The Adam and Dr. Drew Show - Classic #116 Should I tell My Kids About My Past?

Episode Date: July 28, 2026

February 9, 2014  Adam and Drew are back taking your calls. They talk about how Adam is able to speak openly about his family and friends on the podcast without fear of offending people and give a listener advice on how he should navigate that as well. They also speak with a listener who has been sober for over 20 years and is wondering when to tell her 12 year old about her addiction. As the show wraps up the help a guy in his late twenties who wants to know when is the right time to actually pull the trigger and get married.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 the Adam and Drew show, date, February night, 2014, show 116. Should I tell my kids about my past? 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. The show's been on a minute. Get on.

Thanks so much for joining the show. Thank you so much for sharing the good news with a friend, man. Word or mouth. Drew, how are you feeling, buddy? I'm way better. Oh, yeah. Remember a couple weeks ago I was complaining about not feeling you, and your empathic response was,

you're always not feeling good. I'm feeling good now. Well. I've been sick, I've been fucking getting a resurgie. It took a long time. All right. You notice there's the pattern here, though, right? That I sometimes don't feel good.

Yeah. Yeah, I've had surgery, dude. Somewhere, no, but before that. I think you're somewhere between like a chick and an overbred poodle. All right, fair enough. Okay. Drew has more, I've said this to Gary. I won't say if he agreed or disagreed, but Drew's got a lot more chicken him than people would think.

You've said that since we first met. Yes. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I thought you were going to pass at me. It's an interesting wiring. Is it? Yeah. Why is that?

I mean, it's weird. You're raised by a woman and a man. No, and I play football. You have a sister, and you're athletic and everything. Yeah, and I definitely have a... You're not a feminine in any way, but you're wired. Yeah. You're sort of chick-ass.

I wonder... I have the codependency stuff, so I... You know, I was having... And you're also a crusader for estrogen. Yeah. as though it was something that I harbor within me. I'm a crusader for testosterone placement, too. Yes, but you're...

Crusade for women. You're, you're, you have many things that you would, you would never let yourself get away with or me get away with, but our wives can get away with it and you would defend it fiercely. But if I flip, if I flip, if I flip, if I flip the, flip and flop the circumstances, you would be arguing against us. No, I overreesome. idealize women. That is for sure. And I like to hang out with women. I like spending time with women. And I like spending time with men, too. But if I pressed face to the mirror, I probably would choose spending time with women over men, which is a weird thing. That's a weird thing.

You're a man of passion. I understand. There's a passion too. I'm, I'm sort of with you, you know, work on, it could, it could work on a few levels. And you don't have, you don't have a lot of guy friends. I don't. You have guys you're friendly with. I have guys I work with. Lots of them. Yeah. You just realize the part where you pal around, it's so sad. I like to get back to that. It used to be a big, big part of my life, paling around, you know. I just saw the way you treat Ray. It's not likely, I can't follow around with your high school

friends anymore. Yeah. Don't get me going. I pile around with you a little bit, more than I do with just about anybody else. Yeah, no, I look, I started to really think about it. I spend more time with Mike August than anybody on the planet. I like them a lot. We end up traveling everywhere together, sitting in the back of cars together, going to every event together. It's just eventually that person who you travel with becomes your weird companion.

All right. Phone calls we must take. I know it sounds like Yoda there. You have something that's jumping out on you? I'm up there. Albert, Atlanta. Let's just quickly. Ooh.

What is Albert, Atlanta? What is that? What is that? That's interesting. Yeah. I don't know what it is. Albert, 27, Atlanta. Yes. What's going on? Hey, Adam.

Hey, Drew. How you doing? We're good. Good. Hey, um, questions. Actually, I had two questions. I'll go ahead and stop my first question real quick. My first question is, I was wanting to,

I always wanted to, you know, start my own podcast and a little comedy podcast. But before I could even start, I got really nervous because I wanted to be funny and edgy a little bit, you know, kind of like Adam, knuck-in-line, you know, kind of my role model a little bit. Thank you. Ringing endorsement. What I realized, though, is that, like, you say, like, kind of a lot of expensive things, like about your family and your friends.

