The Adam and Dr. Drew Show - Classic #1039: White Privilege Lung

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

March 25, 2019Adam and Dr. Drew talk health, with Adam using Drew’s bronchial issue to argue that the immune system has to be challenged to get stronger. They also take calls about a mother’s treatment plan and an increasingly obsessive ex.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Well, in this throwback episode of Adam and Drew from March 25th, 2019, talk about white privilege, white lung. Enjoy. 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 on.

It should be run by Meggit. It on, man. Man. Man. Good times, right? It's great when you speak for a living, having not having a voice. Yeah. It only happens to me when I yell for prolonged periods of time.

It's weird. As I've gotten older, every time I get an uprestra infection, I get this. And I was just gloating about how I never get sick. I'm sick in a year since I started this crazy diet. And I got to say, I'm affected less by it. I don't feel so bad. Because of the diet. Yep.

Yep. But it's it has taken my voice the way it always does. And the only thing it's weird is I never used to get this ever until I had an episode of pneumonia about 10 years ago. And then now every time, every day time. So it's sort of a bronchial thing I get myself into. Well, I was talking about it on my podcast last week, but I hope everyone's buckled in. Turns out Ace Man may have been right about the immune system and about exposing it. Oh, yeah? and having it work and having a fight against things and that this notion of rub everything with Purell and keep your kids in a safe environment and keep them away from all the germs. Turns out your body needs something to do.

And it's got to be doing push-ups. And you put it in the space capsule and it just floats around in zero-gravity environment. And it loses muscle mass and bone density. And you guys have heard me bring up the metaphor before, but it's the exact same thing with your immune system. It's got to be activated. And they did it.

It was interesting in the study. I always said, how come the poor people I hung out with never had any allergies? How come Chris and Ray never had allergies? How come every poor Mexican I ever worked with on a construction site? Never had any food needs or weren't allergic to anything. I mean, literally, Would you imagine, everyone imagine this. Imagine going into a group of 10 pampered, you know, imagine that taking 10 of the kids who got fast-tracked over USC and Harvard with their parents that were taking the SATs for them.

Imagine just saying to those 10 people, hey, I'm going on a lunch run. I'm going to go to Taco Bell or Cuckaroo or Mickey D's or whatever. Don't worry, everyone good with tacos and then just leaving. And them going fine. Impossible. In goddamn possible. But on the construction site, I would routinely tell 10 guys working, I'm getting lunch. And they'd go, all right.

And I'd either go to subway and just get everyone turkey clubs or go to Taco Bell and get everyone burritos or whatever. Whatever. But there was no. Uh-oh. Oh, boss, slow down. I got a lactose situation. going on here. It's a tree nut allergy. No, no, didn't exist. And I started to think about that. I started to think why. I thought about it. I've been thinking about it for 20 years.

I've been thinking, how come none of the scrappers? How come none of the dudes I grew up with? How come none of the guys I worked in strike? How come no one ever had an allergy? No allergies. But how come the rich kids had allergies? They had allergies. We didn't have allergies. And I always sort of thought of it as that's a luxury. Like we couldn't afford an inhaler and a day off or whatever. They may have had them. They just moved right past them. Didn't notice them.

Didn't know whatever. But they did studies. And I think it was, I don't know, turn of the century, England or France or whatever. The rich kids all had hay fever. The poor kids didn't. Because they lived in hay. The rich kids, even back then before double-pained windows. and, you know, Tyvex house wrap and all this environmental, you know, hepa filters and all it.

Just back then we'd just be living in a thatch roof and a castle or whatever slate roof or, you know, brick stone everywhere. But even then, just the cleaner life that they had, the privilege, life actually weakened their system. Yeah. And it's pretty apparent. I see it. I see it all the time. I have not disagree with you with that theory. as much as you've had it.

Yeah, but everyone still thought I was nuts when I told them. No, no, they wanted to go get the Purell. Oh. Like, my whole thing was, I didn't care. If somebody said, I'm sick, I can't shake your hand. I go shake my hand. I would routinely shake the hand of 350 people after a show, take a picture of everyone, and then go back the hotel.

Pick your nose. Pick my nose. And then I would go grab a handful of cashews and just eat them in my hotel bed. And I wouldn't wash my hand. hands ever. And everyone thought I was nuts. But I don't think so. I think it's gravity. And I think your system needs it. Now, I don't think you can flood your, you can't go from living in a bubble to throwing yourself into a sewer. That's not going to work. But you have to start introducing this stuff. And when the dust settles on the Purell and the antibacterial soap,

and it already has settled, not good. The 300 handshakes is one thing. But the biggest power move I've ever seen you pull was the nut on the tarmac at Burbank Airport that just that whole airport smells like jet fuel I believe a bird picked it up and then dropped it but it was the most noble of the birds it was a pigeon correct a pigeon picked up my a rat with rings the pigeon picked up my I think it was an almond my picture it picked it up and spat it out which I thought was funny like it was like oh I was like oh my nuts too good for you are you too good for my nut like was I threw it at the bird when I was walking onto the plane and the bird's like, let me see what this is.

And then it kind of went, eh, I don't think so. And I was like, all right, don't be stuck up. And I walked over there and got it. And ate it. Hell yeah, I ate it. I've never, all this thing that people always telling you about, oh, I ate this, and then I felt that way and I ate that and I felt this way. All I just hear is, I'm a puss, I'm a puss, I'm a puss, I'm a puss, I'm a puss.

That's all I hear. You can get it with more of that in this country than other countries. Oh, yeah. No, in other worlds and other lands, it is a real thing. But here it's not. And so we've ramped it up because we have to convince the hysterics that it is. Well, the hysterics generally are sort of really bugging me. It feels like everything is hysterics now. You know, we were talking to Neil deGrasse Tyson yesterday. And I just was thinking about how hysterical everyone is about global warming. And here's a guy who's an expert. And he's a very, very matter of fact, about it. We've got solutions. Let's take it. We'll do it. No problem. And the same is true of everything. Well, everything is some sort of weird, hysterical reaction. But let's look at it this way, Drew. If you are needing stimulation or something.

Well, here's what you want. Here's what you want. There's a bunch of people and they're laying around a room, right? Yeah, laying around. Laying around a room. And you want them up and out of the house. quickly. Yeah.

So if you go into that room and you go, hey, the Chapo-Lay. Hey, guy. Hi, guy. Hi, guy. Hey, the Chipotle closes in like seven hours, so we should get moving. Everyone will go, all right, well, let me finish watching Game of Thrones and then we'll see about it, right? But if you come running in that room and yell, the goddamn house is on fire.

Yeah. It's on fire. Fire! Fire! Everyone's going to jump up and run out of the house. And that's what you want. You want them up and out. So you yell fire, and that'll get them, six times a day.

You run into the room and yell fire. Now, I'm the guy who just lays there and lets you yell fire all you want. But there's a lot of people that get up and run out of the house six times a day every day. So true. a bit and I can't be doing yard work in a hoodie right now. It's too hot. I like lighter outfits that still look put together and that's why I keep coming back to Quince. Quince European linen pants and shirts are perfect to toss on in the summer and start at just 34 bucks. That is inexpensive these days. And if you like saving money, and I do like saving money, quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. It's not just clothing either. They carry custom upholstered sofas, ceramic cookware, premium betting, all high-end stuff that looks great and performs well too. I've been wearing their 100% European relaxed short-sleeve shirts on stage,

super light, super comfortable. Treat yourself. Trust me, you're going to love Quince this summer. Am I right, Daphne? Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to Quince. com slash a d s for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in canada too that's q i nc e dot com slash a ds for free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash ad so uh i got some calls up here let's do that tell you some funny stories about my dad oh first I think some call uh oh had to repeat the fourth grade three times you told me that last week oh did I tell you yeah I got a new one now uh oh all right John 46 Texas

Hey, fellas. What's going on? Your dad didn't... Hold on second, John. Hold on, sorry. Got to ask this question. And your dad spoke English, not Italian, right? Oh, yeah. It was not like he was...

Didn't know the language. No. He did. His parents, you know, spoke Italian. Okay. Go ahead, John. Okay, so I've got a 73-year-old mother, and in the last probably two years, it feels like,

and she's been kind of exhibiting behavior that is a layperson, diagnoses seeming like bipolar disorder. Okay, well, that's not what this is. Why not? Because that comes on in your 20s. Oh. Okay.

