Ask Dr. Drew - Eliza Bleu – Human Trafficking Survivor Advocate - Ask Dr. Drew - Episode 35

Episode Date: March 25, 2021

Eliza Bleu is a survivor of human trafficking as a teen. Now she's speaking out about the alarming ways that traffickers use social media to ensnare teens online, and why Twitter needs to update its moderation technology ASAP. ABOUT ELIZA: Eliza Bleu is a survivor and advocate who works directly with survivors of human trafficking. She is on a mission to help end human trafficking through collaboration with international organizations and governments. Follow Eliza Bleu: https://twitter.com/elizableu  Join Eliza Bleu's community at https://eliza.locals.com/ ​and Dr. Drew's community at https://drdrew.locals.com/  Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Kaleb Nation ( https://kalebnation.com) and Susan Pinsky (https://twitter.com/FirstLadyOfLove). THE SHOW: For over 30 years, Dr. Drew Pinsky has taken calls from all corners of the globe, answering thousands of questions from teens and young adults. To millions, he is a beacon of truth, integrity, fairness, and common sense. Now, after decades of hosting Loveline and multiple hit TV shows – including Celebrity Rehab, Teen Mom OG, Lifechangers, and more – Dr. Drew is opening his phone lines to the world by streaming LIVE from his home studio in California. On Ask Dr. Drew, no question is too extreme or embarrassing because the Dr. has heard it all. Don’t hold in your deepest, darkest questions any longer. Ask Dr. Drew and get real answers today. This show is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. All information exchanged during participation in this program, including interactions with DrDrew.com and any affiliated websites, are intended for educational and/or entertainment purposes only. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Use code drdrew20 for 15% off your first month of daily symbiotic. That is seed.com slash drdrew. Use code drdrew20. Our laws as it pertains to substances are draconian and bizarre. A psychopath started this way. He was an alcoholic because of social media and pornography, PTSD, love addiction, fentanyl and heroin. Ridiculous. I'm a doctor for f***ing 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 help stopping, I can help.

I got a lot to say. I got a lot more to say. Hey everyone, welcome to the program. We will be taking calls shortly. I think I want to get right to my guest today. We are going to be, I mean, you're welcome to ask questions about COVID if that's the direction you'd like to go, but today we're going to take things in a bit of a different direction. I don't think I have any special COVID updates except to say that the numbers are looking better in most states. Nationally, they're looking better. People are getting their vaccine. The vaccine efficacy just keeps, the data on the efficacy keeps rolling in. It's looking extremely effective against hospitalization, death, even moderate COVID, and now some of the data on the variants are coming in to look pretty good.

The AstraZeneca vaccine, which is what's primarily being used in Europe, is not as an effective vaccine. And there was concerns about it causing blood clots. That has now been sort of brushed aside as a significant issue. I'm watching you here on Restream as well. Thank you, guys. Let's see. Let's get right to it. Let's

get some of the info. Oh, what was that there? Did we lose the connection to Eliza? Okay, good. So we are going to speak to, in just a moment, Eliza Blue. She's on the locals as well. Let me just sort of, I don't know where to start with Eliza's pedigree. She states, quote, I worry about children overexposure to sexual content. And she has testified in front of Congress in Nebraska and the dangers of obscene material. She is an advocate for those who have been sex trafficked. Again, we are going to not be bashing sexuality. We are not going to be taking issue with people's freedom to choose to be in sex work. We are not going to be taking issue with people's freedom to choose to be in sex work. We are talking about people that are trafficked and coerced and children.

Welcome, Eliza Blue. Hey there. Hi, Drew. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to have you. So tell us your story to begin with. Yeah, so I'm a survivor of human trafficking as well. That's how I became a survivor advocate. After I had the opportunity to be free, I went back and volunteered and then decided to become an advocate in two states. I was groomed at age 15. I went to the band's Warped Tour at age 15, met a photographer there. They groomed me for two years. Eventually, I was sex trafficked in West Hollywood before I turned 18. So I was still a minor. Unfortunately, when I was trafficked, I was sold for $500. They used force, fraud and coercion. that we see predominantly in the United States of America when we're talking about human trafficking is we can get a grooming process, folks with a pre-established relationship and that same age demographic

when we're talking about female late teen sex trafficking. And in my experience, the populations I deal with at least, so often these young ladies, these children have their own childhood sexual abuse story of some type or other sorts of, uh, abuse patterns in their family of origin or not necessarily the family of origin neighbors, who knows from where, uh, and sometimes addiction can figure into it too. That's the other way you

can coerce. Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, one thing that is a little unique about my particular story is that I was, uh was not abused as a child. I come from a great home. My parents are still together today. In fact, they're out with my grandmother right now for my grandmother's 90th birthday party. So they're still together. Great family relationship. We're neighbors right now.

We all live on the same farm. But I was homeschooled. And that did leave me a little bit vulnerable in the way that I wasn't necessarily a hundred percent how the how sure how the world works interesting you know it's like yeah yeah so I wasn't uh fully exposed and because I come from such an amazing family I was just a little bit unaware how the world really was so in a sense the sexual sexual abuse took place out in the world. Yeah, absolutely it did. You know, it's sad that that was what happened, but I'm grateful sometimes that it has been my journey, so to speak,

and that I've had the opportunity to be free and now talk about it. I mean, to me, that's pretty incredible. And when you say you're an advocate for human trafficking or rescuing people from trafficking, where do you focus that? Where is that going on? How do you find out about it? This kind of thing. And what sort of organizations are available to help people? Yeah. So I'm a survivor advocate for those that have been affected by human trafficking. I always let folks know because we always say advocate for human trafficking. I don't advocate for human trafficking. I advocate for survivors of human trafficking. Also, I like to steer clear of the word rescue. I'm one of those survivors that,

and actually we can talk a little bit more about this as time goes on, but I'm one of those survivors that prefers given the opportunity to be free. A lot of survivors are, you know, so when we talk about human trafficking, we're talking about forced fraud or coercion. When we're talking about adults specifically that have been caught in that coercive relationship, a lot of times folks call it Stockholm syndrome or those trauma bonds. We really let the survivor lead the way. We give them an opportunity. If they want to be free, plant seeds, and we walk with them along that journey and practice

harm reduction. Now, when we talk about children, anyone under the age of 18, that's where we do have to restrict them from being with their abusers. But I've found just walking in my own journey and then serving countless survivors that really a harm reduction survivor-led experience is a little bit better. So when we talk about, sorry. Well, I was going to say, it's so funny that that's the way addiction works too, right? And the rescuing is something for the rescuer, not for the object of the rescuing. Because somebody who's rescued constantly, that needs to be rescued, right? They never come to their own aid, come to their own idea of asking for help.

They're being swooped out. And that's codependency, right? And that's what we do a lot of. It's hard not to do that when you're around addicts all the time. You want to rescue them. But you're exactly right. It's about showing the way, motivating, supporting, and get them to come to the right place themselves, the right place, so they can be safer if they want. Yeah. So when we talk about human trafficking, when we talk about situations where, when we talk about situations where force is involved, then we can talk a little bit more about that sort of rescuing.

When you see those big headlines, 52 children rescued, absolutely under no circumstances can we let a child go back with an abuser. Someone in my case, so even though I did have the opportunity to be free early on from that initial experience, unfortunately, because that complex trauma and that PTSD was already there, I actually chose to go back to a lifestyle later on in life. So it was through a series of events that I was able to get out again. So I'm somebody that firmly believes. Go ahead. Well, I was just thinking about the people that go back in my, in my experience. It's again, the way I've, you know, the different ways to frame this, but in my world, we think of it as people getting addicted to the lifestyle.

A hundred percent. That's exactly what it was. And I was also, you know, um, I had a relationship, so to speak with my former abusers. Um, we call it Romeo pimp or a lover boy pimp. You know, as we know, women can be abusers as well, quite a bit, in fact. But, you know, I felt that I had a relationship with my abusers. A good trafficker, a good abuser will make you feel this way. In fact, they'll even make you feel like it's your fault that you're being trafficked. So that's one reason why it's so important to get out these facts about human trafficking, to get out what's really going on so that when, so that survivors can almost self-identify a little bit faster. One of the reasons that I never stepped forward beforehand was because I thought it was my fault. I thought

I was in love. I thought I had a relationship going, you know, and, uh, I also, I felt at the time, and it still is this way now that the media focuses on the little girls in ropes and chains, duct tape on their mouth, um, you know, traveling the back of a semi. And that's just not what we're seeing statistically on the ground. Uh, it looks a lot more like my experience. Right. Um. Not all the time. It's, you know, human trafficking. For people, again, just trying to help people understand how this happens to someone, can you liken it to a cult relationship?

