Ask Dr. Drew - Hitler's Addictions & Depression: Jerry Stahl Reveals Parallels From History To Today – Ask Dr. Drew – Episode 101

Episode Date: July 26, 2022

[Broadcast on 7/12/22] • While battling lifelong depression after his father's suicide, Jerry Stahl toured Nazi concentration camps in Poland & Germany – places of historical despair that could help him put his personal struggles into perspective. He recounts his journey in the new book "Nein, Nein, Nein!" and joins Ask Dr. Drew LIVE to discuss bigotry, Hitler's addictions & historical parallels with our current political climate. Jerry Stahl is a novelist and screenwriter. His latest book "Nein, Nein, Nein! One Man’s Tale of Depression, Psychic Torment, and a Bus Tour of the Holocaust" recounts Stahl’s group tour to concentration camps in Poland and Germany in which he confronted personal and historical demons. He retells the story with sympathy and humor. Follow Jerry at https://twitter.com/SomeJerryStahl Read Jerry's book at https://www.amazon.com/Nein-Depression-Psychic-Torment-Holocaust/dp/1636140254/?tag=drdrewtv-20 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

Hey everybody, we'll be taking your calls off the Twitter spaces and of course Restream and RumbleRant. Today the guest is Jerry Stahl, a novelist and screenwriter. His new book is 999, not the number 9, N-E-I-N. There it is. One Man's Tale of Depression, Psychic Torment, and a Bus Tour. And when I think about elevating one's mood, I immediately, my mind goes to touring death camps in Germany and Poland. Nothing more uplifting than that. But Jerry did exactly that. And he has got some interesting insights into our current political climate and what happened back then. And I guess in point of fact, it did have an interesting impact on him. But we'll get

into all of that. Another quick aside, I saw that some weird Twitter feeds were saying that we didn't mention Dr. Zelenko's passing, which we categorically did. And as I said at the time, he had a very severe cancer, and it's remarkably lived as long as he did, and his intention was to serve and to do good, and we will miss him. Terribly. Yeah, Susan says terribly.

Indeed, if anybody would like to make a comment or talk about him from the Twitter space, we're happy to do so. But we'll get right to Jerry Stahl after this. 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 help stopping, I can help.

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please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. So again, I'll be watching you guys on Restream. I'm checking in there right now. And those of you that use a lot of the memes from your mom's house, hey, Hitler might have a specially vivid meaning today. And I see some of you, oh, Susan, that i did that you did that so i i don't i don't want to explain to jerry what that's all about that's it's nothing to do with hitler nothing whatsoever uh and uh we

appreciate you over i've been talking it's a term of endearment here it's like it's it's mahalo it's it's it's aloha really uh i I'm watching also over on Rumble Rant. I got in a little conversation with J-Hep, who's over there very frequently, about the masking, possible mask mandates in New York City, where we are right now. And I was just, my understanding is that the R-naught, meaning the infectivity potential of the Omicron BA4 and BA5 is essentially 17. That's the last measurement I saw. I'll just remind you that the original illness, the alpha, the R0 was three. So I'm not sure mask, I'm certain that cloth masks and surgical masks aren't going to

do anything. You might be able to protect yourself, no one else, just yourself, by wearing a well-fitting N95-style mask, but you've got to wear it perfectly. And I will tell you, I've seen a lot of what looks like BA4 or 5. I didn't measure the viral. We don't actually routinely get the viral typing back, but I've seen a lot of Omicron for sure because it's all upper airway stuff. And the vast majority, I would say 90% of the cases I've seen, have been very, very, very mild. Mostly, of course, in vaccinated folks.

But the people particularly had hybrid immunity, previous Omicron with vaccine, seem to do very, very well with this. So let's bring in our guest. Jerry Stahl, as I said, is a novelist and screenwriter and went out on the road. I'm guessing motivated by a mood disturbance jerry welcome to the program great to be here thanks for having me so so make that connection for me how what was going on with you what motivated you to get on a bus and again nothing nothing says uh elevated mood like Auschwitz.

Well, I have not always been the wisest in terms of elevating my own moods. I'm that guy I talked about in Permanent Midnight who tried to get off heroin by doing crack. Clearly a bad decision. In the same way, super depressed at one point in my life. I thought, why not go to the most depressing place on earth where despair is entirely appropriate? And I got Vice Magazine to cover me to take a bus tour of the concentration camps with a bunch of strangers, many of whom had never seen a Jew. So it was quite an interesting adventure. And I've got a million questions, naturally. One is, it seems odd to me that they'd never seen a Jew. Where had they been?

Where did they come from? And how did they react? Funny you should ask. We went around the room the first night we were there in Warsaw at the Kolbasa Grotto, and everybody was asked why they went on the tour. And a lot of them were like, I've always admired the Jewish people. I've watched a lot of History Channel and the Military Channel, and I love Schindler's List. Never met a Jew, but they seemed great. And so myself and another old fellow were the only tribe of Moses on there we had to represent. And odd as it sounds, I grew to love all these characters. It's a whole other world, Drew, of people who are rich who tour by bus that's their world really and and is this is the reason they'd been isolated are these midwesterners or these people

live in rural parts they're americans i assume right these are americans yeah i don't say that with any malice some of them are americans they just didn't happen to mingle with Semites. And a couple of them were from Australia and New Zealand. And that's how it shook down for them, Jew-wise. Well, I've been Jew-wise. Well, I've been obsessing a little bit these days about the the nature of our uh bigotries uh and how to overcome them and and i would include in our bigotries our extreme political polarizations uh and contact is is always been the the solution

back since the 50s there was actually a book called Contact. Now, it turns out that contact needs to be a little bit more structured than just some random sort of handshaking. There needs to be sort of common goals. And it's got to be a structured environment. And you have to spend a certain amount of time together, which is really what it sounds like you were in here. I mean, the common goal was touring these facilities, meeting a Jewish person or Jew-wise person. I'm not sure how this language is going to evolve. And I'm guessing not only their appreciation of you,

but you're of them deepened. Absolutely true. I don't know about you i tend to be judgmental you know like many people are which all judgment ultimately is self-judgment as any 12-stepper will tell you and um for me where they came from uh-oh what happened you you froze for a brief second you're back okay that happens even when i'm not on camera i just freeze fair enough so we'll work with that yeah we'll work with it uh and, you know, I think it's an interesting thing to sort of get out of

your comfort zone and meet people you wouldn't normally associate with. And there was about 19 days of that, sleeping, eating, touring, going to Dachau, Buchenwald, and Auschwitz together. And I'm a little surprised that you felt, I'm going to use a word that I don't really mean, but a little exceptional prior to this contact, because isn't that one of the requisites of a good sobriety? Was there something wrong with your sobriety at the time? In other words, you have to have humility, you have to look for commonalities. You can't feel different. Was something going on in your sobriety at the time as well? I just come from a long line of depressos and suicides, not to brag. So it's always,

sobriety for me is always like running as fast as you can up a down escalator just to stay in the middle so uh i'll let you know whether you know that's good or bad sobriety but it you know it's been solid for a lot of years but that's something that i've always fought and the best way for me speaking of sobriety is to listen to other people's stories and talk about that right right that solution for me it's a rule yeah getting out of your own head are you sponsoring other people or did you at one time no of course they do yeah many people yeah yeah okay okay so it so really there's nothing wrong with your sobriety there was just sort of a it feels it's something about something you were holding on to let's put it that way and

i'm not saying it's right or wrong just something you were holding on to. Let's put it that way. And I'm not saying it's right or wrong. It's just something you were holding on to. And how is your mood now? Oddly enough, much better, you know, on the other side of all this. Sometimes I think, you know, the best way to get to the other side is straight through. So I just went to this place that I thought would really take me south and put me in a place almost like testing, you know, to see how you make out. But what happens is you're prepared to have this amazing experience. And the first thing you see when you stumble onto Auschwitz is a bunch of people in almost stupid T-shirts eating pizza and drinking Fanta in the Auschwitz

snack bar which I had not anticipated and uh threw me for a loop not to judge again but it's in the way that life usually does you think you're getting one thing you end up getting another. But it sounds like almost Kafka. Not even Kafka. It sounds like a true absurdist sort of through the looking glass. Like you're in Auschwitz, and instead you find Faygo and hot dogs. And did you find that humorous or did it bother you in a more negative way? It was such a surprise to me

because we all have these images of the bodies and ovens and the SS men and dogs that I just didn't see it coming. So at first I was sort of angry. Then I caught myself. It's like, well, you went to see humanity and this is humanity. This is what people do. And you can't expect people to behave the way I think they might want to behave. If you want to wear short shorts and a mega-deaf t-shirt to visit Buchenwald, who am I to judge? Well, I know it's so ironic to me because you mentioned that you are a judgmental person. I am not a judgmental person, but I would have trouble not judging that.

