Ask Dr. Drew - Did Conservatorship Help Or Harm Britney Spears & Amanda Bynes? w/ Martha Cohen Stine – Ask Dr. Drew – Episode 105

Episode Date: August 3, 2022

#FreeBritney brought worldwide attention to conservatorships & ways the legal system can be abused. But are there cases where conservatorship is the best (and sometimes only) way to protect a vulnerable adult? Attorney and legal expert Martha Cohen Stine explains the pros and cons for families facing this difficult decision.  Martha Cohen Stine is a founding partner of Cohen Stine Kapoor LLP and has focused exclusively in the field of family law for more than 25 years. Ms. Stine is an expert in conservatorships and amicable resolutions of family disputes, custody agreements, and prenuptial agreements. Learn more about Martha at https://CSKlawNY.com 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/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

That's right everybody, thanks so much for being here. We of course will be out, which I've got to set up right now on the Twitter spaces, which for some reason I did not start yet, but now I have. And let me make sure the mic usually starts off. There we go, let's get that on. We'll be taking your calls there. Today we'll be speaking to an attorney who specializes in family law and amongst other things conservatorships, something that she is expert in and one of the world's experts, in fact, Martha Cohen Stein.

She is part of the legal firm. I'm going to get it for you right now. Of course, I go straight to the – well, I have to tell you when we come back to the show for real, this is just a little tease, as we say. And I'm interested in this because there really is underutilization and underability to access these sorts of things in California. And of course, the Britney Spears case brought a lot of people to the fore in terms of thinking about conservatorship and what is the right way to apply these things. So let's get right to it. Our laws as it pertains to substances are draconian and bizarre. A 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, I can help. I got a lot to say. I got a lot more to say. We'll be right back. you can only get with BetMGM. And no matter your team, your favorite player, or your style,

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with iGaming Ontario. And thank you for being here, buddy. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. We should be on Twitter spaces. I'm sorry, those of you that have gathered there. I will be taking your calls in just a moment. And in fact, if you want to come up and ask a question, just raise your hand. And of course, if you come up, you'll be streaming out on multiple platforms. And by raising your hand, you agree to do so. Today, we have Martha Cohen-Stein. She is founding partner of Cohen-Stein Kapoor LLP, a focused on family law and that their firm for over 25 years.

And she's an expert at conservatorship. I'm watching you all on Twitter, a retweet rather, as well as taking calls off Twitter spaces. And let's see how the Rumble Rants are doing. Yep, you guys, Jay Hepp is there. And he's got some interesting comments already. And so we appreciate you all being here today. We're going to get into this conversation. And if you want to ask other questions, Sue, we'll maybe transition later in the show to some of the other topics that we normally

deal with. But right now, let's welcome Martha Cohen-Stein. Martha, welcome to the program. Thank you for having me. It is a pleasure. So a couple questions, just sort of general questions off the top. You know, it says family law, and people immediately think about divorce and those sorts of proceedings when people are from the family law world. But it seems like, I'm sure that's some of what you've done, but it seems like your expertise, your practice is much broader than just that? Well, family law encompasses often conservatorships, guardianships, as well as matrimonial matters such as divorce, custody, prenup agreements, because conservatorship is typically a family matter. We do handle those kinds of cases as well.

Understood. Has the use of prenups become more commonplace or more accepted? It seems like it's in the vapors more these days. Is that accurate or is that just media? It's absolutely accurate. It used to be something that a second marriage or later in life couple would want to have a prenup to protect their adult children and grandchildren possibly. Nowadays, a lot of young people entering into first marriages are entering into prenups where they don't have any property accumulated yet that they need to protect, but they're worried about a future dissolution of the marriage, a future divorce.

Other than avoiding misery, one of the things people always say is that couples often don't talk about money and the fact that they don't understand each other's psychology around money creates a lot of conflict. Does this help obviate some of that? Or are they really just looking towards avoiding pain later? Well, it's really usually quite the roller coaster, the negotiation of a prenup, because often they've never spoken about financial matters. And it's the first time they have to confront finances and they don't like what they hear. And a lot of times a couple is going through a very difficult period during the prenup. And a couple of times, unfortunately, in my experience,

where I was representing either the bride or groom, the wedding got called off. I try to work in a way that that doesn't end up happening. That's not understood. Is it, would you recommend that people, uh, again, in first marriages without a lot of assets, is that, is that something you'd recommend or is that asking for problems? I think in a first marriage without a lot of assets that it's asking for problems that, um, usually better for the person the have than the have not so if you are the have you probably want a prenup if you are the have not you don't want one because a prenup in a prenup you're asked to waive rights

right you're not and it is that. You're asked to waive rights. Is that where you're getting into trouble? Is that where these people are getting into trouble? Is it waiving access to family assets or something that's getting people upset? I mean, why are things getting so bad? It could be waiving inheritance rights, waiving spousal support, waiving property accumulated during the marriage if it's not titled in joint names. So prenups tend to take away rights from the less moneyed party and tend to be favorable to the more moneyed party. So if you're the less moneyed party, you probably don't want a prenup. Interesting. Twitter spaces, I guess my phone, although I finally did click it in,

I didn't click it all the way in. So I apologize. You weren't necessarily hearing my guest. And I do see that some of your hands are up, so we'll get to you in a few minutes. Let's get on to the topic I was interested in um let me just frame it by uh telling you know pointing out a couple of things that i have talked about publicly and i would love your input i would love your expertise and i would love to learn more about these things but i i've been very concerned about conservatorships in the state of California because I've worked with untold numbers of families who are unable to help their loved ones who are on the street with chronic mental illnesses of all type. Most of them end up dead. And the state of California does nothing to assist with this in fact is sort of abusive to families that

dare to step up on behalf of their loved ones and offer resources and a place to live and and a doctor and this kind of sort of thing um so that's that's the reason I have been sort of preoccupied with California's issues around conservatorship. And in my practice, I have frequently been in a position where I've told parents to see if they could get a conservatorship and they won't even try. They won't even try for fear of disrupting the relationship with the adult child and those children end up dead. I mean, you really get, you know, physicians are recommending conservatorships when things are dire, when it's dangerous. So there's what I've been dealing with for all these years.

And then publicly, Britney Spears brought the whole issue of conservatorship into the public mind with her father's continued, and let me just say, when she first got on a conservatorship i was so surprised that that that that her britney spears family was able to get a conservatorship and at the time this was 10 12 years ago now i said wow i mean good on the attorney and the psychiatrist they really advocate on behalf of brit. She must have been desperately ill. We know she spent 14 days in a locked unit. We know how sick she was and that they saved her life. They really did save her life. And it seemed to be going along okay until something came up around the financial issues. And at that point, I took the position of saying, hey, look, she works,

she functions, she's following her meds, the judge can make sure she's continuing in her medical care. I can walk out on my street and just see 10 people that need conservatorships more than Britney Spears. So maybe she ought to have a chance of getting off this thing. And she is an adult who is functioning now. It's not like it was before when she was so ill. And, you know, give her a chance, for goodness sake. So those are my

preoccupations around conservatorship. Now, you set me straight. Where am I right? Where am I wrong? Well, a conservatorship, and it's sometimes called a guardianship, it's the legal means by which a court appoints a third party, often a family member, to make some or all decisions for a person who is alleged to be incapacitated. And an incapacitated person is someone who has been determined to be unable to make decisions, unable to communicate, unable to care for his or her physical safety, physical needs, and often someone who can't manage their own financial requirements. And in some states, there are separate statutes for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities, and there are laws designed to permit parents to continue to take

care of a disabled adult and to continue to control the affairs of an adult child who can't fend for himself or herself. In Britney Spears' case, it was a very unusual case, and it really devolved into conservatorship abuse is what happened. The case started with a severe mental health episode that Brittany was in the middle of when her father came forward to seek to be appointed her conservator. It then continued for 13 years. And Britney was during those 13 years, perfectly capable of earning millions and millions of dollars performing in shows, appearing in Las Vegas, being the judge on a TV show, the X Factor. And it became clear as the years went on that this was an abusive, really drastic, severe situation. And it wasn't until last summer, when Brittany finally had the opportunity to speak out on her own behalf, and when her remarks

were leaked to the press, they were supposed to be confidential and not made public. That when the court of public opinion got involved in what was going on is when the judge and the conservatorship was under pressure to really start the process of ending it. And so my opinion about that is sort of accurate, that she had been functioning and she is earning a living and certainly not nearly as ill as she had been or that so many people are that can't get conservatorships. There are millions of people with mental health issues in the United States who take medication or in treatment and their civil liberties are not taken away from them. They are entitled to all the rights that everyone else has. Just because

you have a mental illness or an episode of mental illness doesn't mean that you're stripped of your civil liberties. And really, conservatorship is a proceeding where the court entrusts to somebody else the power to choose where the person will live, what medical treatment the person will get, whether the person can marry, procreate, and sometimes even where the person is going to die. And it's really a punitive civil penalty that is only to be levied where the need for it so much outweighs the stripping of the civil liberties. Why, if somebody has dementia and is gravely disabled and psychotic and disorganized, that person, if you do not mandate their medical care, you are involved in elder abuse. And somebody with a different brain disease with the same symptom complex, you're not allowed to get near. Explain that to me. Well, I don't really understand what happens with the homeless people and why the families

don't step up and what goes on in those situations. They're told to go away. I've tried to get legislation through California. I've helped family. They're just told gravely disabled essentially doesn't exist here for certain diagnostic categories in California. It exists for dementia. It doesn't exist for decompensated schizophrenia. And schizophrenics, if you get to them early, you can restore them. You can really restore. The dementia patient is gone. They're never going to get better.

But the schizophrenic could get better and be restored to a full life. But if you let them go too long, they degenerate permanently. And that's the category we're not allowed to intervene on. What is the logic? It's crazy. The harsh truth is that the conservatorship proceedings that get filed often involve families with a lot of money and incapacitated individuals who are very expensive because you need lawyers to commence a conservatorship proceeding. You need to be before a judge. You need to present very detailed and complex paperwork. And many people cannot afford that at all. And so the cases that we read about typically involve

people who are very, very wealthy. That's why we read about the celebrity cases. We read about Britney Spears and Peter Max, the artist, and Brooke Astor, who passed away several years ago, who was also the subject of a conservatorship proceeding, and Amanda Bynes, and a real estate tycoon in New York, George Kaufman. These are people with great wealth. And that's typically the typical conservatorship proceeding, not the homeless person that we see living on the street. Well, the homeless person, I would say, that's interesting. I have some questions about that. But I would say 10%, maybe 20% of people on the streets have families who could afford conservatorship. That's not the issue.