A cult of two, particularly with the abuser. So, you know, one thing that I do have a gap in my knowledge is with cults. Uh, it hasn't been a primary focus and I've also never been a part of one. Um, you know, what I can enlighten it to the most that works best for me to understand is although I have served some survivors cult experience, but, but um usually those folks need a more adequate care that's more designed for what they need but um but one thing that i liken it to is that are coming back from war are vets with ptsd where all they want to do is go back to battle but they have a debilitating injury as a result of war lost something like their legs and yet they're

obsessed almost with going back to that. It's almost like once that initial, and you could probably speak to this way better than I could, Dr. Drew, once that initial trauma is severed, seared in your brain, it's almost like your brain stays there. Well, it's funny you would frame it like that. The way they think of it is your body stays there, and your body keeps reliving it, revivifying it, and the brain wants to take you back to it. And we have this crazy phenomenon in humans, particularly when the injuries are during development, is we repeat them. We just repeat, repeat, repeat. And people don't think about very much how that repetition occurs, but it occurs because your brain is saying you're attracted to those things. You're in love with that guy. You're attracted to that lifestyle. It's that motivational attraction that takes you back. And that's the piece people often

don't talk about. Yeah, I was pretty blind to it, Dr. Drew. I mean, I got beat up multiple times. I suffered consequences in my life, like going to jail. It really did a number on my life. It's been really difficult pulling my life back together. When I left my former abuser, I was $100,000 in credit card debt that he had wrapped up in my name. I'm still working my way out of that. I thought I was good for nothing. That's the other thing. A lot of folks forget that these abusers will run a number on your mind. I only came out as a public survivor leader in April, 2020. I only started doing interviews a little bit more recently, partially because I thought I was too stupid to talk. And that was predominantly because of what had been put in my brain by,

by my former abusers. It was kind of a, it's kind of been a fun experience to get an opportunity to get out and speak. And I didn't know that I had a, I guess, and I don't want to say like a knack for it, but I didn't even know I'd be good at it. I never thought I would be, I didn't think I was worth anything. Are you still stuck in some of that or? It's rare. Honestly, Dr. Drew, if anything now, more than ever, now that I've sort of realized my natural abilities, I'm just riding it like crazy. I mean, here I am on your show. This is a dream come true. It's an honor and a privilege. And just, you know, before I do every show, well, there's another fun part to Dr. Duda I'd like to tell you. So when I did the step forward,

I had actually seen a survivor on YouTube telling her story. So because of this brave survivor, her name's Annie. This is a while ago, but because of this brave survivor, Annie, I got to hear her story. She finally put words to my experience that I had never heard before. So that's ultimately what sort of pushed me to step forward. And so I always hope that there's survivors out there that are watching or listening, that here's something that I'll say where it will resonate and they will reach out for help. Because I'm telling you right now, I felt very weak when I reached out for help. I felt like I was worthless, nothing, zero, less than dirt, less than dust.

And I felt the weakest, but that was actually the strongest I ever was in my whole life, Dr. Drew. I'm sure I'm speaking on behalf of other people listening. I'm curious what Annie had said that you responded to. Well, I had never heard anybody speak about it in that way. I just didn't know that. And I'm going to interrupt you. That way meaning now the way you speak about it. Right?

Yeah. I didn't know that it necessarily wasn't my fault. I am someone that likes to take personal responsibility. And I also didn't understand that manipulative quality that traffickers, abusers, pimps, pedophiles have on victims. So again, addiction is always my frame. And the way we say is you're not responsible for the addiction. You're responsible for the recovery. And actually, that's one thing I take very seriously.

Dr. Drew, I'm extremely aggressive in my healing, extremely aggressive. Are you getting any, I'm curious, are you getting any trauma therapies? No,

I have a survivor advocate and that's it. I'm not on vacation. I don't see a doctor. I, I have health insurance, but it's very difficult to find folks that can meet me where I'm at as a survivor. It might benefit you, just for sake of offering, things like EMDR. It doesn't sound like you have a lot of symptoms, right? You're not having panic attacks or sleep disturbances or your mood's stable,

right? Am I accurate or are you having some symptoms? Well, are you asking to be my doctor, Dr. Jones? No, I'm just saying that if you are having symptoms, you should think about getting something that sort of syncs up your brain and body because your body, as they say, remembers the score. Your body's constantly reliving and revivifying. And there's a way to connect brain and body to make them regulate together and symptoms subside that way. It's one of the benefits. I do have, and I know what you're talking about, and that's worked really well for a lot of survivors. And I always encourage folks, like find out what works for you. For me, some of the things that work for me, actually, I was just sort of practicing this because I was a little bit nervous in anticipation of coming on your show that that listening to long form podcasts, specifically Dr.'m taking it there, um, I was in a state of constant,

uh, trauma, uh, PTSD, suicidal ideation. Um, you name it, I was going through it. I did not want to be here. I did not want to be alive. Um, by happenstance, I stumbled onto YouTube onto, uh, Dr. Jordan Peterson interview. And of course, you know how YouTube does it, where they go down the line. I was actually looking for something for work and I stumbled on one of his podcasts. And that was sort of how I got into the podcast space. And I found as a survivor that readjusting what I'm listening to, refocusing my energy or my thought process, it recalibrates my brain. So one of the things that I do now, and this might not be doctor prescribed, but I always look at my brain as a TV and then I change the channel. So when I want to change the channel, I put on the podcast, focus solely on what they're talking about in the podcast. Well, you know, cognitive behavioral therapy in a sense is

helping you do that, right? So you're doing your own sort of CBT kind of thing. Did you do Dr. Peterson's life narrative thing? You know, he has that workhorse where you can- 12 Steps for Life? No, which is the 12 Steps for Life I found way before anybody knew who Jordan Peterson was. I always thought those were great videos, or really it was just podcasts back then. But no, he has a whole website to help you sort of create the narrative of your life is the way he looks at it. It's a kind of a workbook kind of thing. You might look at it. It might be something else you relate to. Go ahead. Sorry. Sometimes things are a little more difficult

for me because I can't really read that well. I always kind of thought that sort of played into my being not that intelligent. So some things are a little bit more difficult, but I definitely have used some of his things, but never like that. And let me just encourage you, a lot of adults have trouble reading and are pretty easily able to overcome that by applying themselves, by reading. You'll be surprised how fast you can sort of get it up to a speed where it doesn't feel so encumbering. Really, just by doing it, you'll be surprised. It takes months. It's not like it happens in weeks. But if you just do it, I think you'll be really surprised. Yeah. I've not necessarily looked at it as a bad thing i feel that my brain

has developed in different ways where i'm sort of maybe gifted in ways of creativity that i wouldn't have been if other you know gifts i don't necessarily look at like everything that's wrong or you know seemingly to speak on paper where that would be wrong i think it's all good i have some interesting people who want to come on the call. So let's, if you don't mind, can I bring some people up? Sure.

All right. This is, uh, Kevin, Kevin. I'm Hey buddy. Surprised to see you there. What's happening?

Uh, nothing. I'm in, uh, I'm in the Northern part of our continent right now safe as ever although the vaccines are not out as they should be i'm up here in canada oh yeah kind of crazy it was very safe i felt very safe during the pandemic but uh here we are well no i actually i'm gonna ask the question not about my area at all of expertise.

You probably thought I was going to ask about marijuana. No, I didn't. I thought you were going to say something about your organization, which you're certainly entitled to do. But I figured you had something for Eliza. I'll take it. No, listen, I'll turn away from CR. So some of you might know, or probably most of you don't, I the obama administration about oh was it about seven eight years ago and started a group called sam with patrick kennedy smart approaches to marijuana

and we basically are saying let's slow this train down uh that is going full force towards basically corporate pot commercialization by the tobacco industry, alcohol industry, that's never been good for public health. And so we started an organization to say, listen, let's not criminalize people, let's not stigmatize people, but also let's not promote this because today's marijuana is not the marijuana of the past. And I have a new book out coming out on 420 called Smokescreen, What the Marijuana Industry Doesn't Want You to Know. And in Smokescreen, I interview have a new book out coming out on 420 called smoke screen what the marijuana industry doesn't want you to know and in smoke screen i interview um you know former regulators in states that tell me that the testing process for example for marijuana that's legal and regulated is is really bad it's

really a joke um i talked to victims now that's it. That's your book. Now you have something for Eliza. Go ahead. Well, I actually was curious. I saw this as being, it was an ask anything, right? Can I ask any question or you want me to stick on the subject of human trafficking? No, no, no. Whatever interests you. I mean, if it's for me, if it's Eliza, whatever you think. Yeah.

