The Adam and Dr. Drew Show - #2105 - Dr. Drew Reacts to Presley Gerber’s Suspected Overdose | Part 2

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

Dawson and Dr. Drew talk about their admiration for Adam Carolla’s ability to spot trends before they become obvious. Dr. Drew discusses why some American men are looking overseas for partners with more traditional values, and the two react to the reported death of Presley Gerber while discussing the possible role of multiple medications in an overdose. They also discuss the effects of heavy cannabis use, alcoholism, the different forms it can take, and how drinking patterns vary across populations around the world. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Recorded live at Corolla 1 Studios with Adam Carolla and board certified physician and addiction medicine specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky. You're listening to The Adam and Dr. Drew Show. Yeah, get it on. Got to get it on. No choice but to get on. Get it on. Mandate. Get it on.

I'm Mike Dawson in for Adam Carolla on the Adam and Drew show. Dr. Drew Pinsky. Whatever. board certified physician and addictive medicine specialist. That's good times. That's very good times. Great to be back in the studio with you, Doc. It is good to be here.

We got a lot to talk about. We did our dedication to Brian, and I really think I'm grateful you were here for that because I don't think Adam would have let me talk quite so much. As a lot of time, as most guys in the booth are well aware. Having worked with him for 20 years, absolutely. My thing is like not only that, but. yes, Adam, yes, Adam, yes, and, yes, and, yes, and, not only that, but, because he trained me in that very carefully back in the day. And, but it does not leave me a lot of room to express myself sometimes.

So, and people complain about that, Adam, but it's the way it goes. Well, it's his name on the door. It's fine. It doesn't bother me at all. And by the way, this is the point, actually, the reason I brought this up is I have really grown to admire how his brain, works, his crystal brain. Back in the day when he and I used to conflict on stuff, I felt like my job was just to deliver information, just I need to keep focused on that. And whatever he did, he did to capture the eyes. And I didn't participate in it. But we've been together long enough that, you know, one of the ways you can tell if somebody's just and accurate is how they predict

the future. If they predict the future accurately, you should listen to what that person's saying. Right. Adam has an uncanny track. for predicting the future way ahead of everybody else. I would just point to every. I don't know if you guys have this audio. Probably not. I'm unfair of me to bring this up. But I just remember in 1997, I think it was.

We have an audio of him on Loveline going. We still open the show and he goes, hey, I don't know if you guys, if you guys see him Bruce Jenner lately? Yeah. And we go, yeah? He goes, he's turning into a chick. And we go, what are you talking about?

What is it? What's wrong with you? He goes, I don't know what that means. I'm just telling you. He's turning a joke. And that's even more ridiculous than him saying on the air in KLSX. Trump's going to be the president of the United States. That is a binary kind of thing, like yes or no.

This was observing something that we didn't understand what he was even talking about. And he didn't either. And the whole transgenderism was not anywhere near the public surface. It existed, but it wasn't in the common discourse at all. And so when you say Bruce Jenner is becoming a chick, we all went, How? What does that mean? What are you talking about?

Bruce and shit? What is it going to just be a woman? No. So that's the kind of thing. And lately, by the way, Andrew and I were talking a little bit off the air. He's been, not lately, but zeroing in on one of his predictions lately is about chickthink and the feminization of society and the ascendance of this current feminism. He's been worried about that for a long time.

I just wait because I imagine that in the next three, four, four, five years, like we're seeing a bunch of other things being debunked, there's going to be some research papers from Harvard and Yale and Stanford talking about the feminization of society. I don't know if they'll do it because the literature, the scientific literature is too adulterated. You can't edit, editorials won't let you publish it. That's a shame. But all three of us, I think you said it too. Andrew, me, you went, I said out loud, I said if I were 25, I'd go spend time in Ukraine and

Albania and Serbia. Because that's where I'd go find a wife. I would not be doing it here. Right. And Andrew, you chimed in with? Yeah, I lived in, I lived in Serbia for four months. And, yeah, it's just a, the women there were lovely. They were the nicest women I've ever encountered.

I mean, they didn't treat you like shit. They didn't say you were toxic. They didn't get angry with you if you showed any interest in them. No? No, they was, and here's the thing. I'm in a full-time committed relationship and I was in one over there and it was just the whole time

I was just like oh my God everybody here there was like a there was just like a level of gratitude of like we're making a movie we're having fun every day so real and it was it was just

yeah everybody was it was it was the nicest group of people I have coming to contact in a professional it was just it was a beautiful country and beautiful people. I told you guys last show, Disneyland was pretty nice too, so it's happening here somewhere. My closest experience with that was when I worked the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Whistler,

and we were basically lived up in Whistler for five weeks. And there are L.A. 10s in Whistler that talk to you. They're nice people. Wait a second. You're in if we were in Los Angeles You would never speak to me Yeah well yeah and Don't misinterpret that

No I know I know but still it's people being civil with each other And liking each other and liking each other We lost our sociability What's that? I will say this though To qualify that I think the reason I did pick my current girlfriend Is because she is so uncharacteristically nice Like

She is nice She's an incredibly nice girl. She is like, it feels like she's from a different era, almost. Interesting. Yeah, Dawson met her at the Dodgers game. It's crazy that nice is something that's that short of supply that you guys are like, whoa, a nice person. Just a quick aside when we were in Whistler. There's a bit of drinking on the road, you know.