The issue is they're told to go away by the state of California. But that's a separate issue. Why not then, that being so, the way you're describing it, why not expand access to conservatorship so more people can be helped? Isn't there a way that the system could be streamlined in such a way that at least people can be stabilized and somehow improved and then sent on their way? Or is conservatorship now such a closed system that once you're on conservatorship, it's really hard to get off of it? I don't know what the issues are that are preventing it from becoming a little more flexible. Well, anyone can petition the court to appoint a conservator or a guardian for someone alleged to be incapacitated. Anyone can petition the court. The parent of the homeless

person could petition the court for that relief. So the statutes are available to everybody. It's probably a decision that the family makes that they don't want to undergo the stress of the legal proceedings, hiring the lawyers, going into court, filing the petition, having to try to get the homeless person or very mentally ill person into court or to get that person before a psychiatrist to be evaluated. But the courtroom doors are open to anybody. And the purpose of the conservatorship laws are to protect an incapacitated person. And often they are used in a way that's a very important way and very

beneficial to an incapacitated person. For example, there could be financial abuse going on. There could be, and we do see conservatorships mostly with elderly people and elderly people who have dementia that's getting worse, elderly people with severe Alzheimer's who really don't know what's going on. And let's say a friend moves in and starts to take over the person's life and there's financial abuse. Or in the case of Brooke Astor, who was elderly and she had one son, Anthony Marshall, and Anthony Marshall was very close with his mother and Brooke Astor's friends started to get worried that he was taking advantage of her financially, that he was diverting her funds to himself, he was selling paintings and he was taking the money.

And so her friends got together and commenced a conservatorship proceeding, demanding that one of her friends be appointed conservator and that the son be removed from her life. And so you do see conservatorships, which are very good for the incapacitated person and very much protect the person from emotional abuse, physical abuse, and financial abuse. But I want to go back to my question about flexibility, though. Why can't we make the system more affordable and more flexible so that stories like that are more common? Because people are dying at seven a day in this county. At least one or two of those people every day have family that can easily afford their care, easily, and are told no. And by the way, are told that they shouldn't even start their conservatorship proceedings. Many of them can afford it, no problem.

They're just told it doesn't really exist here in California the way it does in other states. And why not make it more flexible? Why not make it more affordable? Well, the laws would really need to be restructured to make them more accessible to the person, to people in the community, so that the courts were more open to people who would not need to get a lawyer, but maybe there could be forms to be filled in and a judge could be seen. I know in New York, we have certain courts that are very, very good for pro se litigants to come in and fill in forms and the clerks help the pro se litigants fill in forms for a divorce or for a family offense, for order protection. So the laws would have to be made more user-friendly,

and right now they're very complex and not user-friendly. They're really a labyrinth of laws, and the judges who are appointed to preside over the conservatorship part, they are a small number of judges and generally a small number of professional conservators and evaluators who are appointed over and over again. And it's, yeah. It seems like my experience in Nework seems to handle things better it seems like new york is doing things at least in a sort of humane way and and you know not not so really their way or the highway it seems like that labyrinth can be navigated. It's just hard to navigate and expensive.

It'd be nice if that were. Yeah, I get that. California is bizarre, just very bizarre here. Again, that's why I was so shocked that Brittany was able to get the conservatorship. But what I'm hearing you say, and I think this is probably true, is that if you have enough money,

you can still navigate the system. What happens now is you can hire an attorney and they'll just go, don't even bother. Don't stop right here. It's not, you know, it's not unless, you know, unless they're, you know, you have to be hospitalized a certain number of times. They have to be actively homicidal.

You know, there's got to be, you know, forget the fact that they could have tuberculosis and have lost their limb. No, no, that's not good enough. That's not good enough. They're leading their best life. I had a mom of an adult son come to me and talk to me and say that her son was mentally ill, schizophrenic. He was living in a very dangerous apartment and he did have access to funds and so did she. And she was so worried about him. And I said, okay, we'll represent you. We'll draft a petition for you to be appointed as conservator. A judge is going to appoint a lawyer for him. A judge is going to appoint an evaluator to go to his apartment and meet with him and come back to the court and report.

I said, and here's what it'll cost. And here's what my hourly rate is. And let's do it. And she said, oh, all of that would be involved. My son would have to be examined by a psychiatrist. My son would have a lawyer. I don't think he could handle that i think that would be terrible stress for him i said well yeah i understand and you need to make

your decision because that's what the process involves it's it's uh how would you even do it if if people are sort of on the lam living in the streets and cannot even be like, you know, cannot land for any, it cannot be, you're not allowed to hold people, you know. You can't even find them. Or if you could find them, or if you find them, they just, you know, they scamper, you know, they go. I don't know how that would even go on. Yeah, because we, it's, the reality is that that would be a huge problem and probably deters a lot of family members from trying to get help and i i couldn't say sitting here exactly how to fix it i well it's again it's it's the weather works in your favor in new york because people that are troubled like

that they just they get into a closed environment where they can not die of the, of the elements. And as such, you can, you can kind of find them and they, you know, it just works better, but here there's nothing. And then all the laws make it even worse. So, uh, let's see. I always wonder, I wish I understood how, how so many people become homeless and who are they and where are their family members. And this could be somebody, this, of course, somebody's son or brother or uncle. And how does this happen? I don't understand how I haven't had the personal experience in my family.

