The Adam and Dr. Drew Show - #1902 Attitudinal

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

Adam opens up the show trying to define 'difficult' people, explains Sonny's easiness, and the Natalia's missing package. Plus, Dr. Drew explains how internal shame experiences should work,  they discuss the problem of people drunk with power, and the importance of doing things yourself.  Leave us a voicemail: SpeakPipe.com/AdamandDrDrew OR Click the microphone at top of the homepage, AdamandDrDrew.com Please Support Our Sponsor: This Episode is Sponsored by BetterHelp, BetterHelp.com/AdamandDrew

Despite the modern myth, the ancient Olympics were far from being a pure expression of untainted athleticism. But that doesn't mean they weren't badass. So allow me to take you on a little tour through the ancient Olympics. But I'll warn you, ancient Olympian tour guides were notorious for being liars and propagators of historical myths. One Roman-era sightseer named Lucian once quipped, "'Abolish lies from Greece and all the tour guides would die of starvation, since no visitor

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Yeah, get it on. Got to get on the show. Dr. Drew's board of first side specialist and egotistical maniac. Whoa. Yeah. Wow. All right. You know what I want to talk about, Drew? Yeah, what's that? I have a very strong feeling about this and I've had it for a while. Now you've done enticed, what is this?

I've shared it with you a lot, but it's really, it's just, it's so clear to me Difficult people. Oh, it's such a weird thing, you know, and I and and the thing about The thing about difficult people is they have no fucking idea who they are Which is a weird thing and they're in and you know, it's so it's it's super clear to me because I have twins and one of them is insanely easy and the other one is difficult. And difficult is, they don't, but it's weird. And it's not, it's not a question of nice or not nice

or smart or dumb or anything. It's just difficult. Like people, I'm trying to define difficult, you know? Like my ex-wife was super difficult, but nice. Just wouldn't do anything you ever asked her, wouldn't agree to anything, but nice. You know what I mean? Yes, yes.

But super difficult in that you couldn't do anything. She couldn't make eggs for my son because she was difficult. But it's difficult, but you can be nice, you can be good at things, you can be a lot of things, you're just that person. You know what I mean? It's just like we did our show. Let's think about it. Yeah.

Let's think about it. Some of the reasons you see it so vividly is because you have somebody very easy going, which is your son. So there's a big contrast because he's insanely laid back. But maybe we should assess the easy going laid back first. Let me give you an example. Yeah. He has been carless for two weeks now and has not said anything about it. He's basically had his car turned in and is now an 18 year old kid who was driving a nice Cadillac SUV and it got turned in so he has no car and I've kind of talked to him about it a little bit and you know had a couple ideas here and there but has said nothing. Fine. He'll walk places and he'll have his friends pick him up and maybe occasionally borrow his mom's car. But he's not been clamoring. I call him and he's just like, uh-huh, what are you doing? Cause he's insanely easy.

Now look, I don't know that that translates into success. In a weird way, my dad's easy, but he's so easy he doesn't leave the house. Right. You know what I mean? And also weirdly, you might consider my dad easy except for he would never do anything for you. Right.

And he has an underlying aggression that comes after you. Yeah, I mean, and I shouldn't say never do anything for you. Like, he's a bad person. I just mean, he's not buying you a car and he's not going to come over and help you add a deck on or whatever. And you could call my my mom kind of easy but only easy in that she didn't do anything. So there wasn't she didn't have demands you know like oh this is the wrong fork for the salad you know. But she would never do anything for you either. So there's

a kind of a, there's a weird thing where, I think people think it's attitudinal a lot. A lot. Meaning? What do you mean, attitude? I think they take easy and difficult and they start grafting angry versus friendly. You know, they said they start co-mingling. Yeah, those are different. They do coexist, but they're different things. Yeah. Yeah, so my son is exquisitely easy. And when you're dealing with him, A, you don't have any anxiety, because they don't give you that anxiety because they don't have it. They don't foist it on you.

And then you also get to breathe a little bit. Like you go, all right, what are we gonna do with the car? Is it a used car? Is it a lease? Who's paying for it? You have time to kind of, you know, difficult people, they'll start saying stuff and they'll go,

just hold on, hold on, let's just map it out. They go, I don't wanna be without a car. And you go, you're getting a car. We just, we've got to, I don't wanna be without a car. You know, they just start foisting it on you and you're just, I'm not saying you're gonna be without a car. I'm just trying to figure this out you know what I'm talking about oh listen

I'm just starting to list all the different things you're talking about because there's a lot that goes into this right it does and by the way it doesn't you know I was thinking about it on the ride in it's like I've said it a million times Mark Garagos is an easy person. He's not a difficult person. He's busy as shit. He's globetrotting. He's on a flight. He's got 10 offices. He's juggling a million phone calls.

But he's not a hard person. He's an easy person. So it's not about schedule, per se. You know what I mean? No, but I think people think it is. And they think, you're an easy person, but it's not about your schedule. It's a kind of a thing.

Now I don't know if it's a kind of intelligence. I don't know, now my daughter's a difficult person, but she works. I mean, she's got her hustle on. She's moving all the time. You know what I mean? That's good. Which does kind of co mingle with difficult. Sometimes, if you want to move, you know what I mean? Yes. So I wrote down six different traits.

OK, first thing you're talking about is defensiveness. Yes. Some people are just defensive as hell. and that is not fun to be around because it immediately negates whatever you're saying, feeling or doing. Right. Right? Because it's just, it's just they're, they literally are no longer in reality and they're just spinning in their own anxiety about whatever you've said or with a perception of what you said, which is often not even what you said. Right? Can we also just kind of do this for a broad thing? Real simple test, easy or difficult.

When somebody comes to you and they go, look, here's what I'm looking for, here's what I don't want to happen, here's what I do want to happen, and you're able to do it. Or at least respond realistically to it, right? Yes, yes. And understand, all right, here's what the person wants, here's what they don't want, can we do this? You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's something all the difficult people have a lot of trouble with. A lot of trouble with. A lot of trouble. So now there's constitutional features, right, which are sort of things we are all born with. I mean, those constitutional things go all the way from the engine we all have. We all have sort of certain levels of, what do we call it, that we you and I call it an engine right? We have motor yeah. But it could be lots of constitutional qualities it could be you're sensitive to emotions or the environment or colors or you're autistic or there's all kinds of constitutional things that figure into

this that make these interactions. You know what I know what a lot of it I you know what I think a lot of it is or could be a lot of it or could be connected to this I Don't like waste mmm, you know and It's not a financial thing I just don't like waste and if you really don like waste, it'll make you a little bit more reasonable as a person because you will have these,

my daughter ordered a piece of apparel, like a shirt. And she had it sent to her old address. And she wrote down the wrong address and then the thing went to the old address and then the thing went to My money manager's office in Van Nuys and then the money manager's office in Van Nuys Sent it to me in Malibu Now Natalia is in La Cognata, and she needs this shirt now. You know what I mean?

So, now we're gonna put the shirt in an Uber and drive it to La Cunha. And then I float this theory, which is, well, how about the person that wrote the wrong address down just comes and gets it it if they need it? How about that? That's not no that's not on the table. That's no so I first off I have no idea why these kinds of things aren't on the table when when you screw something up Just get in your car and just eat it, you know come get it

Did you propose it to the person that wrote the wrong address? There's many voices involved with this at this point I said look i'm not paying 80 dollars to put it in the backseat of an uber nor do I want to waste The uber it's just a cosmic waste. It's a yes t-shirt that's being driven and I Am going to that area to shop, to work the following day. I will then bring the t-shirt with me and my daughter can come to the shop and pick it up from me while I'm there, which she did. and it worked out.

But first things first, I hate waste, and because I hate waste, I feel like it keeps you in some reality that makes it, it's hard to be difficult and hate waste. There's almost, I don't know why, but I feel like they're almost competing thoughts. Interesting. Let me propose two other characteristics that go with this and see if it helps sort of refine some of these, with the waste issue, which is personality disorders, right? If you have a personality problem, you see everything as an external locus of control.