So I'm a new parent, and which has been awesome. And, you know, my 16 month old, obviously love, thank you, love and adore is, she is really obsessed with opera, if you could believe it. She loves opera. She loves listening. She loves watching on YouTube. And we're very concerned. We are very concerned about screen time for kids. And I want to just ask anybody here to tell us that, I mean, we probably should stick to Spotify and a speaker. I know that. But, you know, sometimes it's easier said than done. So screen time. Right.

I got you. And I would urge you to listen to a podcast I did, a Dr. Drew podcast I did with Dr. Lisa Stroman, who's an expert in this. She runs Digital Citizens Academy, DCAKids.org. And we get into a lot of, she has a lot of data. It's very disturbing. Why don't you get her some voice lessons or piano? Yeah, that's true. It's not true. You need to do that. Cause I, I thank you. I have a good to talk to you, but yeah, screen

time, the people I I'll just shorthand the answer. Thank you, Lou guru. The course I was talking, trying to talk to you about Eliza by Dr. Peterson is called self-authoring, self-authoring. That's his program for, but anyway, back to the parenting thing. Dr. Stroman, who does lots of research and treats lots of kids who with issues going downstream, ending up being trafficked or exploited in some way, she says an hour a day, and that's it. And that's it. And even that is carefully structured in terms of what they have access to. More than an hour a day to a screen ends up in trouble. That's her opinion. That's a very hard thing to maintain. I get it. It is super hard. Your kid's going to fight you like crazy because that's not a normal period

of time on the screen. But this is what people advocate. Limit screen exposure. And if you do, if you can't limit it, at least supervise screen exposure. Hang on a second. I've got lots of questions here in my restream. Give me a second, Eliza. I'm sorry. Well, also, I think Eliza also talks about how kids are getting exposed to porn a lot more. That's a good point. This is sort of your area as well, isn't it? Talk to us about that. Because I heard that just by virtue of the screens that kids were given for school, for Zoom school, the porn exposure and sexting is up like 800% or something. And Lisa talks about that.

Yeah, she talks about that a lot. We have a lot of problems right now. So my general area that I focus on is child sexual abuse material on our, we're really in the digital space as a whole. We are overwhelmed with child sexual abuse material in a large way. So one of the reasons that the tweet, I wish I could remember the exact words of your tweet, Dr. Drew, but one of the reasons that your tweet spoke so much to me was because when children are exposed to this material, they are being groomed, sometimes, not all, for child sexual abuse, child sexual exploitation, human trafficking, and the like. This is really, really extremely dangerous and something that no child

should be exposed to. So I highly recommend parents look at what their children, make sure you pay attention to what your children are doing on the internet. I cannot stress this enough. So, you know, when we talk about some of the statistics, you know, the reports in the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children of child sexual abuse material in 2020 during the pandemic went up 126 percent, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. So this is a lot more reports of child sexual abuse material. But on the flip side of that, you have a lot more children looking at sexual material. Right. And we don't know the full effect of that. We just have no idea. We really don't. Yeah. So I'm not someone that

comes from an anti-porn standpoint. I just feel that it should just be looked at after, you know, a certain age. It's like that for a reason. It's not going to be good for the brain, but on top of it, you don't want to groom someone to the point where they're being sexually abused. And having those acts normalized is really what we want to avoid for children. We have another call in here. Excuse me. Anthony, what do you got, my friend?

That's fine. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I am good. I wanted to ask a question for Eliza, because I know a little bit about childhood trauma and all of that stuff. I was wondering, like, whenever she feels down and out in these days, how does she cope with that?

Like, what's from her stress relievers that she utilized? So I'm going to leave you up Anthony so you can ask follow up questions and let me kind of frame it which is you talked about having PTSD and mood disturbances and that's all better but I'm still sure there's some breakthrough right? That's just the body keeps the score and you've had

a body punch and so stuff's going to break through. What do you do in those moments? In those moments, I have to, no, no, Eliza, Eliza, go ahead. Um, I am extremely aggressive. If I get the first inkling that I am headed to a dark place, um, I am at a risk for suicide. So I, I reach out to someone right away. I have a survivor advocate. I have friends. I am at a risk for suicide. So I reach out to someone right away. I have a survivor advocate. I have friends. I am very close with my family and I'm extremely aggressive. I will call everyone until someone wakes up if it's in the middle of the night. And I do it even if I have a fleeting

thought, if it's a fleeting thought. As far as some of like the negative language that someone might tell themselves, you know, I, I do get there and I have my rough days, but generally speaking, if I, I also do, there's something else. I try to live a life of purpose. I have a reason to get up in the morning. I have things, I have people that are counting on me. I have things that I love to do. Um, I'm not in a relationship right now and I don't have children on my own, but I do have pets and I try to just try to remain really accountable. And also too, I do that thing where I switch the channel on my brain where I listen to podcasts if I'm really in a rough space. I also find that changing my location

helps me a lot as well. So if I'm in this room and if I start to go into a dark place mentally, I'll go outside for a walk. Does that change of environment ever get more dramatic where you're like, oh, I got to get out of this state or out of the city that's going to fix things? Dr. Drew, I don't have time for that. Don't do it. Don't do that. It's a lot of energy and it doesn't really accomplish very much. But Anthony, doesn't that sound familiar? Fellowship, reaching out, connecting, service, meaning, purpose, right? Sound familiar? Sounds like I'm looking in the mirror. Well, and by the way, on the other side of the mirror is a whole army of recovering people that feel exactly the same way, right? Exactly. I mean, support is definitely a key as far as I'm concerned.

But talking about it and putting out and exposing, shining light to the darkness is totally cool. And that's why I appreciate Eliza doing what she does. I really respect that. Let me, Anthony, let me drill a little harder with Eliza and see if this is also useful to you. Eliza, you mentioned feeling, falling into these pits of self-loathing and self-destructive feelings. What, what, how do you get yourself, other than what you've mentioned, which are great, one, you great, perfect tools that wouldn't change a thing, can you change your thinking when you're in those moments? Because so many trauma survivors, so many recovering people, they can get into that negative self-talk that just, and it's not real. That's the crazy thing about it. It usually has nothing to do with the person

as I experienced that person, as somebody that's speaking to them or treating them. It's sort of, I can't really talk you guys out of it once you start going down that slope. Yeah, I have to be very aggressive, Dr. Drew. This is not a joke. It's life or death for me. And that's exactly how I look at it. I also look at the things that I have been able to accomplish, but I want folks to know that I've been out of this lifestyle for quite some time and I've had a lot of support at first. My lifestyle was very dark. I could barely get up to floss my teeth.

I could barely get up to brush my teeth. I could barely get up to take the trash out. There was basically no reason for me to be alive. I was still walking dead. I was walking, but I was dead. So to go from where I'm at, where I was to where I'm at now, it is nothing short of a miracle. And it is similar to recovery in that way, where it was literally one step at a time. And sometimes it's just not a good day,

but I have to be able to recognize and not to be whatever, but I have to be very mindful of my menstrual cycle as a woman because that seems to be an opportunity for a dark time. Yep. I mean, biology is important. Biology is really important. as far as my journey. But really also some things that I think about as well now are just looking at the past and history. When I get like, oh, this is the worst, you know, our world is going to H-E double hockey sticks, you know, everything's horrible. I'm horrible. Everything's horrible. Blackfilled. If I get real blackfilled, I think back to other periods in history where I probably wouldn't have even been alive this long. I'm almost 39. I mean, I'm 40 years old. I'm 39 right now, you know.

It would have been difficult for me to be alive this long because life was so rough. So I look at that in my life now compared to how it could have been at different times. And that's, I mean, I know it sounds weird, Dr. Drew. I wish I had a better answer for you. Nothing about it sounds weird to me. This is what I would expect you to say. Anthony, is that good for you? Oh, this is perfect. Thank you. I really

appreciate this. I really do. Oh, you got it, buddy. I have somebody, a similar kinds of question here for you. That's Chris. I don't know if Chris is... Yeah, hi, Dr. Drew. How are you? I'm good, sir. How are you? Hi, Drew. How are you? Hey, man. What's happening? I'm just calling in from the UK. Moved over here three years ago.

