with end of life in this country. We just don't deal with end of life in this country. We just don't deal with it. The reality is, if I were 85 years old or older, I would never want to be put on a ventilator because it is horrific. The recovery is terrible. And the probability of me, my living a year

after being sick enough to need a ventilator is very low and a horrible year after that. So for me, no ventilator after age 85 under any circumstance. No one's talking about that with people that are that age, getting their wishes, finding out what they want. Also, I don't know about you, Duncan, I don't ever want to live in a nursing home. If I ever get so debilitated neurologically that I'm so out of it, somebody's got to be feeding me and wiping my ass, or I'm physically so debilitated neurologically that i'm so out of it somebody's got to be feeding me a wipe bring my ass or i'm physically so debilitated that i need two people to turn me forget it just

give him the vulva forget yeah i'll put my head in the vulva strategy pick a planet i love it i love that that's the new term for euthanasia, putting your head in a vulva. But you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. And my dad felt the exact same way. Yeah. And not to bring it back to the Midnight Gospel, in the episode with Caitlin Doty, who is part of the death positivity movement,

this one of the things she teaches is that you need to have this conversation with your parents now and they might not want to talk about it they might you know be it might bother them but have the conversation before they suddenly decline to the point where they can't talk anymore because once that happens you don't know what their last wishes are maybe they do want to be resuscitated. Maybe they do. If they do, but if they do, that's our job is to represent their interest, even though they may not fully understand the decision they're making. That's still up to, that's not our business, but by the same token, may I just, yeah, I'm sorry. Can I, sorry to interrupt just to add, if someone is like, you know, like with COPD, they're going to decline mentally and so quickly that if you haven't already figured out how they want, if they want to go into nursing

home, whatever, they might actually say something that you take the wrong way that they didn't even mean. So that's the other problem. So you need to get, you have to, as awful as it is, this right now is the time to talk to your folks and make sure that all the other stuff what's their internet passwords all that stuff like things you won't be able to do if that's right sorry that was my third favorite episode by the way the the one where you were talking about about uh the the history of uh embal essentially, is where you started. Yeah, that was crazy that it was,

the whole thing is something of a scam, that the dead body is not as like pestilent or whatever, as you know, many of us have been taught to believe. In fact, you have less of a chance of catching a cold or whatever from a dead body than a living body, but you know, they had to figure out a way to convince people to keep embalming people after the Civil War. Well, I think also people are freaked out around dead bodies. I think all mammals get freaked out around dead things. I just think that's a natural instinct to kind of recoil a little bit.

But we've gone to a great extent in this country, particularly to hide it all, to pretend it doesn't exist, to sanitize it. And part of the sanitization is the embalming. And so we can set things up for whenever we want to do the funeral. Back in the turn of the century, they used to do it in people's parlors. They'd set people up in their front room and that would be that. And that's where the term living room comes from, right?

Because it's the room where people would go that there wasn's where the term living room comes from right because it's the room where people would go that where there wasn't a dead body is that correct i don't know that but it sounds fascinating did did this woman tell you that this this uh death positive person you know what she probably did and i can't remember i think she might have said that but then maybe she did and i do remember hearing that somewhere you know it's a why every room in the house should be a damn living room right like what is there a dying room living room dead room and living yeah oh my god that's yeah all right listen you've been very generous with your time here i still have calls galore i but i don't think i have time if you to okay all right we'll get to a couple more here we go uh here is uh autumn go ahead autumn autumn hi guys uh first things first I wanted to say dr drew thank you for being your most authentic self like you helped me a lot through my teen

depression years when I was like stuck at home you know no one to even talk to so your show was just like the highlight you know what I'm saying even talk to. So your show was just like the highlight of everything. You know what, to that, hang on a second, before you ask a question, I want to tell you, I did a podcast yesterday where I had a therapist do therapy on me. I had her do CBT on me. And in that therapy session, authenticity was a big feature of what she was trying to do. And I'm thinking I may subject myself to some more of that, some do therapy as a,

so people can get a sense of how therapy works, what different kinds of therapies are. Because I describe them all the time and I can tell that people just zone out. They don't know what I'm talking about. But if you hear somebody actually engaged in the therapy session, it kind of lets you know exactly what it's all about. So look for that. I'll have that up in a few weeks at the Dr. Drew podcast, but thanks for that, Autumn. Okay, cool. Yeah. Duncan, congratulations on the show.

