Ask Dr. Drew - Cheerleader Attempted Suicide & Survived: Emma Benoit Discusses Depression & Recovery – Ask Dr. Drew – Episode 100

Episode Date: July 25, 2022

Emma Benoit was a popular cheerleader with a supportive family and friends, but on the inside she was hiding severe depression and anxiety. In 2017, the summer before her senior year in high school, she attempted suicide – which resulted in a spinal cord injury that left her paralyzed. Now she works to bring awareness to the epidemic of youth suicide through writing and documentaries, including 2021's "My Ascension."  The new 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is a US-based, toll-free hotline available 24/7 to anyone in suicidal crisis or emotional distress.  Greg Dicharry was introduced to the world of mental health while living in Hollywood pursuing his dream of working in the entertainment industry. In that time, he was hospitalized and diagnosed with co-occurring bipolar and substance use disorders. Now Greg is a youth empowerment expert, mental health advocate, and filmmaker who served as Magellan Health’s national youth empowerment director from 2007 - 2022. In 2008, he developed the MY LIFE program, which is one of the nation's leading programs for youth who experience challenged with mental health or substance use. Greg also produces and directs mental health related films including the documentary "My Ascension" with Emma Benoit. Learn more about Emma and Greg's film at https://MyAscension.us Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Kaleb Nation (https://kalebnation.com) and Susan Pinsky (http://twitter.com/firstladyoflove). This show is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only, and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. SPONSORED BY • GENUCEL - Using a proprietary base formulated by a pharmacist, Genucel has created skincare that can dramatically improve the appearance of facial redness and under-eye puffiness. Genucel uses clinical levels of botanical extracts in their cruelty-free, natural, made-in-the-USA line of products. Get 10% off with promo code DREW at https://genucel.com/drew GEAR PROVIDED BY • BLUE MICS - After more than 30 years in broadcasting, Dr. Drew's iconic voice has reached pristine clarity through Blue Microphones. But you don't need a fancy studio to sound great with Blue's lineup: ranging from high-quality USB mics like the Yeti, to studio-grade XLR mics like Dr. Drew's Blueberry. Find your best sound at https://drdrew.com/blue • ELGATO - Every week, Dr. Drew broadcasts live shows from his home studio under soft, clean lighting from Elgato's Key Lights. From the control room, the producers manage Dr. Drew's streams with a Stream Deck XL, and ingest HD video with a Camlink 4K. Add a professional touch to your streams or Zoom calls with Elgato. See how Elgato's lights transformed Dr. Drew's set: https://drdrew.com/sponsors/elgato/ For over 30 years, Dr. Drew has answered questions and offered guidance to millions through popular shows like Celebrity Rehab (VH1), Dr. Drew On Call (HLN), Teen Mom OG (MTV), and the iconic radio show Loveline. Now, Dr. Drew is opening his phone lines to the world by streaming LIVE from his home studio. Watch all of Dr. Drew's latest shows at https://drdrew.tv.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everyone, welcome, and as always, we'll be out and taking calls on Twitter spaces. And if you raise your hand there, you're agreeing to ask your question. And in doing so, you'll be streaming out on Facebook, Twitch, Twitter, Rumble, YouTube, wherever we have our show, you'll find us there. Today we're going to get into some interesting territory on mental health. You know, that's something that I like talking about as always. One guest is Emma Benoit, I think I'm pronouncing her name correctly, who herself went through a major crisis as an adolescent and has her story to tell.

And Greg Desherry, who has had his own struggles with mental health disorders, now working hard on the service part of this, as I'm sure Emma is as well. So with your questions, you can call us at the Twitter spaces. Again, just raise your hand there. I'll bring you up. And I'm watching as well with the Rumble Rants and the Restream, if you have other questions there. And when we start out, I'll maybe talk very briefly about something that came in from locals today. So let's get right to it. Our laws as it pertained 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 f***'s sake. Where the hell do 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. We used to get these calls on Loveline all the time. Educate adolescents and to prevent and to treat. If you have trouble, you can't stop and you want to help stop it. Deserve 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. If you have trouble, you can't stop and you want to help stop it, I can help. I got a lot to say. I got a lot more to say. BetMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long.

From tip-off to the final buzzer, you're always taken care of with the sportsbook born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with BetMGM. And no matter your team, your favorite player, or your style, there's something every NBA fan will love about BetMGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your basketball home for the season. Raise your game to the next level this year with BetMGM. A sportsbook worth a slam dunk. An authorized gaming partner of the NBA. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions.

Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, 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. As I was saying, welcome. We appreciate you all being here. We will get right to our conversation about mental health. I want to talk a little bit about what's coming the rest of the week, and even next week as well. We have Ed Latimore in here.

We have Marina Cohen-Stein in tomorrow. And the following week, I'm bringing a urologist. I think she's coming in next week. Someone I don't think necessarily wants to be identified but came in from uh locals and she was talking about urology gynecology and sexual abuse which i have to tell you having you know 20 35 years on love line 20 of those years were spent dealing with the consequences of sexual abuse abuse both from the standpoint of the sort of mishandling by the medical system people coming with pelvic pain and urinary problems like

you're discussing and from the repetitive behaviors associated with trauma people's pickers being broken so to speak which is stuff we can get into great detail with but i do have a female urologist coming in here to talk about that stuff uh she's but she spends most of her time putting implants in as a lot of urologists do so uh that is that is a lot of um what female urologists seem to be doing these days so there we go uh susan everything good with you excellent excellent i had my ultrasound today oh yeah how'd that go i guess i have a big uterus i don't know well do they read it in the room it's like no shit i had triplets no no they didn't it's nothing there's a tiny little fibroid i don't think there's anything so there was no thickening of the lining which is what i was maybe i don't know

she said the fibroids she's not the doctor like it's just the right so they're really not allowed to talk to you very much but we talked about uh you know whenever i have a vaginal ultrasound, how it reminds me of when I got pregnant with quadruplets and you announced, how am I going to put them through college? Right. I did announce that. The first thing you said. I still was traumatized by that moment. And thank you for being sensitive to my feelings. I know it goes down as me being an asshole, but you're continuing to bring it up. And the fact that we pulled it off. I was in stirrups i was a little i understand you know i was a little

surprised i've been reading sitting in the waiting room reading a newsweek which was a magazine that used to be very popular uh which was going on about the projective costs of four years of major university and they were exactly spot on and he canceled one in and he got four and three made it but they all made it through school you paid for that you also got them through graduate school and yes and they kept most somebody we saved for them so we did it you did a good job okay you manifested it the kids are great they came out manifest that's what it took just thinking positively and it all happened that's all it took everybody oh it forget the no never sleeping in the 18 hours at work i'm working okay but uh susan you also then uh very kindly you'll text me horrible things during the day

and again you did that today with somebody um yeah i like to send you the good stuff yeah somebody who saw me on killmeat's show and um this i want to read this to you because it shows you how it cracks me up it's like people can always find something wrong with anything but it's also how they don't listen and if you listened if you actually heard what i said you wouldn't get anywhere near what this guy's saying. So I want to show you guys what I contend with all the time. So he says, at the end of Kilmeade's show you joked about Olympian Simone

Biles. I was not joking. There was no joke. She had been given, there was sort of a joke to the story which was she'd been given a coloring book by a flight attendant and she reported on it. She was very good natured about it. Simone was. And-natured about it, Simone was, and they acknowledged their mistake.