But as a 40-year addiction survivor with 12 years clean and sober. Congratulations. I'm a product of the 12 steps, by the way. And my recovery could not have taken place until I was able to approach the original trauma in my life. And that was that when I was three years old, I was placed in an orphanage by my mom. She couldn't keep me, so she gave me up to the Children's Society in London. And I was in an orphanage from three to six. Now, the funny part is that she went off to marry an American, came back to the orphanage, took me back, and brought me to America.

Wow. Or took me to America. And then I started using and drinking at the age of 11. I was never, it didn't feel, even as a young, young kid, I didn't feel quite right. So it wasn't until 2015, Dr. Greer, that I had my last psychiatric event, ended up in the Houston Psych Clinic with Ben Taub and happened to know a psychiatrist working there. And he came and talked to me and I talked to him as I would a friend. So I told

him everything. I started talking about the savannah issue and he said, hold on a second. He said, have you ever heard of reactive attachment disorder? And I'd never, ever, ever heard of that. Right. And so when I look back at my recovery, you know, my first meeting was in 1979 and my last drink was in 2009. And so I had a struggle in recovery for years and years and years. But the fact was, until I recognized that I was, when I was trying to stay sober all those years, I was trying to fix the wrong fix. Right, right. And then the problem was that in the 12 steps, Dr. Drew,

there wasn't anybody in the meeting hall that was qualified to talk about reactive attachment disorder. Right, right. I would do my inventory to the people who were about me having resentment against my mom. Yeah. And they'd say, well, what's your part? And I'd go through that process.

Occasionally, I would tell you, let me just tell you that occasionally people will form healthy attachments with their sponsor or with other fellowship members in the group. But if you have severe reactive attachment, you need professional help with that. So good. Did you get it? Yeah. No, I never did until 2015. Okay, good. I do claim that as my clean date.

What happened, I was working at a recovery center and I took a guy to treatment, emptied his bags out on the sickbed and a bunch of benzos fell out and I picked them up and gobbled them up right away. It was a stupid thing for me to do, but, you know, I got honest about it quickly and I was taken to a place to detox for a few days. But it threw me into a psychotic episode because my primary problem, I don't think it would have been addiction at the time. I wasn't being honest about my mental health.

Do you have a question for Eliza? Yeah, I wanted to know if she had any traumatic event as a very, very young child. Like, is there something maybe hidden that you haven't thought about? Or is there something that doesn't seem like a big deal to you now? Not that it has anything to do with your family system, but was there something else maybe you were exposed to at a very young age? Yeah. You know, traumatic event that caused this. Well, you don't have to have it though.

I agree. You know, Chris, I always look for the trauma because your story is very, very, very common. Or the variations on it. I'm sure you've heard it in the rooms and stuff. But Eliza's may... There's many variations on the theme. Thus far as I understand Eliza's story,

she was traumatized as a child. It just happened to be later adolescence when the trauma got put through. Does that make sense? Right. To be brutally honest, when I'm serving survivors, this is a common thread. That's why when I started the podcast, I said I'm unique in this way.

And shout out to all the folks in recovery. Like, I love you so much. Keep going. Keep shining. Keep grinding. And a lot of survivors that I serve and that I've met along my journey have, um, are also in recovery as well. And I know a lot of folks, especially if a lot of folks are listening, um, you know, there's a lot of survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, human trafficking from within the rooms of, you know, 12 steps, uh, you know, uh, all that seek out, you know, any type of addiction help.

Uh, so, so I, I do know that this is a common and that my story is a bit uncommon in that way. Thanks, Chris. I appreciate the call. Congratulations on your recovery. But sometimes those traumas from early childhood are hidden from us. I'm not trying to drill into you. I'm just sort of throwing this out for sake of discussion. And we're not, because they're very, very early, we don't really think of them as traumas. And later on, as we start seeing things from, you know, how you, as you've grown now, you sort of see things from a different perspective, right? It's almost like you're looking at things through a new pair of glasses. Sound familiar? Yeah. Yeah. And that'll keep happening. You're going to keep growing. And that old self kind of keeps kind of dying off and you have to grieve losing the old self and build the new one and start

looking at the world again from the new position you're in, which is literally like a different place now. Right. You may start to look at memories or things that you heard happened or did happen in your childhood and go, Oh, maybe that did have a little more meaning than I thought it did. I don't really remember it, but maybe. Let's go ahead, finish up. In my case, I was promised a bogus modeling deal. So if anything, it was purely naivete, but it did seem legit on the surface. Like I said, they started grooming me at age 15,

and I actually went to Los Angeles prior to being trafficked the initial time to, uh, with a take photographs with the same photographer. So those were more my, uh, vulnerabilities, the trauma. And this is what really broke me. And I'm not trying to do, uh, you know, trauma's trauma, but what really broke me specifically was I had come from such an amazing upbringing. I come from such an amazing upbringing i come from such an amazing family and then to realize how evil the world was in just an instant yeah when your whole world you're like holy toledo maybe there's a whole other world out there that i didn't know existed um that's what broke me it was that staring in the eye of malevolence is what broke me

you remind me beyond any you remind me of now I'm blanking on her name. Somebody's going to help me. The young Mormon girl that was kidnapped and held. Elizabeth Smart. Elizabeth Smart. I had a chance to talk to Elizabeth Smart and she described something very similar. And she, particularly for her,

I don't know if this is anything about, you know, these issues that you came across, but when this crazy nut dragged her out into the woods and then brought her to a camp, at the camp was a woman. And her reaction was, oh, my only experience with women are like my mom. This woman will not allow this guy to hurt me. She'll save me. And she ended up to be the main perpetrator. And that's what broke her. Yeah. I i mean when we look at the epstein case um i'm pretty close with the epstein so some of the epstein survivors so there's so many it would be difficult to be close to all the epstein survivors but um you know when i speak to them

a lot of times it's uh maxwell that comes up uh just that break in trust from a woman isn't that interesting it's very interesting how those, the people that you identify with that you would expect to identify with you, or at least their role as a female or as a mother, as a protector, or just another woman would be enough. It's, you know, it reminds me of something Rodney King told me too. Rodney King, who was a dear friend said that, you know, the beating is all horrible, horrible, horrible. But what really broke him was there were two black officers that stood down during it. And that, that's what he couldn't let go of. Isn't that, I mean, it's the same, the same phenomenon, the people that we expect. That's when we really are, we don't like that. Our soul doesn't like that. Amber,

what's going on there? Hang on, Amber, one second. I'm going to hear what Eliza's saying. Go ahead, Eliza. I was going to say some of the things actually that break me now are when folks from what would seemingly be my side of the movement work against work against me it's not so you know i work in the survivor space but there's a lot of different um pieces to the survivor space and when folks that i think should be allies are not are working against me in some way uh that's more hurtful now that actually breaks me more than anything dr i get that i get that i totally well that. I totally agree. Well, yeah, I'm sure you experience it sometimes. All the time. Amber, what's going on? Nothing much. How are you, Dr. Drew? We're good. It's a pleasure to have you. Thank you. This is actually my first time ever contacting a call thing like this. This is

wonderful. I never thought this would ever happen. Welcome. Well, anyways, I had a question for Eliza blue and specifically I was thinking about this. What are your thoughts on just the sheer craziness in terms of parents allowing their kids at seemingly any age being on social media. I mean, I know when I was a kid, that wasn't a thing. And then when I became of age to be on social media, I mean, let's be honest, every teenager at some point is going to be on social media. Let's face it. But when I was of age, I respected it more and understood it and

was like, no, wait, if I was on social media years ago, I wouldn't have even known what I would be getting myself into or what was right, what was wrong, as much as I can think of things correctly or incorrectly. So it's like shocking to me when you have parents that are like, oh, my kid can be on here and it's totally fine. And then negatives happen like unfortunate predators and or what have you. It's just it's a scary, crazy world, you know? Yeah. Oh, yes. Again, I put them on there. I'm going to refer you back to the same thing I mentioned earlier to Kevin, which is I did a podcast with Dr. Lisa Stroman. Is that up on the website, Caleb, Dr. Lisa Stroman?

I don't think so. I know it's up. I know it's up somewhere. So if you just go look for my podcast, and it was about a month ago, Dr. Lisa Stroman, the Dr. Drew podcast, not the streaming show. It's a different thing. And she gets into it in great detail. And it's pretty mortifying when you really hear what's going on. And when you hear the data and you hear what's actually happening, I don't know how parents just sit on their hands, you know? Yeah, I mean, it's so bad. The amount of times I hear it, it's crazy. Go ahead, Eliza. It's so bad that Instagram actually changed their terms of service this week so that adults can no longer contact children that they're not following and vice versa. Children or our youth are being groomed, manipulated, and trafficked off of social media. I want to let all the parents out there know that your child doesn't even need to leave

their own room in order to be trafficked. They can send images or videos of themselves to a predator pretending to be someone else. You know, Facebook's being sued by three minor survivors right now, three minor survivors of sex trafficking. Why? Because they were groomed and manipulated on their platform. Right now, Twitter is being sued by John Doe, the minor survivor of sexual equity. He was originally groomed and exploited through Snapchat. And then those images, that video ended up on Twitter, was watched over 160,000 times in the first day, retweeted over 2,000 times. So yeah, we have a major problem. A willing adult pornography is allowed on Twitter.

