The Adam and Dr. Drew Show - Classic #161: Joel Pt. 2

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

July 17, 2014 - Adam and Drew open the show discussing the way that the media can tend to morph things that they say into much bigger deals in an effort to get a juicier story. As the show wraps up Drew and Adam takes a call on a marriage falling apart and another about navigating the very early stages of addiction recovery.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Well, we continue this episode, 161 from July 2014, and we take some calls. We discuss someone who's having some real serious marriage problems, another about navigating early stages of addiction recovery. So enjoy throwback episode, July 2014. All right, should we take some phone calls? I also have letters for you guys. Oh, we have letters. All right, let's do some letters.

Yeah, we have a letter here if you want to write in Adam and Dr. Drew Show.com. This is from Pete. Hello, Adam and Drew, long-time listener. fan. I've had a girlfriend for nine months now and all has been great. We are in love and everything. She's a great girl, loyal, trustworthy, and beautiful. No age here, but nine months. Always ask for the age guys. It could be 70 or 14. Right. Well, the only drawbacks are that our conversations aren't all that deep and the sex is somewhat lukewarm. My predicament here is that there has been another girl I've been in contact with through email and

Facebook. We've never met in person. She's people. She's people. my curiosity as our conversations are very interesting and stimulating. Don't have a girlfriend. Bottom line. This guy's not ready for a girlfriend. All right. Yeah, he was wondering if it's his love addiction trying to just seek stimulation. I don't know.

It's why letters don't work. I need a lot more information. Yeah. But it's don't have a girlfriend. Bottom line. Just date around. That's what you want to do. Fine.

Date around. Yeah, he sounds a little younger. Yeah. All right. Let's talk to Peter 24, San Francisco. Peter. Hey, Adam, Dr. Drew, a huge fan. I know. Thank you.

What's up? Thanks. Yeah, a couple episodes ago you guys got into, I maybe didn't reach a level of an argument. But, uh... Adam, I never argue. Peter, Peter, we don't argue. Adam, I never argue. Adam just, no, just fucking yells at it. We have a unique relationship. Yeah, it's, uh, it's entertaining, to say the least.

Anyway, uh, you were talking about how Kevin Hensch was basically stereotyped against in Hollywood because he wasn't part of, like, the cliquey Jewish. like Ivy League Circle. He maybe was like in sports. He didn't have like he wore the wrong, you know. And you basically recommended that he wear a different pair of glasses. And that made like. Yeah, Kevin Hanch is my writing partner.

Actually, when we're working on, Road Hard together. And he's new sitcom, by the way, showed a promo for it during the World Cup. Wow. The final. Wow. So I thought that that's good. What's the call? Oh, shit, I'll think of it in a second.

Cristella. Anyway, yeah, so, Peter, the question was what then? Yeah. Oh, I thought, Adam, during the discussion, I think Drew, I agreed with Drew. He, like, properly, I think, called you out because you liked to stereotype. I do. I do. No, I stereotyped all the time.

Yeah. No, I know. And you were telling the story, though, where you were annoyed with how your friend had kind of been shut out of opportunities because he had been stereotyped as like, you were saying not being smart or funny because he wasn't from. Peter, let me, let me, though, as I recall that conversation, his annoyance wasn't about Hensch being stereotyped. His annoyance was that everyone wasn't listening to Adam, because Adam was going to tell Hanch what

he needed to do, and it's very simple and just do it. No, look, stereotypes, 99% of the time are earned. okay so the way you feel about other people for the most part is earned now you don't know the individual so you go okay well you you don't know this particular person or that particular person but for the most part good and bad there's good and bad you know people treat stereotypes like oh it's a negative stereotype yeah there's positive stereotypes there's good qualities of you know for nine out of ten times if you're going to if you're going to hire a nanny to look after your kids, it's going to be a woman.

Well, you don't know that this man wouldn't. Yeah, I know. It's just, it's a stereo. Are they male nannies? There are male nannies, but they're mannys. I think they call them petties, but. Right. No, I agree with you.

Females in general, probably better with kids. Okay, there you go. And if you're going to have a guy put a roof on your house, it's probably going to be a fella and not a lady. All right. Understood. Here's a difference. But the cultural stereotypes, yeah.

Quite. Your kids watch by Petties. Kevin Hinch has bodies of work. He has scripts. He can show people scripts. He sits in the room and is funnier than the guy with the funky glasses who went to Harvard with the crazy name and the hair. He has, he's producing product and still being ignored. That's the problem.

That's what I'm talking about. That's not, there is a stereotype that's going on. Can't get past the stereotype. They're not. Yeah, they can't get past stereotype. They don't have. They're past. How it is not refined enough to even know it.

That they're not getting past the stereotype. They just, they have a certain, they're fucking idiots. The point is this. I saw that guy treated like shit. But Peter's point is, yeah. And by a lot of producer fucking idiots. Yeah. And now those guys are fucking out of gigs and he's taken over Hollywood and they can all fuck themselves.

Thank you. And I said while they were treating him like shit, I was like, I don't know why you're treating him like shit because I see him as a talented guy who's going to be possibly above you one day in the short near future and I don't know why you'd want to do this but that's what they do but isn't that we're stereotyzed to come dangerous when people are stupid right I mean I don't know they're never they're never when are they dangerous when are stereotypes dangerous you you earn your stereotype was that was no for hench that was dangerous it was affecting his ability to make a livelihood.

He couldn't make a living. He'd made a living. He'd made a living. But before the frame, he hadn't listened to the Great Corolla. He would have remained under the influence of that stereotype. Yes. Okay. Listen.

You've got to think both ways, man. You can't have it just one way. No, he had work that he was turning in. That was different. It wasn't. I understand. The stereotype was affecting their ability to read the work. That's how ridiculous people are.

Yeah. no and look but but here's the point the point is it's true in that if you are staffing up a sitcom you want a bunch of Jewish guys that went to Harvard statistically am I right or am I wrong I don't know I've never done that you could be right I could be yeah you're probably I don't know I don't know who staffs up a TV show it sounds weird that would you want a bunch of Puerto Rican women that sounds funny okay true you're such a hero You're such a hero, Dr. I'm not to say.

You're a hero. All right, Steve. Yeah. Statistically, the Jews from Harvard are going to be funnier. Steve, you were talking to Peter before. I know. They are going to be funnier than the Puerto Rican women. But when you're getting scripts from the Puerto Rican women that are funnier than the Jewish guy from Harvard,

now it's time to drop the stereotype. If you're just stereotyping, you're going to have a higher batting effort. Right. I understand. That's why stereotyping's good. Go ahead, Steve. Steve? Adam. Yes. Drew. What's up? What's up? Two of my handful of idols from childhood. Thank you. Been a tough spot right now. Let us help you out of it, my friend. Man, if only you could, I feel like you two might be the one who could do it. All right, let's do it today.

All right, so my situation is I am a former, which I know means always a drug addict. However, I have been clean for two months. Phones a little tough. Can you go to a better part of the apartment? It's not so windy. One second. All right, what we're dealing here, why don't you just run? read it we're dealing with we got we got two

problems one a bad connection and two a person with a bad connection to their own brain who's taking this fucking pop song by the Archies and turning it into an agada divida thank you

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9 o'clock. But, all right. Progress, not perfection. That's what we're looking for out of life. All right, and then we'll be dead. Steve has a bad connection. What's Steve's prom? Can you read it up there on the screen?

It says Cleary's sober, so over two months, four years of heroin, wants to know what to do with his life, which is exactly the wrong thing to be thinking two months into surprise. What should you be thinking? How do I stay sober today? Mom wants him to go to residential treatment program. He's thinking of construction. Of course, there's no drugs on a construction site.

What about your guy, Mike? Wasn't he on Vicodin? Oh, listen. I just spent the weekend catching contractors, believe you may. Anyway, your mom is categorically correct. You should go to residential treatment. You should not think about anything for the next 10 months, except focusing on your sobriety.

You haven't even begun the process yet. I know you think you're fine. You are not. This is a long process. Stay with it. All right. I guess he fell off. Dropped off, yeah.

Oh, no, he's back on line one. Okay, let's see. Steve? Yes, sir. Oh, that's way better. Ah, there we go. All right. Yeah.

I had a dope to the auxiliary court. I'm sorry. What kind of construction do you want to do? To be honest, I don't have any construction experience. The only experience that I do have is working in restaurants and a small amount of time with a moving company. True.

Can we talk about this for a second? Yeah. There's jobs where you just sort of move on up. And I don't mean from, you know, the mail room to middle management. I just mean if you are going to do carpentry, construction, whatever, you don't start off as a carpenter. You start off as a labor. Right.

Basically, why? You're skillless. You start by my first job, my first construction job was pulling ivy off the side of a Silver Lake house. You know how they're up on the hill? Yeah. And the one side has sort of the two stories and the street side has the single story. Yes. I was on the two-story side that went down the hill to the next street.

Brutal. Middle of summer. Just yanking ivy off the side. Of course, covered with dust and ratchet and everything else would come raining down on your head. And then once you cleaned up that hill, it'd be one street above, one street below, and the property would go down to the street below, but it was just the ivy hill that would go down to the street below. Once you pulled all that ivy up, you'd walk it up the narrow, steep cement stairs that ran along the side of the house, in between the two houses, up to the street

and then into the dumpster. Why did I do that? Well, I had no skills. And then we moved from that to digging. And we were digging footings and caissons inside the fucking house. That same house. Yeah. And it was just

with a pick and a shovel and a bucket. This house coming down the hill or something? It was bad and dirty and dangerous. And I would go down into the hole, use a sawed off shovel,

fill the bucket. The bucket had a rope on it. Like I would pull it up. It was like living in India or something. No. It would drag the 18th century. You dragged the bucket up.

And as he would drag the bucket up, it would scrape the side of the whole. hole I was in, and it would come, dirt would come raining down on me, and I was covered with sweat. It's like really biblical times. You're digging a well. Oh, absolutely biblical times.

I was like a Jew making a pyramid. It was fucking horrible. It was fucking horrible. Horrible. But at a certain point, I bought some tool bags and a hypoid saw, and I sort of worked my way up to rough framing and, you know, little, put some tools in my hands. And, you know, eventually, I was a finish. carpenter it just you couldn't not be there there there's no such thing as really just digging for 10

years because there was so much to do on a site you could kind of somebody would ask you to do something eventually make economic sense to have this dude now me I was I took my first paycheck and bought some tools walked in to the construction site hey I got my tool bags on and the foreman was like those are some sweet bags now take them off pick up the shovel get in the fucking hole yeah but I still showed up with the bags. And he said, I'll give you another dollar an hour, and I bought a pickup truck. He said, you buy a pickup truck, instead of a motorcycle, I'll give you another buck an hour, and I bought a pickup truck. So I was sort of on the move.

But the point is, is there's really no such thing, unless they work for the city where you're overcompensated. And so you're incentivized to beat laborers. Nice job, city. You're actually paid more than the carpenters as laborers. our city's so it's so fucked up when i did earthquake rehab i got paid as a labor because i was the best carpenter because the labor's got another buck an hour there's no world where the laborers get 1950 an hour and the carpenters get 18 bucks an hour in the real world the labor's got $750 or $8 an hour and the carpenter's got $15 an hour it's the city i don't know how they

could get more fucked up but they managed to do it every year but either way you could not just pick up garbage for 10 years on a construction site. I mean, not that it's not mathematically possible, but it's a sort of a system, a farm system. It's made to go, okay, we know you. You work hard. You've been here for

a month. Let me ask you this. I was just thinking of that. Is that for real how it's set up or did you happen to come, wait, wait, wait, or did you just have to come across some foreman who, like, saw something was an asshole. Well, maybe he saw something in you still. Maybe, no. No. I know, because I saw it times everybody. Okay. All right. And everybody,

I know, everybody in construction, I mean, save the handful of guys whose dad had operated heavy equipment and they got them in working summers in high school. And by the time they graduated high school, they're ready to work the skiploader. And the heavy equipment thing is a different thing altogether. But just whatever. Save the stuff where the fucking dad did this or the dad. No, no, no, no. But I'm just curious, the heavy equipment operator.

Let's not do that. The point is this. everybody who showed up to a construction site started off who didn't who wasn't connected just showed up to work started digging ditches cleaning up garbage humping drywall and because it makes sense economically to say okay that guy's been here for a couple months he's a hard working guy we know him now let's start ratcheting it up a little. So instead of clean up garbage, digging ditches all day, you can clean up garbage, dig ditches.

But for a couple hours a day, let's get you cutting some plywood. We'll show you how to cut that plywood. He seems to have learned how things, the lay of the land. Yeah. And then you just, you keep sort of building from there. Yeah. Now, at a certain point, you become a carpenter. You just become one.

You don't read a book. You don't get certified. It's not like a, you know, taekwondo where you get a carpenter. yellow belt, a brown belt, then you get a black belt, you test for it, or anything you do in medicine, you just become a carpenter. Me, Chris, Ray, we all left high school, not knowing anything about woodworking or anything about matri or anything about anything, and now we're carpenters because we cleaned garbage up on construction sites.

Their jobs, like, movers, they don't really have that. You just move shit. There's nowhere to go. I suppose you could get into the office or something, but just kind of a mover. The only thing you do really start your own moving business. Yeah, but working in a kitchen at a restaurant, moving, I feel like there's places to go, but I think it's important when you have a job, have a place to go. You know what I'm saying?

Well, it's interesting. And as you pointed out, the sort of county jobs and stuff like that don't really have that so much in them. Well, listen, why not be a labor? You want to be a labor. You're getting a buck 50 more than the carpenter. Yeah. Interesting. Now where to go.

Or no incentive to go anywhere. But when I hear about these guys that have these jobs where it's like, I do moving or I do, you know, this. And you just realize there's no place to go from that. You don't want that job. I mean, look, look at radio. Everyone in radio start off fucking driving the van. Yeah. Interns.

Yeah. Blah, blah, blah. Getting coffee. The same thing in any production these days. almost every production company I work with the guy who's second in command on the site eight years ago was fucking emptying garbage cans

and setting up folding tables and chairs for lunch that's it but I'll tell you what he wasn't doing he wasn't bitching while he was doing that and people were noticing hey this guy's a crackerjack this September CBS hits are streaming free on Pluto TV

I'm coming in high for this month Only, you can watch full seasons of the CBS shows you love. From the courtroom drama of Madlock to the heroics of fire country. Go back to where it all began in NCIS origins or watch the hilarious hauntings of ghosts. All for free. Full seasons of the CBS shows you love. This month only on Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531, 2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. All right. Where the hell with Steve again? He's on one. All right.

Steve? Yes. All right. So, construction. It's just one of many options I'm trying to consider right now with my life. All right. Well, look, as Drew said, your number one job, pardon the pun, is to be sober. Because if you're not sober, you can't form, you can't function in any other capacity.

Right. And that takes about a year to get really settled. So your mom is absolutely right. Go to the residential treatment. All right. Don't focus only on that. All right. And then get a sober job from there, you know, working in a coffee shop or something like that.

You know, something to contribute. Let's do one more call here. Talk to Dustin, 36, Sacramento. Hey, guys. Just had a quick question. My wife and I might be separating soon, just kind of what it's indicating within counseling. And I have two kids, one year's old and one five years old. And I just wanted to find out the most healthiest way to kind of, you know, if the process is going to happen, what's the

healthiest way? So they, you know, have the least impact emotionally. On the kids. Yeah. Their ages are what? One in five. One and five. Yeah. Well, the one-year-old is not going to know much any different. The five-year-old is going to be affected. And as much as possible, possible, I've seen couples sort of, first of all, get along, you know, and get along around the kids and on behalf of the kids and create, if you can, experiences that make them feel like they're part of a unit. I know it's hard to do. I was talking to a friend of mine was able to do this. I, look, I think, Dustin, here's the thing. But here's the thing.

To say it doesn't affect the kids, huge mistake. It does affect kids. It's good that he's thinking this way. It's going to affect the kids. The question is, is it going to be, and I'm not going to go from 1 to 10, I'm going to go from 5 to 10. One being the least affected? I'm not going to go from 1 to 10. I'm going to go from 5 to 10.

I get it. One's not being the least effect. There is no 1. 5 being the least affected. If it were a 1 to 10 scale, one would be the least. 5 being the least. Right. That's right.

Thank you, Mr. Captain obvious. Point is this. There is no ones. You're getting a divorce, you know. There are fives. There's a way to do it. That's right. It's been done many times, you know.

And I've spoken to the adults where the parents seem to get along. There's not playing one against the other. There's joint visitation and custody and things like that. And there's a way to go about it that is less impactful. That's right. It's not going to be non-impactful. It's not going to be a one, right? It's not going to be a one, but it could be a five, right?

Yeah, it could be a five. That's right. My parents didn't speak to each other and physically could not be in the same room or near each other. Think of terms of weird. Which made me just think that's what divorce is. