Ask Dr. Drew - Dave Navarro (Jane's Addiction) on Ketamine, Depression & Addiction – Ask Dr. Drew – Episode 69

Episode Date: January 28, 2022

[12/1/21] Dave Navarro is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, actor, and television personality. He is a member of rock band Jane’s Addiction and played guitar for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Currently, he is a member of the new supergroup, NHC. He joins Ask Dr. Drew LIVE to speak about addiction, ECT, depression, ketamine, and recovering from trauma. Dave also speaks on the tragic death of his mother, who was murdered by her ex-boyfriend in 1983. Music from NHC: https://NHC-music.com  Follow Dave Navarro at https://instagram.com/davenavarro/  [This episode originally aired on December 1, 2021] Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Kaleb Nation ( https://kalebnation.com) and Susan Pinsky (https://twitter.com/FirstLadyOfLove). SPONSORS • REFRAME – Since the beginning of the pandemic, nearly 1 in 5 Americans has reported consuming an unhealthy amount of alcohol, but only 10% of them are actually getting the help they need. Reframe is a neuroscience-based smartphone app that helps users cut back or quit drinking alcohol. Use the code DRDREW for 25% off your first month or annual subscription at https://drdrew.com/reframe • 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  • HYDRALYTE – “In my opinion, the best oral rehydration product on the market.” Dr. Drew recommends Hydralyte’s easy-to-use packets of fast-absorbing electrolytes. Learn more about Hydralyte and use DRDREW25 at checkout for a special discount at https://drdrew.com/hydralyte  • 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/  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

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. 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. So let's bring in my one and only guest, the great Dave Navarro. Our laws as it pertains to substances are draconian and bizarre. The psychopath started this. Dave Navarro. 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, I can help. I got a lot to say. I got a lot more to say.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, nearly one in five Americans has reported consuming an unhealthy amount of alcohol. Could be you, but only 10% of them are actually getting the help they need. Reframe is a neuroscience-based smartphone app that helps users cut back or quit drinking alcohol altogether. Using evidence-based tools, techniques, and content, Reframe guides users through a personalized program to help them reach their goals. Comprised of daily tasks, a comprehensive toolkit, a community forum, and accountability guides, Reframe is a modern, accessible, and affordable resource that can help anyone looking to reevaluate their relationship with alcohol. Reframe is backed by Harvard University and Emory University Schools of Medicine, and it is ranked the number one alcohol reduction smartphone app worldwide

with over 350,000 downloads. With Reframe, there's no stigma, just science, no labels, just support. To learn more, go to joinreframeapp.com slash drdrew. Use the code drdrew for 25% off your first month or your annual subscription. That's at joinreframeapp.com slash drdrew. Dave and I have known each other for quite some time. Hey, buddy, how are you? I'm good, man. How are you? I really enjoyed the hard-hitting intro that I just saw. I'd never seen that before. So good. Just like hard-hitting facts with Dr. Drew. I love it.

It's almost like a real program. Excellent. Dave has a new group. He is formed with Taylor Hawkins and Chris Cheney, which is called NHC. Tell me about them. NHC, it stands for Navarro, Hawkins and Chaney. Chris Chaney is in James Addiction with me. And Taylor Hawkins is, of course, from the Foo Fighters. And we've all been really good friends for a number of years. And during the pandemic, we just got together to make music because we were, you know, on the verge of staying in isolation and not being productive and working on something. And so what started out as being something that was more of a passion thing

and a fun thing, um, we ended up making an album and doing some shows and the albums coming out and, uh, NHC, people laugh at us because it's a very uncreative title but we feel that uh right there there are plenty of bands with really creative names out there and you know you're becoming a corporate firm i just at this point is like there's so many great names out there and like we're just like we're nhc it's fine and it seems to be working and uh it's it's more of a it's more of a real band that we have going now than just a side thing, which is what we thought it was, which is nice. And so it's a lot of fun for me creatively and musically and for those guys, because then when Chris and I go back to Jane's Addiction or Taylor goes back to the Foo Fighters, we're all re-energized and revitalized about our passion for music.

And so both bands feed one another in terms of our level of commitment to the music and to the work. So it's really been nice. Thanks for mentioning it. It is nhc-music.com. I'm guessing you can see the tour schedule and where to find you guys.

We're on Twitter. It's NHC Music Official. I mean, I'm sorry. Well, we're on Twitter. It's a NHC music official. I mean, I'm sorry. Uh, well, we might have a Twitter. I don't run the Twitter,

but there's an IG and H and H and H. I, you know, I only have one platform, Dr. Drew. I only have Instagram because I'm a fan of the arts and, uh,

you know, the visuals. And I want to, I want to see something really quick, but I don't, I'm on, not on Twitch. I'm not on Twitter. I'm not on Snapchat. I'm not on Facebook. I got rid of all of them because it was just too much time buried in the screen. You know what I mean? And as you know, I have

my own mental health issues and the last thing I need is an addiction to my phone. Um, more than I already have. You know what I mean? So I just, I eliminated it. It's like cutting out alcohol and drugs,

but drinking coffee. That's the way I look at it. You know what I mean? I'm not, I'm not fully, I'm not fully, you know, I'm not fully.

And I'm not surprised. Instagram is where he landed because as long as I've known Dave, he has had an interest in the visual. I remember that one time you put a photo booth in your living room and everyone in the kitchen house had to take photos. And then you made a book out of that. I did. I did. That was inspired. That was inspired by Andy Warhol, who had a photo booth in his factory.