And so me and my friend had enough of whiskey and we didn't want a beer, but we still need a drink. or want to drink to wind down. So we go into this bar and Whistler and we order white Russians. And this gorgeous bartender lady, maybe 30 years old, says, I don't serve milk to men in bars and walks away.

And we look at each other like, I guess it's whiskey. That's funny. All right. So let us open up talking about what, oh, Andrew's got another complaint. This will be the, and Bert can testified of this, Bert threw me a birthday party over there. And it was a pool party.

Bert Kreischer. And this is what we noticed. All the women that we worked with from Serbia, they came to the pool party, and they jumped in the pool, and they were having so much fun. And we were like, oh, this would never happen in Los Angeles. They don't want to get their hair wet in L.A. Well, it's just, I...

Whatever. We need to solve this problem. People are people, and we need to treat each other with... Well, what we're doing in America, is making the women hate the men. I know. I understand that. Part of the way that you destroy a society.

Well, and that's what Corolla has been worried about for quite some time. And I keep asking him, when's it going to end? When's it going to end? And he goes, save spaces and octagons. I keep telling you. You got to go to Florida. You've got to go to Tennessee. That's another one of his crystal brains.

He's right. It's happening. It is happening. So let's talk about Presley Gerber, shall we? Yes. Now, Presley Gerber is the son of supermodel Cindy Crawford. Correct? Correct.

And he himself, I think, was a model. And he has a sister that he was in a new production with, I think, and they both were sort of in the same industry as the mom. And we have a brief testimony here from, how long is this, Andrew? A minute or two? This is 49 seconds, but it's interspersed with ET because, again, the original video is just not coming up on Twitter.

Will YouTube let us put this up or will they kick us off? No, this is fine. We can play this. All right, let's do it. All right. Long story short, where I'm at currently. Three classes of medications. I don't know, four.

Blood pressure, opiate, benzoh, antidepressant, Xanax, when the panic attacks are really, really bad. The Valium, I take a little bit in the morning, or not, I don't know if it's a little or a lot. Antidepressant-wise, metazepine, and then I take Prazacin. Also used to treat night terrors and PTSD and ketamine drips. I definitely use. that more than I should.

Sometimes it's not in a clinical setting. In a way, he's a walking time bomb. Presley says he is now five months alcohol-free and wants to wean off these drugs, but getting help from his doctors hasn't been easy. Once you start taking them, you don't take them the quote-unquote withdrawal from certain medications. All right, so listen, there's a lot going on here,

and that's just a piece of it. He said four classes of drugs and then littered off, At least a dozen. Two classes that should never be given together. Okay. Which is the benzodiazepine opioid. I'm sorry, the benzodiazepine anti-anxiety medicine and the Suboxone opioid. That is a lethal combination.

Now, to be fair, he's on a very small dose of Suboxone, so it's not that big a deal that way. Okay. But he's an opiate addict. That's why he's on the Suboxone. He could easily take more, and he would stop breathing. It's probably what happened. We don't know yet what he died of. This weaning thing fucking never works.

I don't know why doctors insist on this. It does not work for real drug addicts, real deal drug addicts. You have to go cold turkey. Now, later in that video, he says, you know, I've had some cold turkey detoxes. I hope I don't ever to do that again, meaning he might have tried abstinence. He might have tried going all the way off everything, but didn't make it and is refusing to do it again, in which case, there's only so much you can do for somebody that refuses to follow direction. And he's complicated.

He said he has PTSD. He has nightmares. He has withdrawal. he has, mood disorder. You know, he, we don't even know all the different psychiatric stuff going on here. So he's a complex, polydiagnosed patient with opiate addiction, polydrag addiction. That is a terrible prognosis. The probability of dying, even with good treatment, is higher than most cancers.

Jesus. Okay? That's just the way opiate addiction is. And I don't understand why people don't know that. It just is the way it is. And you have to take desperate measures with cases like this. And a kid like this, one of the things I hear listening to him is that he's used all these mixed up medication. He's asking for help. He's not sure what he's supposed to be doing.

He's kind of confused. That should be in a freaking hospital. He should be in a hospital treated for months, at least in a hospital and then residential. Now, maybe he was. We don't know. We don't know what really happened. But I smell here, insurance companies, not letting him stay long enough in a hospital. That is one of the chronic problems with psychiatric patients.

Then on the other side of this, he needs to be in a residential or sober living type environment for at least a year, probably two years. Let me interrupt for a second. In this video, is this the kind of video that you as a professional would say, this is a cry for help? No, no. Okay. He's been treated for years, you can tell. I mean, he's way down the road with this. We just came out today that six months ago or something, he went.

went down to Mexico and got Ibogaine. Oh, so he probably has done that more than once. What is Ibogaine now? It's a, what's the other name for it? It's a hallucinogen that they give people. It's, shit, what's the other name for IA? Oh, Oahuasca. It's Ayahuasca.