So this is something neurological. What's happening? Well, dramatic kind of mood swings. So brief history, we just relocated back to Texas. You know, she bought a house, super excited about it on the day of closing, gets cold feet, hates everything about it. eventually moves in, just loses interest and has wild swings from euphoria to deep depression with tears and everything else. And in the past, my sister and I kind of staged an intervention with her, convinced her

to go to a psychiatrist once. She felt like this person was just trying to take her for her money. Why in the past has that been necessary? Well, same behavior, just, you know, just crushing depression that she can't seem to shake, just tears constantly always. And does she have a general doctor? She does have, yeah, a GP. Is she on a medication? She is taking Zoloff now.

But, you know, it's one of those situations where she'll skip it for a couple of days, but then try to catch up by taking several and just kind of convincing her that the medication and any sort of therapy would be beneficial is it's really challenging. Okay. The way she is taking this medication, she could really harm herself. So this is crazy making. So why? What does that mean? What, taking multiples? I mean, you want to induce bipolar. That's what this sounds like. There's something wrong, like the medication or something. And that for sure is what this is if she's taking it like that. That is not okay. Nothing about that is okay. So, you know, we're dealing with a proud person who is reluctant to take our advice or our insistence. It shouldn't be your responsibility.

It shouldn't be your responsibility. This should be her doctor. So you've got to get her back in there, tell him or her what's going on. And this person's got to get control of this situation. This is not, this is a mess clinically. Plus, whatever else is sort of underlying here needs to be properly diagnosed. Yeah. So this is...

And you think a GP is sufficient to do that? Well, I don't, but it's up to that generalist to make the referrals to the psychiatrist and the neurologist and to get the proper care for this person. The fact that you're sort of taking a 73-year-old and sprinkling them with the serotonary uptake inhibitor and then sending them on their way, that's silly. That does not... So you start with the GP and then they start getting specific after that. You've got to make it very clear. This is not working. This is not okay.

the situation is a mess. She's extremely using the medication in very dangerous ways, and the doctor has to take control of to deal with it properly. It may mean getting visiting nurses in there. It may mean a lot of different things. We have different things at our disposal to get control when elderly patients start doing this kind of thing. But it seems to me more than anything else, you need a proper diagnostic workup, too.

All right, Drew. So here's a quiz. All right. Found this interesting, and I don't know why. Is that your dad again? It's about trade school. Oh. So I was interested that he learned to play the trumpet in trade school, but it was also sort of interesting that that was a trade.

There was a job to be had. There was a job to be had and a big band traveling around. And then I said, yeah, yeah, wood shop, you know, metal pipe fitting or whatever. And he said, yeah, but most people went for this to the trade school. And I'm going to ask you to guess. Yes. What did they learn at the trade school? What most people learned?

Yeah. Okay. So he went for music, but most people go for. Yeah, there wasn't most people going to play the football. Right. Most people... I'd say the, to hear him say it, the lion's share of the guys were trying to become. Auto mechanic, that kind of thing?

You kind of got to think about, yeah, there was definitely some of that. Yeah. And probably a lot of that back in the 40s or whenever it was. Would it be just carpentry building and that sort of things? You can't see. You have to think. about that period of history? You just have to kind of, when you hear it, you'll go,

oh. That's what they were going for. Yes. Here's this plumber now. And this is in the Philadelphia area. Yes. Going for trade school of Philadelphia. And Gary, it's not plumber because it was plumber,

I wouldn't be doing this because it's too easy. I mean, it's too, it's right there. You know what I mean? The construction plumber, auto mechanic. It's so weird. What's weird to me is that it's not those things. That's what's weird to me. Well, first off, I'm not here to tell you that I know the statistical breakdown of the school.

This is just my dad's version of being 15. I get it. And what many of the guys were doing. 15 going to trade school. And when you hear it, it'll make perfect sense. Gary's looking puzzled too. Everyone's sitting down? Yeah.

You ready? Yeah. Taylor. That does not make sense to me. Oh, yes, it does. Don't be an asshole. Gary, of course it makes perfect sense. Every guy who was even remotely a business person dressed in a three-piece suit everywhere.

You think of pictures of airplanes from the 60s and 70s. It's a perfect thing to teach a stupid 14 or 15-year-old who's not going to go off to college or whatever who wants to. Okay, Drew, don't make that face. It's a big market for that. Taylor. That guys were Taylor's back then. They're not really anymore, but. Yeah.

I wouldn't have thought of that. No, I know, but please. Over all these other things. I'm not saying there were more Taylor's than mechanics. I think a large group went into big. Taylor was a job. For sure. It was a job that men did.