Oh, my God. Okay. About her height, I joke, which I did not. I said, she is 4'8", which is, you don't realize how small she is and how small gymnasts are. Then he says, and under your breath said secondary sexual, whatever that means at the end of the show, like no one would notice. What I said was that it's very common for gymnasts not to have secondary sexual characteristics. Now you're an asshole and don't know what that means.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry for that. But secondary sexual characteristics are sort of the things that make females look female. They're called secondary sexual characteristics are sort of the things that make females look female. They're called secondary sexual characteristics. And if you notice, gymnasts maybe don't have so much of that. Maybe not so much. They don't have breasts. They don't have hips. Not so much.

And so it goes. So shameful. No regard for her feelings of sexual abuse with the Olympics. What does that have to do with it? Now we're talking about the mishandling by her physical therapist. Oh, wow. Think of others besides your dark humor. Okay.

This is what Kilmeade goes through every day, though. It's what I go through every day, to be fair. Well, no. He was more of a Fox follower, so he didn't really like you. Whatever. Whatever. The point is, people have forgotten how to read and how to listen. So every time I am faced with somebody upset about something, it's never what I said. It's

always what somebody heard. So listen carefully, everybody. Or what somebody said I said. So I think it's really important to go back to your source and go what did you mean by that what were you actually saying maybe i didn't hear it correctly that's all i'm saying what amazes me is that they take time out of their day to find a way to contact you and then just yell at you like that's gonna do something for so what i said the better good what i said was essentially simone was good-natured about it. It's really serious. I can imagine she might have been upset, but she's four foot eight.

You don't realize how small she is. And because I was running out of time, I said, and gymnasts may not have, I said something like, may have had significant secondary sexual characteristics, meaning hard to identify as an adult. That's all I was saying. That's all I was saying. And then we went on to the next topic, by the way.

You see how short people's triggers are. I mean, they do like a rapid fire on that show, right? Where they ask you a bunch of questions in a row and you just kind of keep it entertaining. Thank you, Slapdash. I appreciate that. Yeah, it is never- I mean, Drew's out to insult people.

That's what he thinks all day. Like, I'm going to insult a gymnast today because that's my goal. Insensitivity is what I try to do. And by the way, if I am doing something or off base on something, I'm very interested in hearing about it. I always like to adjust my position. We should send him over to After Dark and see what he says about that. Yeah, that would be interesting.

Who knows? Oh, your buddy Jahan, Jahep, is over at Rumble Rant, so you can go tweet on with him. Let's proceed and bring our guest in. Let me get the information up here if you don't want. Yep. Emma Benoit was a cheerleader popular cheerleader supportive family but was actually suffering from a depressive disorder there was a suicide attempt ultimately that left her paralyzed and she now raises awareness about the teen suicide let's

call it pandemic which is really what it is there is emma's story there and And we also have as a guest, we've got Jerry, Greg Desherry. I beg your pardon. Greg Desherry. He himself was living in Hollywood pursuing working in the entertainment industry but was hospitalized with co-occurring bipolar and substance disorders. So Greg is now a youth empowerment expert, mental health advocate, and filmmaker. So let's bring them both in here. Welcome, guys.

Thank you for joining me. Hi. So I kind of feel like we should start with Emma's story since it's kind of dramatic. And I just want to give you a chance to talk about it. And I would just say that both of you could not come along at a more important time, I'm sure you're aware, in this COVID era, not just the anxiety and confusion around COVID that we've infected, particularly 8 to 15-year-olds with, who are now 10 to 17, or maybe even 11 to 18 year olds, but we have blocked them from developmental milestones. We have deprived them of education, depending on which state you're in. And we've prevented them from having the kind of social contact and meaning that sometimes help kids reduce their risk of mental health struggles. But, uh, so now we're in this era and Emma, a great time for you to tell your story.

Yeah, I agree. I think the way that everything worked out is very fortuitous, and I attribute God to that all the way. But my story kind of started as early back as elementary school. When I was a little kid, I can remember having some pretty significant anxieties and never really understanding what it was. Mental health was not something, at least in my community, that was really talked about or emphasized. And just to be quite transparent, I hadn't heard the words mental and health used together until my own suicide attempt. So I was

really in the dark with what mental health was and how it affects us. But my anxieties really started to take hold in elementary school. And then obviously, as I got older, things became more serious, more daunting, more challenging. And I never developed a set of coping skills. And I never developed even an understanding of what it was I was dealing with mentally and emotionally. So when it came to reaching out for help or letting people in, I wasn't. I was completely sheltering my own feelings and thoughts because of the lack of understanding and because of the stigma. I was really trapped under that stigma for a long time. And I'm guessing just the way you're describing the development of your disorder, there's sort of different kinds of anxiety

disorders. You're describing what sounds like, and correct me if I'm wrong, an anxiety disorder that goes more towards obsessive compulsive disorders. So I'm guessing you had intrusive thoughts and rituals and all that stuff you went through. Want to talk about that a little bit? Yeah, absolutely. My anxieties, what started out as my mom has suffered with anxiety my whole life, and it was very apparent to me. We never went on trips. She never wanted to fly. We never went on a cruise. She was always very anxious about fearful, mainly just fearful. And so that I kind of watched her experience that. And then myself, it was more along the lines of social anxiety, feeling like I have to check all these boxes in a group of friends or I have to filter what I'm going to say before going into a conversation.

So that's kind of what my anxiety looked like in the early days. But then obviously, as I got older, things became more troubling for me and they lingered on my head. And that caused the feeling of anxiety. You didn't have any of the prolonged rituals where you had to do things every morning before you could leave the house and all that kind of stuff? No, I wouldn't say that. I was not in that frame of anxiety. It was more along the lines of self-conscious anxiety, if that makes sense. Got it. Got it. And so you mentioned stigma, and I feel like we've done a lot of good work

with stigma in recent years, and yet adolescents in particular are fearful of speaking out, they don't want to be different, they want to be, you know, seen as, you know, perceived a certain way by their peers. How do we get adolescents to be willing to talk about these things more readily? Well, I think the biggest thing that we can do is just normalize it as a whole. I think part of my experience and what the stigma really did to me and for me was the fact that I always felt like in the eyes of adults, I had to have it all together. I had to have it figured out. I couldn't struggle for a long period of time with something. I have to figure it out for the adults. And I think youth oftentimes get trapped in the thinking that adults have this mentality

that youth have it so much easier nowadays and that everything should be, there is no reason for anxiety if you're a youth. That's the mentality that youth have when it comes to adults. So I think it's just a matter of shifting what mentality and normalizing this topic and conversation as a whole and letting the youth know that anyone at any phase of stage of life can struggle with a mental illness or anxiety or anything like that. Yeah, you're putting your finger on something very important, I think, which is that parents don't realize how much kids, well, there's sort of two versions of it. Kids generally want their

parents to be proud and happy with them and about them, almost without exception. But in some family systems, and I'm not taking aim at your family, and it's nothing unusual about what you were dealing with, but we live in the age of narcissism. And so kids are sort of extensions of parents a little bit more than they used to be. And a lot is asked of them. And that can be overwhelming. And the idea of not living up to that can be shattering. Absolutely. And that was something that really harped on me in my teen years specifically was the fear of failure. I always just wanted to please mom and dad. I always wanted to make them happy and proud. And I knew that the

behaviors that I was doing and my passions and interests weren't really things that would make them proud. So obviously self like self-consciously that was a trigger for my anxiety. Um, and you know, I feel like that's common with amongst majority of teenagers is they just want to please their parents, but it's, it's, it's the, it's a challenge. Excuse me. Let me bring a, and I think I mispronounced your name. Is it Benoit or Benoit? Benoit. Benoit. I beg your pardon.

Let's bring Greg in here. Not unusual what she's talking about. I wonder what your thoughts are, Greg. No. I mean, you asked the golden question there as far as how do we get young people to get over that stigma. And I think stigma is often an overused word that kind of complicates things. But we did a school presentation, well, a whole district where we did five schools in a day and did assemblies. And I would ask the kids at the beginning of every session was, if you were struggling,

would you rather ask somebody for help, go to a professional, go to a parent, or would you rather just keep it to yourself? A good 80 to 90% of the kids said they'd rather keep it to themselves, you know, because they, you know, valid reasons from a kid's perspective, you know, because people look at them different, maybe they'll get thrown in the hospital, they'll have to take medication. So we really need to address that issue because, you know, you can have the greatest services in the world, but if kids aren't willing to say that they need help, then we're in trouble. Yeah. And, you know, we're the three white people are speaking from a particular perspective. with economically distressed populations, there's a whole other layer of essentially,

well, first of all, some folks are in survival mode and can't even identify these issues as mental health, but others really don't trust. I mean, they wouldn't trust us. We don't look, you know, and so how do we, and by the way, they should. I'd be delighted to help, and I have helped many, many times. But, you know, that's just another layer of sort of denial about this.

And denial is a weird, troubling problem in mental health these days. So I'll give you each a chance to sort of address denial. Greg, you first. Yeah, well, I mean, it's something that happens on the parent, you know, parent level, like as far as, you know, communities of color, oftentimes that that self stigma is even worse. You know, they don't want people to think they're a bad parent because their kid has mental health issues. And, you know, therefore, you know, the young person doesn't something really to having to get over because if you, you know, that's not addressed or you get to a point where you're really, you know, knowing and truly believing that one, you have an issue and two, that, you know, there's something you can

do to address that issue. You're not going to take the steps necessary to, you know, heal and really begin that recovery process. I'll have Emma address this in just a second, but I want to zero back into Greg because Greg, you had two disorders that are associated with severe lack of insight and denial. In my experience, you add bipolar and addiction together or substance use disorder, you almost are in a biological state of denial, right? I mean, you really don't see it. You just don't see it. And even when I would hold the mirror up, patients go, I don't know what you're talking

about. And so, you know, is there, you have any special strategies for those, many of them on the streets these days, many of them, you know, doing all kinds of goofy stuff that's not good for them. I'll take your advice. Yeah. I mean, it's tough when I was living in LA back in the day and listen to you on K-Rock uh not that that has anything to cause an effect on what about tay but but i was um you know thank you thank you for that i was starting to uh help them sleep i was smoking a lot of high octane marijuana at the time i was working doing a music video sleeping less and less and i started to just kind of trip out for lack of a better word end up being arrested and uh walking naked down martin luther king Boulevard. I was hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai and that was the first time they told me I was bipolar and had substance use issues. And I was in complete denial. One,

what I had experienced on the mental health side was so real to me, I couldn't really buy that it wasn't real. And then on the substance use- Well, explain what you mean by that. Explain what you mean by that because i know what you mean by that but on the average person will get quite what you're talking about your delusions were real so talk about that yeah i mean it's kind of you hear it referred to as like the messianic complex or whatnot but feeling this kind of special connection with god i was following the sun i was you know, chosen one, so to speak, and, you know, kind of being sober, but still kind of seeing and hearing things and having these very real experiences that were 100% real to me. I knew they sounded crazy to everybody else, but to me, they were real. So,

you know, how do you break through that? It's difficult, to say the least. And then the substance use thing, I had always, you know, said I was going to be an 80 year old man smoking marijuana on the porch. I could debate you for days around the, you know, how marijuana was better than, you know, alcohol and all those kinds of things. But, you know, with someone bipolar, like you say, mixing those two things, it's like when I would start to get manic and smoke marijuana, it's like, I might as well have been smoking PCP because I would just go off the, you know, off the rails to. And these days, and these days, the, the kind of cannabis that's being used, the dabs and the wax and all that stuff, it's, it's much more common seeing what you're talking about than it used to be. So Emma,

your story on denial, I'm sure people ask, are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. Yeah, absolutely. Mine was totally and utterly self-denial. I think part of the reason why I felt such a need to have such a strong sense of denial was because of the shame that I carried with having these emotions and the guilt that I carried with feeling the way I did about my life. Because I was always in a state of comparison. I would always compare myself and my problems and struggles to others. And so that really put me in a position where I felt immense guilt. I felt like shame on me for feeling so poorly about my life. It's so privileged and I

have everything, you know, but then you beat yourself up for feeling that way on top of those negative feelings. So my denial was honestly kind of like a protective mechanism for me, if you will. I kind of used it as my advantage to kind of keep away people and let people know like, you know, I'm untouchable. And for adolescents, it's because they're not super connected to their feelings and they don't have a clear sense of themselves in the sense that they can step outside of themselves and look at themselves.

That's not kind of an adolescent thing. You're not there yet with that, which puts you just in it and it gets very difficult to be objective then. And your treatment, Emma, what did you do to get better? Well, I unfortunately had a suicide attempt all of these years of struggling silently culminated and led me to attempting suicide and honestly I feel like what really expedited my journey was the regret that I felt immediately after making the attempt I knew that it wasn't what I wanted to do. And I knew that I had made a mistake and I really had the opportunity to

gain those abilities to take a step outside of myself in a way and look at myself, like you said. But I really attribute the physical injuries that I had to how my recovery happened for me, because I was immediately paralyzed after my attempt. So going through that physical journey really taught me a lot. It taught me values and everything. So, and of course I went to- Yeah, go ahead. You went to- I went to therapy, of course, as well, after the attempt. You have two interesting sort of phenomenon there with you. One is that it's a very common thing that people that survive like jumps off bridges and stuff like that,

when they report the experience, they'll say the first thing that they feel when they jump off the bridge is, I made a huge mistake. First thing, this was a giant mistake. And then the other thing is that in spite of injury and loss, you can find gratitude, purpose, spiritual connection. I hear these stories all the time. And you'd mentioned, you'd sort of glossed at spirituality as part of your program. What's going on there? Well, my faith was born from my attempt. I was not a person of faith. I really had no connection to anything spiritual until I was physically saved. And then I was spiritually saved as well, right after that. And really, like you said, losing so much, losing all of my abilities, really did put things into perspective for me. And really, like you said, losing so much, losing all of my abilities really did put things into perspective for me. And it showed me just how much I do have to be grateful for. And all of

those experiences really did lead me to my faith in God. And now I'm a Christian and I believe in God and Jesus Christ. And I live my life through that. And it really has been one of the biggest helping factors in my mental health journey is my relationship with God. And I always encourage people to try it out. Obviously it's not for everyone. And I want to mention that, you know, coming from the South, there is kind of this stigma that, you know, if you just pray about it, it'll go away and you can pray these things things away. That's not the case at all. My faith absolutely helped me in this journey, but it wasn't that alone. It definitely took a lot of work and time to get to the point I'm at right now.