It's Ayahuasca. I've been dealing with it for 25 years. Okay. It does not work. Yeah. It works if you're not a drug addict and you're just dependent. It does help break the cycle of dependency. and every drug addict I saw that uses it, did it, had a reaction where they stopped using for six months, and 100% of them went back.

Some of them went back and got more ibogaine to get that six-month window again. And as they did more and more of it, they had significant personality changes. They were not the same person. Interesting. And so it's like, well, shit, you're changing who this person is. I mean, if you're that desperate and somebody's going to die, but still, what risk? So I have grave concerns about that. That's not me saying that hallucinogens are not useful for psychiatric care.

I do believe there's useful psychiatric care. We just don't know quite how to use them yet safely. We will one day. We will. All right. So there's a lot going on here with this poor dude. And I feel terrible for him. And I feel, again, I feel like Lindsay Clancy.

The medical system can't, we can't treat patients anymore. We don't do it. we send them into the outpatient environment long before they should be there. And by the way, we have no ability, no authority as the providers to get them the care they need. That's true. So we would be like, hey, if this were my patient, I go, dude, stop it, stop all this shit, stop it. You're doing research in this video. He talks about all the research he's doing.

Stop the research. You're the drug addict, man. All your thinking gets you back to drugs. Trust me. Stop. Follow directions. That's it. Although I shut the fuck up.

And no one says that to drug addicts anymore. And they up on the street and there they die. Right. Now, you made a point earlier about the going cold turkey and how he said, I hope I would never have to do that again. He kind of says, I'm never going to do that again. And so that's not a good sign. I mean, there's got to be more to it.

He also got ketamine treatments. He also got ketamine treatments. Crazy. A ketamine treatment is a rave. What the hell is a ketamine treatment? Well, ketamine is a series of four to six. anesthetic, where you go under anesthesia with ketamine with an anesthesiologist. And in recal depression, it is helpful.

It is helpful. Not the intranasal ketamine, not guided therapy ketamine. Ketamine for depression is a good track record. Unless you're a drug addict. I've seen it trigger drug addiction several times. So I don't recommend it for people with significant drug addiction. It's not a good idea. Let's talk about this cold turkey thing for a minute because you're fascinated by that.

Well, it's first of all, it's, It's frightening. It's scary. It's part of the reason. It's not scary. I never had any problem getting people off drugs, ever. No, I know that. It's scary for the drug user. It is a pathological fear of withdrawal. The methadone addicts have it worse than anybody. And guess what? It's not that bad. It's not as bad as they imagine it's going to be. It's not fun. You feel like you have the flu for four days, and you feel like you have kind of pain and discomfort and agitation. And the one syndrome symptom that people don't to talk about is desperation.

You feel a sense of desperation, which is your addiction going, go use, go use, get out of here. And that desperation is kind of what you feel when you're dieting is the same thing. I'm hungry, I'm hungry, man. Well, the point I want to make is that he did the thing to go cold turkey, and then he started using again. Of course. And the pain going through cold turkey, I think at one point the addict says to himself, I'm a failure. I cannot do this. I'm just going to resign to never doing cold turkey again.

You're thinking like a non-addicted person. Good. Because in addiction, everything, every thought is about getting back to drugs. Okay, yeah. So if you're giving up, it's so you can do drugs. Exactly. And so, yes, he may give up so he can do drugs. But that's not really giving up.

That's going back to his drugs. Right. It's different. That's kind of what I mean, though. you can use that, well, cold turkey didn't work once. It's not going to work again. But it's always a pathway to get back to drugs. Correct. And it's that thinking that why you have to say to drug addictics, shut the fuck up, sit down, take the cotton out of your ears, put the cotton in your mouth, and we will help you.

You follow what we're telling you to do, you will get well. Right. This is the one thing I always told patients. You do what we tell you to do, you will get well. And I know it's hard, and we're going to help you. Here are the words that never came out of my mouth. 30 years doing this work. Here are the words that never came by my mouth.

How are we going to get these drug addicts off heroin? How are we going to get them off heroin? It's impossible. It's not impossible. It's easy. And then they came out with Suboxone and all these sort of replacement therapies. And they're better, but it's... You just become dependent on something else?

Well, sometimes that's the right thing to do, but sometimes it's not the right thing to do. Clearly, in this case, it was not the right thing to do. We've got to take a little break here. Back with Dawson after this. Bet Online. Hey, it's Adam Carolla from the Adam Carolla show. Football season is here and bet online is where the action lives. Competitive odds, spreads, totals, player props, and same game parlays. Live betting keeps you in it from the opening drive to the final whistle. And when the clock runs out, hundreds of slots, table games, and live dealers while they're waiting. freedom of online gaming where the action moves with you and every moment is yours.

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Stream now. Pay never. And we're back. So, sorry about that. I was in the middle of a rant. No, please continue. So. But is this interesting to you?