And I'm a massive Warhol who had a photo booth in his factory and I'm a massive Warhol fan and it was also kind of a social experiment to see who in my life because we as human beings we go through so many different relationships and friendships and some of them are long-term some of them are short-term so I almost wanted to see who would be there at the end of the year. Still, you know, starting at the beginning of the year, you'd see a certain group of people. And by the end of the year, it was a totally different framework of people. And then some people were similar, but it was, it was, it was, it was a dark and exhilarating and dangerous but fun time and i'm lucky to have survived it but um i don't i would definitely not want to repeat it the photo booth part was fine it was it was it was the

behavior yeah you know the behavior the behavior the behavior around that year was was was pretty dangerous yeah yeah it was not the booth itself. It was what you were up to. Anywhere but the booth. Or maybe in the booth, too. No, but it was a good way to get people. It was a good way to get, like, 30 people that are leaving the bar at 1.30 in the morning over to my house. And, you know, let the danger ensue, so to speak. Well, take pictures and, you know, whatever else.

Yeah. And, and, and that was all, that was 24 years ago, 23 years ago, something like that. 99 or 98. I cannot believe it. You know, the evening, the evening. So that book was called don't try this at home. And it was co-written by Neil Strauss and myself. And it was just a year chronicling a year in my life of some pretty dangerous behavior and fortunately i came out on the other side of it and uh and it has a positive message at the end but it's pretty it's pretty brutally honest and i'll

never forget that the night before it came out it came out with judith reagan was going to put it out the night before it came out i called the publisher and said you can't release this book he's like you know that like that that panic at the last minute like you can't you can't please don't i'm gonna kill myself if you release this thing because it was it was so it was so it um what i did was i was able to get them to hold it and re-edit which was a miracle it took her probably 10 years to forgive me for that but we're friends now too but uh i because you know that's a lot of money for them it was already printed and published and on trucks and stuff and they had to pull a lot of strings to get it done but the reason why i pulled it was because i realized and i hadn't thought about it but i realized that there was a lot of

information in there about other people that had high profile names that i didn't get consent from and so i just i felt and it wasn't so much a worry of litigation. It was more worry of just like, it's not my responsibility or privilege to share other people's private information. It's not right. And so that's where the panic set in. Yeah. My own information I felt fine about. So I'm seeing on my chat stream here a lot of basic questions for you. So I'm just going to blow through here a lot of basic questions for you so I'm just gonna blow through them will you master be coming back

Ink Master is coming back it's coming back next year it's gonna be on Paramount Plus but I will not be attending we will have a whole brand new panel of judges and a new host and the main reason for that is because i think they're shooting it in uh in a different country so i um just for me personally with all the other projects i have going on the music being the priority and the art being the priority like there was no way i would be able to multitask those and also on a mental health level dr drew i don't want to be far away for that long of amount of time and have my entire support group sound asleep if I need them. You know? Yeah.

Yeah, I know. Because you can't reach out to somebody. Your disease doesn't do push-ups, man. I think yours lifts weight. It's like doing squats. So I really had to, I really had to think about it. I was like, I need my support group, you know, available. And the, the, the other people that I support, they support me. And it's a,

it's a two way street as you know. And, um, you know, I, I can't, I couldn't even multitask because the time difference, but, um, so, but yes, the answer is that the show will be back. The show will time difference, but, um, so, but yes, the answer is that the show will be back. The show will be back, but I will not. And then they're asking, you know, where do you drive your strength to keep going? What, what's, uh, and I know you've had some mood stuff in the last 18 to 24 months stuff too.

So where, where do you get your inspiration strength from? I think honestly, from the people that I work with, and also my passion for the creative, just my creative outlets, you know, the music, the art, I also have a, I co I co run an apparel and art company called dual diagnosis with my partner Padilla, who is an LA based street artist and fine artist and it's all aimed at mental health awareness. And even like even what I'm wearing right now is one of our shirts, which has mental wealth nice,

instead of mental health. So they're just we we just want to raise awareness to the fact that the fact that this is a worldwide epidemic and it has gotten even worse over the pandemic. And more people are struggling now than ever. And a lot of things, I think, are part of that. I think part of that is the pandemic and the isolation that everybody went through. And I also think that social media is a huge factor uh in terms of the widespread uh you know surge of mental health issues because let's face it man nobody posts their bad days or taking out the trash or weeping or you know they post the good stuff that wants you know that

they want to make them look good and so what that ends up creating is a, is a platform where it's only the snapshots of the best moments of everybody's life. And someone who's going through a hard time just sees, why is it my life like that? Why am I not out on a yacht? Why am I not happy? You know, and I'm the same way. I'm not going to post, you know, I don't post when I'm struggling. I post the things that I think I'm inspired by or the work I'm doing or other people that inspire me. You know, I'm pretty careful not to disclose too much because I just feel that, um, I just don't think that as human beings were geared or were geared to have the entire planet be able to respond to every thought you have and, uh, and share your every move with the entire planet and have them interact. So I get a lot, i get a lot of grief from people because my comments are

off unless i follow you but that's just a self-care move like i don't i don't if somebody hates me in wichita i don't need to read it like i just i don't need that in my life you know i have enough trouble in there yeah no and i have enough trouble in between my own ears and with my brain sometimes that i don't i don't need confirmation from kyle in wichita you know what i mean so yeah so i i think that that was a smart a smart self-care related move and um i think comments are are uh you know by and large usually pretty supportive but um oh that was quick thank you um by and large i see go to dual diagnosis.com to buy this yeah good yeah i'm sending them to dual diagnosis.com to go purchase things or you know what we have we have a manifesto there that's about our myth it's our mission statement and that's free so you don't even have to buy anything and what that does