I really would have trouble not sitting in judgment. So how did you as a judgmental person not do so, except just to accept humanity on its own terms that's exactly what you have to do yeah uh you know look being judgmental is its own reward knowing i have that character defect you know i keep an eye on it and what i tried to do was you know talk to some of these people and go in there and find out what are they thinking you know did you come to Auschwitz to have a hot dog? Is that the goal? You know, I've done journalism over the years, and I always find myself going to those places that are odd off the beaten track. I was fascinated by the men's room attendants at Auschwitz who, let's face it, wouldn't have a job if it weren't for the Holocaust.

And did you speak with him or do you imagine you just spoke german right here polish wherever you were this was in poland so i tried through an interpreter because i was very curious like i wonder if he was like a fourth generation crapper hand you know over there in poland and like had his great-great-grandfather held him for his hat well uh you know the Reich Bureau was relieving himself. But it was tough to have a conversation. Ich bin Krapperhand. Exactly.

Couldn't have put it better. See, it's so dark, but it's so funny. I can see why it lifted your mood. I, I, I'm completely having an upside down experience thinking about it. What was there? Was there any, um, other than the sort of the, the, the, um, farcical elements in the extreme dark humor, were there other surprises? Sorry, you froze up for a second. Well, I was going to say, let me put it this way.

I'm going to ask something different. I'm thinking about Viktor Frankl, okay? Of course, yeah. And I'm guessing you were well-heeled in happiness and meaning as you made your way into these prisons, yes? Of course. Did that have, to me, that particularly the 75 or so pages that he described what was going on there, did that come back to you as you looked at some of these places, or was it still filled with these odd juxtapositions that

you couldn't get past uh i think both things existed at once on the on the abstract level of course i've read victor frankl and and and also primo levy you know who was another writer who actually survived the camps and said something that was very profound, which was the best people were not the ones who survived. And somehow filtered down to me as, well, maybe the best people aren't the ones who visit. You know, I don't know what the motivation is. But I have to admire them for making the effort. And you have to talk to people on their own terms. And I think I learned a lot from these interesting characters. But I wasn't ready for the selfies, to tell you the truth.

Oh, yeah, I can imagine that. And when did your mood begin to lift, or did it? Well, I had a very, to me, profound experience just sort of standing in the oven, seeing the scratches on the walls, knowing that the bodies tend to pile up in a pyramid with the babies on top. You know, I knew all this and I felt it

and I come staggering out and I'm on the grounds and I hear, grandma, grandma. And it turns out these young Filipino ladies thought that I was Kramer and wanted to have a selfie with me. test experience and i went from the sublime and you know mystical sort of communing with my ancestors to this bizarre thing of being asked to do a selfie with a bunch of people who thought i was a celebrity who i actually wasn't but who i said yes to because who needs the drama so that all happened so you're not Kramer okay I got that straight so so so took me a while to realize that yes I I understand I understand so take me now back from this and tell me how this has affected your philosophy about maybe living or people or what what sort of did you take away any big insights

other than this juxtaposition stuff we've been talking about? I think the insight that I had more than any, as you visit the past, and for me, it almost felt, given what's happening now, like visiting the future. You know, the insight that I had is that the Holocaust and the genocide are not the exception. The exception is the time in between. And the ax is always falling.

And you have to be grateful for that time now. Yeah. So, well, I hope we're staying in that time so so talk to me some more about that i i'm very worried about the present moments and i always was so mystified by how how you know the average german could go along with these things and could perpetrate these things and and um during covid i saw such extraordinary behaviors by people who were temporarily given authorities and were just just like an average german citizen and uh you know i for instance i was at my um hospital where i worked for 40 years uh trying to get a vaccine. But when I went in, I was yelled at by a young,

30-year-old gentleman who was literally screaming at me, where are your papers? I didn't have the right papers. And I thought, wow. I mean, the thought bubble over my head was, do you enjoy this? I mean, a senior physician walks in and you start screaming at the top of your lungs, where are your papers? You must enjoy this. Somebody's senior physician walks in and you start screaming at the top of your lungs where are your papers is this you must enjoy this somebody's given you this authority and now you're you are into it so it it made me sort of think oh this this is how it goes it's just an average person sort of feels uh but it's it doesn't i don't even think it was any kind of conscious payback or I'll show you. I just thought it was, well, now I've got the authority and I shall wield it because I'm going to do a good job.

Without any thought to what they were doing. Did you have your papers? My papers were, I had papers, but they were not to his satisfaction. So I had to go back into the bowels of the hospital. They were in order, but I didn't have the right this and the right that. I can't remember what the specifics were. Yeah, I was trying to get the vaccine. Of course, I contracted COVID running around the hospital that day.

But, you know, trying to get the vaccine. Yes. Oh, yes. It it was a great great irony yeah it's it it you you should include it in the book next to the stories about the the diet the dr peppers and the and the the pretzels and mustard but but but that but it is a thing you're you're you're right People go that direction. And it sort of seems to me, tell me if this is part of your insight, that sort of the more centralized and bureaucratic we become, the more the risk for that is of developing. Is that a reasonable insight? I think that's one part of it. Another part, which I hadn't realized, one of the tour guides was a very nice, friendly, kind of charismatic young woman.

She was talking about her great-grandfather, who was a Nazi, and that she had asked him, how could you side with the Nazis? And he said, well, they gave me 12 slaves, and who else would do that? And they made me rich. And what you realize, forget politics, forget authority, forget even bigotry. The Nazis made a lot of people a lot of money, you know, and in our own time, I think there's a certain parallel to be had. A lot of people made a lot of money under a certain, whatever your politics, a certain fascist adjacent leader we ourselves had. And I think for a lot of people, that justifies or at least explains why they behave the way they behave. In the case of the guy with their papers, it seems like all he got out of it was a feeling of power, which is something else entirely from what you say. Yeah, right. That's what that was. That's exactly right. I noticed I'm having trouble when I live in a state that locks me down and remains on an

emergency and takes deeply incompetent, like disgustingly decompetent policies that drastically hinder people's personal freedoms, I start losing track of who the fascists are. It just seems like people will do fascistic things fighting what they think is fascism. And that almost scares me more than anything. I mean, that's kind of how Hitler came to power. One group was fighting another group and they were all fighting communism and you know, which, what, what, which is the worst, the worst policy. They, they lost track of that.

Yeah. Uh, of course. I mean, on some level you have to ask yourself, why are people doing what they are doing i don't know do you think the reason people end up being fascistic and super regulatory is because they enjoy power or do you think on some level they think perhaps naively that this is what is required to end the plague i think i think they believe they're doing the right thing for sure i don't think it's some sort of evil intent uh i think it's an intent to do the right thing um like hitler thought he was fighting communism whatever i mean they they do these things now the ease with which they take away it catches my attention when the ease with which they take away personal freedoms and lock

things down and all that was sort of shocking to me, surprising. And by the way, I did so willingly. I said, okay, you know, I'm, I'm in a, I'm just thinking we're just using COVID as an example. It's just a, just a more recent history to call upon. And I was thinking, you know, I was like, well, he wants to do this. I'm a good citizen and he's preparing for the worst case okay all right i'm gonna i don't think it's necessary i think it's a bad idea but i'm gonna i'm gonna be you know fine but we'll do that right and uh it became increasingly clear what a bad idea it was and yet doubling down tripling down and and then you know then you have an unwillingness to go to be objective and look at things because of maybe fear of embarrassment or having been wrong before i don't know what you know people get in these cognitive dissonances that keep them

going down these paths and we're all guilty of it no and it's not like that it's not only that's it's not as though that's a uh unique to anybody and we have to really fight the cognitive glitches in our brain um and that's just that's just one of the things we have to watch for i mean you've already talked about you know character stuff and power concerns and money i mean that's all in the mix all the time for everybody and uh i i would refrain yeah i i would refrain whenever i think about these things i refrain from saying you know i don't have cognitive dissonance.