Is this... Here's the... I'm interested in the parenting. I'm interested in the... Parenting could have been perfect. Okay. I'm interested in the... it's just the model society

I'm interested in. Now I wrote this one thing down and I always told my friends this if I ever made it if I became rich and famous before I was 25 I always told my friends if I was rich and famous before 25 I'm dead at 30. Well remember

that what's that book? Brilliant Dead 28 Brilliant Dead. What's the name of that book? Help look that up for you guys. There's a book out there about all these brilliant performers that are dead by 28. Yeah. Well there's The 27 club. Or maybe it's 27.

27. Yeah. And, well, and so you look at these kids who are older. Whose fault is that? Well, it'd be my own. Mm-hmm.

But. You have that great mom we've established? I guess it could be my own, yeah. Well, I would certainly never blame that on my mom. Well, here's where that becomes a problem. And it happens all the time.

You would surround yourself with yes people. Yes. To validate your disease and to enable it. Yes. And should you get into trouble, let's say you got in trouble at drugs and you knew it and you wanted to get well. What would you do? You know,

You're your famous rich person. What do you do? What would your thinking be? How would you think about that? Like, what am I going to do? My thinking would be, I'm ashamed and I wouldn't want to go to my parents. Okay. That's the thing I could talk, I could say.

So you don't want to admit it necessarily. Right. But would you go to treatment? Would you go to a hospital? I guess. Okay. And let's say in a week you're feeling a lot better. A lot better.

I got this thing. Now what are you going to do? See, I... Hard to put yourself in that shoes. So hard to put myself in that position. You would go, I'm out of here. I'm going out of work. I'm going to go out of concert next week.

And your team would go, hey, asshole. No, don't do that. You're going to go back to drug so fast. Your head's going to spin. Oh, no, no, no. I'm done this time. This is it. This is the one time.

I'm going to bring a sober peer with me. Going back to work prematurely is the number one reason that... People go back. And poor Hayden Panetieri, who did the eight months of treatment that I'm talking about that this kid needed. Maybe this kid did it, by the way. He might have done it at some point along the way. Gerber I'm talking about it. And we just don't know yet.

But let's say he didn't. Panetari did it, got sober, talked like a sober person, and then got back in a shitty relationship. I suspect that the medical system took her out because she started complaining about back pain. As soon as the back pain thing kicks up, somebody's going to give you an opiate. you're back in. Right. And then if you're looking around for a relationship, you're like, oh, shit, I feel alone here. That dude I always kind of liked, I was a using buddy, reach out for him thinking I'm reaching

for a life preserver, and that becomes the anvil that takes me all the way down. And that's what I think happened to her. So, you know, these things, if you're not in the structure environment, you have bad drug addiction, it is a deadly, deadly, deadly disease. I don't know how else to tell people, you've got to spend the time. Look, if I said you have a cancer that has a 75% chance of killing you, you'd have me airlift you to a treatment center. And if I said, hey, if you spend the 18 months here, your prognosis is going to get so much better.

Cancer. You'd do it in a second. But with addiction, for some reason, they go, no, no, I got this, I got this. And that, in a way, is your addiction more than that. That's the idea, yes. I want to get back. I want to get back. So hard.

You got to get buy-in from the patient. that's the craziness. And but if the patient will not budge, especially one that's an adult, and there's no, you know, as you said, you have no power to actually make a decision and force something. As a provider. How do you reach someone who has this wonderful, the, I want to say easy life. I wouldn't know he would disagree. but rich, famous, good-looking.

Right. So here's how you do it. And it doesn't always work. Dangerous illness. First of all, you have to get a buy-in from his managers and agents and stuff that he cannot work for a year. Maybe two years. And that's very hard because they make a lot of money from these people and they don't want to do that. But that's the first thing.

No work. That's it. Sorry. You cannot let him go back to work, number one. Number two, every family member has got to go to Al-Anon on a regular basis. Get an Al-Anon sponsor. Work your own steps. Period.

And they, I can't tell you how often families come in and go, I'll do anything. Tell me what to do my son. I go, okay, you'll do anything. If I recommend it, no matter what it is, you'll do. I go, okay, I'm going to tell you something. It is not, hey, lose a couple pounds, watch your fat intake. I'm going to tell you something that if you do not do, you are contributing to the demise of the person you love. Okay, tell me what to do.

Go to Allen on every day. Oh, I'm too busy. Okay, but what do you want me to do? I'll do something. Okay, what else? What else? What else? No, just do that. They never do it. Or they rarely do it. And when they do it, it contributes to the improvement of the patient. So that's got to be a huge part of this is the family

support. It's the people around you. It's the people around have to understand what they're dealing with so they can start to put boundaries around it and sort of bring it to a close. Because on its own, it doesn't like that. And it sometimes goes to the streets and has to go down there. And that's the scary part. So here's the part that's difficult. And this is a navigation, which is, if you really do this right, it gets really dangerous. It's super dangerous. And you have to kind of know when to jump in and when not to jump in. And that has to be a team that does that team of people that really know what they're doing.

Right. Now, but in terms of the doctors that he was being treated by and all of the medicines that he was taking on a regular basis, does any normal people, normal person look at this? Like you said there are two that shouldn't be prescribed together anyway. does anybody ever look at all of this stuff and go, this is way too much drugs? Does anybody ever look at that? The doctors.