And I really haven't represented anyone who who's been homeless so I haven't had the well it's it it happens uh essentially in this state we have about a hundred thousand in this county off in the street and the vast vast vast majority are either drug addicted or mental health severe mental health or both and most of it is addiction and once you know in this state you're allowed to use drugs until you die. That's the way it works. And then no one can stop you no matter how psychotic or how dangerous or how wild your behavior until you step up and say, I want some help. And that's a family member could not arrange to put the person in rehab if the person doesn't

consent. No, not. Not just not consent. They have to beg for it. It's hard to even get it once they beg for it. And by the way, I walk the streets here and now and skid row and stuff, and the number of schizophrenics and severely mentally ill is off the chain. And I've worked with dozens, maybe hundreds of families

that have been desperate to get their families off the street, and it's been a zero, zero, it's just been impossible. You get no help from anybody. And again, I just find it so odd that one brain disorder, dementia, gets the full protection, and another brain disorder with the same precise symptom complex, a little different natural history. precise symptom complex little different natural history in fact you can improve the naturalist in one and not of the other that that one has zero ability to bring to care at least in this state so I think because kind of wild in the drug

addiction the elderly people there's a different perception in society of the elderly than the homeless and it's probably a bias in favor of the elderly and against the homeless and so well but you understand that there it's not against the the people that have created these laws really believe they're supporting people's living their best life and however they please. And there's a complete lack of understanding of brain disorders and denial and anosognosia and these things that block people's insight from what's happening to them and lead them to die. And we as physicians know when people have a life-threatening illness. It's pretty easy.

It's not a difficult thing. And particularly on the addiction side, the one part that's left out of every consideration is the fact that it's a fatal illness. It progresses to death. That's where it goes. And we are increasing the number of dead on our streets by at least one dead body per day every year. So every year, we were at six per day last year. Now we're at seven per day this year. I think that's going to accelerate because the meth deaths kind of come at the end.

They're asymptotic. Fentanyl opioids, it's just a steady state of accumulated death over time. But meth comes all of a sudden, and we should start seeing a spiking in those deaths too. And they're easy to identify. They're easy to treat. The fact that you care and are trying to do this is so wonderful because I don't think enough people care and are trying to do anything to help them. Well, I think they're being sold a bill of goods.

They're being sold that it's just a financial issue, and for some people it is, but that's a very unusual subset of the population. Does there anything about the family law keep you up at night? Anything you worry about in terms of the way the system works? Not to mean specific cases, but things about the system that worry you and you'd like to see better? Worried all the time. Worry is an everyday thing.

In my field, it's a difficult field. Family problems are so difficult. The system isn't great. There's a backlog in the courts. There is often no ability to get a court order as quickly as you want to try to get a court order if you have an emergency situation, you want to take care of your, I want to take care of my clients. And it's a lot of, I take on a lot of the client. If I take a client, then his or her problems become my problems. And I, I really, I take it all to heart and I, I really give a lot. And so, yes, there's a lot of worry and frustration in my field. And in my field, in family law, if you really can't handle that, you should not be a family law attorney. I'm guessing though, typically the case is the case when you're able to sort of embrace the challenge and empathize that the successes must be equally as satisfying, if not more so,

than the stressors and the frustrations. And so I'm guessing you are able to help a lot of people. Yes, there has to be. You have to have successes or the field really would be unbearable. So thankfully, I've had a lot of successes, not only in court, in litigation, but in trying to effectuate settlements. And in fact, I had one client, a doctor who every year on the day of her divorce would bring me flowers and leave them at my front desk at reception with a note saying, you gave me a new chapter and I'm going to bring you flowers every year on the anniversary of my divorce. Things like that make it really worth it. Really trying to help people get to a new, happier chapter is very fulfilling and it's very hard work.

Yes. I'm looking at some of the comments alongside of you there. Ilana, call in. I want to hear what your story was that you were able to do that so easily and without a lot of cost. Yeah, there's your comment you there. Ilana, call in and I want to hear what your story was that you were able to do that so easily and without a lot of costs. So yeah, there's your comment right there. So I'd love to hear that. But Martha, I really appreciate you being here.

We're going to just take general calls now at this point. Where would you like people to go to learn more about what you have to offer? Well, you can look at my website. Just put my name into the internet, and my firm is Cohen Stein Kapoor LLP, and we will take good care of you if you need us. Also, I noticed on the landing page that you're featured on, I so appreciated that your education and training was right up front, like in the first couple of sentences. It drives me insane when people claim all kinds of

abilities and you can't even find their training on their website. Peace, everybody. If you learn nothing else from this conversation we had, learn this one thing. When people have excellent training, they want to tell you about it. And when people have no training, they leave it out of the equation. They just leave it off their website. I mean, I put all my stuff up on the website and people don't know to go look for it. You should always look for people's training, where they went to college, where they went to professional school, what their professional societies are, what their subspecialty, if organizations, if their field has board certifications, what are they boarded in? Which board is a, you know, is it a legitimate American society of whatever?