And the age that you need to be in order to be on Twitter is age 13. So what are we really doing here? This is a joke. You need to protect your children. And I truly feel that because of folks like myself, hopefully, eventually these social media platforms will realize what a problem this is. But yeah, I mean, adults are contacting your children and they're acting like they want to like they're somebody else. They're basically your kids into sending sexual images and videos. OK, Eliza, hang on one second. Amber, thanks for your call. We have to take a little break here. We're talking to Eliza Blue, the follow my kids are 27.

I know we've been saying that a lot. Eliza Blue is a L.I.Z.A.B.L.U.B.L.'ve been saying that a lot lately. Eliza Blue is E-L-I-Z-A-B-L-E-U, like in French, bleu. What's that, Eliza? Like bleu. Bleu. Say bleu. Eliza, say bleu. L-A-B-L-E-U. Or how do you, oh my goodness, what are preferred gender pronouns in France? How do we deal with that? I haven't thought about that. Wow. We can bring a linguist in here to tell us what they're doing in France right now. All right, we're taking a little break and back with your calls after this. This pandemic began, we were not sure how it spread. Everyone began wearing masks and using hand sanitizers. Great ways to slow the spread, but a lot of people still get sick. I can personally

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We are back with Eliza Blue. We are taking your calls. So let me quickly get some. Oh, Dr. Drew. One second. Susan has to say something. Lisa Stroman's show will be up on Wednesday on the Dr. Drew podcast. So this show I keep talking about with Dr. Lisa Stroman actually has not been posted

yet. It's being posted on Wednesday. You can find it on this website, drdrew.com or wherever you can sign up and subscribe at the usual sites for podcasting. It's the Dr. Drew podcast. Dr. Lisa Stroman is T-R-O-H-M-A-N. Eliza. I'd love to have Eliza back with Lisa.

Oh, that would be interesting. Yeah. That would be interesting. So, Eliza, you wanted to say something. I'm sorry. Can we dress like twins? We'll all come with the same outfit on. It'll be... We'll get you glasses.

What was that famous video with the woman with the red lips and the black sweater? I think Drew should dye his hair purple. I think that would be so cool. His new look. The best was his wife was trying to get him to change before the show. And Dr. Drew was like, no. We have like six minutes. No, I have to do it.

Next time. Come on. Well, it wasn't just that she wanted me to run and put a black T-shirt on to match yours. She'd also instructed me to do about eight different things. If you remember, I was saying you're speaking. I can barely understand what you're telling me to do. All right. Did you have anything else before I get to the calls?

Actually, I did have a serious question. I just wanted to know from a doctor's perspective, since it's asked Dr. Drew, what are the long-term ramifications for children that have been sexually exploited and their material being on platforms like Pornhub and Twitter? After reaching out repeated times, they weren't able to pull the material down. What are the long-term ramifications for minors that have experienced that type of sexual exploitation on that scale? I don't know. Again, it's a relatively new phenomenon, right? And I don't know that it's different than someone who has been exploited without it being so public. Because part of the recovery, like I've treated sex addicts and people who have been in the sex industry industry and you have to

learn how to make that part of your life story and integrate it into your narrative one way or another you have to learn to accept that now part of the accepting maybe I was a unwitting child and I was completely exploited and you know this is not even me now this is some somebody that was completely uh hoodwinked into these behaviors, and horrible, horrible people did that. Again, it's much like you're talking about now. It's coming to terms with the narrative of your life, making sense of it for you, and then forming a sense of self, managing the trauma, developing purpose, all those things you've talked about so far, it's really the same. It's the same kind of phenomenon. And you can imagine, I mean,

I don't know if you have stuff out there that embarrasses you or shames you, and you have to, like, that has to be okay. That has to be, that's part of my life. That's how I got to who I am now. Actually, I find that it sort of motivates me to keep going. It pushes me a little harder. You know, like for instance, so in my particular case, I had a profile that was live and active on Twitter from April 2020. I found out early April 2020, I was taken down on from Twitter, March, around March. So it was about three and a half months that it was, sorry, it was about three and a half months that that profile was live and active. And then a little over a month ago, I reported two other profiles. So yeah, it's pretty embarrassing. In the case of Pornhub, I always let my colleagues know that I've never gone on Pornhub looking for images or videos of myself on purpose. Yeah, it's out there, Dr. Drew. It's like for real out there. But I have to tell you again, I have no expertise in cheating children. I have no expertise in treating adults.

I just have been involved with a number of treatment episodes for adults. And sometimes they make complete peace with this piece. It just becomes, you know, again, they love themselves and they love where they are. And this is part of how I got there. Let's talk to... That's the shape man to the woman that I am today, Dr. Drew and I'm grateful that I can see it like that. I understand survivors that

aren't able to deal with their trauma in that way and like I said earlier, it took me a long time to get here. Braxton. Hi, Drew. Hi, Liza. How are you guys doing today? We are good. Thanks for coming Hi, Drew. Hi, Liza. How are you guys doing today? We are good. Thanks for coming up. Yeah.

First, just to say, you know, Ratchet Revolution, Kingdoms of 18, all that stuff, a lot of that stuff. So my question, sorry. My question is I kind of have a well, I'm curious how

I'm getting a little bit of space right now. Oh, you're all good. You're all good. Deep breath. So when it comes to human trafficking, I'm wondering what the, if there's anything that when people come across

this stuff in the world, what are the protocols and what are the things that people can do in order to help the people that are either being trapped or being groomed towards trafficking? Then if there's any correlation between traditional addiction medicine and this kind of- Yeah, this is all great. This is a great question, Braxton. So I'll let you first, Eliza. If people are concerned that somebody is in trouble, where would you suggest they go?

That's a great question. So the first thing you have to ask yourself when someone's in trouble is, are they with their abuser? And if their abuser finds out that you know, is that survivor victim at risk of being harmed or killed. You have to look at your own safety as well. A lot of folks are on this wave of vigilante behavior. Under no circumstances do I ever condone vigilante behavior. The human trafficking hotline is 24 hours a day,

seven days a week, 365 days a year. They serve survivors of both labor and sex trafficking, and they will be able to help you. So if you are with someone and you can message them, you can email them, you can call them. So that's going to always probably be the best way. If you can send them a tip anonymously, if you think that someone's being trafficked. Also, if someone's in immediate danger, you always call 911. Other than that, the best way to serve a survivor that needs help is to ask, are you doing okay? If a survivor wants help, the other thing I always let folks know is try to get that survivor alone, which sounds creepy, right? But try to get that survivor alone. So if you're at a restaurant and if you see something that's just not right, I tell people, trust your gut. If you feel something, if you see somebody in an airport, something just isn't right. If that suspected victim walks into the bathroom,

maybe say, hey, do you need any help with anything? Are you okay? The other thing too, folks always ask me, how can I spot survivors of human trafficking? And I like to flip the question, how can survivors of human trafficking spot you? How do they know that you're a safe person? How do they know that you're somebody that if they wanted help, that they could reach out to for help? Are you somebody that's giving off a trash energy? Are you somebody that if I like, let's say like I was traveling and I couldn't get ahold of any of my friends, who would I reach out to? You know, maybe a flight attendant with great energy, like, hey, I'm having a thought of suicide. You know, so these are all things that we look at. We like to have that open energy and letting folks know that we can meet them where they're at in a nonjudgmental way. But by far, always reach out to the Human Trafficking Hotline. And how do we get that hotline number? Is there a number particularly? Yeah, I should know it by heart

dr drew but i don't just if we look it up online right now human trafficking hotline that will come up if you google just even the words human trafficking will be the first thing there they offer 200 plus which is and they are lgbtq plus friendly all right we will get that up in just a second that number is 1-888-373-7888. That's the National Human Trafficking Hotline. [phone]. And in terms of other question about the overlap with addiction medicine, this is all very familiar territory to me. The incidence of trauma, the incidence of abusive relationships, the incidence of substance relationships, the incidence of substance use, the incidence of sort of, I see a lot of domestic violence relationships as really just a cult of