The doctors are telling him that. He says, I got to taper off these things. They want to taper, but I get withdrawal. I keep trying to taper. They're trying to get me off this stuff. Okay, so all of this stuff wasn't prescribed to him. Well, yeah, they are. But then the other side, he goes,

then they give me 20 meds and they don't really watch me and tell me what to do. It's like, yeah, that's when you should be in the hospital. You should be in the hospital. Right. So they didn't put, of course, the insurance, companies will not allow that for medical management. Right. Well, this is going to have to happen more and more and more.

It is happening. People don't give a shit. Right. They don't give a shit about drug addicts. They're dying in our streets that eat a day here in California, Dawson, ate a day. And that is negligent man slaughter, and no one gives a shit. Because who cares? It's their own thing.

They're doing their own thing, whatever. So, okay, so I'm getting upset. Okay. Let's change the subject. And this poor kid, I feel terrible for his family. I feel terrible for everybody involved with it. I suspect he had pretty good care along the way. But I suspect that ultimately, this is the other thing that happens when people have money and fame.

The patient starts dictating the care. Right. And that's the worst. Right. And it looks to me like something like that was happening here. And you have to find a doctor that's kind of interested or excited by taking care of a celebrity. And then you're on. Then it's fucked up.

All right. What do you got there, Mom? Well, I heard a new word the other day. And I was like, this is another bullshit word. This can't be real. Have you ever heard of the word scrummeting? Yep, been around for about close to 10 years. Okay.

We've not used it in the last five years or so because people are finally understanding what it is. It is now called Cannabis Syndrome. Okay. But what happened to my daughters was a severe cannabis addict, and she vomited all over our house. And they all get these multimillion-dollar GI workups before somebody goes, are you smoking weed? Okay. Because it's gall-bletter disease. It's a reflux.

It's outlet obstruction. It's gastritis. They give them every diagnosis under the world, except it's the weed, dude. If you are smoking weed on a regular basis every day and you're vomiting, it is the weed. Yeah, okay. That makes sense.

100%. The scromitting term was, as it moves along, it becomes, the vomiting becomes so severe that people start screaming while they're vomiting. I feel that. If I've had. They're vomiting. Yeah. And the only treatment.

that people found useful was a hot shower. Hot showers can, and then stopping weed, which of course, if you're smoking a lot of weed, that's the last thing you want. Now, this is happening not only because of the frequency of these people smoking weed, but it's the THC content in weed, which completely blows away any of the pot that I started smoking when I was a kid. When, when, how, when, what year was that, would you say? Uh, what year, let's see, I smoked pot for the first time at 14.

years old and then I saw my grades go down. But that was what? I was 14 in... Just add 14 to your property. 90? 1990. Yeah. So they were already getting better weed by that point.

It wasn't the weed that we smoked in the 70s, I assure you that. Yeah. That sticks and seeds in it and popped when you smoked it. We used to put, we used to mess with people. And if we got the weed with the stems and seeds, we'd take a seed and stick it in the end to someone's cigarette. And then when they'd light their cigarette, it'd pop and scare them. So what happened to your grades?

What do you think was happening? All of a sudden, I believe I got dumb. Well, what do you think was actually happening? School had always been incredibly easy for me. I never had to put too much effort into stuff. And I did when it mattered, but I really, you know, I was an A student without trying. But what happened with the wheat? I put the same amount of effort into it, and I got seized.

Okay. So well established that weed affects brain development and hypocampal function, all kinds of memory things. So it's not a surprise that your academic performance, on average people go down a full grade point, on average. Okay. I think I went down too. And I noticed that.

I smoked wheat for, like, it was only a few weeks, you know, maybe three, four times. It also affects concentration, quite. remarkably, you have trouble focusing and stuff. And I smartly, I told myself, I can see that this is having a dangerous effect on me. And I need to get the fuck out of here. High school or where you're living? Everything.

I have dreams. That's the Corolla syndrome. I'm getting out of here. And if I, if my grades continue to go down like this, I'm not an A student. So I stopped smoking weed until after I graduated high school. Sidebar before we continue on the weed conversation. Why do you think some people have that instinct to get out, get better, and some just don't? I don't know.

Did you observe anything in your friends that we could sort of zero in on to try to improve that? Yeah, you know, you're smart, Dr. Drew. You're incredibly smart and you're insightful because the person, the person who I first smoked with when I was 14 years old was a juvenile delinquent who had already done time in the boys camps. Currently, he is serving a life sentence in Corcoran. And I could see that everybody, he had that gene. Yeah, yeah. Just that one messed up gene and this guy is a criminal.

Oh, boy. And I think that having him be a part of this was like, I noticed my grades. And then I'm like, well, of course your grades suck. You're hanging out with this guy. So criminality. What else? What else you think? He was...

No, no, what else? Other people... Why don't other people... Like, I asked this of Adam, too, and Adam gets criticized all the time for saying, you know, I was around all these people, they were losers,

I said I want to get out of here, and I did. Well, I... Why don't more people want to get out of here and improve their... I also went to a private high school. Okay, so you had your mom and stuff. And my parents put a lot of money into that.

And my peers, most of them... Wanted to move along? We're very wealthy and well-to-do. And I also was like, oh, this is going to be a disadvantage for me. I got to stay up at the advantage. It kind of goes back to the Brian Bishop thing where he was the chip on my shoulder because Brian in many ways was that rich kid from high school.

Oh, for sure. For sure. And then he took you to even visit richer kids. Yes. Oh, my God. I just wish we could motivate everybody to want to improve their station. You know what I mean? That's sort of my wish for the world.

And I ask Adam about this all the time, trying to looking for mining for information. And he doesn't have any compassion for people left behind. Just that's their own problem. Deal with it. Okay, back to the weed story. So now we, you're right, we have weed that approaches 100% THC concentration. We are seeing psychotic episodes at an extraordinary rate. I mean, it is, I did not believe weed could do this when it first came up as a, as a, as a observational.

in the 90s. Like there's a lot of people saying it causes schizophrenia and this kind of thing. I'm like, nah, I don't really see it. Holy shit. It's starting. I believe it is starting. Oh, my gosh. So much psychotic reaction to weed.

It's so powerful. It's creating psychotic illness in people who would not have been psychotic primarily. Right. And these are many times chronic illnesses after they develop. And thank you, weed. Thank you. Well done. Thank you for legalizing weed.

What's the matter, Andrew? You're leaning into the mic again. I'm just, thank you to, I'm just pissed to the state of California for not paying any attention to what they've done by legalization. Thank you, weed, and also thank you to this push to make it feel like, oh, it's so much, it's so much better for you than drinking and all this other stuff. It's better than everything. It's the greatest thing. You should see the conversations I've had. Well, you tell young children that, and especially developing brains. It's better than cigarettes. It's better than cigarettes. Moms are much more concerned with vaping nicotine than vaping weed. Dawson, what was your weed song in high school? The song or the piece of popcorn? said like hey this is harmless and this is fine this is good because i i know mine mine's ben harper burn one down okay yeah yeah good one i'd probably say it was like fucking zepplin's misty mountain hop

you know because we were as close to san franciscoe and we was doing some blue synergies along side of it it so well because i went to an upper i went to an upper class uh or like upper middle class private prep school outside philadelphia i did not smoke weed when i was in high school. Everybody else around me smoked weed. Kids would come to this school and be like, hey, you got to smoke weed. And it is. It fucked kids. One kid's dead.

One kid just fucking ruined his life. It's just, it's not, and it was at that edge where they started to kind of know what they were doing with this weed. Well, I said it, when they decided to legalize it, I said, I don't make the laws. You will see

the consequences. I will deal with the consequences. And then we'll see what happened. I said that I have no problem with meeting my dealer and getting weed. This does not to be legal. And the other thing, though, a little twist to this, one thing I do now, and I do this, I've done this for a while, but I go to the, you know, sanctioned marijuana store and I buy my marijuana and I will buy an ounce of setiva, and it will last me three months, and I'm fine. They always try to sell me the strongest, and I said, no, I smoke a lot of pot. Sell me the weakest pot you have. Yeah. By the way,

65-year-olds plus are having these horrible reactions, these anticholinergic reactions, another problem with it. We're going to take a break, be right back. All right, we're back talking to cannabis. And I'm not saying cannabis is a bad drug. There's no such a thing as a bad drug, in my opinion. That's how you use it. It's just our relationship with chemicals

and what they do to us. And if you're not realistic about what they do, you're going to have trouble. But we limit the concentration of alcohol. Why don't we limit the concentration of weed? That's what I understand. It's the concentration that's causing the problem. Because grain alcohol, you know, true grain alcohol, you can't buy in most states. Yeah. So why don't we do it? Why can't we buy grain weed?

Exactly. And knowing that it's toxic to the brain causing chronic mental illness. It's like, oh my God. And you could say, well, is there a lobby? Is there the marijuana lobby? I don't know because Chinese nationals are growing it in California and running the whole fucking show. So what are we doing over here? It's funny. Chemicals in the water. And this is where I get so pissed at the environmentalists. Because if you really fucking cared... If you really fucking cared, you'd do forestry management. You do forest management.

You would clear out all of the illegal grows in California which are dumping chemicals into our groundwater supply and are going to come to fucking kill us. They don't care. They don't fucking care. They want to be heard, man. Power and control. They want to be heard. They want to be heard. They want to represent. Yeah. No, no. It's insanity.

And you would also push innovation to improve. Listen, I was part of the ecologist movement in the 70s. You've heard me talk about it. And guess we were predicting, one of our biggest prediction in addition to an ice age, our other prediction was famine. There's going to be a famine. Acid rains is going to destroy the crops.

It's going to be a famine. Nothing you can do about it. Prepare yourself. And guess what caught us out of that? GMOs. We didn't see GMOs coming. We didn't see the innovation. Now GMO, you can do what you want with GMOs, but that's what got us away from this famine

prediction. That's why there was not a famine. Interesting. Because you could grow with no water and no pesticides. I know this, no that. And all right, back to T.C. Yeah, go ahead. So in addition to psychotic illness, addiction is, whoo, people get so addicted.