Yeah, and again, I've treated many, many people, and a spiritual component, whatever that is to the given individual. And that's, that's diff, that's all over the place. People have all kinds of different ways of having that experience, but it's always an important part. Greg, I'm guessing that was important for you too. And, and my other question is, did you help Emma or do you guys, I'm, I'm not clear why I have you guys together today sure so um so uh you know I had been having the dream of working in film when I was in LA my at least manic episodes all started the first few happened while doing film projects so that dream was pretty much broken and I started working in the mental health field and started a youth program nationally and I years later got a camera and started doing little videos uh i later connected with a guy kevin hines who was somebody who did jump off the bridge the golden gate and survived and we had done a documentary uh and about five years ago and we were doing a premiere here in baton rouge and we were doing a panel discussion after the film and i was my sister had found emma online and i reached out to her and asked her if she wanted to

be on the panel. And so that's how we connected. I ended up, you know, asked her if I could bring my camera to go, you know, kind of prep her for the panel and having no intention of doing another documentary on suicide, but just her story was so compelling. Sometime later, you know, we, we teamed up to do this documentary and we've just been on this journey, you know, trying to use it to help spark conversations, help spark, uh, you know, enhancing suicide prevention efforts in local communities. And, you know, thankful we were able to do a good amount of that so far. Where can people see it? Um, so right now we're just doing a community screening. So we're having, uh, both community screenings online and in person and was doing quite a bit of

travel. You know, basically with topics like this, it's real beneficial and impactful to to see it in groups. So you know, we're planning, we have kind of set up a PBS broadcast national broadcast, we're just, you know, have that opportunity, we're still looking for underwriters and that sort of thing. But, um, you know, one day we'll of thing but um you know one day we'll have it on you know and uh i'm look i'm looking forward it's a worthy project i i but i can imagine having emma there to answer questions afterwards is really part of the power of what you

guys are delivering so so and again if they want to be a part of something like this is their website they go to myascension.us yeah myascension.us and you know we're real active on uh facebook on myascension and instagram and that sort of thing so we love people to connect with this and you know we work with a lot of different organizations around the country that are doing this work and collaborating you know there's literally thousands of organizations around the country a lot of of them are, you know, like moms or family members lose a kid to suicide and they start a nonprofit and, you know, we're doing great works in their local community.

So we've been blessed to be able to kind of link up. And since you've had the substance history too, I mean, you can do a lot of work on that side too. I mean, the kids are getting lost hand over fist to fentanyl right now. We are going to take a little break i've got lots of people with their hands up that want to come to the come to the four here and ask questions i assume it's of you guys but we'll see and on my restream i have a bunch of armchair comedians and pull back pull back on greg for me uh caleb if you don't mind uh because i'm gonna show you something pull back we like your set don't say we like your set pull back just give

me a full or just give me greg a full screen yeah either a full screen or uh or at least two-thirds of the screen which is greg there you go so behind you behind you there are these there are these giant x's and my my barn door my restream has decided that this is i love the color scheme by the way x gets the square you're on hollywood squares if you look behind you it really looks like it really looks like a circle gets the square where your head is and x gets the square our family that's even no no i love that reference i actually i'm a big fan of malcolm x and i love orange and i was a bit manic one day and i decided to paint the x's on the door orange

peter marshall peter marshall would love it and so would oh shoot what's his name from dance with the star when drew was on love line the tv show He and Adam were on Hollywood Squirrels. Tom Bergeron was the Tom Bergeron was the guest then. Should bring that show back. Alright, so let's do take a little break and when we come back, we'll get right to calls. Here we go.

I think we have found the holy grail of skin care. GenuCell has absolutely changed certainly my skin skincare regimen. I like that vitamin C serum, the under eye creams, skin nourishing primer. Susan loves the eyelash enhancers, uses it on her eyebrows as well. GenuCell has everything to make us both feel and look amazing. Best part, the quality of the products.

Using pure ingredients like antioxidants, copper peptides, and a proprietary calendula flower base, GenuCell knows how to formulate products to perfection without irritation. For Susan, she hates that annoying dry area under her nose during allergy season, like right here. She's tried everything, but no matter what, the skin is flaky and dry. Nothing seemed to help until she started using GenuCell's Silky Smooth XV Moisturizer. Soaked right into the skin, She was hooked after one use and now loves all of their products as well. I am a snob when it comes to using products on my face. The dermatologist makes a ton of money for me. But when I was introduced to GenuCell,

I was so happy because it's so affordable and it works great. I was introduced to the Ultra Retinol Cream, which I love at night. All the eye creams are amazing. People notice my skin all the time, and I'm so excited because it's actually working. Right now, you can try GenuCell's most popular collection of products and see what I'm talking about for yourself. Go to GenuCell.com and enter code Drew for 10% off. That is G-E-N-U-C-E-L.com, and the code is D-R-E-W. Back chest. So, Caleb, we have no idea if that sound went out because it didn't come into our studio or into the Twitter spaces, so we gave commentary to the Twitter spaces,

but I don't know if the rest of the ad went out over the restream. Can you hear me now? Caleb? Can you hear me? Can anybody hear us? We can't hear anything. Wait. No, they didn't hear. Tom Cigars came through. Wait, sound is good. Can everyone hear me? Oh, we didn't hear you. We're good, but the... So we're

having technical difficulties. Yeah, we lost our Alabama... The only people that can hear us are probably Twitter right now, so... All right. If the audience can hear me, put lost our Alabama connection. The only people that can hear us are probably Twitter right now. All right. If the audience can hear me, put it in the chat. I believe we just lost the Alabama connection. I can't hear Caleb. I can't either. But I think I can still take calls, so let's

go do it, shall we? Well, let's see if anybody... I can hear Caleb if that matters. All right. Okay. Anthony, we're going to get you connected up here. I hear it loud and clear on my end. Oh, there we are. We got everybody back from Alabama. But hold on, let's take... Anthony, we're going to get you connected up here. I hear it loud and clear on my end. Oh, there we are. We got everybody back from Alabama. But hold on. Anthony, before you speak, give me one second here.

Caleb, are you back with us? Don't cough into the mic. Can you hear me now? Do you? I can't hear Caleb. No, we can't. I can't. Maybe the guest should talk to you and see if...