And I mean, I know now it's probably a big deal because, like, you know, you're literally a millionaire. So, you know, kind of, you know, who cares what they think. But, I mean, when you first started off and you weren't making that much, I mean, you weren't, you know, have all the money or you weren't that much like you weren't a millionaire. Like, didn't that affect you and you, like, said something negative about your family? Can I answer to that? Can I answer to your family? Go ahead. Let me try my head at this.

Here's how he's going to respond, I believe. It's just interesting to try to respond to this. A, he knew for sure no one in his family would hear it because they don't listen to or watching. anything he does. True. That's A. That's true. B, when he says horrible things about his friends, he doesn't give a ship because he says the same

stuff to them to their face. And by the way, they did way worse up to him earlier in their life. And this is a little payback time. So he was free and clear on all fronts. Is that about right? That's pretty good. So, Albert, first off, you probably shouldn't equate money to what you can say or what you care about or what your feelings are, interpersonal relationships and things like that.

It's probably, I'm just going to get you off that path. I'm going, well, now you're rich. You can say whatever you want. No, you can't. What? I offend my sister, so I give her $100. And she's not offended anymore. Like, no.

My family does not listen to anything that I do or support anything that I do, and they never have. So I'm allowed to say freely about them, whatever I think. Number two, the little bits and pieces that they do receive. it's unclear to me. I don't know whether my dad read my last book, not Taco Bell material, which would have said some unflattering things about him. I don't think he reads it. But if he did, I don't know if he would confront me about it or not. I don't think any one of my families read any of my books or anything I do.

Well, imagine Sonny grows up and writes offensive things about you. you wouldn't you when your kid writes that stuff you just go well that's why you feel he's got to write that you know i'm i'll take the punch that's all right you know what i mean you wouldn't be like hey ho ho ho what do you what that didn't happen like that you know what i mean well there's two there's there's there's a few ways to approach this and and albert if you're thinking about doing a podcast just do the podcast and say what you want and and my feeling is this you're allowed to report The truth. The truth.

Now, what you can say is, did you grow up on the service porch of a house that was 100 years old that was 20 square feet? Yes. Did it have a washing machine and a water heater and the meter for the electric meter, that the meter reader would have to come into my room and open my closet. Did you hear it? Oh, I'm sure. I have a tumor growing somewhere because of that. Are you allowed to report all those things?

Yes. you can't go because my mom was such a cunt I lived on the service porch but you can say my parents were poor they weren't as involved

as they probably should have been and thus I grew up on the service porch that's pretty much reporting the facts and unfortunately And you can embellish like Adam does and say well they're like a family of raccoons That would get me to trouble with raccoons because that's offensive to raccoons.

They have a strong family structure. They've lived in the same spacious dumps there for many years now. Yeah. So, Albert, don't worry about me, but don't worry about your family or your friends. Just do... Speak the truth. Speak the truth. That'll be that.

One last question. I'm a love line fanatic. And I remember, like, years ago, like, I think it was like in 2000. like Adam walked off the show and I just wanted to know what is that like real were you really upset do you remember what show I'm talking about I meant it happened a couple of times

and both times it was quite real the time when he slammed the headphones down or not which which was like I think you had like Meredith somebody on the as a guest like in the beginning of the show you were like you started off like cursing into the mic you were talking about how someone has to produce the show

because some people were always late and I think he was kind of getting on your case On my case? About, yeah, Drew's case about not always being in the hallway when the show started and stuff like that. And he got really upset. He left, actually, like the first 10 minutes. Yeah. I don't, I, thanks, Albert. I don't.

Thanks bringing up uncomfortable stuff. I don't remember. I don't remember. I remember you slamming the mics down or actually throwing them at me one time. But I don't remember what the fight was about. My usual thing is and was do your job, I'll do my job and then we'll go home. And that place was some sort of dysfunctional three ring circus where nobody really felt compelled to do anything. And there was no hierarchy.

There were no generals or everyone was a general or everyone was a private or whatever the situation was. It all seemed very helter-skeltery to me. And my thing in life is we would sit in a place, a very small studio, and oftentimes during the summer months, I would see the beads of sweat dripping down my face as I was interviewing people because it was a hot box we're in. And I would say what's going on with the air conditioning. And then this would happen. It's frozen. It's a theme that I've carried into my adult life, and I'm not a fan of it. And my feeling is with anybody, if you would like to squander your shitty life away, that's your business.

But you're fucking with my life. And I don't want to squander my life repeating myself 300 times, asking the same questions, begging the things get fixed or taken care of. You are taking your D-minus approach to life and you're basically grabbing on to me. So essentially, I look at life as, hey, you got until 80 if you're lucky. Well, maybe you make it to 85, but maybe you go at 67. I don't know. There's a whole bunch of stuff to do between now and then. Let's do it.

Let's do it. Let's not do it to get rich. let's not do it to be talked about. Let's do it because we're alive. Let's just do it. And when I say the sweats pouring down my face, it's a hot box in here. What's going on? And the answer is the air conditioner.

And then it's like, what's wrong with the air conditioner? Well, it's on the fritz. Well, what's wrong with it? Well, it freezes over. It was always ironic. Same thing, yeah. It freezes over. And I go, well, let's get that fixed.

And I go, yeah, all right. And then smash cut to seven weeks later, seven months later, two years later. And you have the exact same conversation with the same person. What's up? Air, it's no good. Yeah, I know the air is no good. They're fucking, I'm tasting the salt for my own body for a second time. Yes, my eyes are stinging because my forehead is dripping sweat down my forehead.

Yeah, it's the air. What's wrong with the air? Well, it freezes up. Right. We need to get it fixed. Yeah, it's broken. Right. Broken.

Let's fix it. Now, the last I checked, and again, Drew, you stop me. It's not like, well, the place that makes the parts was based out of Finland, and they were bombed pretty badly in World War II. And that stuff's been on back order for six months. I mean, I'll take these kinds of answers. Or is it just a fucking carrier system that's up on the roof and there's 100 HVAC repair places within 10 blocks of this place that'll happily drive their van over and send the fucking guy up the ladder with the pressure tester and the free on charge? Yes. Yes.

Okay. Do we want to fix it? Yes. Can we fix it? Yes. Should we fix it? Yes. or would you like to have this conversation in fucking perpetuity?

Now, when you get to the end of my life and you go, well, you made it to 81, four months, two days, 21 hours, and 14 minutes. That's what you made. All right. Let's go ahead and back out the 18 air conditioning conversations I had with producer Ann or engineer Anderson or whoever over at Westwood fucking none. Let's back out those. Let's back out the combined 26 hours I spent looking for my dog's leash because we couldn't, no one would listen to me when I said just hang it on the front door, you know, hang it on the inside of the closet. Let's back out all the time we spent in traffic in Los Angeles sitting around doing nothing. Let's back out all the airport lines when neither you or I had a bomb or anyone else on our flight by that matter.

But yet we still had to take our shoes and belts off. Oh, and double back because there was some change in our pocket. Let's back that out. Let's back all of that out. Well, at a certain point, you're starting to cut into a life that's been led, yes? Yeah, living time. Well, now who should be pissed? The person who wants to know why you're bringing up the air conditioning for the 25th time

or the person who's bringing up the air conditioning for the 25th time. And to be fair, you're cutting into their life too. The fact that you have to bring it up cuts into their life. evidently they don't have a life or they don't value their life or I'm not sure. There's somewhere between us and reptiles in that department. But as I would say to the person who would always say to me, are we going to have to talk about this air conditioning again? I'd go, yeah, I don't want to talk about it either. Would you like to shut me up?