is it really outlines how uh you know one of the things we say is that shame has never saved anyone shame is actually something that kills people because they don't speak they're afraid to be they're afraid to be heard and um so by showing your vulnerability and speaking out that you know then you have a chance you have a shot as long as you're willing to be humble about it and honest about it then then you have a chance, you have a shot. As long as you're willing to be humble about it and honest about it, then you have a shot at moving past something. But being shameful and keeping your mouth shut can lead to institutions and sometimes deaths

and some pretty miserable existences. So we encourage people to speak out. And that messaging is free. The apparel is, of course for sale and we have multi-tiered pricing points so it's uh something for everyone i feel like a dual d-u-e-l dual diagnosis that's clever okay i was looking for because because we think of it as well with dual because there's two of us me and my partner padilla yeah and also dual is because you think of a gun duel and sometimes that's what's happening inside someone's brain you know what i mean is like they're they're doing they're

dueling themselves so we just i get it i get it yeah yeah it's clever it's clever i like it and dual diagnosis you immediately get shat over to treatment centers and things that could, they could derail people, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ooh, it's great. Visually. Wow. It's very cool. Thank you. It has to have music included. Yeah.

Well, that's a short, that's a short film we did about a, uh, you don't have to play it, but that's a short film we did about a young girl who, uh, experiences a traumatic event and she becomes, she transforms herself into a isolated, insulated character with this kind of like this protective shield, this costume that she wears. touch her no one can see her uh her own environment is intact within the costume her own air her own

means of of uh regulating her her uh cns and her you know central nervous system and and uh you know it's it's it's kind of what we what's kind of what we run into in in this area is uh the isolation thinking that that's going to be the protective measure but the fact is that um it's not until we share it with somebody else who is either a professional or someone who is like-minded um provided that you don't create an unhealthy trauma bond and and and do it in a more supportive way, that those are the ways to go. And so we encourage that. I'm going to tell you what.

I mean, I can't stop looking at this stuff, both the jackets, the posters, the original art. I mean, I feel like this is valuable material. This is really cool stuff. Thank you, Dr. Drew. Yeah, we also do fine art and we do installations as well. So we had a show last year at Julian's in Beverly Hills where we built an enormous cuckoo clock that you could walk into to view our artwork, our fine art. And as you see, I have two cuckoo clocks behind me i don't

know if you can see them on the wall see them but those were in in my in my childhood those are my first memories of insanity when you would see them in cartoons you know and someone was typically crazy and they you would see the cuckoo and i i really got to thinking about it and i was like why why would that be why why is that the symbol of crazy and I don't know if this is the reason but what I came up with is that you got this little bird trapped in this housing with complications inside and anybody who knows anything about watchmaking or clockmaking the the components that create the watch and the movement are called complications and uh the way the clock runs is that there are two weights at the bottom of the clock which i i i kind of uh imagine as emotional baggage right so the bird cannot fly out of the box

of the cannot fly out of this box of complications because it is held down by its own emotional baggage that it just simply won't let go of and that's what drives it and create that's what drives it crazy so we built i am fully shopping right now i can't stop looking at this stuff this is awesome be be my guest he's gonna buy me the one that says i'll never be sane i will never be the same yeah and insanity is its own cure i like that one too the the um so there's i don't know why the cuckoo i love your version of the cuckoo, but one thing that cuckoos do is they deposit their eggs in with other birds. And the cuckoo bird eventually gets big and pushes out all the other young and becomes the only bird that's getting the food from the mother. It's something like that. There's some weird.

Oh, my God. So then you would think that it would be the symbol of narcissism and not insanity right there you go i think that's right i think what i'm saying is true i think the craziness is that the parents keep feeding this bird that just overflows the nest well then then if you really if you really break it down then the cuckoo bird itself is not the crazy one it's the parents it's the it's the blue jay that Blue Jay that keeps raising it. Correct. Or at least. Now I have to look this up. At least they're highly codependent.

Maybe they're not crazy. Right. Am I getting this right? Is that what I'm remembering about the cuckoo? Fascinating fact. I didn't know that. Well, maybe I'm wrong. Let me make sure that I remember. Let me see.

They were in greek mythology they were associated with cuckoldry why whatever that means uh which i guess is the bird taking over the nest right yeah that sounds like it although you know i've got to look for something although we think of cuckolding in a different way but yes i guess it would apply uh theoretically to that as well hang on i'm almost there let me see if they can reading it's not really talking maybe i have this wrong i could easily have this wrong let me wait wait yeah here it is the cuckoo yeah cuckoo eggs blah blah, blah, blah. Hatch earlier than host eggs. Right. So there's a host.

They put it in with the host. In most cases, the chick then evicts the eggs and or the young of the host. The chick has no time to learn behavior, nor does any parents stay around to teach it. So it's must be an instinct. Wow. All kinds of weird stuff.

That is... Wikipedia cuckoo birds. Sorry that I went down that. I mean, even as a hatchling, it is self-centered and frankly pretty mean-spirited. Right, right, right, right, right. Okay, let's see what else people are asking you here. One second. I'm going to get some phone calls in just a second. Oh, yeah.

Everybody over on, what do you call it? Yes, I'm going to go to Clubhouse in just a second. But there were lots of good questions. Were you on Tiger Belly recently or something? Were you there with Bobby? I was there a couple of years ago. I wasn't recently, but that was one of my favorite podcasts to do. on uh were you on tiger belly recently or something did you be there uh bobby i was i was there a couple years ago i wasn't recently but that was a that was one of my favorite podcasts to do he's so he's i've known bobby for so long and he's he's just so he's so he's he's such a

nice person and just funny like just just just truly one of the funniest human beings i know and um yeah that was a great time has he ever told you his his worst not war stories but his stories his trauma stories when he was using it as an adolescent and his mom trying to fix a little bit yeah a little bit we you know i know him i know him uh actually i we i guess since he's already spoken about it, I can share that we met in 12-step recovery programs. So that's how we first became friends and been friends ever since. Excellent. And talk for a minute before we go to the phones about the documentary and what that's doing.

Oh, my documentary. Yeah. There's a documentary. So when I was 15 years old, my mother was murdered by her then boyfriend who couldn't handle rejection and was, uh, uh, clearly had, uh, in mental health issues and, and shot her, shot her and my aunt. And, uh, I was 15 years old. Oh, I didn't know your aunt oh i didn't know your aunt i

didn't know your aunt too yeah they were both together i don't i forgot that part oh my god yeah they came they came i left you know what in the same spirit of the book i left her story out of the film because it wasn't mine to tell it wasn't my family you know so i didn't want to get into get into their personal business and bring up something for my family members. But, yeah, the the ex-boyfriend was waiting at home for them. They returned from an evening out and took them both out. And I'm sure that if my mom came home alone, they would have just been her. But since my aunt happened to be there, she was taken out, sadly, as well.

And the film is called Morning Son, but it's spelled M O U R N I N G S O N. Kind of a weird film to have a play on words as the title but it seemed to work. And yeah, that's on Amazon. It's streaming on Amazon and I think other platforms too, but it's up there and available it's it came out a couple years ago and I'll tell you something Dr. Drew a lot of people asked me if that film was very cathartic for me to make and tell that story and the answer was no it was it was it was horrible it was like it was brutal I know yeah it was brutal but because the catharsis element to that project didn't happen for years so maybe three years later when i got a lot of

feedback from people who were touched by the film or that they could relate to or that they felt less alone um then i started feeling uh really good about the decision to make it but it was it was hard to make it was looking through courtroom footage looking through police reports looking through crime scene photos i mean it was it was brutal it was a brutal process and um again on the eve of its release i was like we can't release this movie either. But it was already, you know, I just, I just go, I just, I go through the panic. I go through the panic, but then ultimately it comes, it goes, it lives in content form somewhere or another. And I've gotten nothing but positive feedback from it in terms of people that either have gone through severely traumatic situations like that or suffered a loss like that themselves. And I felt that, you know, especially when that happened, which was in 1983, there wasn't this surge of crime television that we have now. You know, it was there were no documentaries about this kind of

subject or very few and so i felt very alone uh at that age so um i felt that it was it was kind of like a night a nice way to put my story out there for anybody especially a young child at the formative years to lose a parent in a really tragic way to like, say, Hey, you're not alone and you can still make some of your life out of it and move forward. And that's what we tried to show. So from the standpoint of service, I thought the documentary was sensational. I thought you made a huge impact with it. I it was courageous i thought it hit every note properly um the if you would come to me beforehand and said you know i'm planning this thing i would

say don't do it uh because revivifying trauma never helps get through the drama and then trying to confront to perpetrators is always disappointing because they're those assholes. They are who they are. Well, that was the thing is I at the end of the film, I went to visit the killer in jail and he certainly was not remorseful, did not admit guilt. Still to this day, does not admit guilt. But at least I knew that going in. And my thinking at the time was and we show this in the film we don't show the interview because he's on death row or was on

death row i think he's since been commuted but uh but at the time they didn't allow cameras in death row so i i had to go in there my partner waited for me outside of Sam Quentin, uh, had a talk with him. And then in the film, just like I outlined earlier, I get back in the car and I was like, that was a bad idea. Like I, right. I remember, I remember that scene. I remember it. I was like, yeah, I told you that, but, but I'm not sorry you did it. I'm not sorry you did it. It's just, it just wasn't going to do what you thought it would do. You know what I, what i wanted it to do was it to be one of those because up until then it had been 30 years since i'd seen him so it was this big looming scary yeah ominous thing that i had not looked in the eyes yet so i felt that i gotta look this guy in the eyes no matter what he says don't expect

anything of him uh he's not going to be remorseful or anything and and frankly i just i just sat there i looked him in the eyes and i and i accomplished the task that i wanted to and i and i did it more as an experiment of walking through fear uh because the only way on the other side of it is to confront it and get into it. And like I said, it took some processing, but years later, I was really, really grateful to have done that and to have taken that time. At the time, though, it was very re-triggering. And I understand now why there are groups that set up such, you know, they set up such meetings for victims and perpetrators to meet under very protective guidelines.

I just went in there cold, unannounced, by myself. He was told he had a visitor. He didn't know who he came out and it was just like we sat there and talked and it was probably the most uh elevating surreal 20 minutes of my life that i would not want to have back um i wouldn't want to do it differently but i would not i would not want to do it again i'll tell you that much, man. Yeah, I get it. I totally get it. All right, let's go to some...

Wait, there was one other thing. I think that's it. Okay, let's go to some calls here. Chris from Wisconsin. You seem... Wisconsin, I told you. What's going on? I told you the Wisconsin people, man.

Hi, Chris. How you doing? Hi there. We have a lot of great people in wisconsin i know i do i i referenced the state i referenced the state earlier in an in an unsavory manner and i apologize to the people of wisconsin but uh chris what's your question oh don't worry about it there's plenty of jerks here it's fine yeah my question is this so keeping in mind you know you keeping taps on your personal wellness and your mental emotional wellness when you're touring and when you're creating music and you're out on the road and spending a lot of time outside of, you know, your comfortable home, I hope. And, you know, you're going into new and unique and somewhat foreign places.