Is it a legitimate board that's certifying them? That's all things you should look at before you hire a professional. And on Martha's landing page, all her stuff's right there, right up front. And I really appreciated that. Thank you. You figure someone has a lot to hide. You have to search too much. You have to search too much for that hiding something. They're either hiding it or they don't know

that it's important to one or the other. So, Martha, thanks so much. We'll probably talk to you sometime soon, I hope. My pleasure. Thank you. Take care. And Caleb just flashed some information to me that you can see all my various degrees, my various things at drdrew.com slash degrees. Yeah, people are accusing me. So I put up my college, my medical school, my American Board of Internal Medicine, my residency training, my chief residency certificate, American Board of Addiction Medicine. What else did we put up? Oh, the American College of

Physicians where I'm a fellow, the American Board of Addiction Medicine. Where else did we put up there? It literally is just that links to a single JPEG image that lines up all of the degrees and training and everything in one so that anytime there are trolls in the chat, I prepared this easy to use link. You just paste it there and prove you are a real doctor. It's so funny. The problem is people don't understand what all these different things are. And of all those things that are up there, there are two or three things that are really important. The board certifications are very important, but really the thing that is most important are my fellowships. The fellowships tell you that you are board certified in the eyes of these professional societies and have maintained a certain standard for a long period of time

and are involved in the educational process and research process. The fellowships are the things you want to look for in people's backgrounds. But my God, just like the word doctor, there are so many boards of this and boards of that that really aren't so significant. So I'm starting to worry about that too. I've started saying that when people ask me, what do I do? I say, I'm a physician. I don't say doctor anymore because it could be a doctor of musicology. And Martha was a doctor of jurisprudence. So I say, I'm a physician. And the kind of doctor that when they ask overhead in the airplane, is there a doctor here? I stand up and go take care of the person. That's the kind of doctor. I think also because you don't broadcast it all the time that people don't actually realize that you are still an active medical doctor and you still have your license.

You do this every year. Somebody asked me that. Somebody strangely, I don't do a lot the same hours that I used to do, but I am doing medicine every single day of the week, seven days a week. And somebody asked me that on an after dark post. And just that day, I happened to have treated heart failure, atrial fibrillation, tuberculosis, M. avium intracellulare, and COVID. Just that day and the preceding 24 hours. And so yeah, I'm doing stuff. I'm still practicing medicine. What people get really confused about is that I spent all those years working in the psychiatric setting, which is a different skill set and doesn't, it involves the medical thinking,

but it's a really different discipline. So I had the good fortune of, you know, having all that crazy experience. So here's the deal. We will take a little break. We'll hear from our friends at GenuCell. We'll come back and take your calls. I think we have found the holy grail of skincare.

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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. And maybe I'll ask Susan to come up and she's away from us right now. I'll invite her to speak, see if she wants to come up and talk a little bit about GenuCell

and that sort of thing. So we really appreciate you guys supporting those that support us. GenuCell has been a good product. Doesn't look like Susan wants to come up right now. So as I said, I invited Alana or asked her to come on up and speak with me. So let's hear what Alana's story was. So Alana, how did you get around the system that I've been stymied with for so many years?

Thanks for joining us. Hi, Drew. So just, I have an adult son who's autistic and knew at, before his 18th year, I'd heard from other people that I needed to get a conservatorship. He's pretty high functioning, however, wanted to have that all in place. And he definitely bought in. And I hate to say, we had a really easy time doing it. That's why I want to hear more about it, because if somebody's had an easy time,

I want to know how you do that, because I've had nothing but struggle. It was very time-consuming, because I had to go through the courts, and I spent a lot of time at the courts filing different papers, but they, I think it was going to be like $1,500 to 2000, but they waived it because I was doing the filing and my son had no income. So they said no costs to you. What was it? Was it when he was an adult or did you initiate the process when he was still a minor?

I initiated it when he was still a minor. Do you think that had anything to do with the ease with which you moved through the system? Would there have been more evaluations of him or something? No, it's the same either way because my sister-in-law did it. She also has two autistic kids, but for her younger one, did it when he was, we both did it during COVID. So, you know, which mine was like right before and hers was right during. And, you know, we both had, I don't want to call it easy, but there was no, everything that you said where they would come out and, you know, he had to be evaluated by the court the psych you know psychiatrist um it wasn't difficult it was time consuming but not difficult good well that's good

to hear that maybe they and i would do you think it was the specific diagnosis that they made it easier or could you tell um couldn't tell because i know that so the way that you started is each county has like this class that you go to if you're doing it yourself and they give you a step-by-step process of everything you need to do all the forms and you know i would say that every time we went to go file i'd say the people at the courthouse were very helpful and they were just, I don't know. I went in with a nice attitude, so they were very nice to me.

So I think that that's sort of it. I'm looking at the LA County one just to see what's going on here. So I'm happy to send you anything and everything that I did if it can help somebody else. Yeah, it was all through probate. Yes. Absolutely. And maybe that's just a different way of going about it. And I don't know if it makes a difference that you're doing it yourself instead of a lawyer coming in and doing it.

No, here's where the trouble starts. I'm looking at the website now. They have to be unable to provide the individual food, clothing, shelter. So literally all they have to say is, I have a tent by the river, I'm wearing clothes, and I'm going to panhandle by the freeway and go to McDonald's. That's all they have to say, and there is no conservatorship. That's where the problem is.

That's what they have to say, and there is no conservatorship. That's where the problem is. That's what I run into. And then how do you then educate the courts so that they, you know, because what you're talking about, that's not a life. It is gravely disabled. We have to restore gravely disabled. And they do not understand the concept anosognosia, which is this neurological phenomenon that happens with mental illness that blocks people's ability to see what's happening to them. In addiction, it's sort of under the general rubric of denial. But even in denial,

there's a, even in addiction is a biological thing that gets in the way of people's insight. And later when they clear, they go, oh my God, you know, I was really, I was screwed up. And why did you let me stay like that? That's usually what the, how they, how they talk, you know, let me, the addicts take more of the responsibility for themselves because they know it's their illness, you know, and they have to kind of get to it. But, but it, we, we need some more, for lack of a better word, rational, sane policies around helping people who really are deteriorating and deteriorate to the point that they die. And it's not that hard to identify these things. Remember when I talked to that British guy a couple weeks ago, Dr. Das? Yes.