It was mind-blowing. It was just, you know, amazing. My question, though, is what are your thoughts on spiritual awakening because, you know, the whole quarantine, being stuck at home and, excuse me, you know, just kind of having at home and excuse me uh you know just kind of having the time to reflect on everything i found myself coming to this point especially like me i

wanted to know if you've ever you know been through that or going through that and then also what do you think is next to come and either of you guys could answer as well next to come for the country or for each of us what do you mean yeah i guess like i kind of mean on like a widespread human level you know like what's to come not sure we'll we'll chat about it the great question go ahead duncan uh well you know i think spiritual awakening is one of those terms that is very confusing and has a million different definitions. And many people hear that and they literally, their eyes roll back so far in their head that they have strokes. People are so mad.

Luckily, a very small percentage of people have watched the Midnight Gospel. They're just upset because it's spiritual and there's spiritual ideas in there and i get it man because a lot of times we've run into quote spiritual people who end up like giving our girlfriends or wives massages and then the next thing you know they're banging them down in some tent in a festival somewhere and it's too late but so i get it but i know but it does it's like it happens all the time all over the world some crystal collector you know takes your man or woman away from you and you know seduces them makes love for them for a very long time now that being said there's a beautiful side to it and i think there's a the term is a really good description of the possibility in anybody's life to stop being a robot to stop

being automatic and to stop being a slave to your uh your instincts and your habits or to become what's often called non-reactive or or to make your reactions uh less instantaneous to produce what um is known as the pause sharon salzburg is a great person to check out she talks about this just to create the through meditation through some practice the ability to create a millisecond pause in between something happening and you reacting to it and that pause even you know give yourself 30 seconds before you send the angry email and you might not send it. And then that exploration of how to become less reactive, I think is one, something I would call spiritual awakening, because for me, my own reactivity has been annihilatory for me. Like it is really fucked

up my life so many times. Cause I get, I get angry. I react instantly. I say things I don't mean to people I love. And it's you know it takes a long time to for to recover from that and uh so for me you know the spirituality stuff is more than just some kind of fad thing it's like it's something that i do because if i don't i'll end up becoming the biggest monster on earth so anyway i spiritual awakening my thoughts on it yes and as far as what's going to happen to the entire planet uh after this thing my hope is i don't know is my answer but my hope is people realize they can work from home effectively and that we restructure the way we've been doing jobs that don't require our meat bodies to be next to each other because i think

that's the one great thing that could happen for us on a planetary level is we start doing what we should have done 10 years ago which is uh turn telecommuting into something that is a mandatory thing if there's no need for human bodies to be next to each other i'm surprised you didn't mention the singularity oh don't get me started on the singularity. That's 2045, baby. That's 2045. We got some time. That's a date that keeps coming up.

I agree with you. You know, Clancy mentions anger too, I think, in the gospel. And I was surprised to hear you. I didn't pick up on that. I think it was even during our podcast. And I'd never really heard you say that before. And you're saying it again now. I don't experience you as an angry person. You sure it's not irritability from the depression? 100% positive. It's a, no, it's terrible. I've had to go to therapy for it. It's like, it's, you know, I, not to like

suddenly become incredibly confessional or to try to excuse it because there's no excuse for it but you know i get my father had ptsd uh he was treat self-medicating with alcohol for and i i think i learned how to deal with things was to like become angry or maybe i don't know what i mean this is why there's therapy and i don't have the answer for you and if i did i don't know that i don't want to share it necessarily it is very personal but yeah man it's like it's uh for yeah this is a thing that i struggle with and uh you know without you know having teachers in my life or having some kind of practice also thank god having a very forgiving wife who's like you know uh not you know not like who's like, you know, not, you know, not like who's like created a space within which I could, you know, become a better person, which is hopefully what a marriage, God, I sound cheesy. Jesus Christ. What am I doing? Oh my God. This isn't therapy. I'm sorry. You make me

too comfortable. Dr. Drew. Rogan brings out the cia agent i bring out the cheese oh my god oh my god sorry i'm sorry i i didn't mean to go i'm gonna like start going on a soliloquy about my wife i do really love her though and that's the to me you know i think we all have our stuff to deal with and you shouldn't be afraid to admit admit that you're you're you have these you have whatever your quirks are you know because otherwise people get the wrong idea and the next thing you know you know you're giving this impression that it's possible to live a human life without having flaws sometimes really are horrible we all have them we all have them nobody's perfect it's just the way it is you just you got to try to be your best. I think a great way to think about, you know, it's, it's the Kantian moral imperative, just behave as though somebody's

watching you and you have to be a, a, a essentially behaving in such a way that your behavior sets a moral tone. Like, like you, you hear everything you do is beyond reproach and it's being watched and you're the one watching it. So you're the one that really knows. But if you want to be a good person. And the CIA. And the CIA watches a little bit too. But, but, but to this end, you know, it, you, this, what's going to happen next after this pandemic, I am really, really, really concerned about the splitting and the breaking down and causing group, you know, tribe think.