How do you manage to keep yourself centered and, you know, basically stay on top of making sure that you're keeping the best care of yourself that you can? That's a great question you know i really stay i have a i have a small i have oh i've had i have an echo coming back i don't know if somebody can fix that but um i you know i stay in i stay in very uh close contact with my support group here i have a small internal number of people that I could feel safe reaching out to. And luckily, in a tour situation, you know, the band itself is somewhat of a family. So we're not really interacting with thousands of people every day. We're really interacting with one another, which in itself can drive each other crazy.

But for the most part, we're pretty safe. We're pretty safe. And there's always somebody I can always grab on the road or, you know, have a talk to if I need to reach out. But for the most part, and like, and for the most part, you know, doing shows and traveling like that is a lot of fun. So the moments that you would think that I would have are pretty few and far between, because I'm pretty busy. It's when I, it's when I have nothing to do and I'm isolating and I'm sitting at home alone where the thinking, the thinking in my brain starts happening and I don't have anything to do or anybody to talk to and that's when I find myself in the most danger, but thanks for the question.

It's a great question. I, I, I, I know that about you, but it does bring up another thing that I brought up earlier, which is that you're a master at being of service. And to that point, shall we promote the December 20th event? Yeah, we are doing in our third year now, it's an event called Above Ground. And Dr. Drew is speaking at it this year and as he has the past prior years. And it's me and my partner, Billy Morrison, who I believe is at Billy Morrison official on Instagram. He's the guitar player for Billy Idol and an accomplished musician in his own right.

And every year we try, except for last year, because of the pandemic, we try and put on an event to raise money, funds for people who are suffering with addiction, mental health issues. And all that money goes to an organization called Music Cares. And they find treatment facilities and beds for people that are really, really suffering. And this year we are. So every year we do two records in their entirety because we missed the vinyl format of an entire album and so this year we are doing lou reed's transformer and yeah then we're then you'll speak and then we're also going to do never mind the bullocks because it's entirety it's always a great event i love going to that event and it's thank you well yeah and susan i

just occurred to me that uh heather and terry dubrow's daughter has been raising money for music cares we need to get them to this event okay so absolutely can you yeah dave maybe email susan and invite and i'll get them. No, I'll just text her. All right, we'll talk. Because I mentioned it. I'll let you do that again. Okay. All right, good.

But they are very interested in supporting Music Cares. And you and I know. His brother. Was it Whitesnake? No, he was. That's Terry DeBrow's. No, he was in. Terry DeBrow, right? Yeah, he was Terry Dubrow no he was in yeah he was

get wild wild wild alright I can't come on feel the noise I can't believe I can't believe I'm spacing on this quiet riot quiet riot quiet riot my buddy Mark McGrath would be mortified that I didn't know that

yeah but uh how is mark i haven't seen mark in years mark is encyclopedic with all things yeah yeah he'll be there on the 20th he's great we're in another band together called loyal machines and uh billy morrison myself mark mcgrath donovan leach chris cheney and josh freeze uh so we and we all make time to do that as well so i have i think four josh four brought four band josh freeze i was gonna say but quietly josh has been the drummer to every band ever since 1990 quietly no one knows this he's in the he's in the vandals he's in devo he was in sales he was in a perfect circle he's stings touring drummer just just and those are the top five off the top of my head but if you wikipedia that yeah yeah every band you've ever heard of it's yes right that's

true every time i talk to him like is he kind of who who did you not play with that'd be an easier thing to figure out he he was just out with he was just out with filling in the guy from offspring so he's just like he is incredible and uh such a sweet guy too you know really really great i think he filled in for taylor for a minute too and the foo fighters didn't he that's very possible i don't know that i did. Sure. You did But usually usually when a drummer is when a drummer misses a show, that's usually the first call that gets me Josh Well, because Josh not only not only is he such not only is he such a great drummer But he can put on like earbuds and listen to a song once and just know it But he has that kind of brain, you know that just knows changes and arrangements and just remember it like he has that kind of brain you know that they just like knows changes

and arrangements and just remember it on the spot and the bpm is for my so like he'll start a song and i'll go i'll go i i think that's a little fast and he'll go nope and every time he's right and by the way the the nicest humblest human being ever. And he sort of invented, I remember he invented selling experiences. I remember he sold, you know, he was trying to raise money for a group at one point. He was selling like, I'll take you to Disneyland all day. Spend the day with Josh Fries in Disneyland. Or I'll give you a massage for an hour.

And he raised a bunch of money doing that before anyone ever thought of doing things like that. Oh, and he's so, it's so him. I didn't know that about him. Um, yeah, I don't know if I'm, I'm stable enough to, uh, spend a day with anybody at Disneyland. One of the interesting things about Disneyland, if you, if you look, if you look up the dark secrets of Disneyland, there's a lot of them.

It's kind of a fascinating wormhole to go down. I think that if somebody dies on the park... There's a whole TikTok channel. There's a whole TikTok, not just channel, sort of category of Disney mishaps, Disney complaining, Disney... Oh, yeah. There's one of the...