You have, you know, finger pointing misses the point a little bit, you know, but you got to really watch your own systems and the people you support and make sure we're not making the same mistakes. Because as you say, it's, it's, it's, it's more of the exception that we don't make these mistakes. And it's, it's's very very treacherous and very very concerning so you haven't told me whether your mood came back what what when did your mood come come back to or has it come back uh i weirdly enough i find myself maybe it's just

because i've reached an age where it's like, you might as well be happy because I'm a lot closer to dead than 40, you know? And if you don't get it right now, when are you going to get it? And just real briefly, I mean, I come from a family, my mother had this ability, for example, to walk into a room and everybody in there would suddenly hate themselves like, oh my God, I feel like crap. I don't know why. And it was like the world's most annoying superpower. So in my old age and perhaps wisdom, I'm not looking necessarily to be happy. I'm looking not to make you unhappy.

I'm looking. That's a noble cause well if you come from where I come from it's a high bar but it's it's it's it's its own reward because you feel like shit when you make other people feel that way you know and uh it's the lesson I learned and uh you know it's not the worst thing particularly you know I sponsor a lot of people and there's nobody more dramatic and self-centered as you may have read Than addicts and alcoholics and if you just kind of point out, you know what? It's not all about you think about somebody else and Don't impose your torments on others and you'll feel better. I hope that doesn't sound as a you have that's just my experience

Yeah Yeah, and as my patients often tell me they feel like a piece of shit around which the whole world revolves. Sort of the perfect description of the attitude mindset. It's earned a description of it. Yeah. Of course. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And so there's something called projective identification that people with certain personality styles have that they can literally inject their negative affect into other people. And you're describing your mom as having that, but I've never seen it with Jewish guilt. I've never seen projective Jewish guilt identification, but you're describing exactly that.

Is that what that is? Yes, I think it's the perfect delivery system for what you're talking about. And, you know, we end up, you know, we become what we don't want to become, you know, and it's a slippery slope. But that was sort of a guiding thing for me in sobriety and how I ended up having it all make sense for me was just giving it you know my sponsor used to say hubert selby on his answering machine he would say thanks and give a good day which sounds corny and hokey but then you realize it's a guy who kicked dope screaming strapped to a gurney in the you know sheriff's station in west hollywood so i'm going to respect it and that has always stayed with me yeah yeah i i i that service meaning you know that's what victor frankl stuff was that's what that's what he found in the

in the concentration camp he ended up doing some doctoring and you know finding ways to make meaning you know he had there's a picture i'm sure you, these pictures of the barracks with these horrible, vacant, malnourished glances. And there's something towards the end of his last edition where he says, or maybe I saw it in an interview, where he said, people look at that picture and they're not just horrified, they feel terrible for the, it was men, men in that picture, and he goes, why do you know to feel terrible for them it was men men in that picture and he goes why do you why do you know to feel terrible for them this might have been a good day they're they're together so they're warm they may have been fed and five minutes before which they rarely were and they may have been at their happiest moment of the last three months you you they yes they look not well

but you you can't say that he was sort of it's interesting his perspective is so eccentric to having been uh you know in those barracks so it's kind of and him making making the best of everything he possibly could which is kind of what we're talking about here where did you grow up uh i grew up in pittsburgh and then i ended up in New York at about 16, 17. Was that going to work or school? I got shipped off to school. When I was 16, my father decided the solution would be to go into the garage and leave the motor running and put the door down.

So that happened. So I was shipped away to a school for a couple years and then i ended up going to college in new york columbia and stayed there for a while before coming out to la got it and uh no drugs up there in the upper west side so so uh i'm guessing that's where it all got going yes well it all there. I had the bright idea to get to LA maybe to get away from drugs and became more of a dope than ever in Los Angeles. Yeah. Uh,

where, where it comes in, you know, uh, your friend, Bob Forrest may have mentioned, I mean, we all have that history,

you know, of, uh, yeah. LA junkie. Oh yes. Oh yes. You know, it was,ie do. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. You know, it's interesting.

I mean, I'm guessing just because every time I talk to somebody new and who knows Bob, you knew each other in three or four different lives. Like Bob would just go, yeah, I used to run drugs with him. Yeah, we lived in the street in drugs with him. Yeah, we lived in the street in MacArthur Park. Yeah, we'd ride the buses at night and slam heroin. And then he'll may say, and yeah, Jerry 12-stepped me, and then

he went back out, and then I 12-stepped him. I don't know your story, Jerry, but I'm just saying that's the kind of stuff I hear from Bob all the time. There's three or four different lives. Sure. I didn't know Bob out there, but I knew Bob early on. And what I loved about him, he was one of the funniest guys I ever met.

And when you're coming into the rooms and you don't have any serotonin left and things are pretty grim, there's nothing like a guy who makes you laugh your ass off in the worst of it. He has a great story where, um, you know,

one of his many attempts at getting sober, he, um, somebody convinced him, just keep coming to the meetings, Bob, just keep coming. So he came with a six pack and sat in the back and drank the whole

six pack and was expecting, you know, real reaction from everybody. And he said, everyone went out to the parking lot afterwards and they looked at him and said, all right, Bob, keep coming back. And just he couldn't he couldn't but he couldn't process that and that's um not the action he wanted yeah so so we're going to take a little

break and uh i want to talk a little bit about uh hitler and nazi drug use which is uh well some of it's some of its lore and some of it's well documented. So I want to hear what your thoughts are about that. And again, let's put the book up there, Caleb, 999. I can't wait to read this book. It sounds, I'm going to say, Jerry, you tell me if I got this right. Awful and funny. Two great adjectives.

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she's right great okay very good and again we want to thank our friends at janus so the guest is jerry stall the book is 999. uh i am watching you guys on the restream and of course i'm over there with the rumble ranters and we've got calls coming in we will get to that as well but first i want to talk to jerry about uh some of the the historic uh use of particularly amphetamines i i think the i guess the one observation that can't be assailed and is uh just so was that the German army used a lot of amphetamines. Accurate? Absolutely. The pharmacists at IG Farben came up with something they called Pervitin, which enabled the tank, enabled the blitzkriegs to happen because

these guys could literally keep fighting and traveling and rolling for three and four days with no sleep. So that was the Wehrmacht end of things. On the personal end of things, Hitler himself was strung out like a lab rat from his Dr. Morel, who gave him a combo, which I'm sure you know this, of morphine, amphetamine, and cocaine, and my favorite, Bulgarian peasant stool, which he thought would give him extra vitality because the Bulgarian peasants were so damn strong. How did he take it? He was injected constantly. And that's why you'll see for about three or four years, Hitler looks like he's aged decades.

And he has a tremor because there were no veins left. He was being injected constantly, more and more, higher and higher doses, and getting crazier and crazier. Right. And the amphetamine, did you ever Right. And then amphetamine. Did you ever do meth, amphetamine yourself, or was it strictly opiates? Yeah. I did it all.

I did opiates, did a lot of cocaine, was on speed. Before I got deep into that, I did the pills. I never shot speed or smoked it. Did you ever get the speed psychosis? I got the cocaine psychosis, which is probably a cousin. So I know exactly what you're talking about. And I'm glad I'm not doing that anymore. So there's a distinction, just for the people out there. The cocaine psychosis is very different than the meth psychosis.