Everything's happening to you and you have no relationship with that. You're a victim. It's all your internal life doesn't matter. It's all out there. And then a corollary of that, which I think is interesting in that it has entered into the sort of TikTok

and Instagram world, is this idea of attachment issues that create an avoidance style. And avoidance don't really appreciate other people's issues are relevant. They don't, whatever your issue. And so to be, to hate. Oh, that's a big, it's a big thing, which is if you told me something,

I would be worried about it. I would think about it a lot. Like if you said to me, if I talk to you too, and look, I'm not trying to make myself sound better than everyone, I mean, I have plenty of holes in my game, but if you said to me, hey, you know, when we do our show on Tuesday, I gotta start right at 10.30, because I got a flight, you know, and whatever,

and I gotta make that, I gotta leave right after the whatever. I would be thinking about it that night, and I'd be thinking about it that morning, and I'd be like, I gotta hustle. I gotta get going I gotta and and if something happened Where something happened? I would run out of the house like in my socks carrying my shoes because i'd be going drew's gotta catch a flight Yeah, and and i'm it's not even because i'm magnanimous or even nice. It's just you told me. Hey, there's this thing

And now i'm thinking about it. Yeah. And I wouldn't want you to miss your flight. It would burden me a little bit. I'm with you on that. And that has many different sort of layers to it in terms of being responsible or being compulsive or not wanting other people to treat you that way. But if it gets really down the road, then it becomes codependency, which is where the easygoing becomes sort of fused with kind of focused on others to the point of denigrating your

own position and then building resentment because you're doing everything for everybody else. All these things have little liability. How many times a year do you just say, I'm not going to do that? Me? Yeah. When somebody asks something like that doesn't seem like much. It seems like if somebody asked me to do something I generally do it. Yeah I feel that first off I have never I don't

really say I'm not gonna do that ever for anybody. I would go like, tell me more about this thing, you know what I mean? And tell me more about this thing, maybe I'll do it. But I wouldn't say it out loud, like I'm just not doing that, you know what I'm saying? Yes, yes I do what you're saying. And I'm the same way, I would just go, I would push back, but I wouldn't go, under no circumstance, the monocle falls out of my eye. No sir, I shall not do so. Yeah, I just wouldn't, there's a chance I might think to myself, I don't think I'm gonna do that.

And by the way, the only time I say I'm not gonna do that is for philosophical stands I take on things. When I bought this warehouse warehouse and I told you, I told the guy who was renting this place, he had six months left on his lease. I said, look, you can leave anytime you want because I'm looking to move in here, get this place going. And he found a new place two months later and I said all right he said I found a new place I said well you're relieved of your contract now go move into your new place and he said fine but sign this document that says I can leave and I just said no I told you you could leave

you want to leave you can leave and he just went well no, I told you you could leave. You wanna leave? You can leave. And he just went, well, I'm not leaving if you don't sign this document that doesn't hold me liable for the next four months rent. I said, well, I told you, you could leave. And so I'm honest, so you can leave. Now I always know, by the way, when you tell people shit like that,

like there's a lot of shit like in Hollywood where they go, you have to sign this release, otherwise you can't be on the, I'll go, yeah, I'll be on the shelf and not sign the release. And eventually they just leave. The guy was like, you have to sign it. I was like, I'm not gonna sign it,

but I gave you my word, that's enough. And he's like, I'm not leaving without, I go, okay, then don't leave. And he just left. He just left. Of course just left. He did leave. Of course he left. He was always gonna leave because that's how people work. You're gonna pay four months rent,

a place that you don't want when you got a new, I knew he was just gonna leave. But I said, no. You know, I will say, I will have philosophical nos. Yes, yes, I remember that. But I do not, I do not say no when people are like, can you do this? Can we fix this? Can you move that? Or whatever it is. Okay, when you want to do it. So just amount of time you say no, it's something that people should, or like, no,

like I'm not going to do that. Yeah, which I'm always when people say that I'm surprised and kind of envious Sure, don't you get envious and people go? I'm not doing that I think you know again people that find ease in doing that are the people with character Pathologies or avoidant styles. I care too much how that lands You know what I mean? What I consider the other person's point of view when I care too much how that lands. You know what I mean? I consider the other person's point of view when I'm saying something like that. So it makes it very hard to do it.

Yeah. Like if you said to your wife, look, I'm going to hire someone to come in here and organize my closet. And she was like, just do it yourself. I wouldn't go, no, I'm going to pay someone to do it with your money. I'd be like, oh shit, I feel shame now. That's right. And then what I find odd is people don't, this isn't, well, I want to talk about better help in a second, but, but before we do, I find that people's shame, internal shame experiences don't seem to come online the way they should when they're by themselves.