Go ahead. Finish your line. One anecdote about it is that if somebody dies on the park, the paramedics come and take them off the park grounds before they announce the time of death. That way, nobody has technically died at the happiest place on earth. The time of death gets announced outside the park ground. Keep working on them. keep working on them keep working on them keep keep the you know keep the compressions going until we till we get till we get to harvard harvard boulevard uh yeah so we get to ball avenue so listen we can take a quick

break here i got to do a few commercials we'll come back with more calls and with day navarro after this let's talk about our friends at hydrolyte. I can't say enough about Hydrolyte. You hear me talk about them all the time. It gets me through workouts and medical procedures and colonoscopies and COVID. It absolutely contributed to my recovery from COVID. Hydration is key to feeling healthy, and there's never been a time when that could be more important. We're in the height of cold flu season. Every headache has got you testing for COVID. Staying hydrated can keep the questionable symptoms at bay, and there's nothing better than Hydrolyte to get it done.

Taking their hydration formula one step further, now there is Hydrolyte Plus Immunity. It starts with their fast-absorbing electrolytes and adds a host of great ingredients. Plus, each single-serve, easy-pour drink mix contains 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C and 300 milligrams of elderberry extract. Hydrolyte Plus Immunity comes in convenient, easy-pour powder sticks that rapidly dissolve in water to make a great-tasting drink that is a 75% less sugar than your typical sports drink.

It uses all-natural flavors. It's gluten-free, dairy-free, caffeine-free, non-GMO, and even vegan. Hydrolyte Plus Immunity is also now available in ready-to-drink bottles at the Walmart, next to the pharmacy, or as always, you can find it by visiting hydrolyte.com slash drdrew. That is H-Y-D-R-A-L-Y-T-E.com slash drdrew. And be sure to use that code drdrew25 at checkout for a special discount. Hey, everybody, we're back. Let's bring Dave right back in as well. Dave, just before I got on the horn here with you, I was talking to Art Alexakis from Everclear,

and he's becoming a chemical dependency counselor now. Did everything ever play out this thing? We got to get him involved with this thing too. You know, he hasn't. That's a great call. I don't know, he hasn't, and that's a great call. I, I don't know why that happened and why that slipped through the cracks, but,

uh, I've known him a long time and I believe I have played with him at one point, but that's a great call. But before, before we move on, if you don't mind, I want to get a selfie of us on the show together.

I hope this is the first time it's happened. Cause I think this will be a great way to be honest they had a great time on dr drew podcast um although it's only i got 15 minutes left so who knows if you might the hard-hitting questions might be it towards the end i don't know yeah they're not mine we're gonna let the listeners do it and not and not to not not to give hydrolite more time than they they paid for but taylor taylor hawkins swears by hydrolite he's like dude hydrolite you've got to do this every because he's like you know the amount of energy that guy puts out it's just it saves his body you know do you know how i got involved with hydrolite

they originally i i originally knew that we needed a product like that for oral rehydration and that we could technically do it. I tried inventing it, and all of a sudden it showed up in my medical office. They'd come from Australia, and we started marketing to doctors, and I thought, oh, here it is. And so I got involved with them, I don't know, seven or eight years ago. I said, that's it. You did it. I wanted to get ahead of you, but you're here, so I'll join with you guys. got involved with them i don't know seven or eight years ago i said that's it you did it i i i wanted to get ahead of you but you're here so i'll join with you guys yeah so one other one you're on with

oh wait go ahead before we get to you one thing i would like to when one thing i'd like to ask uh your your listeners is that if you're going to take the effort and care to use a product like hydrolite or drink electrolytes or make sure that your ph balance is in order to drink water typically from outside the u.s because uh if you get like icelandic or if you get fiji or you get one of those kind of brands um it doesn't come from the u.s and there's no fluoride in it so a lot of times we're drinking tons and tons of fluoride that we don't even know about because the us has such lax regulations on that and that's a terrible thing to put in your body all the time um anyway eat go ahead and wait one second even and also be careful

with the label purified when they purify they purify with a bunch of chemicals and you either want distilled or spring water or something. That's right. So be careful, just because it's in a bottle. And purified does not mean that the fluoride is taken out. I have a water filtration system connected to all the water in my house. And once I got this information, I called the filtration system and I said, is my house water safe from the fluoride?

They're like, well, no, we don't do that. I was like, well, then what am I paying for? Because it costs structural, internal, cellular damage, and it costs hair loss and all kinds of things. So you feel like you're taking the extra step to hydrate yourself and take care of yourself but you're really kind of putting a poison into your body that doesn't need to be there side note eve yes yes the water subject is good you know i'm from flint michigan

oh my god yeah lots to say about that but that's but that's not what i was going to talk about. More trouble than fluoride, I'm sorry to say. Oh, yeah. No, I'm still fighting it with my foundation and stuff that I've built. But Dave, thank you, Dr. Drew. You know I'm a fan of yours. Thank you. Dave, I bumped into you

under so many circumstances. You wouldn't know who I am. From dark places way back in the day to sitting at Sunset Plaza having food. And I'm a painter, but I've been known as a musician, right? Because I was with Quincy Jones gave me a deal, right? You're connecting all of them. I have finally connected all of my art, right?

I'm a painter. I've done three museums now. And I started something called the Diamond Art Awards. And it's in the raw. It's guerrilla style. But I have an 8,000 square feet downtown, right? But I'm putting this together from judges to a call out for everybody to bring one piece and go on an 8,000 square feet wall. I'm piecing this together in a way with the industry. And I'm trying to get as many wonderful people who are kind of Renaissance artists. You know, in that regard, you're doing music. You love painting. I mean, you got your hands a lot of places. So I was wondering if I might be able to just get you to take a look at the circumstance sometime. I'm piecing it together.