Can you hear? I hear you. Oh, we see you now. Now it sounds very weird. But we didn't get the commercial very weird but we didn't get the commercial at all we didn't get the sound on the commercial and we did a voiceover for the twitter space i know that's so weird i think the audience can hear me out and go to drjew.com and we really can't hear you at all right now but we hear our uh callers over at twitter spaces yeah i can hear

that can i can't hear the guests. Food. Uh-oh. Now everybody's fine. And I'll get to Anthony in the meantime. Okay, Anthony. Anthony, go right ahead. Well, thank you, Dr. Drew. Thank you, Susan. You guys kind of hit a nail on the head with the suicide rate when it

comes to urbanized areas. I grew up in a mentality of you can't look to the next day. You're currently stuck in the here and now and growing up, growing up homeless, growing up with no money. We didn't know where we're going to eat as a kid that brings on so much trauma, especially, I mean, I had a very rough childhood, especially growing up in the Hispanic community. You're pretty much deemed, you know, weak if you admit that you're struggling. And that's one of the things we're not allowed to do is say,

we're struggling, we can't make it. I mean, for God's sakes, growing up with two parents who were maladaptive but tried their best, that's another issue. It's like this compound trauma that we're dealing with systemically now where where do we stop and reassess where we're at? I mean, growing up, I'm one of the very few. I became a therapist. And instead of going the other way I mean I was

selling drugs with my dad at the age of eight I was holding the bag I didn't know at the time these were just common things and then trying to understand why we had no house why we lived in motels um why were we always begging for money where I mean there's instances where I would grow up in a motel a hotel or motel and there wouldn't be food on the table. I'd have to go to the lobby and it was like a mom and pop type of motel. And I would eat Indian food with the Indian family that owned the place because they knew I had no food. As you grow up, though, and nobody explains anything to you in the field that I work with my clients, that's the number one thing I do here is no one explained to us that this was not okay, that being not okay was okay. It was you got to suck it up.

You got to keep going on. And if you don't, you get left behind. It was adamant in school. You were not to tell anybody that you were homeless because you would be picked on. You would be targeted. You had kids that looked down on you, just like your guest said. The kids don't want to be chastised or outcasts in the school setting because many times that's where we find our solace is in school because we have our teachers. We feel safe. We don't have to worry

about somebody coming to steal the bag that we're holding that has drugs we don't have to run but then where do we talk about it and that's one of the things that i i struggle with in the field is how do i get these kids to talk about these things and one of the things i'm kind of coming to the realization that's hard to realize is we can't save everybody. We just can't. It's not doable. Well, let's get Greg in on this first, I'd say, because you're asking the question we all struggle with, and you're bringing up the issue of trauma, which we have not yet talked about, but that's a major issue in all of this as well. Yeah, you brought up a lot of great issues. I mean,

the trauma issue is huge, you know, even today, you know, even if you get people from a point to thinking that trauma is, you know, is more than just what you get at war and recognizing sexual trauma and things like that. I'd seen something for a speaker where he was talking about, you know, post-traumatic stress, but he was saying, which is what we talk about the military, but now we got so many kids that it's not post-traumatic stress, it's current traumatic stress. They're living in these, you know, neighborhoods and environments where we're with drugs and violence and, you know, parents that aren't great parents. And so, you know, and that produces a lot of responses that are often mental health issues or, you know, things that present similarly. But I think what, you

know, you were describing of becoming a counselor is so tremendous and having more people from those, you know, communities, as well as people with that personal lived experience is really crucial. And I know, you know, back from when I was in school there, I think, and it's changed a lot over the years, but they would have this, you know, with kind of the code of ethics that you're not supposed to divulge anything about your, you know, with kind of the code of ethics that you're not supposed to divulge anything about your personal life or experience. But I guarantee in the work that you're doing, if you share able to share a little bit with people that, you know, where you've come from, where you've been,

that's going to be tremendously beneficial for them. Cause it's kind of the, you know, the same thing with what Emma and I are doing is sharing your experience to help others. Emma, you want to comment? No. I mean, no. Okay, good.

I mean, that sort of says it all. And Anthony, thank you for the work you do. You know I'm a fan. I'm a fan of yours too. I agree with Greg wholeheartedly that it's one thing to be careful in a closed setting with intensive psychotherapy with what you divulge about yourself. But if you're in front of a group of kids that are suffering and you want to reach them, you tell them your story. You go ahead and do that. I think it's completely impactful. Did you think that Anthony is Anthony Brown?

No. Oh, no. I don't. Different Anthony. No, we're the two other. You guys always get us mixed up with Anthony Brown and Anthony Garcia. I'm the psychologist or psychotherapist. Anthony Brown is just the man when it comes to.

The man. He is the man. I love Anthony. Anthony Brown is the man, but Anthony Garcia, give a brief plug on your organization. Yeah, so we are the Spread Hope Like Fire, sorry, the Spread Hope Like Fire Foundation.

I founded it to break the stigma on mental health. Anthony Brown is actually going to be on the podcast, thanks to Dr. Drew connecting us. It's just us getting together and humanizing our humanistic struggle. That's one of the things, too, that I've noticed, that we can't break down all these issues with the mental health because none of us want to buy into the fact that we are in the human condition. And to buy into that, you have to agree you're gonna have to suffer yeah i completely agree not to suffer but recognize that you are finite biological you get sick like anybody else and the brain gets sick like any other organ

and yeah it has a social kind of interpersonal context but uh it can it has a treatment also. Thanks, Anthony. I got lots of other questions I want to get to here. So this is Choose to Live, another organization, it sounds like. We'll get her coming up here. I don't know who the speaker is. Go ahead and unmute your mic. Is it me that's on? It is you that's on.

Hi, Emma. Hi, Greg. um is it me that it is you it is you that's on hi hi emma hi greg my name is robin walsh and i um am also a suicide survivor so i have a question for emma um i started a non-profit called choose to live in lee summit missouri and we are so blessed to be able to we're going to be showing your documentary August 11th. So I want to thank you for everything and for allowing others to share your story across the world. I have two questions. One, everybody that I talk to and share your story wants to know how you're doing with your walking. And then I personally have a question for you. When I advocate for breaking the stigmas and speaking out about suicide awareness, and I come across a family who has lost a loved one by suicide, do you have survivor's guilt? There are times that when I share my story and I share how grateful I am to be here after my suicide attempt at the age of 21.

And now when I advocate, I sometimes feel guilty that I'm here and their child isn't. So did you go through a feeling of survivor's guilt when you talk and meet with these families who did lose somebody? Good question. Absolutely. I appreciate you for reaching out. And I'm so grateful that you are going to be showing the film. It means the world to me that you are using my story in that way to help others. And absolutely, I definitely had some survivors guilt in the very beginning when sharing my story. But something that really has shifted that mentality for me has been sitting with loved ones that have been left behind and just talking to them and letting them express what they have to share with me.

Um, and let asking, asking them questions about their loved one that has passed away seems to put a different tone on the conversation. But I think what really shifted that whole survivor's feeling for me was hearing from loved ones that were left behind that hearing my testimony, hearing my story doesn't make them feel any type of way negatively. It makes them feel at a sense of peace. And that's just strictly from what they've told me from me sharing my story with them. They've just said that, you know, when you share your story and your journey, specifically the part about how I had instant regret, that gives them a sense of peace. And it also kind of allows them to think about their loved one in a different way. But definitely dealt with some survivor's guilt in the beginning, but certainly not anymore.

And then to answer the question about my walking, I am no longer in physical therapy at the moment. And that's mainly because I have recovered to the point where I am comfortable with my life. I can walk my walker. I use my walker every day. The only time I use my wheelchair is out and about, like out in public and stuff like that for endurance purposes. But I have regained all feeling. I can feel every part of me and I have regained full muscle activation in all of my limbs minus my left hand is still paralyzed. But aside from that, I'm fully functional.

I'm not able bodied, but I'm I have a disability, but I have a lot more abilities than I did in the beginning. So. Wow, how fortunate. So is it coordination of the lower limbs? So it's like this spinal cerebellar tract, something like that? Yeah, so my injury was to the spinal cord. I had a blood clot form on my spinal cord pushing down from C5 to T2. And then after that, I suffered several strokes. So I'm dealing with the spinal cord injury and the stroke injury. I'm mainly just the coordination and endurance is the factor that has kind of... I'm sorry to ask such a specific question, but I hope you don't mind, but it's fascinating to me.

Did you have a tear in one of your spinal arteries or something? The stroke is so unexpected. Yeah. So I guess I should give some context. So my attempt was by firearm. I shot myself in the chest and the bullet entered and exited through just below the base of my skull. And because of the entry and exit of the bullet, it caused a lot of internal bleeding. And that's what caused the blood clot to form on my spinal cord. And after that, I suffered strokes during surgery to repair the artery with a stent. But the blood clot was there for several days in the hospital. And they think that because of the time that it was sitting there, it was causing permanent bruising to the spinal cord. But once they got the clot removed,

then I could begin progressing in therapy. But there is that type of damage, yeah. So let me explain to people. So it sounds like you nicked an artery, probably one of the spinal arteries, which is why they had to go in and put the stent in, and that's where the stroke happened as a complication of that procedure. But there was an arterial bleed

into the essentially subdural space of the spine, which pushed on the spine arterial pressure. It's much like getting a bleed in the top part of the head. It can be quite devastating. And it injures the spine. That pressure injures it. But it sounds like a lot of it came back, which is amazing. It's phenomenal.

Yeah. Okay, let's keep going. I want to say that real quick. My carotid artery was severed. So that was the initial. Carotid artery. So it was a carotid artery was severed. So that was the initial. So it was a carotid artery. Okay. Got it. Okay. All right. We're going to get Hunter up here and was saying. I really identified with that. I myself am bipolar and a recovering alcoholic. I've been there thinking delusions are real and then coming back down and realizing how embarrassing that is to try to explain that to people.

And I think that ties back in to social stigma, you know, society making us feel ashamed for being different or going through really intense personal experiences that most others won't. So I just wanted to thank Greg for saying that. I totally agree with you, Hunter, that it's great that Greg is speaking about it, great that you are speaking about it.

But I would argue it's that, you know, think about it this way. This is the way I think about it. You tell me if I'm right or wrong, that we have shrouded mental health and secrecy throughout human history as opposed to helping people go, oh, when Hunter had these feelings of inflation and he doesn't sleep and he's spending a lot of money and he thinks he's connected to the sun or something, oh, that's easy to identify. That's his bipolar disorder.

Let's go help him. As opposed to what's wrong with Hunter. You know what I mean? There should be no stigma around it. It should be an easy putt for people to go, oh, I know what that is. That's this brain thing that makes Hunter behave like that when he's drinking or whatever. Would that be a more helpful way to do it? I think that definitely there's a ton

of confusion shrouded around mental illness. I think that people should be more vocal when they're experiencing mental health issues so others can start to learn yeah, these are things that real people do go through.

Common. Common. Common things. These are common, Andre. Well, Greg wants to talk. Let's get Greg in here. I see Greg chomping at the bit. Yeah, no, I mean, I was trying to think of the name of it,

but there was a documentary a while back that, you know, in Western cultures, I mean, what you do is somebody experiences what myself or Hunter does, and, you know, you put them in the mental hospital, you get them on psych meds and, you know, in a lot of other cultures that they kind of see that as a gift, so to speak. And it's like, they'll bring them in and nourish them and the shaman will talk to them and all that kind of stuff. You know, obviously that's more difficult to do in this society and day and age and people, you know, want to protect and, and kind of rightfully so. So it's, it's, it's not an easy, you know, it's not an easy answer. Myself, you know, with someone who wasn't like, Hey, let me go check myself in the mental

hospital. I was one that, you know, the cops would come get me, put my hands behind my back. Most of the time, take me to the, you know, to the mental hospital because I had a family who had the wherewithal to get me petitioned and put in the hospital and that sort of thing, which, you know, in reality saved my life. But, you know, for some people that doesn't, you know, work and they find that very, you know, demeaning and breaking people's rights and whatnot. So it's just complicated. It is complicated, but it isn't because treatment works. And when people cooperate with treatment, they get better.

And when they get better, they look back and go, who left me like in that shape? Who let me behave like that and stay in that shape when I was so sick? And let's remember, bipolar disorder, manic patients are more likely to kill themselves when manic than depressed. This is a misconception people have. More likely to kill yourself in a mania than in a depression. Very common. And addiction is a illness that progresses to death. You die of addiction. Both life-threatening problems. And it'd be great to also consider you special and, you know, be a shaman and all those good things. I have no problem with that at all. But to let a fatal illness just progress is troubling to me.

So that's my thing. Hunter, thank you for calling, buddy. You're fine. You're good. I love working with bipolar patients and alcoholics and addicts because they're extraordinary and they're creative and they're smart. And the fact that you have to feel marginalized because of those conditions is weird to me.

So I'm sorry you have to feel that way. Well, thanks well thanks for your support man and thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak really appreciate it you got it yeah thanks for sharing that drug use also caused the bipolar yeah these are comp we're not getting into the nuances of diagnosis also like really they really fed the denial for me because i would for years was like, well, if you know, the drugs are a problem. If I just take these psych meds, I'll be okay. Right. Right. I don't need these psych meds if I don't do drugs.

And it was just like this, you know, really feeds that denial, which one of sponsors. You literally. Yeah. Susan, you literally, when you have somebody using. Yeah. I saw Paulina go through it. Yeah. But you literally can't tell either it's either or both or which causing right you just you got to just kind of treat both

and then you see where you are um and the recovery is very similar for both too other than you know oh yeah oh yeah and very these are common common things ilana i think you've changed your uh your your picture. What's going on? Hi, Drew. And hi, Emma and Greg. So what I wanted to, I don't really have a question. It's more of a statement. My sons, I live in Palo Alto, and my kids went to the high school that had two suicide clusters in six years. The CDC did come out to investigate. And the problem is, is it still continuing on? And, you know, the schools talk a lot about mental health and support, but there's so much, I mean, it's such a multifaceted problem and issue.