Except my daughter has not missed a meeting in like four years, five years. Good for her. You know, there's, here's the thing about, I think you can say this about most addicts. And I, I, from knowing you for so long and, you know, seeing life and, you know, knowing myself and being completely honest with myself. I'm like, I think the only thing that separates me from a 12-stepper is my life has not become unmanaged. More consequences, yeah.

And that's right. You can't convince people to get sober before they want to get sober. And I'm perfectly fine with that. And it's so right is a lot of work. And you need the gift of desperation before you're willing to do that. I understand that. And I see, I look forward in my life. And I know that they're playing drinkers.

There's one day. Plenty of alcoholics out there that drink that haven't crossed over yet. Right. And one of the crossing over points is not just the consequence of the aspiration, but also the loss of control over your use. There is a point where you lose control and addiction, and that's when you have to do 12. Here's my take on alcoholism.

I think alcoholics are the most positive people in the world. because you always think, if I just have one more drink, it'll be a little better. It's the most forward-looking, when I can't, I'm having a brain fart, I can't think of the actual word. There's a, being positive. What is it? Uphoric? No, no. You've not heard my theory about addiction.

So the addiction affects, without exception, at least 10% of the population. It's always there at 10% at least. And the question then becomes, well, if this thing is so devastating in destruction, why is it in the genome? Why didn't it burn out a long time ago, right? It should have just gone away because it killed all these people. And to be fair, I mean, it has to kill you before you can reproduce. But, I mean, it would have slowly kind of gone away.

It wouldn't have stayed so constant. So I started thinking about it many, many years ago. and I realized the highest genetic burden. You can have different degrees of alcoholism, right? So somebody explodes the first drink they get. Some people, they keep drinking years into their life and never leave really loose control. That's a different genetics. And on the globe, if you look at where the disease of alcoholism, and by the out, I'm using

alcoholism as a marker for addiction. It's just, it's all the same. Okay. I'm just using the term alcoholism. And it's also been around the longest. On the globe, it exists on pop—it comes out with the most intensity in populations that are isolated, like island populations, Scotland, Central Europe, Greenland. Who are subjected to genocidal military assault over multiple generations. Oh, Jesus.

In other words, populations that are under profound stress for survival, the alcoholic survived the best. By that— Ireland. Ireland. Oh shit. But what about, I wish we had that kind of detail in North Korea. Is there? Asians have a little different story with it because they can't drink because of the Asian flush.

Oh, that's true. But I'm sure there's something like that that goes on there. But the disease of addiction, alcoholism, and think of the qualities that alcoholic has. Thrill seekers, they're fearless. And I started messing with this when I would give a lot of. to groups of alcoholics. I go, guys, if a bunch of Huns came over the hill here, what would you guys do? And they all go, I'd grab something. I'd run at them. And I'm thinking, holy shit, that's not what I would do. I'd run the other way. And so evidently, in military assaults, to have your wits about you,

to be turned on by it, to go towards it, you're a little more likely to survive. Yeah. And alcoholics make great extreme athletes, shortstop, race car drivers. I told you, fighter pilots. Yeah. And that's why also that survivors of alcoholism, alcohol-related car accidents, the person who survives is the drunk driver. They just survive an adversity better than everybody else. Wow. Not when they're drinking.

Like, you're not going to be a Scottish warrior drinking and survive. But when peace comes, you're going to be a drinker. But you're going to be a warrior, a maniac warrior in the battles. That is so interesting. And the braveheart portrayed this perfectly. I think, what's his name? Mel Gibson knows this, at least intuitively, knows that this is true, what I'm saying.

And so the fact that people with addiction and alcoholism feel bad about it, to me, is weird. Because, yeah, it makes you do horrible things, but it's not because you're a horrible person, it's your disease manifest, and you've got to take care of it. You're doing horrible things in your illness. And you have qualities that are superior, creative, intelligent.

Again, in extreme circumstances, nobody does better than this. What is that saying? Scott's drank before battles. I'm not saying they did. I'm not saying that. These beverages were used to boosts where else. I'm sure they drank because they were alcoholics.

But you need your wits about you when you're going to battle. It's just later they drank. They want to find that sweet spot. Like you ever play in pool in a dive bar, and you've had like two, you're between your second and third beer, and you're making every single shot. That's not a non-alcoholic thing. A non-alcoholic starts to perform less well immediately out of the influence of alcohol.

Right. But, and by the way, non-acopholics get sleepy initially. Alcoholics get elevated. They want to go do shit. That's one of the things. See, I don't, I think I have a form of alcoholism, but my alcoholism is very different than most other people. How's that?

I don't need a drink every day. I don't age. I don't ache for a drink. I maybe drink once every two weeks. But not yet. It doesn't happen. It's not people don't start typically. You don't start like.

Right, but I'm 52 years old. I've been doing this for a long time. You've managed to control it. But when I start drinking, I get the energy and I continue to drink. Yeah, of course. And sometimes take it too far. And if it's in your family. And if you have consequences from it, that's it. That's it. That's the illness. So you have to be very, very careful with it. And it might got to control, might not. But if it lose control, you've got to be ready to do something about it. That's all I'm saying.