I mean, he was blown away that we didn't just help people here in this country. He was like, what? Why don't you do that? Why don't you help them? It's like, yeah, why don't we? That's the question. I think underneath it, there's a weird desire to, I don't know, we have a weird thing about self-will,

self-determination and self-will, even when it's broken, when our motivational system is broken. And the idea that I think people are being used as a political instrument to sort of make people believe it's a financial problem of the cost of living. And it just is not. It's just not the issue. For some, I'm not saying for no, for some, but the chronically on the street, the chronically

ill, the ones who are dying every day, that is a different subset. And those people need to be helped. That's most of what people are disturbed about, what they see out there. Go ahead, you have one. I was just going to say that we just have, society has

an issue with mental illness and accepting it and learning how to help. It's just so weird to me that dementia is a protected mental illness and schizophrenia is a somehow, you know, it's a special, brain diseases are brain diseases and we need to help people have brain diseases. I mean, it's a special brain diseases are brain diseases and we need to help people have brain diseases. I mean, it's really something. Yeah. But wouldn't, but couldn't you on all of, you know, the paperwork or whatever, instead of saying that, you know, it's addiction, why can't you just, or schizophrenia, why can't you just say that it's dementia?

Or, well, you know, I'll give people a little, another interesting strategy called dementia precox, which is what they used to call schizophrenia because the symptom complex they used to think it would it does kind of lead to a dementia if you don't treat it long enough you really severe schizophrenia untreated leads to kind of a dementia so they called it dementia precox meaning before the symptoms before dementia alana i like how you're thinking that's a good strategy for people. And for people that... Go ahead. Oh, sorry. Well, whatever you have to do where you're not necessarily lying, but you're sort of stretching. I mean, any sort of diagnosis that's going to get them the help that they need.

That's my viewpoint. Well, I like how you're thinking. And back to the conservatorships and the self-conservative, the LA County does have a site where you can go and learn about how to get a conservatorship. And it does look very complete and it looks good. And it looks like much like what Alana is describing, except if you have somebody with mental illness, you're not going to have success. I can tell you it's right up front there. You've got three things, food, shelter, clothing have to be impaired. All right, Alana, thank you so much. Thanks. Okay, you got it as always. I want to bring our friend Eliza Blue up here, who I noticed had her hand up and usually has something very important to share with us.

I'm wondering what's on her mind. And Eliza, when you do get connected, there you are. What's on your mind? Hey, Dr. Joe. I didn't see that you called me up. It's nice to hear your voice. Hi to Susan. Hi to Caleb. You know, I have so many questions, especially about the Britney Spears case. I would never want to call her a survivor of human trafficking, of course, because it's not my place to call her that, although she did liken it to sex trafficking attempts during the trial. I really want to ask your guests. I love this conversation so much because this is something I'm dying to know more about, of course, because of the human trafficking component. I fail to see how they did not receive any charges. I, to me, it meets the legal definition of human

trafficking, forced fraud or coercion for the sale of labor specifically in this case or sex. So I'm always like looking at this. I think it might be one of the issues that it might be a Because I could see how this specific vulnerability could be right. We're getting almost none of what you're saying. So it's all broken up and sounds like a robot kind of thing. So I'm going to put you back. I'm sorry, we could not hear you, except I did hear your interesting observation about human trafficking for labor purposes. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody were to bring that issue. We don't have that guest with us right at the moment again, but wouldn't be surprised if if she's if she does not

decompensate which i you know unfortunately there may be a high probability that she does but hopefully the judge will be able to keep her engaged in her treatment what's that i actually still see her on the screen um she might still be i can actually bring her back in i think she's yeah she's still here do you want to ask her that uh i think except eliza just dropped off. Oh, okay. She just gave me the thumbs up. She might have heard the question. Okay, let's get her in. Let's see.

There she is. She hung around. Hey. Anyway, thank you for staying around. Did you hear that question about human... I heard the question. It's a great question. And in fact, Jamie Spears, the father who was the conservator,

is now being investigated by Britney Spears and her lawyer right now, investigating him for all sorts of terrible things, including putting audio and video surveillance in her home, mismanaging her money, taking millions of dollars for self-dealing and waste. And he is going to be deposed next month, the father. And after the investigation by Brittany and her lawyer, I wouldn't be surprised if a governmental authority charges him with a crime or crimes. And Eliza's point about human trafficking for purposes of labor, is that possibly one of the things that could get... Well, I don't know if that would be one of the crimes he'd be charged with, but more in the nature of fraud and larceny and embezzlement. Certainly, Britney would have a claim against him for pain and suffering. She would have a separate civil claim for the intentional infliction of emotional distress on her. So he is being pursued now.