two. And so there's a power imbalance where one person is completely subjugated to the other and broken down by the other person to where they don't feel that they deserve to leave or that they should leave or that they can leave. It just, it's not in there. It's almost, it's a Stockholm syndrome. It's very much like that. And these things all have very similar kinds of treatment or interventions available. You've heard Eliza's, what she has done, which is, again, and you heard Anthony, who's very steeped in the 12-step. You heard another 12-step call. There's a lot of overlap here. Sometimes there can be sex addiction involved with it. That's how people get themselves into trouble. That is in there, and there's lifestyle addiction. This is all part of, I think when you get the lifestyle addiction going, there's usually

some sort of substance, sex, something else, just not the lifestyle. In your case, you had this obsessive attachment, this traumatic attachment to your abuser, which is also a common thing, right? This is all characteristic of these kinds of relationships and behaviors. And we're not saying everyone who's in porn or everyone's a prostitute is in these situations. We're saying those are the environments where these things happen. Not everybody's in porn or everyone's a prostitute is in these situations. We're saying those are the environments in which and where these things happen. Not everybody's in that category, but when it does happen, this is where it tends to turn up. Would you agree with that, Eliza? Well, I think that there's definitely different lines between willing adult sex work.

I also think there's a different line between willing adult sex work and survival sex. Survival sex is the sale of sex for drugs, alcohol, housing, food, things of that nature, medicine as well, and then human trafficking. Human trafficking always involves force, fraud, or coercion for the sale of labor or sex. It also includes the black market sale of human organs. Also includes child marriage, child marriage in some cases, don't even get me started, child marriage in some cases, the illegal adoption of children and child soldiers as well. It encompasses quite a bit. And in term, I see the survival coercion as just part of that same coercion. It's just using a different technique.

And whether it's survival or drugs, it's still coercion. Somebody sees that weakness and uses it as something to manipulate somebody with. And actually, folks that struggle with addiction issues are at a higher risk for being trafficked for labor or sex. Well, sure, because the addiction will take them there. The addiction, you got to understand, if you really understand addiction, nothing else matters except getting the drugs. And if somebody sees that in that person and knows how to exploit that, it's very easy to take them to places they would, in a healthy brain state, would never, ever go.

All right, let's see. Yeah, and I just want everyone out there that's listening that's struggling in this way, if there's anything you identify with, even if you're in a domestic violence situation, if you struggled with past or recent trauma as a result of molestation or just sexual assault, not just sexual assault. I shouldn't have said just sexual assault, but sexual assault. I hate it when I do that. Not exclusively sexual assault. Gosh, Dr. Drew. I think after a while I'd have this ripped down, right?

No, no, you're good. I want folks to know that no matter where you're at in your journey, there's a lot of people out there that care about you. And there are folks that will walk with you. And an advocate will serve you regardless of whether or not you're willing to quit drugs today. An advocate will serve you whether or not you're ready to leave your abuser. We can work on harm reduction plans that can make it so that hopefully you get to the place where you are ready. But if you are never at a place where you're ready, then we'll work with you as well. Adam, you had an interesting question.

Is he still there? There you are. Hi, Adam. Hello? You're on the air my name is adam um i'm the victim of uh sexual abuse um and it's it was in the form of a number of violent rapes number of years ago and uh my parents really enabled that and then they tried to brush it under the rug and then got in the way of me seeking justice. So it's still an ongoing ordeal with them, and it's been pretty terrible, to be honest. But I've been listening to this show, and I'm very intrigued.

I researched your guest, Eliza Blue, and found her Twitter, and found it kind of fascinating, the talking points she was bringing up in terms of Twitter, Pornhub, and other social media websites that she was putting on full blast for the complicity and exploitation of children. For example, with Twitter, I just find it kind of questionable that she is talking about how Twitter perpetuates this whole child exploitation thing. However, she's using her preferred method of delivery as Twitter, or at least the primary means of, you know of weakening her audience. It's kind of like the equivalent of being in the civil rights movement. Instead of boycotting the buses, you just go on the bus

and talk about it. If Twitter is so toxic, I'm a bit confused as to why she insists on using it. You're right here with her. Let's give her a chance to respond. Go ahead. That's give her a chance. You're right there. You're right here with her. Let's give her a chance to respond. Go ahead. That's a really good question. And I go back and forth with this myself. I think that Twitter is absolutely deplorable. But what folks don't realize is that I signed up for Twitter before I was aware of this issue. And I am also followed by Jack Dorsey, the founder and CEO of Twitter. And I firmly believe that if I'm going to say something behind your back, I'm ready to say it to your face. That's why I stay there. I fight Twitter on Twitter every day. Do you think Twitter is beyond salvation? That there wouldn't be a way to reckon?

So you think it could be? So it's not the platform, it's what's going on on the platform. Well, it's their willingness to look away at the child sexual abuse material and handle it at scale. It's their willingness to make things like bird watch, uh, fleets and to not handle their child sexual abuse material problem at scale. It's their willingness to not even make it a two-click reporting system. Are you kidding me? No, I understand that you have, you have specific ways that you'd like to see it, um, uh, uh, changed. Um, but you don't feel as though by using it, it's not as, it's again, it's like, it's not that the platform is evil. It's that what's going on on the platform is illegal, is evil, and they're not checking it. They're not putting it in check.

Well, I'm not putting it in the intentions of folks that I'm not. I can only speak for my own intentions. And I also don't like to throw around words like evil. I like to stick to the facts. The facts are that Twitter has a horrible child sexual abuse material problem. You can tell by their massive reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that they make every year. But the deal is, my deal with them is that they're using an antiquated system called Microsoft PhotoDNA. A lot of the platforms use Microsoft PhotoDNA. And I feel that they should follow Facebook's lead in creating better technology that can help to remove these issues at scale. But instead, they'd like to focus on censorship and virtue signaling in our face rather than dealing with the problem. And I do agree. I hate making Twitter money by using their platform. But to be brutally honest,

I would rather say it to their face. So that's why I stay on. Okay. And it's not that your goal is that Twitter needs to be canceled. Is it Twitter needs to be changed? Are you kidding me? I had a meeting with Twitter and I told them that I feel that I had a meeting with Twitter myself. I requested this meeting through Jack Dorsey myself. And I told them that I thought that they had the opportunity to be the first platform, the first social media platform in the history of the Internet to really handle this problem at scale because of the intelligent folks that work there and just that they say they claim they care about. And thank you for your. Well, I didn't even get a thank you. Well, the thing about...

Excuse me? Thank you for sharing your story. Yeah, thank you for sharing your story and thank you for the question. But you have a follow-on? Yeah, I just wanted to follow that up with... I've seen your Twitter and it came to my attention

that you are a very prolific supporter of Donald Trump. And that kind of... I'll be honest, I was a little bit taken aback by that. I mean, this is a guy who has upwards of, what, 30 allegations of serious sexual assault. He was a close colleague with Jeffrey Epstein. And the list goes on and on and on so how can you possibly reconcile donald trump's track record albeit somewhat alleged with your advocacy for sexual abuse and survivors of sexual trauma when you know again it just kind of is a little bit mind-boggling to be honest okay let's see because i i saw your video where you explained why you supported him and the reasons like for example she said that he divested a bunch of money into uh the

advocacy program or something that went to survivors and that is not directly attributed to donald trump's administration or his moral character i mean i don't know okay let's let let's let we get get your point let's Let's hear what Liza's got to say. Yeah, that's a really good question. There's a lot to unpack there. First and foremost, I did about a 15 minute video explaining if that wasn't enough. I've addressed the issue since then, stating that I was a libertarian at the time and that I've moved closer to the views of Michael Malice since the election.

I also really haven't brought up Donald Trump besides saying that I really don't think about him. When folks attack me in this way, I find it really disgusting. I don't think that any political view, if I have one at all, should be really a topic of discussion because of the amazing advocacy that I'm doing. And honestly, I'm a survivor regardless. So should it really matter how I voted or how I decided to vote? But let's say like it does, right? I serve with the Epstein survivors. And just to let everybody know, some of the Epstein survivors voted for Donald Trump as well. So because of my close relationship with them, I know these things. So the only real time that Donald Trump came up in the Epstein conversation was pretty much him taking him out of Mar-a-Lago. So we can go down that rabbit hole, but I haven't mentioned Donald Trump except for

one time dispelling the fact that I'm not really thinking about that person anymore. He's no longer the president. I could literally care less. I went from being a libertarian. And honestly, I wrote a blog the other day and I said, in retrospect, I wish I'd voted for Kanye West. I hope that answers your question. I'm guessing you have lots of feelings about how the various states have handled the COVID situation. I don't think too much about COVID, Dr. Drew. I keep my eyes on my own page. Okay.