There's a lot of academic bullying by peers. There's academic requests from the parents. So it's just, it's a very sad situation in an area that financially has support, um, to be able to help. Um, and then you're having the post-traumatic. Well, let me, I'm going to say something. Let me say something that, that I did, you know, I was screaming earlier about this rapid fire story thing I was commenting on, on kill me show. But one of the things I commented on was Tom Brady bearing very fearful what money, his fame and money was going to do to his kids. And I knew people would react to that very negatively. They were extremely harsh on him, like, oh, it's so horrible to have all that privilege and money but i i the the

what you're talking about you're kind of talking in the same zone here and and it prompts me to say mental health problems develop in all aspects of our human society it and and i the one thing i will tell you again having worked at a psychiatric hospital for decades, was the very rich and the very poor were the groups that were overrepresented in the psychiatric hospital. They're the ones that had the most stuff going on. But it occurs everywhere. And because it's a school, Alana, with privilege and resources doesn't mean there aren't their own significant mental health struggles. Oh, there, there absolutely are. There absolutely are. And it's,

and it's, you know, interesting how just, you know, you see the ones, I don't know. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I've seen were effective in kids you know go ahead go ahead yeah i mean one of the things that i've seen were effective in you know wealthy schools and not so wealthy uh schools is just the the point of getting young people involved is being part of the solution you know in our film there's a group called hope squad that's uh has groups around the country but it's basically that peer-based suicide prevention or just uh you know wellness thing where you you know this issue is so big if the young people aren't involved they're really on the front lines of this you know, wellness thing where you, you know, this issue is so big. If the young

people aren't involved, they're really on the front lines of this, you know, suicide epidemic that's taking 20 young people a day in the United States. We really got to do that. I mean, I think that's one thing that parents can really advocate for. Teachers can really advocate for because, you know, I mean, we've seen in the recent time, so many people up in arms and going to the school board about pretty trivial things in my opinion, but I mean, you know, parents have a lot of power to really go and advocate for, you know, for mental, mental health and opportunities for, you know, peer groups and in high schools and, you know, junior highs and stuff like that, because, you know, nothing really of significance is going to take until it's really kind of demanded and more people are standing up.

We saw this with the school shootings, which is obviously horrific, but it gets tons and tons of attention. And we've lost literally hundreds of thousands, 100,000 more kids to suicide than we have in school shootings. And how much attention is really given to that and resources devoted to that. And so I think we've definitely got a lot of, you know, a lot of work to do, but there are a lot of great people doing work already. So. And a miss kitty over in rumble is saying you make drug addicts of children by placing them on these meds. Then when they turn 18, they have full blown drug addiction. I know miss kitty,

the data shows exactly the opposite in fact, and do not mistake a mood stabilizing medication, a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, a dual agent, a benzodiazepine, a opiate, a psychostimulant. These are all extremely different categories of medication. Don't get me wrong. Overprescribing is a massive problem. I'm totally with you. But the things we have to worry about are the psychostimulants, the benzodiazepines, and the opiates. The others have sort of, again, limited efficacy in adolescents, but they do not trigger addiction. In fact, even Adderall, even the psychostimulants, when I started seeing the meth epidemic happening in the 90s and early 2000s,

because I always thought cocaine would just wipe meth aside. There would not be a big meth problem. And so when the amphetamines came on, I thought, oh, it's got to be the Adderall. It's got to be. We're causing all this, much like Miss Kitty's suggesting. But I looked at that data very carefully and monitored it for years, and it's not so. It's not so. But I do feel that if you continue psychostimulants after age of 18, you can get into trouble if you have the genetic potential for addiction. But again, addiction is a specific disorder. You can trigger addiction, but you don't make an addict. All right.

Lana, anything else? Thank you for coming up no just to let greg know the students have requested and created and are demanding um support and mental health support and the school district and the parents are trying but not to the extent of what the students want so it's really interesting to sort of watch the whole thing and my kids are out of the high school. They're older now. They're in their 20s. But I still feel very, you know, like this was my school

or this is my kid's school. And again, all the COVID isolation and all that business made everything worse, I'm sure, right? A bazillion times worse. A bazillion times. That's a scientific term, right? Bazillion times worse. Bazillion times. That's a, that's a scientific term, right? Bazillion.

Absolutely. We lose, we use it all of the time in my office. Yes. All right. A lot of thanks. Thank you. Okay.

Uh, let's see if we have time. We have running out of time here, guys. Uh, uh, shoot. A lot of people are wanting to ask questions.

You can go a little long if you want. Yeah. Okay. Caleb, why don't you ask that question and we'll let both Emma and Greg answer your question. Go ahead. Oh, yeah. So I was just,

I was curious because of something that she had just brought up. I was wondering if there are any studies that have figured out what causes suicide clusters in schools. Like when it kind of seems like it washes over one group and then the next group, is there a science behind that or do they understand the reason why? Greg, first. Yeah, I mean, not really. I think there's, you know, there's some things with the contagion, but then there's some of these clusters where the kids didn't even really know each other or didn't know about the other person. So that's one of the, you know, tricky things is, I mean, there's great researchers that are working on this and have been for years, but there's just so much that's really unknown that's, you know, predictive and can really get down to the, you know, to the, to the why. I mean, there's predispositions and certain things like if you've had a previous

suicide attempt or if you have a history of mental health issues and stuff that make you more likely that you may attempt. But I think I'm not that I'm aware of to that question. Emma? Yeah. I don't think specifically there's any correlation on just from my personal experience. Um, I know from myself, I had a suicide attempt in June of 2017.

And then shortly about a month later, a class, a classmate of mine died by suicide. And I had, wasn't friends with him, just had seen him in the halls. So we were on two different sides of basically different groups of people. And he died and I had an attempt.

And then similar to that, something totally was in Minnesota. There was a young girl who died by suicide. And then shortly after that, her boyfriend died by suicide. So I think it's all kind of circumstantial. I don't really think that there's correlation. Granted, in some instances, I'm sure there is correlation. But overall, from my experience and my knowledge, there isn't correlation. Both Emma and Greg are right in that it's complicated and you can't point at one thing, Caleb. There is contagion of human behavior, and suicide is one of the things that

becomes a contagious process, but it's not as powerful as we might think. You could also argue that whatever the circumstances are in that community or at that school that set off the initial suicide were influencing other kids in that area similarly, or whether it was a lack of access or lack of, you know, uh, openness to the, the idea of getting help, whatever it is, there's a million different reasons in terms of the environment and in terms of the individuals that, that can get, go this way. Um, you, you can, you know, for, for males, you know, they're more likely to complete, complete suicide than females. There's that they're more likely to complete complete suicide than females there's that they're more likely to use firearms than females but the women have been catching up in recent years and

you know it's it's sort of equalizing to some extent so it's it's very hard to know exactly what all the factors are for a given so-called cluster but you'll see you know kids get cluster with eating disorder they cluster with cutting they cluster that just tends to be the way things do go um and uh and you know it's easy to say contagion but exactly what we mean by that is not entirely understood right so i just i read about that and i yeah it makes sense it's just so strange to me that they haven't done any more like widespread studies to figure it out it's like well they're they're constantly they're trying to figure it out trust me they're trying to figure what's the pattern to it yeah in fact in fact i don't know if you guys are involved with this new mental health helpline this 988 line have you guys heard about this oh yeah talk about it

because this is this is here's one of the well let me just say i just want to say that that one of the success stories in suicide awareness is suicide awareness and suicide helplines. These have been shown to be impactful on the suicide attempts and rates. And now the government, I think wisely, is going, huh, that worked. I wonder if we could do a mental health sort of emergency line, much like the suicide helpline. And that just got approved like last week. But Emma, you talk to that first, then we'll have Greg talk about it. Yeah, 988, that just got approved, I think, July 16th. And that was huge from my perspective, because I can remember being a teenager and I had heard of the 1-800 number.