And it was a job that you would be trained in and you could make a nice living. I remember when I first saw, the first time I ever saw Taylor was a long time ago. And he had a huge diploma from an institute in France. Yeah, it was lambscale. Yeah, everything is, you know, old Navy and outsourced to China and blah, blah, blah, but this is when people wore suits. They were tailored and you'd have pants made for you and it was a, that was a job. Oh, sure. All right.

All right. Where are we going? Well, let's go down to line six. Justin 32, Sacramento. Yeah. I had a question kind of more for Drew. I have really bad plaque psoriasis. I've had it for years.

I've tried all the topical, steroidal treatments. It would work for a little while, and then they stop working. Does UV light help you at all? Well, I haven't gotten medically. I know they have like the medical tanning beds, but I have noticed when I get a sunburn,

it actually clears my skin up. But I know that's not really a good practice. Why is it called plaque psoriasis? Because you get these plaques. just these big plaques of psoriasis. Is that like a patch? Yeah, there's gut-tate psoriasis, there's all the same kind of psorias.

My question was, I finally got a doctor that was willing to forego just the topical stuff and put me on some of the injectable medications. And I've seen commercials for a whole bunch. I was on Humira for about two years, but it stopped working for me. So they just put me on cosentics.

My question is, I mean, I don't know. They send me the fine print, but who reads that? What are the side effects? What are the, what's the downside of taking this stuff long term? I've talked to people that have been on these for years and years, and they say, yeah, it's great. Yeah, it's a monocle. But I feel like I'm probably, I don't know, am I killing my liver?

Is this going to give me cancer at 50? I have never prescribed consentics. It's a monocle antibody, and those things are usually pretty safe. Yeah, it's sort of upper respiratory stuff more than anything else. and hypersensitive reactions, no, it seems pretty safe. We were talking about immune systems. Is there more of this stuff going around? I see these Humera commercials.

I feel like I'm seeing a lot of those things now. The biologicals, yes, yes. Oh, ridiculous. There's one after that of the other. They're very effective and they're very good. But I find it weird that they go directly to consumers of that stuff. Do you have Crohn's disease? Take your Humera.

It's like, how many Crohn's patients are there out there? That they're not on Humera, that you have to advertise to the general public. What I'm wondering is Crohn's disease or psoriasis or whatever it is we're talking about, I feel like there's more of it or I'm seeing more commercials. Way more commercials. Well, that much I know, but Crohn's disease. Yeah, you've never heard of that 15 years ago, I bet.

Well, I'm trying to tie this into my whole sort of world order of everybody and their inner I'm not seeing more Crohn's disease. You're not as a doctor. I'd say no. I'd say no. Can I got something. Well, let's tell me if this is, tell me, tell me what you think about this statement as well. Yeah.

I should look it up. These Crohn's increasing. Along with all the anti-bacterial soap and, oh, you're going to make an interesting question. That's all. Yeah. All of the metamusols and all the stomach. all the tums and all the anti-acid and all the stuff that everyone's kind of dumping in to kind of put the fire out in their belly or to move things along or the laxatives. That's got to be a hamster wheel to hell, right?

Like the more they're taking, the more you need, the more you need, the more you get relying on. I mean, again, back to, you know, diet, exercise, walks, classical music. know, like, didn't you feel like there's more of that and we're drowning it out with more medications and that be gats? Go ahead. Let me read some data. In a study recently published in the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, a Mayo Clinical researchers report that cases of inflammatory bowel disease are on the rise.

What? Shocking. And so that's Crohn's an ulcerative colitis. But I don't let me jump in. And so your theory, I would argue, is accurate in the sense that, in the inflammatory, Amateur bowel disease is an autoimmune disease. It's back to the gravity question. Thank you.

Also, people sitting and watching too many news stories about Russia taking over our democracy, I think is causing and not enough long walks with the dog on the beach. Yeah. Right? Yeah. All right. Wait, wait. I'm going to tease your next piece.

No, no. I go. It's a good one. Oh, good. Go ahead. is increasing acceptance of a hygiene hypothesis would suggest that the inverse relationship between what's CD, Crohn's disease and the level of a society's industrialization is causal. That's what you're saying.