And it's been gravely concerning to me for some time. And I don't know how we get out of that. Do you? I mean, the anger and the mobs and the destroying one another and the news and the press that is just so vitriolic and destructive. Do you have any ideas? This is my favorite Jack cornfield quote he says tend to the part of the garden you can touch and i think that is the great you know the answer is

there's no way any individual is going to heal the political rifts in between people the ideological rifts in between people nobody can do there's no individual that I think is capable of doing that. But I know that interpersonally between my friends and my family and my kid, I could do what you're talking about, Dr. Drew, which is actively have an intention of improving their lives and of being a better person. And this is one of the things I love that Ram Dass said

is that the best way to help other people is to work on yourself and to really actively try to improve yourself, not by beating yourself up or not by tormenting yourself or trying to change and destroy who you are, but by learning how to really come to terms with who you are in a healthy way. I think that if we all do that, or even 20 or 30% of us do that, that's going to create, not just in this time period, but in all time periods, a potential of some kind of shift in consciousness

that is for the better. Well, Voltaire at the end of Candide says, we should cultivate our gardens. That's the traveling the world. That was what he decided, that we need to each cultivate our gardens. That's the, that the traveling the world, that was what he decided that we need to each cultivate our own garden. I think that's the same. Well, I think that's a good place to stop.

We've covered a lot of territory. Uh, and, um, I, I surely hope you do another season of, uh, midnight gospel,

man, because it's just, it's so appealing and it's so, uh, it was an absolute, uh, sort Gospel, man, because it's just, it's so appealing and it's so, it was an absolute sort of therapeutic in the setting of what we're all dealing with right now. It really, really was a sense of relief and congratulations and all the success that people are recognizing it to be as good as what it is. And why they wouldn't do another one with you, I can't imagine, right? Maybe. Hey, look, you know, we just haven't heard yet. So, you know, it's in the hands of God right now, and that's fine with me.

But, you know, fingers crossed. And last time I saw you was you, me, and Pete Holmes went to dinner. So why don't we go do that again when this all lifts? It'll be something for me to look forward to. I would love that. All right, man. Yeah, absolutely. Let's really do it.

Not Hollywood do it, which means you don't do it. But that my fault i flaked on you i flaked i'm sorry i want to do it i miss you we did it we just have to do it again we have to do it again and something forward to when we get through all this and uh stay safe sad your wife kiss your son and uh i miss you and uh thank you for being here today and for giving us the Midnight Gospel. It really, it's a good thing. My pleasure. Thank you, Dr. Drew. I love you. I love you, Susan.

See you around. See you soon, guys. And we will wrap it up at this point. If you want, I can give you a couple minutes on the COVID thing just to give us a little bit of an update. In California, we are doing really, really, really well. I do not understand why our governor is so upset with the opening of the beaches. They are planning to switch to distancing and masks in a week or two. Why they have to wait until the last second to do that, I don't quite understand.

But maybe they'll give us some explanation for that. New York is doing a lot better. As I've told people, I applied to be part of their health response team. They don't, I mean, they are really way down on hospitalization, so they don't need to bring in people like me. The death rate per day has fallen to, from a high of about 1,100, it's now at about 200 and falling rapidly. So that's a good thing. If you look at Georgia and Tennessee, and let's look at some updated data on that in Texas, things are slowing there. Georgia particularly is our canary in the coal mine. Again, they chose the

exact wrong moment to open things up. And yet in spite of that, when you look at the historical data, they are at about, ooh, there's a little uptick today in new tests, but no increase in positives. So maybe a little increase in positive tests, but no increase in hospitalization, no significant increase in that. So let's watch that. They should be going down. Well, no, they were really right about the plateau stage. So this is about where they should be, whether they were quarantined or not. And again, a reminder that we just don't know whether quarantine and distancing is different. We don't know. There's no science on that. There's speculation, there's computer modeling, but there's no actual evidence on that. So this would be the state that will tell us that. Let me just quickly look at, for instance, Texas, if I can come up with that. One second here. Was I looking at Georgia? Maybe I wasn't even looking at Georgia.