Obviously, when I was in school, the song by Logic wasn't out yet. So it wasn't that big of a deal in mainstream media. But I had heard the number, but never would I have ever thought utilize that number, not, especially not in a moment of crisis. It's just not practical. It's not realistic to think that a youth in their moment of crisis is going to remember to make that call and use that number. Um, so I think having it in a three digit number, similar to how 911, we all know 911, right? It's, it's universal. I think converting it to more of a universal, very easy to remember. You can teach your children that 988 is the helpful line. so much better and more useful and there's a separate mention. I'm all for it. And I really am finally grateful that it's happened and it's finally come to fruition.

Good. Yeah. So it's, yeah, it's been a number of years in the making, you know, some just amazing advocates really advocated for this. It was approved by the Senate years ago.

And then the FCC just approved it two years ago. And so for whatever reason, it takes a long time then the FCC just approved it two years ago. And so for whatever reason, it takes a long time through all the different carriers and whatnot, and it went active on the 16th. But basically, you know, it's a 24-hour crisis center. It's a former National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, and so this is their new three-digit number. You call. You get to talk to a licensed, you know, clinician who can kind of you know hear what you're going through most of the calls are resolved right there but they can also refer you to resources the real cool thing about the expansion is it's mental health

and substance use so um you know when you call that you're routed to a call center in your own community by your area code so more than likely if i call from, you know, Louisiana, my area code, then I'm going to be talking to somebody in Louisiana. It's still really in development. It's one of those things that was kind of partially, you know, partially funded and it really varies state to state as far as the robust nature of the resources that are available. Some have crazy mobile teams,

some have a lot of beds and services and programs some not so much so well we'll look forward to that sort of being built out i know here in los angeles if you remember they had we had a thing called teen line that cedar sinai put together was very successful teaching adolescents how to do active listening to their peers and they had a lot of great success and makes me wonder if uh the 988 could have sort of a subcategory of peer-to-peer kinds of stuff maybe going on. You guys, we've kind of come to the end of our time together. I want to give each of you a chance to kind of wrap up. Greg, your last thoughts.

Sure. We just appreciate you shining light on this, you know, issue of mental health and suicide prevention. I think one thing that we just need to always kind of think about and the surgeon general talks about it is really addressing the upstream factors. You know, it's really crazy to me that we're not, you know, really engaging young people in much earlier ages, elementary school, high school with, you know, mental health awareness and training and more social

emotional learning. Cause unless we really start at a much earlier age, we're just going to continue to have these outrageous numbers of suicides and, you know, substance abuses. So we really got to start addressing this, you know, stuff earlier. So that would be my kind of big takeaway to leave with you. And, you know, we definitely would love to connect with people on the film and, you know, see what we can do to help you or your community or your organization enhance your mental health and wellness and your, you know your empower youth in the process. So thanks for letting us be on. So myascension.us. I'm glad we brought up the 988 number. I want to give you another video series out there about chronic mental illness and the resource available called Healing Minds NOLA.

Healing Minds NOLA, meaning New Orleans. So it's Healing Minds NOLA, N-O-L-A. Emma, your last thoughts. I'm just so grateful and appreciative for this opportunity. Like Greg said, I knew that sharing my story was going to be a challenging journey, but it's certainly been one of the most rewarding journeys, mainly because by me sharing my story and sharing my testimony and my truth, it's allowed others to then step forward and get out of that denial that we were talking about and let other people know that they're struggling and to reach out for help. So that's my biggest piece is I just want to encourage people who are struggling to know that it is okay not to be okay, and you're not alone, and it's not a weakness to reach out for help.

It's a sign of strength. So that's my out for help. It's a sign of strength. So that's my, my takeaway for you. Yeah, I, I, I completely agree. And I appreciate, uh, you so much getting out there and making a difference. This is, this to me is the problem of our time. This is, you know, you want to even point out all the divisions in this country and all the acrimony and all that stuff underneath it is a lot of this stuff too so thank you for being a part of the solution uh so we'll look forward to what you do you guys do next thank you guys awesome thanks so much dr jim appreciate it you bet and uh coming up tomorrow

coming up thursday ed latimore uh he's got some interesting ideas, a former professional heavyweight boxer, and now he's got some interesting ideas. He's just an interesting guy. I've seen him on Twitter for a long time. Grew up poor, public housing. He's got his own sort of ideas about how to get into the solution, and I'm anxious to hear from Ed. And as I said, in about a week, we're going to have the urologist in here,

and one of our local users was very interested in addressing the issue of childhood sexual abuse and pelvic pain and urinary problems, that kind of thing, which are exquisitely common. So, Susan, anything else before we say farewell here? Make sure you go to drjew.com and use the code Drew to get a discount on your bobblehead, everybody. There it is. I knew that was coming up here. She needs to move those bobbleheads. Where do we go?

Store? They're so cute. Drdrew.com slash shop. We still, I keep saying this, we owe Leopold a visit here. And I think Harley or something. Is that who else is up here? Yeah. Yeah, Leopold and Harley need to have their own visit.

And we got to do that for them. We haven't been around, I guess. I know. We've been... They don't seem like We haven't been around, I guess. I know. They don't seem like they're in a hurry. It's been our fault, let's be fair. Anytime. Yeah, all right. Well, I haven't heard from Leopold in a minute,

so we'll get that going. Let me look at Rumble. He's living his life. He's on vacation. He was on vacation for quite a while. People are advocating faith-based stuff people are worried about medication which i don't blame you i really don't uh but you know these are very serious illnesses and uh you have to be with people that give a shit about the care of the patient which is something we're losing in

medicine if i hope covet taught everybody that uh certainly taught me that adam kroll is going to be on um gutfeld tonight yep so that should be very interesting we had a conversation with greg about that last wednesday after we went out to dinner with i told crystal you told crystal about our conversation yeah that he's but they did a podcast first so hopefully they'll be able to iron out their uh good get their rhythm their evil minds together fair enough those two both remind me kind of each other. Did? Yeah.

I don't disagree with that. Very creative, the two of them. Very creative. Interesting combo. All right. So we will be with you guys tomorrow and Thursday at 3 o'clock Pacific time. And let me look at next week. Anthony Howard Brown is in the house.

I saw that. And we are here all through next week as well, right? Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Yes. And maybe Friday also. I don't know. We is in the house. I saw that. And we are here all through next week as well, right? Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And maybe Friday? I don't know. We'll see about Friday. Maybe, yeah. I don't know. It's up to Caleb, but we're also bringing back a calling out, too. I'm trying to set that up.

Caleb, everything good with you? Any other questions? Oh, yeah. Everything's going great. I'm, yeah, doing great. Camp Ben's turning one in two days. Oh my God. I can't believe that. Amazing. All right,

everybody. We will see you tomorrow at three o'clock Pacific. Ta-ta. 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 outdated 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 drdrew.com slash help.