It's hardcore. What's their website? It's like the Oscars of the art world. It's about painting photography sculptures that's what i'm doing do you have a website i do have a instagram right now okay i have an instagram the website is coming together right now but the people are moving and really fast it's becoming really wonderful um i thought the diamond art awards say it again one more time eve the diamond art awards okay great

and you're down in the art district it's going to be downtown it's a 8 000 square feet building i'm i'm piecing it's like it's meant to be the oscars of of the art world right now and i got this 20 years ago when my daughter was born and nobody's really done it and i i feel called to do it dr drew all right buddy well let's get it done i just followed you and uh it looks great and i am happy to say that i am now your 23rd follower so good luck hallelujah and there will be more there shall be more dave you are man you're the man. Thank you so much, brother. All right. You're very welcome. Thank you, buddy. I want to try to get limited time.

I'm very happy that I could give you a platform to promote that without a question. Yeah, absolutely. Me too. Me too. I'm always happy for stuff like that. Diane. No. Diane.

Let's see if I can get Diane. Diane in Sierra, it sort of says, I think. Diane, Diane, Diane. No. Diane. Let's see if I can get Diane. Diane in Sierra, it sort of says, I think. Diane, Diane, Diane. There you are. Hi, Diane. Hello. Hi there. Thank you.

You bet. I'm dual diagnosis, kind of going back to the start of the conversation. So this is great. I love listening to this. And Dave, I can't believe that you have a documentary, such a brave, brave documentary, it sounds like, and I can't wait to watch it. So thank you. Oh, please do. Thank you. Thank you so much. And do you mind, do you mind if I ask what the dual diagnoses are? I'm a trauma survivor, and I also have a major depressive disorder with anxiety and chemical dependency. You're not alone, Diane. Yeah.

You're not alone, Diane. I tell you. And typically, and I think Dr. Drew would agree with this, I think that most chemically dependent people have trauma in their history. And that is usually... That's what I'm learning. Yeah. The genetics are the genetics and that's your risk factor and they're the necessary but not sufficient cause of the illness. And then the trauma is the and and they are that's your risk factor and they're the the necessary but not sufficient cause of the illness and then the trauma is the rocket fuel it's just the that's

the lighter fluid that's now the trauma was why you're seeking ways of regulating your emotions you know dave you mentioned dysregulation it's an it's an attempt at self-soothing which will ultimately kill you you know so i hope right so you end up with a second problem so you you're trying to help the feelings of the trauma and you end up activating the addiction now you got two two problems that are overlapping and fueling each other and then if you're prone to depression well here and now here we go right and the worst part of the worst part oh go ahead you got off what no you go ahead go ahead day it sounded like you were gonna say you got off sabacc so it was about to sound like you were gonna say i did yeah i just i'm 15 days off sabacc so good for you you're through it that's

good oh my god yeah i've been trying i'm trying so fucking hard yeah the two weeks it's a two week thing and once you get through it you're, it doesn't leave you with a lot of trouble. It leaves you, it's bad for two weeks, and then you're pretty good. Yeah. You know, it's almost worse than getting off, you know, regular opiates. 100% of people say that. 100% of Suboxone users say that. Diane, I'm from a time when we used to go to methadone clinics,

which was inherently evil and worse. And a lot of people don't know this, but it was, I think it was invented by the Germans and they used to feed it to the people in the concentration camps and would withhold the methadone if they didn't work. You know what I mean? So just the inception of it is evil and it's it was for me it was a nine month kick so i'm very i'm very happy to hear that uh because i know people it's a six month kick no matter what yeah i i i know people thank you and you too and i know people

that are on suboxone and that have probably no shot of getting off it at this point but that's a huge accomplishment yeah good for you thank you yeah i was on it two years i never thought i would get off good for you but uh and how are you can i ask another quick one yeah of course if you want go ahead go ahead of course oh are you talking to me, Dr. Drew? Yes, ma'am. Oh, okay. I guess my question is with my depression. It's pretty severe, and I've tried different things, and I think I've talked to you about this before you took my question. But since I'm off Suboxone, should I wait about six months before, say, I try ECT or any theta burst stimulation trials or anything like that. My goodness. So you've been, you've been on, if you're getting downstream to those sorts of treatments, that means you've been, you've done everything, been on everything. I have. You're talking to, you know, Dave, I don't know if you want to share stories on this front. It's kind of a challenging question, right? She's got trauma.

The trauma can't be fully treated if you were on the Suboxone. So now you have a chance to fully treat the trauma. And the trauma treatment may help your mood, but your mood could be dangerously off for a while, and it could be a problem. And so, yeah, so you do want to pay attention to it. The question is, what are the best ways? You might go back to more traditional kinds of treatment because you might respond to it now you know

yeah i mean i would say i don't know i personally would think that'd be worth a try i don't you mean like a traditional antidepressants yes there's there's there's there's antidepressants that are wonderful for people for those who need it i know it's over prescribed and it's a controversial issue, but you know, there was a time that I was on, I was on effect. I was on a fixer for about 20 years.

And, uh, you know, we, I guess, I guess I got off that about two years ago and I've been doing pretty good. I didn't do it.