It's only when they're by themselves. It's only when they get caught. And that's interesting to me because everyone should feel shame some of the time when they're thinking about their behavior, no matter who sees it or doesn't see it. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that now you're getting into the world of sort of morality and you know, we've talked about this years ago but I believe very

strongly that everybody, an easy thing for everybody to do and no one does in order to live a good life that you can feel not guilty and not ashamed of is to conduct every minute of every day as though there's a video camera going and guess what most of the time there is these days and that people could review your behavior and you have nothing to worry about. That's it. That's it. That's all you got to do and people have great difficulty with that and I find that disturbing but here's something not disturbing the show is sponsored by BetterHelp and this is very much to uptales what we were just talking about which was non-negotiables.

What are your self-care non-negotiables? So in terms of Adam's non-negotiable, clearly it is the case that if you have a compass inside that tells you this is not right or this is not good, those can be easy non-negotiables. But there's lots of ways that non-negotiables figure into setting limits with people in your life that can be difficult and challenging and when your life is packed with kids and work, it's easy to let these things slip and Not only do you let the the setting of boundaries slip You might let the things that you want to do for self-care slip like therapy So make therapy and non-negotiable and God knows with things like better help and online access

one of the great things that came out of COVID is the fact that these online mechanisms for therapy work. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It is entirely online, convenient, it is flexible, and it has been shown to be very effective. I've heard family, friends have been very pleased with these services they provide.

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That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Adam and Jew. I think also in the difficult department, I think you could kind of figure how much stuff do you do for other people and or you know, I don't think I and you can also look at a few acts that you know, I made the movie the hammer and I wrote it with Kevin Hinch and it was my story and sort of my life and At the end of the movie or the end of the process

Hinch just said to me The guild writers guild. I don't know what the fuck it was, but he's like at the end of the process, Hinch just said to me, the guild, writer's guild, I don't know what the fuck it was, but he's like, we can't be co-written, we just have to have a one writer, and could I be the writer? I will get credit as the writer of The Hammer. And, you know, he wrote a lot of it, but it's also my story and my idea and my writing and I was sort of

Autobiographical I wrote, you know, probably most of it And I just said yeah because you could use it that he needed it in his career at that time. Yeah Yeah, but sir, but that's but it's but it's it's good and just but it's also nice Yeah, it's not that's not the act of a difficult person this is what what I'm what I'm saying and The thing about difficult people is they don't understand they're difficult and they also think other people are difficult who aren't Do you know what I'm saying? That's we'll talk to me about that because that's another interesting wrinkle, which is projection Well, talk to me about that, because that's another interesting wrinkle, which is projection. Yes.

You, who is asking the difficult person for something, is the problem in their life. And just kind of also, I mean, the difficult people came home to roost during COVID, because they were telling everybody, you know, I got into a huge argument with my daughter because we're walking through the parking lot at night of a seafood restaurant and I didn't have my mask properly put on. And I kept saying to her, I'll have it on, you know, when we go into the restaurant, it will be on. She's like, do it now. And it was like, we're in an empty parking lot

and I was trying to get it over my nose. It was a huge argument. I ended up literally leaving the meal. I ended up just getting up and going home because of this big argument we had. It'd be an interesting case study to just inquire with her how she thinks about her thinking from back then. How does she process all that?

It'd be interesting. They just say we were, everyone was scared, we didn't know any better and that's whatever. But the difficult person had a lot of demands around the house, and the laid-back person had no demands around the house. So COVID was the same, I guess it affected everyone the same. Sonny and myself had zero thoughts about what anyone else should do vis-a-vis COVID. No thoughts. Because it wasn't my place

Well, I listen I think I've told you I spoke to a governor from a state Now in the plains who told me, you know He didn't want to do mask mandates because he didn't feel that was his job That wasn't what the Constitution provided for him to do and he's governor not not You know sort of school Marm or whatever we thought these people were, you know, sort of, well, I didn't even know what to call that what they were doing to us. And I thought, you stand, stand up, man.

You're right. This is not right for you to have to do that because it's not your job. It's not useful. It's not, you don't have the bioethical standing to do it. And it's, you should feel terrible about even being asked to do that. But we have people, they're going hard at the World Health Organization. And there are countries now still organizing these, where did I see this one? Was it Canada or somewhere getting these emergency plans together where the totalitarian takeover

will be massive in the setting of it. By the way, they're including now with this interesting strategy pandemic policies with civil emergencies. Right? So, incoming nuclear weapon, well you're you're gonna want to be safe from that, right? Right. So here we go. Here we go. Yeah. Look, I just have two categories. The people that don't want a lot of power over others, and the people who seem to be fucking drunk with it. Right.