As a libertarian, a lot of my libertarian friends have lots of thoughts. Okay. I just don't know where they are. I have a my, a lot of my libertarian friends are, have lots of thoughts. Okay. I just don't, you know, I don't know where they, I have a quick question here if I could ask. So I know from running a bunch of websites that I can, I push everything through a company called Cloudflare that keeps attacks off the website. It has a lot of security features and there's a box in there. I literally can just turn on a switch and it will filter any content that it's like called CSAM. So it's like child sexual abuse material. It's literally, I just click it and it'll, it matches it with whatever databases that they have on the other side. So what's,

what is Twitter's reason? Why are they saying that they're not doing anything about this? If it seems so easy for, so why don't they, why don't they have a Twitch, a switch like that? Right. What is their excuse? If Cloudflare is such a backbone of the internet, has this feature you can just turn on, what is Twitter saying? Why can't they do it? So right now they're claiming Section 230 protection and asking for the John Doe case to be dismissed. And what they gave to them, they said that they cannot handle the problem at scale. There's a few reasons for this.

It's going to be hard. So Microsoft Photo DNA can only do so much. Twitter claims that Microsoft Photo DNA detects 91% of their child sexual abuse material. They're not doing a human review of this, but because willing adult pornography is allowed on Twitter, it's going to be hard for the algorithm to differentiate between willing adult pornography. Right now, they could make a new one. That's what I want them to do. I want Twitter to be the first platform to really do what they could do. I would love for tech as a whole to do a great big hackathon and say, you know what, this is a big problem.

Everybody's right. Let's see if we can handle it at scale and make this artificial intelligence, upgraded, more aggressive artificial intelligence that can handle this problem at scale. And that way, I feel like everybody would be happy because then the willing adult material could stay up and we could just detect the child sexual abuse material at scale. But that's not what's happening. So I don't know. I mean, I'm not in tech, of course, but I am a little focused on this issue with Twitter. So I'm still not sure I heard the answer. So if we were to go to them and say, and I heard what you said, but I'm wondering if there's a little more to, if you focus it in like this, if we were to go to them and say, here's a switch, we'll take this material off Twitter forever, what would they say? Oh, good, let's do that. Or is there some reason, some liability, or

would it open a Pandora's box where they'd have to start getting to all kinds of material that they're worried about? I mean, that's what Russia told them this week, that they're going to block Twitter from their country if they don't remove the child sexual abuse material at scale. They said if they don't remove the entire child sexual abuse material from Twitter, now, granted, I have my own thoughts on the reasoning behind this, but Russia called them out and said, look, Twitter's not going to be allowed in our country anymore if they don't remove the child sexual abuse material. This was widely reported on, by the way. That was kind of a big deal. What is your theory, just out of curiosity? They have their own?

No, I'll keep my opinion okay god forbid okay god forbid anyway but um you know so this is the deal dr drew and this is really important and this is one thing i want folks to know that if we did do a broad sweep there's so much child sexual abuse material on twitter at this point in time that, uh, that I would prefer it go to the national center for missing and exploited children. It's our clearing house. It's where we, it's where we fingerprint these images. It's where we get an opportunity to give these children an opportunity to be free. But if we do a broad sweep, that's why I want them to do it the right way. So, so let me, I'm not sure I'm hearing some of the things you're saying. Are you saying

that because Twitter has so much on there, that's opportunities to find and save kids? Correct. So the way it should go is that they should detect an image through artificial intelligence, which would be what right now they're using Microsoft photo DNA, or they could get something newer that was made in 2009. So they could get technology, detect the material, send it off to the National Center

for Missing and Exploited Children that would match as a child that has been reported missing or if it matches another image as well. Then that image is fingerprinted and then artificial intelligence can sweep the platform looking for those images or videos again once that once that image is fingerprinted does that make sense

i'm sorry to jump in again you're saying twitter's not doing that not a scale wow that's that's because a lot of the technology i know from like web management stuff a lot of the technology is there they fingerprint it and there's a database there must be there must be something we're not thinking of on the legal end of this. That if they start down one path, it's got to be something. It just doesn't make sense

that they wouldn't do it. What this is that they're getting sued by a minor survivor of sexual exploitation and that won't be the last one. This is a really, just as we're seeing with Pornhub, it's going to go again,

again and again. But, um, you know, I, I don't know what it's going to take. I'm not the first one that's brought this up. The New York times has done extensive reporting on this.

I'm not like, you know, bringing up anything unique. Uh, 65 million. Sorry. Uh, uh,

Pharaoh, what's his name? Ronan Farrow. Ronan Farrow, we got Ronan Farrow on this. Yeah. That's what we need, something like that. Gabriel Dance and Michael Keller have done exquisite, well thought out pieces on this that really explain the problem in its entirety.

They're really amazing pieces. They also explain how photo DNA works. But in 2020 alone, we had 65 million reports of child sexual abuse material coming to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Crazy. Joe, you're up on the phone. Joe. Hey, Drew.

How you doing? And hi eliza uh i i want i want to first off um i posted on both of your local pages the uh information for the national human trafficking hotline great thank you uh because there's also a text there's also live chat 24 7 um you know in over 200 languages. So, I mean, all children and teenagers, whoever has a phone, should have this on their phone in case they're ever,

God forbid, kidnapped or human trafficked to get out. I want to ask both of you about Pornhub removing 10 million videos overnight. I saw that and somebody tweeted that that was some sort of admission of guilt. I didn't know quite what they were talking about.

Eliza, do you know what that's all about? I know exactly what that is, but I'll let your guests, I'll let the caller finish first, or was that the question? No, I mean, that was from Layla McElwain. And I mean, I want to answer a response from both of you on that. So right now, Pornhub is another one.

What a hot mess. They had zero reports of child sexual abuse material to any of the Canadian authorities or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the United States. They reported zero child sexual abuse material for over 10 years, for over 10 years, zero reports, zero reports. And they are the 10th largest website and most visited website in the world, for them to have reported zero is absolutely wild, especially considering over 100 survivors have stepped forward and are currently suing them in either class action lawsuits or in other ways. Definitely a lot of minor survivors of sex trafficking. Essentially, what we're looking at is that the platform is repeatedly profiting

off of child sexual abuse material, non-consensual material, sexual assault, you name it, sextortion, you name it, survivor, survivor, survivor, step forward. What's even more horrible is that these children and non-consenting adults in these videos have reached out to this platform repeatedly, asked them to pull it down, and they haven't. So that's why they did it. Well, realistically, you want to know why I think they did it? It was because the credit card companies pulled out. That's why I think they did it, because Nicholas Kristof exposed them in the op-ed for the New York Times called Children of Pornhub. And that's what happened. They they got exposed and they really just did whatever and then they testified and lied about it so they removed 10 million after all the credit card

companies pulled out um still didn't do too much i mean we got crypto in there i don't really see i mean i don't really know to be brutally honest i don't know what's going on with uh with you know like it's just kind of like, I can't even believe that this is a problem, you know, like, why am I even sitting here? Like the fact that I'm even sitting here talking about this, Dr. Drew, you're a lovely man, but like, honestly, this is, I mean, is it meaning what's wrong with what's wrong with the world? What's wrong with these platforms? I know what's wrong with the world? What's wrong with these platforms? I know what's wrong with the world.

Nobody's perfect. But these platforms need to get it together. Why are they repeatedly profiting off child sexual abuse material, non-consensual videos, human trafficking, sextortion? I mean, if that's part of your profit margin, you need to figure out something else. And these are some of the brightest minds in tech. Right.

That's why we're all sitting here going well there must be something there must be some reason we can't think of or don't know about them you know they're they're not dumb we played a three second clip of something that was on snl commentary and it took less than an hour before that whole episode was taken down on all the platforms because they tagged it and that was something like an snl episode that had been created it had broadcast like two days before the show so they had already tagged it for dmca takedowns between those two days and then did it to knock the show down over here with commentary so i don't understand why the tech platforms can't figure out if they can figure it out for that for snl then why can't they figure it out for this right right put us the exact same way by the way if you use a song you know they can pull it down

almost instantaneously yes they will it's a it's uncanny and when it comes to money and intellectual property magically it's it's very quick kristin hi hey hello hello how you guys doing hi eliza hi how's wisconsin cold i'm not happy about it are your kids going back to school thanks for asking though my kids are back in school full day, five days a week. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Indeed. Well done. Congratulations. Oh, thank you. I feel like I've won the lottery. I really do. I look better. I'm in a better mood, but that's not why I called. I have a question for Eliza and Eliza, thank you so much for doing the show. I have three young children. So, um,

just hearing you, you know, speaking out talking about these things that are so horrible, you know, parents kind of, you know, you don't ever want to have to bring it up cause it's so stomach turning and it's so scary. So thank you for being such a strong advocate. And my question is this. In our household, you know, we've done really well with putting big restrictions on what our kids are available to access online.