That's hard to get off. Still, it's terrible. Yeah. It's horrible. It's stabilized from that. I don't know much about CCT, but I do know that there are methods like EMDR, which are pretty safe and

non-retriggering and certainly just person-to-person cognitive therapy in conjunction with maybe a 12-step program with creating a support a support group around you so you're not alone and so you can reach out at any time with someone if something comes up and or you have that urge to use again like to really reach out yeah um i'm not familiar enough dr drew's the doctor here and i don't i don't ever recommend anything that i personally haven't done and i've never done that before so i can't I can't speak well ECT is you know that's a pretty aggressive treatment it works ECT does work but you really I you know ECT is when you have vegetative depressions you can't you can't function but

but um what would Dave you have any feelings these days about ketamine I've done that I do I do you have done Yeah. My feelings about ketamine is that it can be well documented as being very, as highly successful for people, treating people in trauma situations. But I've also known people that have an addictive nature. It can also have an addictive nature to it. Yeah. That's been my experience. Yeah. So mine too. So it, it, it, it's certainly something to be done for some people yeah it's certainly something to be done under physicians physicians care uh typically they they give you a series of them and then you refrain from it so you're in a doctor's office they do an infusion or whatever they do they do five or six of them over the course of

two months maybe and then you take a step from it but um i i know that there are forms of you know daily use nasal sprays home home ketamine uh yeah no no no not for now ways to do that yeah i don't i don't yeah i would i would Yeah. I would say that that's dangerous for an addict to go down that road. But I've done a lot of that. I've tried that a lot. And I will tell you that I went, because you fill out a questionnaire every time you do it. When I did it, you know, how you're feeling. I forget what the name of the test is, Dr. Rue.

You probably know. Oh, yeah, the depression scale. Yeah, there are very depression scales, the various ones, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So the one I got. HAMD or something. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, so I was lucky enough to move up from severe depression to moderate depression.

That was great. That's the first time I've laughed today. Yeah, and then we want to be laughing even more as a friend of mine bought me a cake um that said congratulations on moderate depression like we were like yay that's great yeah i i really i really i really believe that the ketamine is good because one of the things it does is it creates new neural pathways for you to maybe have options. Yeah, in terms of that's the idea is that it creates new neural pathways. So you have different options of which ways for your thoughts to shoot down before it goes down the one pathway that it always used to go down which is always something that's

dangerous so it typically that's what they think could do that and um you know the other upside of it is that it takes your brain completely offline so one of the things that i like about it is that it's doing neurological function but you're not thinking about it or your trauma and you do get a little bit of a break from it but as i said to dr drew and you it's also it's also very very very highly habit forming if not done under the proper medical conditions so so if i would diane we you know we have no business giving you medical treatment or care or advice that's not we're doing here but but i would if i were dealing with somebody like you i would want to give everything a new shot now that you're completely

abstinent yeah i would do i would get back to emdr like dave said i would get back to 12 step i would get back to more traditional kinds of therapeutics and assuming i'd have to use high dose but get to it right away you know rather quickly and and don't jump to the extreme therapeutics just yet because the context is totally different now and hope that you know hope that and and don't jump to the extreme therapeutics just yet because the context is totally different now and uh hope that you know hope that you can get a response going um that's kind of how how i'd approach it but dan i gotta wrap up in fact i gotta wrap finish up oh i was gonna add you're also you're off suboxone two weeks but that's not a very long time to have no right body nothing's regulated yet in your

body you may you may feel better but your body your body is still time to find a baseline that it's comfortable with so i would do the more traditional approach as well yeah yeah 100 dave uh let's put up the uh the event again let's put up where people can get tickets who's going to be there uh caleb if you've got the whole full screen there for us there it is uh never mind right it's a yeah it's a little it's a lot of copy right there for the for your viewers so i'll just tell them we're doing uh never mind the bullets by the sex pistols we're doing transformer by lou reed dr drew is going to speak as he always has and so far we have booked belly idol perry Farrell, Corey Taylor, Perry's wife, Taylor Hawkins from the Foo Fighters, Mark McGrath, Steve Stevens, and a host of many more that have yet to be named. So I see that we're going to be selling tickets or giving you the link to tickets.

Just go to dotru.com slash aboveground. Caleb set that up i know during this during the show so so well done thank you the name the name the name of it is is uh it's based on obviously you know james in the early days came from what was called the underground scene and uh we figured like this is an idea this is an idea to help people stay above ground. You got to get Bob there, too. I would love to have Bob. Yeah, sure. You know what?

Bob and Shelly. When I asked you last, you know, to be fair, when I asked you last year, I just assumed that he would come with you. So I never even shot him a call. But I will shoot him a call this time. Because I missed him. I was sad. I'll tell all of them i would love to see shelly and bob i haven't seen shelly in years and i know shelly from uh shelly

was was dating one of the uh tour managers of the red hot chili peppers back in the 90s so i've known her since then so um when she was the dragon lady oh my god she God, she was amazing. She was amazing. She has certainly metamorphosized over the years in an amazing way. Oh my God, yes. As so many of you have. I mean, dealing with that.

And I knew Bob back when he was hardcore using and it was for sure he died. I remember you telling me that died. I used to, I remember you telling me that story. I used to, I used to use with Bob.

Like I wouldn't go meet at Bob's apartment. Everybody did. Yeah. Literally everybody did. Right. Right. I mean, he had,

he and, um, Oh shoot. From whole, um, Courtney, uh, Courtney, he andney used to ride the buses around around the park uh mcarthur park slamming airport and stuff together oh i i've just i've i have done

some pretty terrible things with the best of them and sadly a lot of them are not alive anymore and i you know that's the sad thing yeah we do what we can to help prevent that from happening yes well that's what i want to talk about about how we do that and how we gather together and address the fact that uh so so few people are getting help these days and that recovery has been under attack for quite some time so we'll talk about that and we'll all be there december 20th uh dave always a pleasure to talk to you my friend and uh whatever you need we're here we're here and likewise to you guys and uh love to you susan and uh we'll see you soon thank you guys for having me all right man dave thank you so much 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, 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.