And isn't that, but don't you have to not really care about what other people feel in order to be drunk with it? Right? You don't really care. You claim to care. I'm tired of being, listen, the comedy is those people are the ones who are calling the other people totalitarian. That's the comedy. It's Justin Trudeau over in Canada who is fucking a dictator, who is always worried

about totalitarian folks like Trump or Ron DeSantis who just want people to do whatever the fuck they want to do. You are here. I am. It's Gavin Newsom who's the guy. It's so incredible that people don't see that. All the governors that just snapped into action and shut everyone down and then punished anyone who defied them. That's evil, it's totalitarian, and it's a nice glimpse behind the curtain into how their psyche works. And they did the same thing with opiates, you guys. People don't understand. They mandated the overprescribing of opiates. They were at the tip of the spear of making doctors prescribe more pain meds, and then they blamed the drug companies for the entire thing after they and the regulators

Mandated it right. So I will always vote for the person that wants less control Yes, then I don't understand people. I don't understand people wanting control over the people. I don't I don't get it It's just such an odd thing to me. Yes, it should you should feel uncomfortable Yeah, yeah when It's just such an odd thing to me. Yes, you should feel uncomfortable. Yeah, yeah. When, you know, when we would work around here, we would work typically on Sundays back in the day. And then I remember when Easter Sunday came around

once a year, obviously. You know, people say to me, you want to go early on Easter and then let everyone go be with their families for Easter brunch or do you want to go later after all the brunch and the Easter egg hunts and the stuff? When do you want to do this? They'd come to me and I'd go ask everyone what they want. I may have thoughts about it but I'm not comfortable telling people to come in at 9 in the morning or 5 in the afternoon. Put it to a vote. What's everyone want to do? Oh actually go ask Brian because he's gonna be the one. He's the difficult one in the group so he's gonna have real

strong thoughts about this stuff, right? So, and the difficult people will emerge, you know. Yes, they'd have trouble staying put, staying down. You'll know who they are in a group. So I would just go ask Brian, because he's going to have a problem with whatever number I pick. And Brian is only difficult of the group, he's not really even a difficult person per se, he's only difficult in a group of undifficult people, you know what I'm saying? Yes, yes. So, I would say go ask everyone what they wanna do,

and then they would come back and go, they wanna do it at five, and I'd go fine, because I don't like the idea of being responsible for that decision, even though it's my building and I'm the boss, I don't wanna force that on people. And also, I could do it at nine in the morning or I could do it at five in the afternoon.

I don't have thoughts. I don't have strong thoughts. I'm always amazed that the people have super strong thoughts about shit. Like I just don't, I didn't have super strong thoughts about paper mask. I didn't have strong thoughts about Easter. I didn't have strong thoughts about all things COVID. I didn't have strong thoughts other than I, you know, I'm not an expert. Leave me alone. I'm not going to tell you to do anything. That'll be up to you. And I'll get it or I won't get it.

There's no, we're not doing it. Wiping down the fucking shopping cart handle is not, I'm just gonna get it or I'm not gonna get it. Then I still don't know if I got it. And it's still now increasingly clear that you can really reduce your risk with nasal lavage. Made it on with saline, even with chloro dioxide, some people say.

But I do that a lot now, and I've been exposed to COVID a lot. And you tend to catch everything, and it's so far so good. I haven't washed my hands since COVID. All right, I'm gonna be in Vegas doing standup tonight over at Kimmel's Club, two shows over there, and then off to Reno with Patrick Warburton doing the National Automotive Museum over there.

That'll be tomorrow. Go to adamcarolla.com for all the live shows. What do you got, Drew? Drru.com, everything is there, but do sign up at the Rumble channel and ask Dr. Drew. No, until next time. Adam Carolla for Dr. Drew Sand. Mahala.

Summer might be wrapping up, but Pluto TV's Summer of Cinema is still going strong with hundreds of free movies. It's never too late to join an epic adventure with Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Step up your movie game with Stomp the Yard. Get in the ring with Nacho Libre or set a course for the stars with Star Trek, every Star Trek. Download the Pluto TV app now while the sun still shines on Pluto TV's Summer of Cinema. Stream now, pay never.