So the cocaine psychosis is nearly always a preoccupation with uniformed officers, police, SWAT teams, Navy, somebody in the uniforms coming to get me. And when you stop, and usually it's crack or some sort of volatilized cocaine or shot in injected cocaine when you stop the psychosis resolves quickly like 12 hours 24 hours that kind of thing with meth it comes on much slower and it takes weeks to months to resolve and it's a preoccupation with family friends co-workers and neighbors and there can be elaborate delusions around that in terms of what the people close to that individual are thinking about and planning and it gets just wilder and wilder the longer you use the drug and uh it's it's pernicious so god knows what that did i you know uh people forget

i i'm just thinking as you talk i wasn't aware that that there was that much going on with hitler and i wasn't aware it was specifically physician-administered. I thought it was a little more sort of nefarious how he came by it. But the physician-administered part, it gets my attention. Well, because we're still dealing with that problem to this very day, for one thing, which is my peers killing patients, which is constant. But it happened to a lot of world leaders and celebrities people don't know the story do you know the

story about John Kennedy of course dr. feel-good yeah he was always hit John Kennedy and Judy Garland they all had the same rod sterling they all had the same doctor yeah I actually to bring it even closer my own mother had that guy and he was injecting her with benzodiazepines yeah yeah and she was injected with benzodiazepines and she didn't know what was going on until she developed withdrawal from that when she left the las vegas for the time and and this guy, Kennedy actually had an acute amphetamine psychosis where he threw his clothes off and was doing cartwheels down the hall of a hotel and proclaiming how great he felt.

And then the opiates were why he had back pain. And let me tell you something. The whole thing about him having Addison's disease is bullshit. If you take chronic opiates, you look like you have Addison's. You also look like you have testicular failure because that's what opiates do to you. You don't have Addison's disease. Probably the same asshole that was giving him the opiates was the one making these diagnoses. I didn't know that about the ass.

So that's, that's a direct result of the opiates. For sure. For sure. For sure. It's not, it wasn't Addison's. Addison's a specific disorder.

It's an autoimmune attack on the, this was, he had low cortisol and he had low testosterone. I'm sure because somebody was injecting with morphine regularly and he had back pain. And as you know, if you did opiates, back pain is something that develops with chronic opiates.

It's because you develop a chronic withdrawal syndrome. And so people get in this cycle of back pain, more opiates, back pain, more opiates. And then all the other shit hits medically. Yeah, it's good. It's good times. And literally, I don't know know if i would talk about this publicly um let me get on the restream here anthony are you in the restream there can i tell

our story from today i better not okay i better not i just they're still making the same mistake over and over and over again i'd like to hear about your mother having this doctor how did they get together how did he their past he was a singer she was a singer in a for a band that opened the dunes hotel and she started having anxiety yeah and uh the the you know it was back when the uh the genie was over the remember the genie over the uh it's a casino i don't know if you're yeah the big thing that was her that was the hotel she opened as part of this opening act or his opening show and she got anxiety and so this guy showed up and started injecting this is how you're gonna get over anxiety here is lorazepam this will take care of and of course it does feels great and then uh good times ens. So it's so bad.

It just goes, it's why we have all the homeless too. I mean, no one is willing to do the hard work of recovery. And I get it. If you get so far out there that you're homeless and you're chronically ill and stuff, I get it. We need to find safer measures. But my goodness, it's not for everybody. That's all I'm saying. I'm sure you see in the rooms how many people are on chronic stuff.

They really keep some from a full recovery, frankly. Yeah, there's a lot of that going around. And yeah, the homeless thing, I mean, so many of them, it's either mental illness or addiction you know pretty much yep not a lot that's it and it breaks your heart that's right and the solution is very very difficult yeah that's exactly right uh but but at least you know we have these open air asylums and it'd be nice if at least a physician was involved in supervising the allocation of resources for this open air facility we have. But there's not one, not one physician involved in the systematic allocation of resources.

And by the way, you're not allowed legally to do any Oh, why'd you find that? Caleb, that's a picture of my look at he put up there. Google Wow, probably, probably that very show. She was something crazy. you find that uh caleb that's a picture of my look what he put up there google wow probably probably that very show she was something crazy that is amazing what was the name of the band like with a wig on um i don't remember i i actually heard a recording of the that performance one time didn't she also open for Red Buttons or something? No, no.

But that was on the Ed Sullivan show. No, she was big with Ben Blue. Ben Blue. Yeah, she was in the Ben Blue band. She was Ben Blue. No, she was in Jimmy McHugh's band, but she was with Ben Blue. She was Ben Blue's foil, straight guy. She would play the straight man for Ben Blue's comedy routines.

She also hung around with Kennedy. No, not really. A little bit. straight guy she would play the straight man for ben blue's comedy routines so she was she also hung around with kennedy no not really a little bit yeah we don't really know she she a lot of her stories were obfuscated and remain obscure so she didn't tell us a lot until we didn't find out until drew was in his 40s and we found it on the internet right really some of some of the some of the yeah some of the things that uh was going on her life there she had a very much of a don draper quality i loved her uh she was the best so are you still discovering things yeah are you still discovering things we not really i i've had some some extraordinary discovery let's just say she had she had a whole life and family before mine and i'm not even sure my dad knew that and i got to meet some of the

people that yeah because i got to meet the stepson and the step granddaughter and all these people that we didn't know existed. And so there you go. But, you know, it was a different time, and people wanted to take things, you know. Like I said, it was very much like Don Draper talked to Peggy after she got pregnant. It just didn't happen. And you can't do that in this day and age.

Let's take some calls. Let's get some calls in here. Those are the days. Yeah, right. Josh, come on up i'm i'm guessing there we are hey josh you know jerry stall i'm guessing this conversation interested you yeah i really you know i was raised jewish um i had i've suffered from depression not that there's a connection between judaism and depression depression, but there is something that's interesting about Jews and depression.

And I think that it does have to go back to this critical agency. In psychoanalysis, you call it the superego. It turns on itself. It also is very critical of others. And being Jewish, based on the history, it's very difficult to get out of that trap. I find myself really resonating with what Jerry, your friend Jerry, is saying here as a guest. And I just want to know, like, I do agree with Jerry, just based on history, if you did any history lessons, the Jews in every part of the

world have always been sort of removed in some way. And so it does seem to be, you know, a peacefulness does seem to be the exception, actually, for Jews. And I think... Well, let me get a comment about that, because he didn't really say that specifically, but I bet you might, Jerry. So go ahead. What is the history of the Jewish people? There is a theory that given the traumatic nature of Jewish history, that there's sort of an epigenetic, they're prone to depression genetically in the DNA. One theory, which is my story and I'm sticking to it. But, you know, it's hard to say whether it's your specific family or if it is indeed genetic.

But it is hard to find a lot of happy-go-lucky, in my experience, none of my relatives, a lot of happy-go-lucky Jewish individuals who have not been touched in some way by depression. Is that your experience, Dr. Drew? Oh, 100%. Absolutely. And when Jews get addiction, it's a specific kind. It's not the run-of-the-mill addiction. Sometimes it's more dangerous, too, because it is tied in with a lot of depression and self-loathing. Straight-up addiction, say, somebody with Scotch-Irish background, that is just genetics that explode.