And it wasn't difficult at all. There's a lot of, you know, parental apps that are available very easily on iOS and Android and Windows. But my question is more about this. So my kids are getting to that age where they want to have a little bit of freedom. They want to go ride their bikes with their friends and they want to go to the park and they want to, you know, go to other people's houses. And I'm just going through this stage right now where I'm just terrified. I'm always scared because, you know, especially with them being at home for the past year and just being what I hope is a good parent, you want to protect your children and you want to keep them safe and make smart choices. But at some point you have to allow them a little bit of freedom. And I just wanted to know if you had any ideas or suggestions on how to do that and how to conduct those stages safely.

I mean, I don't want to have to chip my kids like I chip my basset hounds. Well, let me, let me, a couple of things. There's nothing wrong with shipping, whatever they're carrying with them.

So that you can keep, I mean, we have the technologies. Why not use them to follow where your kids are, but it's, it's, it strikes me. Yeah. Oh yeah. It strikes me that, interesting, Susan can talk to you about that in a second. But it strikes me that you're having a form frust, it's a form frust of social

phobia. It's like a social phobia, one removed you know what i mean we've been so out of social contact for so long what you mean yeah and and we've been seeing this in kids that they're developing bonafide social phobia but you're having sort of yeah social phobia paranoia it's social phobia by proxy right you're getting the social phobia for what I do now. It's kind of it's kind of what this is. Right. And I and want to let folks know that stranger kidnapping is extremely rare. In the United States, we see about 300 stranger kidnappings a year. So it's not that it doesn't happen on average for the last 10 years. It's been about 300. So it's not that it doesn't happen. It happens. But realistically, we're looking at 92 percent of folks that are trafficked, sex trafficked, have a pre-existing relationship

with their abuser. So we're looking at a caregiver, a parent, you know, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, someone that they have a pre-existing relationship with. So, you know, I think one thing that's really important is having those serious conversations with your kids about internet safety, having those serious conversations with your children about consent, boundaries, and making sure that they know that they have someone safe to talk to that's an adult. Also, there are a lot of amazing tools out there for parents, but I find, because I deal with survivors of all ages, that when I speak to the youth, I speak to them in a real way. I don't really sugarcoat it. Trust me. I don't know the ages of your

children, but by the time there's really not a lot that these young people haven't heard, so it's better to just really give them the truth. Everything that could happen. Yeah. I wrote a whole song about it for him.

No Twitter accounts. They're private. We don't show our privates because they're private. I won't sing it. We may have to make you perform it on an upcoming stream. So sit tight. We can have the whole kitty chorus. But, Eliza, thank you for all

you're doing. This is a very, very, um, important topic to me as well. And, um, it's good work and it, it, it will, it is doing good and it will continue to do good. And I wish I could give you a hug, but, um, I'm in Wisconsin. It's cold. You don't want to be here anyway. All right, Kristen. Thanks. We'll see you soon. I'll take a hug anytime. I'm a hugger. And thank you for being involved in your children's life and listening to the show today. I have a question. Speaking of, you know, sort of parenting guidelines, how did your parents lose track of you at 15?

Did you run away? Did they think you were being sent to some sort of legitimate organization? I went to the Vans Warped Tour in Chicago. It was like a traveling punk rock tour. I had my driver's permit. And that's where I met the photographer. He was on the tour. So it wasn't like I was...

He coerced you to run away with him? No. I was visiting the concert and we met there. So he lived in Los Angeles. This is all time, you know, before social media, Dr. Drew, you know, so we met at the concert. He was a photographer at the concert. And then we exchanged, it's difficult to remember now, I was very young, but, um, we exchanged information. And then through a series of a prolonged period of time time they got me to move

out there and because I was homeschooled I graduated early. And did your parents think you were getting a contract with a photographer or something? I'm just I'm just wondering what happened there. Modeling. And did they? Believe it or not I was pretty good looking back in the day. You're still lovely trust me this is this you're finalizing please. This is all you do a lot of beating yourself up. You do a lot of that. That was me pushing for the compliment. Okay. Well, you got it. I agree. Okay. My wife agrees. Uh, so. I appreciate that. But I, I'm just, I'm just, you know, again,

in terms of advising parents, what they have to look out for, I'm just wondering what your parents fell for that they, you know, lost track. I'm sure they would have done things differently. I'm just wondering what those things were. They wanted me to, well, I grew up in a household that sort of told me that anything was possible and they thought I had the gifts and that specific skill set. So they really wanted me to do that. It was something I wanted to do, not something that they were pushing me to do. They by no means were stage parents. I sort of was very drawn to the arts as a young child. And I tried doing sports and things like that. It just didn't seem to work out. Believe it or not, there's like homeschool

basketball leagues and things like that. So I was trying to do sports. I wasn't that athletic, but I was always a decent performer. So and to be honest, I think that I don't know if my parents would do it over again because I think I don't know. I don't really talk to them about it too much. But I think that they like who I am today and they know that I like who I am today. And, um, you know, I don't, I don't look at any bad experiences wasted. Interesting. Well, we are about out of time. Is there anything we have missed? Well, I feel that Pornhub, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, all of the Instagram, but it's part of Facebook.

But I feel like all these platforms need to be held accountable. I wish that they would address the child sexual abuse material problems at scale. And if this conversation has affected anyone today, please reach out for help and please be aggressive in your healing. There's a lot of people out there that care and love you. Thank you so much, Eliza. Really appreciate it. So it's the primary place we should find you is at Eliza blue at E-L-I-Z-A-B-L-E-U. Yes, it is. But Dr. Drew, you know, you and I have one thing in common.

Locals.com. Oh, good. You're on Locals too. That's right. That's how we got you. So yeah. She's Eliza. Eliza on Locals. E-L-I-Z-A, Locals.com. I'm Eliza.Locals.com, the best platform on the planet for content creators and for folks like me. Also, if folks ever want to donate to me or just want to keep up with me, if I get suspended from Twitter, banned from Twitter for whatever reason, I'm also on my Locals community as well. I feel like it's very safe there. And I know, Dr. Drew, you're on locals. How did you end up on locals, Dr. Drew? Susan, how did that happen?

You set it up yourself. I think they approached you. They approached me. He's like, we got to get you. Oh, no. Scott Adams called me. Oh, that's right. Scott Adams called and said, there's a thing called local.

You ought to look into it. And I was like, okay. And was impressed with the staff they had. I didn't know who. And all the people that called in today, they're all locals. Yeah, I didn't know who. And all the people that called in today, they're all locals. Yeah, I didn't know who ran locals. I didn't, I just knew the people I talked to

were pretty impressive. So that's, that's where we're at. Well, there's a lot of big changes coming up soon with locals and it's going to get better and better and better, especially for folks like you, Dr. So I'm really excited. So everybody check out locals.com.

And please do that. And I'm going to wrap up over at clubhouse. Though I've forgotten how to do that. Yeah. If you're on clubhouse, you want to see Drew or if you want to see Tik TOK or you want to see Twitter or Facebook or YouTube or Twitch, you know, we're everywhere. So, but we do love our locals. Thank you clubhouse. I'm ending that.

I appreciate your participation there. And thank you to those of you that called and those of you on restream, I've been watching the conversation there. Uh, thank you for all your participation and Eliza, thank you for joining me today. Thank you for having me, Dr. Drew. I really appreciate it. And, uh, we'll be, uh, tomorrow, Susan. Yes. Uh, maybe do you have a time? I don't think so. I mean, it's going to have to be after your haircut. Okay. All right. Around one o'clock tomorrow, perhaps. We'll see you then. I can get a haircut. You should get the same one. Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Caleb Nation and Susan Pinsky. This is just a reminder that the

discussions here are not a substitute for medical care or medical evaluation. This is purely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm a licensed physician with over 35 years of experience, but this is not a replacement for your personal physician, nor is it medical care. 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 anytime, 24-7 for free support and guidance. You can find more of my recommended organizations and helpful resources at drdrew.com slash help.