Yes, I was looking at Georgia. And Texas, here is, one second, Texas, I don't know how many days they're into this, they're in Texas, but let's see if I can come up, my goodness, I have to scroll down quite a ways, I'm afraid, one second, Tennessee, I got to Tennessee first, let's look at the tennessee historical data which is also it seems to be opening up they're at such a low level anyway i'm not so sure we're going to get something um meaningful out of that uh they're about the same about the same maybe a little uptick in positive tests maybe a little uptick in positive tests for Maybe it'll uptick in positive tests for Tennessee. So that's interesting. That may not be good news for them. Let me see in the COVID-19. That's interesting that Tennessee,

hold on. Tennessee, yeah, they're kind of all over the place. They've been sort of low. They're only at about five deaths per day, even though I know that's a horrible number. And they've been so low on their hospitalizations, it's hard to know what to make of that. Did you mention Georgia? I did discuss Georgia, yeah. I'm doing something else, sorry. Let me go back to Tennessee. I'm not quite sure what to make of this.

It looks like there's a little uptick in, well, there was an uptick on Tuesday in hospitalizations, Tuesday to Wednesday. Yeah, not really. Yeah, it's really about the same. It's really about the same. And then finally, let me go to Texas, if I might. It's hard to make much of this data the way it is. I got to say, it's still lagging. But I think we'll be able to see if there's any significant changes.

That's for sure. For some reason, Thursday data was kind of peculiar, and Thursday and Friday were added together. Again, the hospitalization data is not there for Texas, so I can't really say anything. All right, so we'll keep watching it. We'll keep watching. Again, that will be some evidence to help us differentiate whether or not distancing masks and hand washing is different than quarantining.

Thus far, it's speculated that it is, but we really don't know. Yes, we thank Duncan for a great show. I'm looking at your restream comments here. He's so fun to listen to. He's great, right? He's so entertaining to listen to. He's always got something really interesting to say. Oh, good. Amy, you're a Duncan fan.

Now, you should be. Check out the Midnight Gospel. You will be happy you did. That's what his mind looks like. You want to see what it looks like. And what he did was took a And it's what he did. It took a bunch of interesting podcasts he did. I was lucky enough to have been one of them and turned them into a adventure, adventure, a cartoon adventure.

Okay. I think that's about that. Do I need to. Plug away, baby doll. Do we need to hear from anybody? I want to remind everybody that our friends at Needle Destruction Device I'm very

pleased to be a part of these devices which I can't quite reach right now but you just put the needle in you've seen my ads do it We'll play the ad right after And then also mention DrDrew.com There's a promo code for $70 off at DrDrew2020

if you use that promo code DrDrew.com. There's a promo code for $70 off at drdrew2020 if you use that promo code. drdrew.com, you can check out these streams. We will be away the weekend, right, Susan? Hopefully back on Monday. Yes, we'll be back on Monday, but away the weekend. Or Tuesday. Well, which is it going to be? I don't know.

It depends on, Caleb might be able to run does. I can do it. Monday, all right. So I'm planning Monday, and then we'll do a stream on, on Tuesday. Also there will be new data by Monday. I'm sure of it. And so I want to review that for you guys and see if what we can make of all

that. Also our friends that kind of blue mic there. Thank you for providing this equipment for us. Anybody else we should be talking about, Susan. Okay. Go to all the great shows. Dr.

Drew after dark and Adam and Drew's show and the Dr. Drew podcast. You have great guests on there. Yeah, the Dr. Drew podcast, it's going to be, the next few weeks are very interesting. I suggest you check it out. I've got some really good experts in there

and I have somebody do therapy on me and we get kind of some interesting stuff. And I thought it was just, I don't know, I like the direction it's going. If you have any suggestions, please send it to DrDrew.com slash contact and we'll be happy to take that. And of course, After Dark, me and Christina P.

I did a crazy one with Josh Potter. You need to watch. Josh is a sex worker now and we talked a little bit about that. Who gasped? Oh, joy. All right, you guys, thank you for being here. Thank you for watching. Thank you, Duncan. Thank you for the Midnight Gospel, and we'll see you on Monday. Needles have increasingly become a part of everyday life. Proper disposal is both difficult and expensive. We have the solution. Simpler, safer, affordable, and fulfills

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