I'll share with you a quick story that I think my mother might not be happy that I share. But my father was an alcoholic, but the same kind that I just described. Intermittent. He's an intermittent. We had to go out to dinner with my father's family. And my dad was driving us, but in order for him to go to the dinner, he put down a six-pack of... Something. And it was like Bushlight or something. I saw him put down a six-pack in under two minutes. And then we all got in the car and he drove us to dinner. Of course.

Well, alcoholics typically, they're actually less likely to get pulled over because one of the features of alcoholism is resistance to alcohol intoxication. So they don't get motoric difficulties, the way a non-alcoholic does. But the problem with the alcoholic is they keep drinking, then they're in trouble and then they drive. See, I have those motor problems. I actually, and I've told people this. You just told me you played three games of pool after a couple of beers. is that's not a normal thing. I can, I slur fast.

Other than that, I'm okay. Interesting. Interesting. So anyway, so, so this thing evolved to help with, so, so literally if you follow my logic to its end point, the alcoholic is a more evolved form of the human being. Because evolution is evolving in adversity, and alcoholics can do that. They evolve to what they are in extreme adversity. and no one says that evolution is strictly in a positive direction.

It goes in a direction so you survive better. It may bring liabilities with it. I agree. In the case of alcoholism, it brings this thing with it that when you're not fighting the Huns, you use too much or he gets out of control. I thought of the word I was looking for earlier. I was going to say that alcoholics are the ultimate optimists. Yeah, they can be.

They can be. That's an interesting. I think about that because they also become the ultimate pessimists. There's a joke angle to it, though, in that there's nobody so sure that things will be better if I just have another drink. It's going to get better. It's going to get better. Just one more drink. And to your point, where they really get depressed is where that stops happening.

Yeah. Then they like, oh, shit, this thing I love so much is letting me down. It's the law of diminishing returns. Well, usually it's kind of a part, like a rapid diminishing return. Right, right. Oh, I've said my piece. So what else do you want to talk about? Anything else you want to get into?

You know, if we got time, I'd like to play this one thing for you. I saw this 45, this interview, a story on ABC about looks maxing. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We do not have enough time to get into all of the great stuff, but I just want to play you this. First 45 seconds of this looks maxing video now. This is the life of a looks maxer. And let's go ahead and listen to 45 seconds.

There we go. I don't actually understand how people can't see the reality that is the better you look, the better you're treated, and the more power you have. But it was just like obvious to me. So my name is Dylan Watham. I am a looks maxing slash life maxing creator. I help people improve by giving them tips. And my main focus is to improve everyone's life.

My day starts around like 2 p.m. As soon as I get up in the morning... Stop right there! Stop right there. This guy needs to be brain maxing. Oh, yeah, well, that's the point. That's what we always used to do, was you develop your eternal soul.

Yeah, no. You develop your e-cognition, you develop your skill set. This is all surface. This is all narcissism. And it's all, essentially, it's a big lie. What you are doing is putting a mask on it. Yes.

Yeah, you're putting on a suit. And these people would be much better dealing with making themselves beautiful on the inside and accepting who the fuck you are. So let's say he even gets something out of it, girls' power, whatever, it will feel empty. He's too young to understand where this goes. It goes to an empty, empty, sad, sad place. And it's a body dysmorphia. And God knows what consequences. Right.

This guy goes on to say he wears makeup. up. He has this skin regimen that he does. Guys, we have a problem in our society. We have a major problem. Men are no longer. There's no more stoicism. There's no more, this is the hand I was dealt, and I am proud of it because this is what God gave me, and I'm making the best out of what I am. I think there's an element of evil to all of this.

What I am has become a meat puppet, but whatever. All right, we got to wrap this thing up. Coming up, October 2nd is Coral and Casper, Wyoming, the Rialto, Casper, October 3rd, Estes Park, Colorado, the Stanley Hotel, Concentall, two shows there. That's the shining place. October 8th, Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey, Uncle Vinnie's, with... Don Jameson going to be joining the ace man at Uncle Vinny's. Go to Adamcarola.com to get all the details there, and go to Dr. Drew.com and Dr. at Dr. Drew Pinsky for all my details.

Also, follow on Instagram at DR. Drew Pinsky. Dr. Pinsky. Love to see you guys there. and also on X. It's at Dr. Drew. Check us out. Watch Ask Dr. Drew Tuesday and Thursday at 2 o'clock Pacific time. And thank you, Dawson.

It's been a real pleasure. Absolutely, my pleasure. Dr. Drew, you're an inspiration. Follow me on the socials at DOS Angeles. And mahalo. Hello, and welcome to Plutofo. If you know the name of the movie you'd like to see, just stream it for free on Pluto TV.

Where all your blockbuster favorites are landing all summer long. Catch Anchorman, The legend of Ron Burgundy. Fantastic. The Matrix Trilogy. Welcome to the real world. Mean girls. Shut up.

Titanic. I'm the key in the world. And so much more. For showtimes, press nothing. They're free 24-7. That is so a fetch. On Pluto TV. Stream now.

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