James Spears is being targeted for what he did. And how do we avoid, how do we, how do a conservatorship, do you have any advice on how these things should be constructed or what changes need to be made so there aren't abuses? It's a little beyond me, to be honest. There are legislative proposals and there are groups studying. I don't really have the solution. Because to me it's sad. I mean, I don't really know what happened,

but I know he and the team that got her the conservatorship saved her life. I'm thoroughly convinced of that. But then we'll find out what they were thinking, I guess. Is that going to be public record? what did happen, what should have happened. What I can't really figure out is how to fix the whole system in the United States. But in Brittany's case, the abuses were allowed to continue for years. One reason is because Brittany was not allowed to choose her own lawyer. The judge appointed a lawyer for Brittany. And this lawyer that was appointed for Brittany did not give her the advice she needed to be given and did not advocate for what Brittany wanted. So that was one problem with not having the kind of representation that she needed. And I think that the father had too much power over a whole team of people whose goal was, who ended up abusing Brittany financially and emotionally and physically. Is it possible or can you imagine a circumstance where when we hear his testimony,

it will make more sense and Brittany is actually more chronically ill than we know? I think he's going to try. I don't know if he's going to succeed in defending himself because some of what we've read and heard is pretty wild, what he did and or the or what the team on the conservatorship team did. Some of the allegations are crazy and upsetting. The surveillance, the spyware on her computer, on her emails, the surveillance, the bugging of her residence, restricting her ability to have a baby, get married. So I don't know if he's going to be able to defend himself. He's certainly going to try. And now for the first time he has to pay for

his own lawyers. He can't use Brittany's money to fund his own lawyer. He's going to have to come up with that money himself. Interesting. Well, thank you for jumping back in here. This all sounds interesting. I'll just wait. I'll watch. No, I'm going to watch.

Okay, fair enough. All right. Fair enough. We'll see what else comes up. Let's bring Shane up here as a question. Shane, go ahead. You're muted. The mic is in the lower left-hand corner there. Jane, we can't hear you because the microphone, it's a little thing in the left-hand corner, a little circle in the left-hand corner of your screen. I see it. There you are. There you got me now. There you go. What's up?

Dr. Drew, how are you, man? Good. What's up? Good. Okay. Where are we at in the conversation essentially well let's see i've got some notes here essentially it comes down to quality of life right like you were talking about it being what it being well as far as like saving uh let's see

what you guys are talking about like homeless people on the street for example i'm worried about i'm worried about fatal illness that's what the people that- I'm worried about fatal illness. That's what I'm worried about. I'm worried about people with fatal illness being prevented from accessing resources or being cared for. That's what drives me crazy. Well, and that's the biggest thing. See, like, first off, you hit the correct point, is they have to want the help. Make sure that they want the help. Now you're talking about drug addicts and and on the drug

addict side yeah ideally but but you there's something called motivational enhancement therapies there's ways to get people and all if with certain drugs if you just get them off the drugs they start becoming wanting well and you guys hit you guys hit on that a little bit ago with your guest as well i kind of caught came and rated towards the end of that yeah where it's like yeah i mean it when you come out of it you go oh wow like for me it was more like for just not to bring me into it but it was more of prescription medications i had been on as many as five at one time i started about when i was about 24 years old and i finally figured it took me three or four years and i mean all kinds of doctors i was even 302'd once and everything and and it was just like oh so much that once you come out of that you kind of grow older you kind of get old overnight right well find your your yeah but you just you you

yeah you learn and but you also just clear you get your clearing yes well that's what i was getting at is you get that clarity you find that clarity and you go, wow. Okay. Perhaps it wasn't not nothing on the outside. Maybe it's more something that I should have been doing. Shane, how dare you? Are you kidding? Yes, that's exactly.

Well, I say that to say this. It's like you taught me well on don't blame yourself and all the other kind of stuff. But don't be yourself and all the other kind of stuff. But he declared he first didn't go from there. Don't be ashamed and guilty. Shame and guilt have no purpose because you're sick and you got an illness that affected everything about you. The things you did was the result of the illness, not who you are. So the way I think about it is you're responsible for your recovery, not your illness. Now, if you blew off your recovery and you drank again or whatever, took Xanax again, and you killed somebody, well, that's on you now. That's on you.

But if you're thinking and you're struggling in your sobriety and you're trying to get well and you're thinking, oh, I did some bad things to my family, yeah, you probably did. It's part of the wreckage of that illness. Part of the recovery is managing that down the road, not now. Don't worry about it. Right, right, right, right. Well, mine was never really addiction therapy. It was stuff like that.

It was more mental health kind of stuff. Just genetics, you know, you made that point months ago about 60% genetics and then 40% you, something like that. And I was always like, no, I don't want that medication or anything like that. 40% you. I like how you say that. Something like that. What I say is just to clarify that when it comes to human behavior and mental illness, when you're trying to figure out how much is genes, how much is environment,

it's about pretty much everything I've seen usually comes up around 60% genes, 40% environment. Genes are necessary. It makes all the difference. It's a big deal. Yeah, it really does. And the access to the resources. Some of your other guests mentioned that as well. Oh, yeah.

Shane, that's the part that drives me crazy is that people don't. It's huge. I mean, goodness gracious, we have to get people to care somehow. And that's the biggest thing. The yes, sir, yes, sir, and yes, sir. I mean, goodness gracious, we have to get people to care somehow. And that's the biggest thing. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And yes, sir. I completely agree.

And, Shane, thanks for those comments. Josh, I want to give you a chance to come up here. We're kind of running low on time. So we're connecting to Josh. Here's his question. And I know you'll jump. There you are. What's up, Josh?

Not much. So I really like this conversation. The lawyer was good. I feel like the questions are good. I feel like the problem that I want to say, sort of the elephant in the room, is what happens when the parent who wants the conservatorship is the parent that could possibly be perpetuating

some sort of abuse on the child and could be the reason for the child's illness. Well, here's the two things. Well, I asked that of Martha, and she said beyond her, it's legislative action that's necessary to really improve that kind of thing. But I would say it's not that hard to, you know, real professionals that do mental health evaluations, it's not that hard to, you know, people, real professionals that do mental health evaluations, it's not that hard to parse that stuff out, even if just you get a funny feeling. I mean, people, people that do this work learn to trust our instincts a lot. And I don't know, I think that kind of thing would be pretty unusual. So, okay, that makes sense but um let's take the case of britney spears

and the father's behavior um during the conservatorship is sort of like this it's a little invasive and so if the young girl has an invasive type father just purely hypothetical based on his behavior in the conservatorship yeah it's almost as if britney is in like a nightmare situation now yeah potentially yeah i get what you're saying but what you may hear and and i'll be interested to see if in his testament what you may hear is we were really concerned about her survival. She was very sick. The psychiatrist told me to do this. Hold on here.

The psychiatrist urged me to do this. And, you know, I was following his or her direction to increase the monitoring to make sure she didn't decompensate fully. I don't know. I understand what your point is, and that may well be what happened. Or it's going to be people that are trying to help and really ended up doing things that weren't so helpful and maybe exceeded what's reasonable, which is why I was wondering if there were solutions to this to safeguard against it. I could see a scenario where people did what he did really well- really trying to help i mean i didn't know the financial part i've really heard that story yet but on the on the you know on the surveillance

part and all that i i to keep her out of a hospital or who knows what they were trying to do but i i also agree it was too much but possibly yeah i mean you started as a positive well yeah that's that's what i know it was started as a good thing because they saved her life and and they have a positive bias i have a positive bias so i do yes okay so i i have an i have a negative bias i have negative bias and and my bias tends to say that people are going to be exploitative i I don't want to be the person that says this is junk. I want to be like you. I want to have a positive bias on this and say that this was entirely for the,

because after all, Brittany needs to be better or whatever, whoever it is. It's all about the person. Now this takes me back to the street and your passion about the street. Now the thing is, if you come up to a homeless person and say, listen, you're going to come with us. You're going to be away from whatever this is, your tent,

for 48 hours, they might say no. But if I say, I'm going to sit here with you. I'm going to have a tent here too. I'm going to have a folding chair and I'm going to talk to you for the entire day. How about that? And I'm going to talk to everyone else here no one's doing that where are these experts who are sitting on the street with these people the social workers are well first of all there's a lot right there we don't have enough of an army to do that but social workers are doing a lot of that kind of work i mean your your point is and this is the one that that an issue that i identified quite some time ago, which is you really have to build trust and rapport. And that takes a long time.

And some people are doing that. They're having little units that go out and trying to build the trust and rapport to then get that person's willingness to come and get care, you know, motivated. That's kind of, it's the motivated care stuff, motivated reasoning stuff. And they're having some success with it, but that is very time consuming, very labor intensive. And in the meantime, we put a bunch of laws in place that encourage drug addicts to come here and the population continues to expand. Listen, I'm going to get one more caller up here.

Thank you. Thank you, Josh, for that. All right. So actually, I've got to end things. I think we're sort of out of time. Tomorrow, let me get my today back up here. Oh, we have Ed Latimore coming in here. We're going to hear his story. It should be very interesting. It should be inspirational. He has interesting ideas. Follow him on Twitter. He's got a lot of interesting stuff to say there. And then next week,

we are going to be in here Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I'm not sure that we have the guest schedule for that yet. But as always, look for us the middle of the week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 3 o'clock Pacific time. Do you know what tomorrow is? Oh, yes.

Happy anniversary, Susan. Tomorrow's our anniversary. And also Camden's first birthday. Just so happens. Oh, my God. He was born on the same day as our anniversary? He was born on the same day as our anniversary. Yep, yep.

Well, in French, they say bon anniversaire. So we'll say bon anniversaire to both of us. Fantastic. He looks really happy about it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm going to get a new photo. I'll post like show on tomorrow's show. That's like one from a month ago.

And it changes every month. But this kid is amazing. Maybe an appearance. What about a live appearance? We had one appearance. We need a little birthday appearance. Today also apparently is the day that people get their hair done because Susan's getting her hair done,

and Taylor, my wife, is getting her hair done as well. So he's over at his grandmother's house at the moment. But tomorrow I'll see if I can get an appearance from him. Maybe on his birthday. And it is our 31st anniversary tomorrow. So Susan, I love you, and happy anniversary. Yeah, 31. And when it's right, it's not hard.

Trust me, guys. So, all right. Well, thank you, Kayla, for producing. Thank you, Susan, for setting this up. Thank you, Michelle, for booking our guest. And thank you, Martha, for sharing your knowledge with us. We will be in here tomorrow at 3 o'clock. Do I have anything else to promote?

I'd love to see people over at After Dark more. We need to, we are going to be doing something. Oh, Susan follows me too. She just texted me. We are going to be, there's at Lattimore tomorrow. We are going to be having more guests on After Dark. So we have a lot of comedians lined up over there. I think you might enjoy that.

There's some really interesting things going on. You can see me in some environments where I don't belong, which I sometimes head into those spaces and see what I can do. And I was on Legions of Skank. You can find me there. And also, Are You Garbage? These are podcasts out there that if you guys are not familiar with, they're pretty interesting and funny. And I had a good time with them. So I appreciate all those guys. And I might even go to the Skank Fest. Again, you have to understand that world, understand what I'm talking about.

So thank you all for being here. We will see you tomorrow at 3 o'clock. 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.