They just explode. And they can be happy, too. They don't have to have depression. Jews, there's always a lot of psychological stuff there and some of that i'm wondering so so so josh mentioned the family systems the family systems are extremely demanding they're extremely closed they're extremely intrusive right and that's not exactly a good way to make happy happiness it's a way to kind of make kids that are repressed and kind of unhappy. They're not out doing stuff. And he also said that

they don't, I think I heard him say they don't judge. And I thought, yeah, they tend not to judge other people. They let other, so-called other people, the goy, they can do whatever they want, but you, Jerry Stahl, you need to do, we have they want, but you, Jerry Stahl, you need to do that. You, you,

we have a special plan for you and you've got to do exactly what we need. And this is all that special, special stuff, which has its own kind of narcissistic quality to it. And again, it's a closed system, a closed club, a closed family. It's closed, closed, closed all over the place. And, and that makes a lot of, makes kids unhappy. It does. And it makes them feel guilty and oppressed and not living up to things and you know caleb caleb we're going to ring in about catholic guilt

which is similar but it's not it doesn't have the same it's not the same in the world quality with the jewish community it's like you know oh yeah you know uh mr mckillicuddy's son is is not doing very well he wants to you know he's not thriving in know, Mr. McKillicuddy's son is not doing very well. He wants to, you know, he's not thriving in his job or something. And that poor kid, but Jerry, if you weren't doing well at school, or if you started slacking off, no, no, no, no, that's completely unacceptable. And in fact, in fact, you're going to kill me. You're killing me. I'm going to die if you keep behaving like that. The Catholics are, you're going to hell. It's a little different thing. It's on you, Caleb. You're going to take yourself to hell, right?

Exactly. Yeah. It was so odd because I wasn't even surprised whenever everything came out about the NSA watching everything that we do and recording everything because I just naturally, that was my natural inclination. God is watching everything you do every second of the day. You need to be careful about all of your actions. And I've, I've just always lived like I'm being watched. Nothing changed when I found out the NSA was recording everything. Now it's the Chinese. My grandfather always used to say, if you ever forget you're a Jew,

Gentile will remind you. That is funny. Well, the other thing that Jews have done, and I'm surprised the Catholics haven't done it. Well, and African-Americans in America have did it and Jews do it historically is using humor, humor to deal with. And I feel like your book is that humor writ large. It's a very familiar juxtaposition of mirth with pain? Well, I think any oppressed people, whether it's African Americans or the Irish at one point, or Jews now, they're always using humor

as a way to get through. Don't call her. Uh-oh. Did you say humor or joomer? It sounded like you... It sounded like you combined two words. I wish I'd said joomer, yeah, you could patent that.

But finish that thought. I'm sorry about the phone doing its thing, but go ahead. No, I think what you were talking about before about Jews being special, but there's also the truth that Oscar Levant, who was a great Jewish wit, he was one of the first people to talk about neurosis on television and also an addict. He always said like, self-hate is just narcissism with its pants on backward, which is kind of true. You know, you're just as obsessed with yourself, you're obsessed with telling yourself what a piece of you are and you know it's the same muscle yeah yeah and and that's again that's that piece of around which the whole world revolves it's that specialness again and it's and it's sort of

a relative of codependency codependency is i'm so concerned about you, but it's really my pain that I'm feeling. And I just can't differentiate it from needing you to be a certain way. Yeah. No, these days, especially all roads lead to narcissism. They really do. Uh, and, and that actually concerns me because I feel like people with, you know, narcissistic, uh, personality constructs can do not so great things. And it makes me wonder if there are trends in personality structure across history. And I'm wondering if maybe back in Germany in those days there was something similar going on.

That's a great point. I mean, I don't think we have to look too far in our own presidential history to talk about demented narcissists. And Hitler certainly, he had a quality of narcissism and also revenge because Jews kept him out of art school. Had they only, you know, blotted his crappy, you know, watercolors and let him into the damn Vienna art school, none of this might have happened. But he showed them. Yeah. I'm going to let Melissa come in. Melissa, we're hooking you up here.

Melissa, go ahead. Unmute yourself. Melissa. There you are. Yeah, go ahead. Oh, uh, first of all, I'm feeling very personally attacked as someone that is Jewish. I mean, not like in a bad way, but, uh, and is in recovery. I'm about four years sober. Um, thank you. Um,

but so much of what you're saying, I just had to say is, I just kind of had that moment of clarity but uh as to what what you're saying um in particular regarding hitler um just as a huge also world war ii buff um i'm just curious you know we we hear a lot about the immediate and Dr. Drew, you brought this up to, you know, the immediate effects of methamphetamine psychosis, but post acute withdrawal, uh, if, if that could have been the longterm use could have, uh, also played into a lot of the lack of real, uh, just clear headed decision-making that we saw. Um, so, so you're, you're saying that he doesn't even have to have been using when things became so wild, it could have been withdrawal. And to be fair, yeah. And as you, I don't know how you, what you

experienced, Melissa, but withdrawal can, you know, post-cute withdrawal can last for a year. Easy. Yeah. My majority choice was alcohol, but I had it for about eight months. Yeah. People look back at their first year and they go, Oh, how did I get through that? I was not normal. I didn't know it at the time, but I was not normal. It's a very common insight that people have at the end of their first year. So yeah, I agree with you. That's why I take in all these stories about Hitler using, and there certainly is well-known.

I mean, look, they use amphetamines in the military today, you know, fighter pilots and long-term pilot navigations routinely. There's a lot of amphetamines being used. So I'm sure he was around amphetamines for sure. Trying to nail down exactly what was happening to him is really rough. It's really tough, whether it was post-cure withdrawal or actual psychosis. You know, we just don't have the data. But I'm intrigued by the fact that we have some documentation of a physician providing this stuff to him. And where did that come from, Jerry? Well, Dr. Leroy, there's a book called Blitzed,

which documents in detailed form. I believe the author is O-H-L-E-R, but my memory is not what it used to be, so don't hold me to it, but the book is called Blitzed. And it's a really detailed history of basically narcotic use among the Nazis, particularly the Nazi leaders. There was a drug called Eucadol that actually his personal physician, Morel, helped develop, which was this very potent combo of amphetamines and opiates. And it's sort of a speedball, but it got him out of bed in the morning and there it is. Oh, I had the name wrong. You're way ahead of me it's a book i recommend fascinating and it will tell you all you need to know about uh the effects of drug use

on nazidom yeah it it's amazing to me how much uh medical and pharmacological history gets sort of brushed aside in the in the sort of general historical record for instance abraham lincoln had a obsession since since he visited a prostitute down by the river during his early days in springfield uh he had an obsession with having contracted syphilis from her i believe that's why he broke up his engagement his first engagement to mary todd if you know his history he broke up and went into a engagement to mary todd if you know his history he broke up and went into a profound depression the very the very doctor that treated him with uh for for the possible uh infection with syphilis with mercury followed him through the first two years in the

white house and maintained him on mercury during which time he was documented to have had catatonic depressions of which mercury is well known to be a cause so these this stuff is not new to to leaders and they're just humans you know they they are flawed uh and you know at the very minimum we can certainly look at the present moment and reflect upon that. That is for sure. After all, it's just humans. It's like a secret history of the world. And I don't think I'm going out on a limb here. and this spittle flying out of his mouth and this sort of forced, crazy Adderall-like pronouncements that are nonstop.

That's how he always struck me. Just my opinion, no documentation, though one hears things. I don't know. Do you have any opinions about that, about Trump being effective and appearing to be? No, I just saw hypomania and narcissism, which is really common in some of these business types. But Teddy Roosevelt was the exact same thing, same guy. Really? but Teddy Roosevelt was the exact same thing. Uh, same guy. And so you have, it gets,

you get, it gets, Oh yeah. I mean, he would, even when he was, when he was commissioner to the police here in New York, he would run around the streets all night cause he never slept and beat people up.