That's what I'm saying. We're too clean and it's causing this. That the lack of a parasitic infection is causing weakened systemic cytokine profiles leading to elevated TH1 cytokines and ultimately the development of spontaneous TH1-mediate diseases, such as Crohn's. So not only we do, we need more exposure to dirt and viruses and bacteria, we need more parasites, according to this. Well, nature knows what she's doing, right?

I mean, and also, aren't we figuring, I mean, look, to get immune to something, we introduce a little of it to your body, right? We've all signed off on that idea, right? Yeah. Well, how dare you. Okay. Look, all I'm saying is moms and dads and everyone else hiding all the people. peanut butter and washing everything with the veggie wash spray.

I know everyone thinks you're being the best parent in the world. I do not think you are. And I do not think society. I don't think science will be kind to this as we look back on it. And the other thing I was saying as well, and this will be another thing, I'd see Lynette get that can of sunscreen and just, just like spray it all over the kid's face. I was like, they're just sucking in all the propellants and all the junk. Like, they're going to get white lung or white privilege lung.

Whatever it is, we don't, listen, we don't know that slathering your kid in this chemical is not going to have reproduction. Repercussions and reproduction. Repercussions that we don't know. Okay. Fall up there. What do you want? We'll go in order. Three.

Four. Jacob. Missouri. Hey, what's up, guys? It's going on, man. I've called. Yeah, we're not going in chronological order. We're going in chronological order,

meaning the time that you called it. Okay. Here you go. Gotcha. No, been a while since I called you guys. I've called before. What's going on? Oh, not a whole lot.

Wanted some advice. The kind of, the situation is, broke up with my ex about a month ago. We were together about eight, nine months, and it was just getting to where it was toxic. He would get physically violent. I would have to restrain him and stuff like that.

And like I said, he's been gone about a month. I've got him blocked on all social media. But he, I mean, he'll go as far as making fake accounts to contact me. And he's just, it seems obsessive making videos of himself crying, sending them to me. What's the question? I think I'm dealing with like a mental illness here. You're dealing with maybe somebody with borderline disorder, and borderlines can't deal with abandonment.

They can't deal with loss and abandonment. And it's very tough for them. It's very tough. But your best, and what he's engaging in is something called simple stalking. You might want to read about simple stalkers. And your best way to deal with it is zero contact, zero reaction. Okay. Yeah.

And also, back to our horrible society, we're living in a... a world that is decided that sort of the stiff upper lip is not the path to go down, that everyone had to kind of spill everything out, let everyone know how they were feeling and exactly when they were feeling it. There's something to be said for sharing and feeling and doing that, but there's also something to be said for, you know, dignity and pride and stiff upper lip and sort of moving on and, you know, having that, which we're not, we're making it easier and easier and easier for people to be at their worst, essentially. Look, nobody who gets dumped doesn't have that impulse to go, fuck you, the horse you

read, here's a video of me doing it. But we stop ourselves, in other words. The barrier to entry to humiliating yourself has been lowered quite a bit. So sorry about that. Yeah, he's real good at that. Jacob. And, you know, there's a new thing, Drew, you tell me. Yeah. I'm pretty good at this. All right. See, right. Everyone's going to have to be a black belt. It's something that I've already been a brown belt at for many years, which is, I will decide whether I've done you wrong or ruined your life. I will not listen to you screaming. You've done me wrong and you've ruined my life. Because there are way too many people. shouting that these days. And if I internalized it, I would be a cripple. So you're going to turn on the

news, you're going to see it, and you're going to go to work, and you're going to see it. You're going to have a lot of people talking about what you've done to them. And you are now more than ever going to have to decide, did you do that to them? Or is that self-imposed? And if it is, you're allowed to go on and enjoy your life. It's hard for people when they're in, you know what I mean? They don't see the guide, you know, the guidepost quite as clearly. Yeah, but what about you at an airport? What about me in an airport? Some nutball chick stops you and tries to tell you. Oh, yeah. Your business and you're all ears. Yeah, yeah. No, no. Your point is well taken, which is ultimately it's an issue of boundaries, right? And if the world is going to have less boundaries, you're going to have

More Armadillo. I don't disagree with you. I'm just saying that for the guy like this, it's okay that it's hard for him to see. And it sounds like an easy thing to do. But it's his job. He's got to do it. You got to pay attention. And no matter how nuts this guy goes, that's not your fault.

He can't see how it would be. So that's our opinion, just listening to your brief story. Until next time, I'm an accrual for Dr. Breesay. Mahalo.