Please shut me up. Let's go talk to Leanne. I do feel the same way. I get it. Listen, I feel that way about a lot of things, like movies and television shows that waste my time. There's a lot of things in life where I think, fuck, life is too short. A lot of things. But that's passive.

You don't have to engage in that if you don't want to. Yeah. Look, that ain't grownups too. Grownups too is, I don't know what the fuck Adam Sandler's doing, but he just went out to North Carolina and wasted five months of everyone's life. with that piece of shit. But he wants to make money. Yeah. Okay, that's his thing.

He has enough money. I would recommend not doing that, but that's his thing. Right. You and I having a conversation about air conditioning for a 25th time, it doesn't make sense to me. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Why are we not more upset about that? Leanne? Yes. North Carolina. What's going on, baby, doll? Oh, Adam, Dr. Drew. I need some advice. All righty.

Mm-hmm. I have been sober for 23 years. Congratulations. Thank you. And I have a 12-year-old son, and I've opened the dialogue of alcohol drugs talking honestly with him. Yeah. And I don't know where I could go with my story, and at what point I reveal to him what I went through. Are you really an addict, or were you just a severe abuser?

I'm really an addict. really not an alcohol drug. Okay. And how do you get sober in your early 20s when you're really? Mike Catherine would did that. You got to be into it. You got to be bad. It was amazing.

And not many young people, not many girls were in AA when I was in AA 20 years ago. First off, what is this feeling of this impulse? I think it's a new thing where it's like, well, you know, when do I have an honest dialogue with my son about all my sexual indiscretions and about the time the tranny dropped a digit on me and I was flying pretty high on peyote and then he finished in my hair and you know sunny seven now

so obviously he's a little young but certainly before 10 I want to talk about the sexual humiliation that daddy suffered under the hands of the longshoremen it goes out of that I got to be their friend and confident I don't know if my dad's ever had sex I really don't.

I know he has two kids. I don't know if the stork dropped him off. I don't know if he ever fucked my mom. I never fucking asked. I don't know what the fuck that guy's ever done with his cock. I'm assuming next to nothing. But whatever he's done, I don't want to know. And we've never had the fucking conversation about it.

Yes. Right. You can have a discussion about sex, STDs and the consequences of unprotected sex. without talking about who you blew in high school. Yes, that's right. Right? Who did you bought? Right?

My dad? Yeah. The whole band. The entire marching band while they were marching. And that's, he always points that out to me because that's the part that sort of brings it around. I'm like, okay, now, now I respect you. You know, at the beginning. Before I was outraged.

All just in a sort of half circle in the locker room. Now, while in formation. With the tuba? Half time. Homecoming. I mean, that's. That's a fucking feat. It's too bad that everyone didn't have that, you know, there's cameras in their phones back then.

I don't think they had phones. That's right. They're up on the pole like Green Acres. I think it's real simple to have a conversation about your kid and alcohol and all that, you know, substance without, you know, really getting into Mama. Yeah, well, let me talk to you. Okay. So, Leanne, here's the basic deal of this. And you interestingly sort of cut your circumstance cuts both ways.

if you're an alcoholic addict in recovery and you're actively practicing recovery and you need to explain to your kids why you go to meetings and what that means and they have to participate in some form of treatment as well, then you've got to tell them the whole story. Okay. Are you there? Yes. Okay. But you're not active right now. You've been sober forever. And it's sort of almost like you were a severe abuser.

And this is something in your past, part of your development, whatever. And in that situation, what I have found is, and I've found. this many, many, many, many hundreds and hundreds of times that by describing whatever you did, you're issuing a license to your child to pick up where you left off. Because in their little adolescent minds, they go, well, you're fine, and it's hypocritical of you not to let me do what you did. You had to do. So what you do, and I think this is probably for you the best advice is not get into it now, not get into it until this child is in his early 20s. And you just go, look, whatever I did,

That's not we're discussing. Here's what I expect from you. And here's what's going to happen if you transgress. And that's it. And then they go, oh, you'll be it. That's fine. There's a wholly different impact on their behavior than saying, well, Joe, it's time for us to get into it here. We've got to really tell you what went down.

It was bad. Don't do that unless you're active in treatment and they need to participate in the treatment. Otherwise, make it clear what you expect from them, what the consequences are going to be, and then drop the hammer if they cross the boundaries. There go, man. Okay. Thank you. Here you go, baby, now.

But in his 20s, you'll want to tell him a little bit about it because he could have the gene. And, you know, you want to sort of tell him what that means. If he develops addiction, then you want to tell him your story, by the way. Oh, really? Yeah. Why to get in recovery? Here's why. Well, you know, there's a part of this, too.

There's a little bit of a gender situation. There's a societal kind of a double standard where, you know, there's a little bit of a gender situation. where the mom is going to be telling the son, every third story is going to be mama was a whore. I mean, let's be honest. Dad's story is, I fuck this chick, I didn't even remember the night before, and then the son's going to fire back with a high five.

This is going to be mama's a whore, which inevitably when you talk... Doesn't play as well? Well, when you talk about young, female and incredibly addicted, that that is going to factor in. Sometimes it factors in a little. Sometimes it factors into I went to the streets to become a prostitute to get the money for my. And that with the young man hearing about mama taking to the streets.

It's not going to go well. I just think it's going to be one of those things you wish you never heard for a long period of time. Understood? Yeah. All right. A couple more phone calls up there. Jeremy from Kentucky and Jason from Cleveland. Let's do Jason first.

All right. What's Jason's problem? He has a girlfriend of two and a half years and how will we know when it's supposed to propose? Have you two and up here? Should he propose? Not. All right. Quick break.

We'll tell him how. Next. Jason? Yeah. What's going on, man? I'm a huge fan guy. Thanks for taking my call. Hey, now.

My pleasure. What's up? Should I go right into it? Yep, sure. So I've been dating a girl, almost two and a half years here. Everything's going great, pretty much in love and all set. And I just, there's a part of me that just wonders, like, is this where you pull the trigger or is there more to be seen?

You know, and then just any advice on that, basically. Well, you never know for certain, and you always wonder about that, you know, maybe I should. I think most guys can have a little bit of that. But, you know, you kind of know if you're into this person, like that passion is going to persist, number one. And you can't imagine me with anybody else long term. And then number two, are you in the right place in your life? That's the big thing.

Are you in the position you want to be in so you can survey your life and go, now it's time. Now I'm ready. Well, Drew, you always say, or maybe I always say, I can't remember who always says. but for women and women hate this but for women it's about meeting the right guy for the guy it's more about being in the right place yep absolutely and they hate it because it doesn't sound very romantic yeah but there were girlfriends I had when I was 22 where it's just come on I didn't have a I was driving a fucking beat up pickup truck with no insurance I'm not getting married right like I that's deferred I

I'm eating top ramen. And by the way, because I believe people should sort of be young when they're young, get that shit out of their system, I have no patience. I'm really intolerant of the so-called midlife crisis. Right. That should, I have no patience for that. Well, but what about the, what about patience? What if a guy said, you know, my wife and I married for 27 years, started dating a junior year of high school. I worked my butt off and got my own tech company off the ground.

She sort of let herself go, put on a few pounds. The sexual attraction thing wasn't there anymore. The next thing you know, I got all this money and all this assets and all this stuff. So that goes down under asshole to me. It's like you shouldn't have married the chick. Well, no, that's different than what you're basically saying is, is look, guys, it's 2014. People live till 85 now. Yeah.

Don't get, go have some fun. You get that done. Yeah. Get that done. When you're supposed to get it done. Right. Not fuck up a marriage or a family later with that shit. Yeah, but I'm telling me about the guy I got married in high school.

But what Drew, you want a time machine here. But what I'm saying is, and what Drew's saying is get it out of your system and don't get married at 22. That's right. Now, Jason's 29. Yeah, he may be done. He may be ready. I'm just saying. He's got to look at this.

You need to be ready pretty soon. You know, you can't wait too long with this. Yeah. So, you know, there's no, these are very, very personal decisions. We can't, we can't make it for you. I know. Go ahead. Sorry.

What? I was just going to say, like, logistically, I feel like I'm pretty ready, but then there's, like, the part where it's, like, then we've got to figure out about the wedding and the engagement ring. There's all that stuff where I'm like, shit, I don't have, you know, X amount of thousands of dollars to put on this. and this and this. So it's like, is that ever an issue too?

Or is that like... So it goes under, are you... I would not worry about it as far as the marriage and the wedding. Well, look, if you're, you know, if you're fretting over $1,150 worth of ring, maybe that's an indication. You're not where you need to be yet. No, I'd fret over like five or ten grand. 1100 would be...

Okay. Okay. But I just, look, look, look, here's a deal, everybody. you're not that special, you're not that special, you're not that's only I'm really special is what I'm trying to, that's what I'm getting at. Pointing out. What I'm trying to point out, what I'm trying to illustrate is these decisions came before you, they'll come after you, everyone will make their own decision.

There's no right and there's no wrong. There's a, well, don't get married at 17. That's probably not a great idea. There's probably, if you'd like a family waiting to your mid-50s, is probably not a good idea. Was a wrong? And then everything in between is just everything in between. Right. And there's no rules.

You're not that special as a good note. Yeah. I should work for Hallmark. All right. A couple more phone calls to go. John is calling from Sacramento. Somebody's got autism. His son, John.

Hey, it's an honor, guys. How are you doing? Good, man. How are you doing? I've got it going through it, to be honest, you know. I've got a five-year-old son. Jonah, he's autistic. He was actually just clinically diagnosed in July. And I've raised him from the time he was born all by myself. His mother took off right after he was born and took off another guy and got him to meth really heavy and hasn't been in his life at all. And she recently got arrested for felony burglary and attempted kidnapping of another, I guess, the guy she's with kid.

And she's been convicted of three felonies. And so she's being required now, it obviously to be clean because she's on probation. But now she's putting me through the motions trying to get half custody of my son. And people here in Sacramento County are graciously giving her request. And the judge here is not seeing my side of things. And really it seems like he really thinks that her being in his life is what the best for my son. Well, it depends what being in his life means. yes, he needs his mom.

He should have his mom. He will have issues if mom really truly abandons him. If she's genuinely sober and in the program and getting better, okay, then she could have a relationship with him. But, boy, it would have to be highly structured and, you know, supervised even possibly. Well, it's a double standard, obviously. You know. What? For the moms?

Yeah. I mean, we have the double standard sort of work. two ways. There's plenty of things that you hear about with the glass ceiling and women are making 70 cents a dollar and all kinds of stuff. But they never mentioned things like court. Well, the family courts definitely favor women. They're set up. Why aren't we outraged? They're set up as though. Why aren't we outraged? Well, we do. I hope did a little documentary about it. Did a whole documentary about it. Not everyone's outraged. You're right. It's just, it's just fucking hates dudes. Like, shut up. Well, now the women are because,

the object of this this inequity because a lot of the women are the primary breadwinners well that's when it'll change this we're getting attention now because of that I think well of course when women now make up more than 50% of the workforce and college graduates and professionals and they start feeling like what it's like to be fucking raped in in divorce then there'll be an outcry and that'll be fine because somehow they're minority and they need to be taken care of and then everyone's going to spring into action, all the politicians. When it's just a bunch of dudes belly aching about getting screwed in the court, it's like, oh, suck it up. That's really what it was.

What it shall be is this. That's when things are going to change. And in terms of visitation and all that kind of stuff. Well, but some of that's based in putting in quotes, air quotes, science, in that the kids need their moms. They do. Oh, Drew. That is hate. That's hate speak.

That's hate speak. Well, that's where the family courts see. That's hate speak. Even if the mom doesn't have a... Don't bring that shit to Huffington Post. That is hate speak. You understand me? I hear you.

There's no difference between men and women when it comes to rearing kids. Zero. So stop with the hate speak because I will get up and leave. Okay? Got it. Everything's the same and everything's good. Okay? Got it.

Okay. Check. All right. And the same with nature. There's no difference. No difference. No difference. You know, polar bear?

And chihuahua. In the male-female department? Same. Everywhere. Every species. No, wait a minute. Sorry, I screwed that up. There's a huge difference in every species on the planet,

from insects to alligators to polar bears to whales, everything in between on what they do in terms of rearing the children or the cubs or the cats. There's a huge, huge difference. Except for humans. That's what I wanted to say. Okay, well done. So out of the, who, I don't. I don't know, 100, 150 other species on the planet, maybe more.

I'm not a speciologists. I know there's got to be more. I mean, I could probably name 80. 80 if I just really sat. I'd need a stenopad. But out of those, all the insects, all the reptiles, all the creatures on the planet, very distinct difference between what the male and the female brings to the parenting role, except for one. Humans.

That's right. You know why? We're special. Well, with the seahorse, they carry the children. And maybe we're more like the seahorse. Yes. All right. So, John, I understand this is a very difficult time for you and a tough lot.

And a kid. Oh, my God. Right. You know, here's the unfortunate reality is you're going to get now evaluators involved. They're going to cost a fortune. And they're going to be in there with their opinion. and you're going to feel less and less like your opinion matters. Absolutely.

I mean, we've already done the mediation and the mediator, you know, let the judge know that she felt that there was a distinct difference between the need for a mother and then the need. I mean, she's not, I guess what I want to really know is, is he really in need of a mom if the mother is not, she's wanting to be in his life for all the wrong reason. Right. Yeah. If she's not fit, she's not good. It's going to be worse.

But if she's in, and I, you know, I work with addicts, and I have a lot of hope for them. And if she's in recovery in the program, if she's getting better and blah, blah, blah. But that, again, trust but verify. That would have to be very carefully monitored. But, John, your instincts are good. You know what you're talking about. Is this going to be a mess, though? When did the experts become imbeciles?

Has it always been that way? We just never knew it? What's going on? Experts are imbeciles when they have an agenda. Well, yeah. That's what experts take, it's really evil at that point because they're using their knowledge for philosophical reasons rather than science, not objective reasons. And that's where the imbecility comes in. Okay.

All right. Let's take one more. Hey, Jeremy. Hey, what's going on, guys? 38. Kentucky, what's happening? Truly an honor, man. I got a question.

I want to get both your own's opinions. I respect your own opinion highly. I've been blue collar my whole life, every job I've had, blue collar. About three years ago, I started working at a college here in Louisville, which, despite Adam's belief there is higher education here in Kentucky. We've been to the U.K. We were there. Twice, right?

I remember the second time. It's a D2 school in Louisville, but it's very, very well-reaching. respected. Anyways, I've always wanted to go back to school, and now that I'm working here, I can go here for free. However, I've got a four-year-old daughter, and I feel like I'm going to be missing a lot of her growing up during these next, you know, it's going to take me basically six years, because you can only go a certain amount and work full-time as well. So I guess I'm trying to weigh my options between getting a degree, making more money, making a better life for everybody, or kind of plugging along. All right, make a better life. You know, I had the sad realization.

What's that? The other day, my kids, they don't need me as much as they need my wallet. And they need your wallet and your wife. That's right. That's what they need. They need a house. They need a heater. They need insurance.

They need a safe car. They need a nanny. They need a mommy. They need all the things that they can do. And other than that, me coming around on a Saturday and taking it around the park and throwing the ball around and stuff, it's nice, but it's a little bit of gravy or a little bit of whipped cream on top of their Sunday. They need all the stuff I can provide. They don't need me. and I don't mean that in a bad way or, you know, I'm not, I'm not trying to undervalue what my, what my, what I bring to the family.

It's, I'm putting quite a high value on it, which is I support everybody that they need. The other part, they don't need. It's nice. It'd be nice. You protect. you create structure this stuff you do sort of automatically you don't really

yeah yeah but what I'm saying is they need to know that I'm there right they need to know that I'm providing in the structure and the safety and the in the net underneath in case something happens there's something to fall back on and that sort of stuff

but when I'm out of town for three days doing shows they're not they don't say every night no where's daddy they go hey, mommy, let's play Uno in front of the 60-inch television set. They're fine. They're cool with it. If you said to them, what would you like to have daddy here with you?

They'd say, yeah, sure, why not? But if it's a choice between mommy and daddy, hit the road. Big sack. That's my Indian name. Big sack. Big sack. That's right. So the dad who's not around that much,

as long as the dad's not banging other chicks. in the neighborhood or sitting up the street at the tavern getting hammered, that's okay. We never really talk about this. You know, people do the thing where they go, where was my dad, or I grew up without a dad, or my dad wasn't around. But the question so much isn't, where was your dad? What was he doing? What was he doing?

Yeah. Because the guys. Because he's creating instability in the family, like the mom's freaking out, she's fearing. It's his insecurities. Absolutely. That's where it's a problem. Well, but there's not. There's a legacy, which is the mom kind of lives in the, she lives in real time.

And dads live in a sort of legacy memory sort of time where they say things like this. You know, my dad was a such and such a kind of guy. You know, they don't say that about mom that much. They go, she was sweet, she was real nice, or she was cunty, or whatever it is. But they go, you know, she was a good mom. She was a very sweet person. She cared a lot. You know, something like that.

They go, my dad was the kind of guy that believed you do it once and you do it right, you know. But it's all stuff sort of done from afar. Yeah. You know. And then, again, when daddy's not around, the ones who say my dad flew F-4. fours in Vietnam are like, oh, their tears coming down their cheek when they're talking about their dad. That's a dad who was not around.

And then there's dad, Papa was a Rolling Stone dad. Totally different thing. Either way, it's a dad that's not in the house. Yeah. But it's what he was up to when he's not in the house. The ones ago, my dad traveled every weekend. He worked very hard. There's a reverence for those dads.

Sometimes. Oftentimes. Oftentimes. times versus the, he had a couple other ladies on the sign. He was a huge Niners fan and he sat at the bar and smoked. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So do what do they, what do they need?

What do they want? Don't worry about that. You go out, be the best provider you can be, be a great example. When you're gone, it's where's daddy? I wish Daddy was here. Daddy is out helping us live the life we're living. Unfortunately, he wishes he could be here, but he's got to go do X, Y, and Z somewhere else. And then when you get those weekends and that time and that whatever, you can do it.

I've really found with my kids a little daddy goes a long way. Daddy providing, daddy doing everything, that's great. And then the weekend comes around. Let's go throw the ball around. That's fine. But mommy's day to day. What should this guy do? I forgot. Go to the question was.

Go to school and full-time work or not? Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. He should. Go provide. Go whatever. Do the work and let them know and then let them use the thing where they go, hey, my dad was 40. And he went back to school and he got his degree. And then he came back and blah, blah, blah, blah.

They love that's all they remember. Well, think about your dad. Yeah. It's always examples. It's just what they did. or what they didn't do. Right. With dads, it's so much more about example,

and with mom, it's hands-on every day. Well, it'll be interesting with so many women in the workforce to see as some of that out in the world stuff translates over to women, too. Mm-hmm. It'd be interesting. Yeah. All right.

Stop squeaking. So, until next time, Adam Crolla, Dr. Drew, Chris Max Patton, you're after saying, Mahala.