He just did not sleep. And he's well, well documented. He couldn't sit at a desk. If you wanted to have a meeting with him, you had to go run through the park and climb rocks with him. he was so manic he couldn't sit still and and he was severely narcissistic severely yeah um and one of my favorite presidents so i i don't know what to do i i i generally i generally have a i know you're judgmental jerry but i generally want to stay away from judging

because uh the these these conditions that we're talking about these these states of being and personality disorders and mood disorders they're human conditions and in certain settings they are a liability you do not want to have them and in other settings they're an asset if you're a manic narcissist i i want you for a fighter pilot you make a great fighter pilot maybe i don't know about maybe a general in certain situations i don't know but but and same with i mean all you can name almost any you know personalities you know traits and disorders and in certain settings and and usually the other thing about all of this is that whatever misery they

bring on other people they're usually suffering more than anybody typically that's sort of typically the situation so i try to have compassion for all the manifestations of the human psyche and then it's the context it's the context that really that matters yeah yeah and you can speculate you can be judgmental to an extent and you can also have compassion they're not mutually exclusive yes well you know i say judgmental it's more like i i can relate because there's a part of me that is not that different from the person i'm quote unquote judging if that makes sense interesting that i think that's a i think it makes a deep sense leopold buddy what's going on how are

you my friend hey hey dr drew long time no how are you, my friend? Hey, Dr. Drew. Long time no see. How are you? Oh, I'm doing okay. Got back from Hawaii, did some trips and things. But I'm fascinated by this subject and love Jerry's artistic endeavors with his writing. And I have a question specifically about some of the topics that you talked about, especially Judaism and addiction. I'm Jewish. I'm also a friend of Bill and come from the same cloth that Jerry is. And I'm curious what Jerry's thoughts are on the idea of one, creativity with addiction and addicts who

go into creativity as a form of a new addiction. In other words, doing something creative and focusing all that addictive energy on creativity. That's one. Leopold, let me interrupt you because addicts do that with everything and they are already, I think, more creative than the average person. So it makes sense to me that one of their passions, whatever they get into, they go over, right? They do too much. And so it makes sense that the creativity would be part of that as well, right? Well, and then specifically with Jewish, you know, being

brought up Jewish, you know, this need for success. I don't know if Jerry had the same experience with his parents and the family expectations of succeeding and how that plays into addiction. And you, Dr. Drew, you talked about how the Jewish flavor of addiction could actually be more dangerous. I'm curious if you could delve into that a little bit more. And the other thing, Leopold, it's one of the only times you see addiction to opiates,

stimulants, and benzodiazepines without a really significant alcohol potential. I mean, again, you can literally see Jews that are severe opiate addicts that have never had a relationship with alcohol. You don't see that in the normal addictive sort of setup, by normal, you know, the usual run-of-the-mill drug addict. Jerry, I'll let Jerry talk. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Okay, sure. Jerry, your take.

Yeah, for me, that part of the culture for me, because I'm older than you guys, back in the hippie days, drinking was considered lame, drugs were considered cool. So that's the, like too old for punk too young for it I was in that hospital between but nobody drank yeah no or if they did they weren't you know was like boone's farm wine or something you know

wasn't the way we did drug and I think there is a certain I can only speak for myself but creativity is another addiction because if you're really creating you're up there on the high wire and you need something to make you feel like it doesn't matter, like there's no net. So that's what heroin did for me and the hardest thing about being clean was writing anyway and saying no matter what happens I'm going to be okay and uh took a long time to get there it's it's one of the um interesting differences in in drug addiction today um if you if you talk to bob these days he'll he he's talking about this a lot which is how there was a

culture to drug addiction there was almost a purpose to it there was a spirit to it and now it's just it's not it there's nothing there's not a desire to be a part of there's just yeah and yeah that's we we both miss that it sounds odd but we we miss the treating addicts where you can just go, you remember how you loved to run with those guys? You can find something else that's just as passionate,

you'd be just as passionate about. And a drug addict would understand that. Today, you can't even say that. They'll just go, oh, what do you want me to do? It's like, oh, uh-oh. Oh, man. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I always, all my heroes were junkies, you know. Everybody from Miles, Hendrix, you know, all these, Lenny Bruce, you name it. But what they don't tell you is when you're getting clean, Keith Richard isn't there with a warm towel. You know what I mean? You're kind of on your own. Right. That's a hard earned for a guy like me yeah yeah or or and do you at the time did you start to look more realistically at what happened to those guys you know yeah and what happened to me i mean at some point i i was

that guy who relapsed so much at meetings it was like people wouldn't sit next to me? I mean, at some point, I was that guy who relapsed so much at meetings. It was like people wouldn't sit next to me because they had relapsosis. You know, it took me a while. That's why when I share, I always talk to the newcomer because, you know, I got a ton of time now, but it took me a minute. But I think that the truth of the matter is that, you know, we're addicted to that struggle, you know, and that is another almost replacement for life, you know we're addicted to that struggle you know and that that is another almost replacement for life you know because when you're strung out it's black and white you either have it or you don't when you get clean it's all a gray area and i think it's dealing with that gray area that is uh that that's that's the sweet spot you got to figure out.

Yeah, Bob was treated 22 times, I think. And his relapsosis took the form of us all fleeing from him because he was so obnoxious in his illness. And he was scary, scary. And so it wasn't just that he was going to, people around him were going to contract the relapse. It was that he was like that he burned every bridge. I can relate. It's so interesting.

Yeah, yeah. Let's get Marissa in here. Marissa, you want to say something? Nope, she went back into the audience. Let's see here. Hold on one second. If you guys give me a second, let me go onto the restream and see what you guys are thinking about.

Uh, huh. There's a liver condition that prevents people from metabolizing weed. That's interesting. I've never come across that. Uh, yes, you guys are sharing your war stories. I see that. Was Shakespeare a drama junkie yeah i guess so i don't know i don't know if he uh was a junkie per se i doubt it though he he might have you know part of part of having addiction is maybe you can speak to this too you have to have access

right there's got to be something that you want to take yeah and usually as we've been talking about all this evening is there has to be something that puts a little rocket fuel behind it it really gets you going getting you making you want to alter or escape um and that's some of the you know some of the stuff we were talking about i sort of characteristically it's trauma so did you have any trauma growing up uh yeah i guess your dad your dad yeah your dad my dad my mother you know god rest her soul you know she uh we used to think she was going for vacation she was getting uh electro you know electroconvulsive therapy you know so so there was that so a very tormented woman. And my father was

an immigrant, first generation, and met with some success, but just couldn't deal and took himself out. But again, I don't use that to explain or even excuse. A lot of people have had it a lot worse and not destroyed their lives or other people's lives the way I did. That just happened to be my circumstance. But there was certainly, to answer your question, plenty of trauma to go around. Yeah. It gets walled off in a bodily-based sort of way. And you walk around in pain and not even aware of it.

And so when you get the pain relief, you notice it. You notice it. That's right. It feels, for the first time, okay. Well, it's like gravity. you get the pain relief, you notice it. You notice it. It feels for the first time. Okay. Yeah. Well, it's like gravity. It's, it's, uh, what's, what was, uh, David Foster Wallace's story about the fish, uh, two young fish are, are, are floating through the water one day and an older fish comes by and goes, Hey boys, how's the water? And the, and, uh, the two boy fish, the younger fish don't know what to say. And they look at each other and go, what's water or something, something that the water sure is nice today.

And it doesn't feel great. Isn't it great? What's what, what is surrounding us all the time becomes background. And, um, are, are, what are the, where do you want people to go? Do you have a website set up? I'm not a website guy. I'm a, I'm old school. They can buy the book anywhere. Uh, any indie press, or if they want to go corporate and hit Amazon, they can do that. And, uh, that is the, my, uh, online presence. Story of the truth.

Do you have a book tour or anything coming up? I've been on a tour. I'm going to be in Chicago in a couple days at a place called Primitive. I'm going to be at Book Soup in Los Angeles the 28th. I did the 92nd Street Y with Ben Stiller interviewing a couple of weeks ago.

So I'm sort of at the tail end of the tour now. Yeah. Okay. Damn, I wish we'd known about that. We could have gone up there and seen that. Oh my goodness. Well, I look forward to reading the book. I hope we've whetted the appetites

of others out there to see the extraordinary observations you're likely to come upon and how you can have a depression and uh you don't have to cut uh cutting is sort of the more the more uh uh sort of lame way of doing that's the way other people do it the way jerry cuts himself as he goes in deep into painful history and painful environments and picks that scab that way and it's and guess what you get to encounter humanity there it's not just you sitting alone with a razor blade it's uh you

you and other human beings and with all our craziness and all of our shortcomings and all of our yeah all of our inability to uh uh to see i i guess that's what I'm sort of hearing you say more than anything, the fact that you came in and you saw these unusual juxtapositions, and maybe you've encouraged other people to open their eyes a bit. I hope so. But that is the idea, for sure. All right, Jerry, thank you so much. And hopefully, hope to meet you soon someday in person

and appreciate you being here and uh thank you those of you that have uh that were willing to talk to us and call in of course everyone over on restream we appreciate you all being being there uh jerry stall everybody and uh i'm on fire yeah i'm gonna look at the grumble rants right now very quickly uh okay jeep likes you. Jehep is my friend now? Yeah. No, he likes Jerry. Oh, he likes Jerry.

Good. He's outside Detroit, too. I'm the same way as he. Diane, I have. Jehan. Jehan. Jehan. You're funny.

Yep. Yeah. You're speaking on the other side of the mic honey you got to put the mic in front of your face yeah yeah i'm looking around it so i can see the the computer that's what it's 35 40 years of working with microphones by the way every time every time she moved it, a giant billboard would come up on my screen with Caleb yelling at me, get it near your mouth. Get it down. I know, but it was in front of your eye. There we go. I understand.

A sweet spot. Then we can do, yeah. Yes. Well, the light changed. The sun went down, and so I had to move the light over and change the camera. It actually looks better now. I get it. Thank you.

Yeah, I get a little philosophical about, I mean, Jerry obviously has some very strong feelings about things. I tend to be more philosophical because I don't know what the right thing is for the right moment. We all have our own pathologies, and some of those may work for us all Someone may work against us and and I just don't know I I history is too complicated a phenomenon for me to judge What is a good thing and what is a bad thing? I just know that there have been lots of things that look like bad things that turned out to be good things There are lots of things that look like good things turn out to be bad things I mean just look at Jimmy Carter.

Universal agreement. Good person, good guy, great post-president. Wasn't the right man for the job at the moment. So there's so much to these historical interpretations of what, you know. Again, I'm worried about my own hubris, so I'm always trying to be humble in the face of these things I I can observe these things and I can see them and I can comment on them but I don't know what they mean necessarily I I don't know you know what it means

that uh Putin is the way he is or is he sick or is he not and I I know the system uh I can kind of understand the system that he leads up as being something that yields that doesn't care about uh individual humans and doesn't value it but maybe the five guys behind him are even more ruthless I don't know I I yes he's ruthless yes he's kgb yes he's all these things uh but but I don't I I is that the worst one in that position or would you get something worse in it i i don't know it's too too many variables i do think i it does make me feel bad that our government doesn't do a lot of things actively to try to to stabilize the world it doesn't seem like maybe they are i don't think we have the power anymore. We're afraid of everybody.

Well, we also have to be respectful of other countries. It's complicated. The point is it's complicated. Any event? If you ask a Ukrainian, they'll say it's worth us giving up our country so that he doesn't go farther. I've talked to other Ukrainians about it who actually have family that live there, and they just said it's not worth saving just yeah i i believe that people should take stands why didn't they just let them have it you know what i mean like that they could have done that that's right that's when it could have happened and i and i think we all admire that they didn't

we admire it now was it the right thing the smart thing i i i i i i think you're in the little better territory that's why people think moralistically because if we were to look at it being the correct thing and the country gets destroyed you might go oh they shouldn't have done that but if it was the right thing if your conclusion was this was the with a capital r this was something you needed to do because it was the right thing then it conclusion was this was the with a capital r this was something you needed to do because it was the right thing then it kind of doesn't matter what the outcomes are in a way and that's that's when we've lost track of moral thinking and uh i'm not saying all things should be put on a moral scale i'm not necessarily saying that but it can help you sort of make sense of

unclear situations let's put it that way yeah um. And also, you know, if the outcomes don't go the way you want them to be, you can still, did Jesus like the way things turned out for him? You know what I mean? You know, crucified? I mean, is that a happy life? No. No. But it was a good life life and it was a good

thing for humanity he lives forever in heaven and he he it was a good thing for humanity leader of the free world was it a good thing for him in that moment no it's not so much that was just his body not his soul i understand but the point being is though that you can make decisions that have really nasty outcomes and still have done the right thing and still have led a good life and i and i don't think we do enough thinking about that that's just my own personal opinion these days i think a lot of people in ukraine are sacrificing their lives for this yes they are they they are and and they think it's the correct not not necessarily correct right thing to do yeah so it's it's rough it's sad okay crazy know. I guess, I mean, we're not in that position. I hope we never will be.

But if I was in that position, I might feel the same way. Well, let me look at some of what you guys are saying here. A Carl's Jr. lover is saying it's pathetic. What is pathetic, Carl's Jr. lover? Or it's pathetic. Maybe. It just seems like in this day and age, shouldn't have you know this kind of stuff going on as jerry just pointed out to us it has always been and the exceptions are the the in-between

times i know and we should be very clear-eyed as we approach these things um did you see that new york city now did you notice on tv they have ads for how to survive a nuclear holocaust? Yes. Oh, great. Yes. When there's a bomb that goes off, here's what you do. And it's online, too. And what do we do?

You go to the center of the building. If you're outside, you go in immediately. In the hallways? Take your clothes off in the center. Take your clothes off. Put them in a bag. Wash. Take a shower.

I don't know how you avoid radioactive water, though. I mean uh but you just look look up nuclear new york city uh i'm running out into the sun and i'll be the first one to go i know susan wants to be just being a kind of blast unless you've got a big bag of oxy on you insights into my wife ladies and gentlemen okay caleb there you go so she's either going to run towards the mushroom cloud or if i can uh find a group of a big bag of oxycontin she'll hang out with style hang out here for a little while look up seriously look up new york city no thanks i'll take your word for it all right i'm gonna look up thank you for looking at it get caleb you could look it up new york city not putting it into the five nuclear blast job's coming with me drew uh sorry nuclear blast uh hmm i bet tom will come

new york city releases video guide for surviving a nuclear blast that That's crazy. There it is. Interesting. Yeah, I guess they have to worry about it, or we do. The fact that it's just, here it is. Here it is. Get inside. We're closer to China. Get inside. Move away from windows. Stay inside.

Shut doors and windows. Go to the middle of the building. Stay tuned. Follow the media. Great. The media who we all trust immensely now. Well, that's the only time you want to have the news station on your direct tv so you have to have a news channel but how do you watch it if you're in the middle of the building right oh i guess online or look for you know but how's

your wi-fi gonna stay i'm sure this building would like have a loudspeaker no no tell us to all stop panicking maybe maybe but that's what they did in the world trade center too right i'm running right out into the i'm gonna go stand on the hudson river and watch the sun go down okay quickly all right uh thank you guys again i keep telling drew he has to have like a pilot wait there's carl's junior lover we focus on the workers you mad at me for making sense carl's junior lover you're you're all broken up in there. Maybe Tom, are you attacking him?

Is that what's happening? Cause Carl's unit is trolling apparently at the Tom's. Okay. Let's see. Grab, grab stuff. Kelsey's joining me. Kelsey Keith.

And yeah. Okay. I want to see the clouds. Oh boy. We are getting macabre. This is getting, this is going from. Well, I mean, it's reality, I guess. And I, you know, see the clouds. Oh boy. We are getting macabre. This is going from...

It's reality, I guess. We all have to have a little humor in it. What are you going to do? Which is what Jerry was reminding us of tonight. We are not going to have a program tomorrow. We'll be back on Thursday and Friday. He will be appearing on Gutfeld if anybody

likes fun. He's the guy that was Brian was on American Idol the first season American Idol had two hosts it wasn't just Brian Seacrest it was Ryan Seacrest and Brian Dunkelman and he's coming out again with some new

I think we were there that day we were there the second season and and we got we were there the second season yeah uh and then we are gonna talk to possibly i want to get some new like you see i'm getting some new stuff in here for these streaming shows and uh talk to a gentleman that hopefully joins me i've read his book on hypnosis it was kind of interesting um his uh he's a french man he wrote the book in french i read it in french and enjoyed it it was very clear and i could understand everything the way his writing style is because a lot of french literature i have trouble i have to go to constantly look up look up the vocabulary

but his was very clear and very easy to read and it's a really interesting topic you know i if you follow uh for instance scott adams scott ad Adams is a hypnotist and a lot of stuff he's talking about is in that sort of hypnotic realm the realm of persuasion is a very close relative of hypnosis so hopefully we can get into that so again I will say why don't hazmat suits work who said they don't or a nuclear holocaust said they don't like maybe take off all your clothes and put on a hazmat suit i guess you could you have one handy no but i'm just saying if we're that worried they should have like supplies of them in the city for you to have in your closet like next year they were easy ball gown in your high heels easier to pass out harder to pass out than masks i would say

so i'm still thinking about it jahan jehep is in there defending us on all fronts and uh we appreciate that my friend all right so uh and goldfish is saying we respect someone who denies the truth what is the truth that uh mr goldfish is trying to share with us i'm always interested in the truth boom Boomers live like materialism consumerism. Yes. You're using what's called a shibboleth, an empty slogan. If you have a specific complaint, I've been doing a lot of growing, Diane says, different types, different levels of head mask suits. World Dunlap reminds us that is true. Drew wants to heal people. He wants to keep them alive.

That's his thing. Yeah, that's what he lives for. I'm very spiritual, and I just know when the time comes, it's that time. I would stay with him as long as possible, but, you know, to help. I know. I wouldn't run out to the sun. All right. We are grinding to a halt here, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you all for joining. But honestly, you guys, thanks for watching. You know, make sure you check out the latest Dr. Drew After Dark. They're all getting funnier and funnier. We've got some great guests and also, you know, follow us on all the platforms on both. Everything's available on Dr. Drew. Somebody just asked a question they asked, does the vaccine work and Corolla and I are going to be discussing this graph. I want you to look at it.

See if you can see that. It's a little close. Go back a little bit. It's a Canadian study. Okay. Text it to me. Caleb, can I send it to you? Yeah.

Email it. Email it to me. He's getting creative. Email it to you? Okay. Hold on. Gosh darn it. Okay.

Give me a second here because I do want to put this up on the screen. Give me a second here, because I do want to put this up on the screen. Give me one second. It's a study that shows, it's from a Canadian study, and I don't know who did it. It's actually, yeah, I don't know who did it, and Carolla sent it to me and said, what do you think of this? Do you still think the vaccine works? And it's an interesting study. It shows that, because somebody on on uh goldfish rumble he was asking do i think the thing works well i do think i don't think it causes infection this prevents infection i don't

think it prevents spread you can still catch it oh yeah for sure uh i do think it probably reduces the intensity of the illness because i've seen unvaccinated people get the same Omicron and vaccinated. And it is different. Not always. Not always. But it is different. The people that really do well are the hybrid immunity. People vaccinated and who have had Omicron.

Especially more than once. I can attest to that. But this particular study suggests that in a dose related fashion you're more likely to get infected you're no less likely to stay out of the hospitalization and if you're double boosted you're more likely to die now the only thing by a factor about three to one and the only thing i would say about the triple boosted or double boosted category those tend to be older people yeah we know what we're doing over the age of 75 we boost repeatedly because we have data we have data to tell us

to do that if you haven't had a vaccine in a year uh it's shouldn't it shouldn't be doing much it shouldn't be there it is there is the study up there guys uh you guys on the rumble rant look at that look at that particular window and you'll see that this is this study it's a pretty it's you know pretty big study and it's suggesting that we're not doing much with the vaccines and and i am of course i've been saying for a long time that it's not a perfect vaccine has maybe a little higher side effect profile than we would like um i still and and and on top of that today the cdc CDC came out and is essentially mandating boosters. I mean, they're not in their own way mandating.

I don't know quite what the, in other words, I'm fearful that they're going to start saying you're going to need the booster to have the vaccine passport to travel into the country and that kind of thing. And I think they're heading that direction. Now, is there any good data to suggest that taking a non-omicron specific vaccine boy that is a that's a tough putt yeah that's a tough putt if you're young and healthy if you're 75 yes yes get on the car get it but if you're under 45 man it's like getting a head gold and let's see i mean not everybody so i don't have some responses to it but most of it's like getting a head gold and let's see i mean not everybody so we'll have some

responses to it but most of it's been pretty much if you've had two vaccines it's probably most of it's been pretty mild uh yeah psychic psych in the low boat whatever sweden is in better shape than we are yes yes because they didn't put send their kids home they kept them in school just that just that one thing make things drastically better i i again i've said this forever i'm gonna say it again that when when the ukrainian you know women went across the border into poland with their kids remember you know what i'm going to say right they the first thing they would say when somebody put a microphone in their their face they would say it's terrible we're leaving our husbands behind it's really awful well we got to get the kids in

school i mean you got to find a school for these kids they've been out of school for two weeks two weeks can you believe it no they don't have to do something so you know and so this is instead here we uh did it for two years they didn't expect their houses to be bombed either well no they were in poland but then once they got to poland they they learned polish too that's the point they even went into institutions where they didn't speak the language they were so adamant about getting these kids back in school so anyway i feel so bad for them there we go uh let's see mu's family got covet tested positive yeah it's not bad though right no aunt has shingles that That's not good.

Shingles is worse. Medical passport is dystopian, Serena Del Mar says. It is, isn't it? This is the stuff we were talking about with Jerry. And how do you know who the good guys are? Is it right thing for them to be doing this? Or is it fascistic for them to be doing this? It's really odd.

It's really an odd thing to try to navigate and understand word dunlop said never vaccinated never got covet i attribute to sensible breakfasts well you may never get covet because a certain subset of the population does not get it but uh if i were a betting man i would bet on you eventually getting it so i'll just i'll just leave it at that is omicron if heicron, though, will it be less potent as the OG? Oh, yeah. Because although I've seen some nasty Omicron, particularly BA5, can be nasty.

So it's going to be not fun. It's going to be not fun for him. But it may be mild. It may also be mild. Shingles vaccine should be freely distributed in america if the system were sent i need to get that and i don't want to i know yep you do need to get it it's a nasty vaccine though that's one you know you guys want a vaccine that is tough i know you're really selling it look it prevents shingles which is a lot worse this is the point we we take risks we do things to people to

to obviate the the worst problems so to prevent the worst i had chicken pox when i was 32 yeah it was not fun yep yep yep okay well let's uh touch your cameras a lot easier let's say hey hitler everybody aloha uh and we will see you all on day after tomorrow on thursday with uh the former host of American Idol. My boyfriend, Jepp, on the Delta variant. Oh, did he? Strong man. Well, yeah.

He's alive to talk about it. Delta was pretty nasty. Yeah, Drew had that too. It was pretty. I'm glad that one's over with. Yeah. Oh, got shingles after the COVID shot. Whoa.

No. That can happen. Yes. Yes, got shingles after the COVID shot. Whoa. No. That can happen. Yes. Yes, it can happen. It's unusual. I mean, much like people get Bell's palsy and things too. Oh, no. Yeah, it can happen.

Yeah, I don't want Bell's palsy after a COVID shot. I had that once. I don't need it again. I don't. Let's see. I hope they really get that booster safe and easy for everybody. Well, Novavax is on the verge of approval, everybody. If I need a booster, that's what I'm going to take.

That's me. If they approve it for boostering, that's sort of the way I'm oriented. It's sort of the more traditional additional platforms. Oh, the mic has been off. I did not know that that had happened over at Spaces. Oh, no, you turned it off. I apologize for that. You've just missed us rumbling around here.

So we're grinding to a halt. We appreciate y'all being here. We will see you on Thursday. Thursday, Thursday. We'll see you then. Thank you for being here. Have a nice day, everyone. Ta-ta.

Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Caleb Nation and Susan Pinsky. As a reminder, the discussions here are not a substitute for medical care, diagnosis, or treatment. This show is intended for educational and informational purposes only. I am a licensed physician, but I am not a replacement for your personal doctor, and I am not practicing medicine here. Always remember that our understanding of medicine and science is constantly evolving. Though my opinion is based on the information that is available to me today, some of the

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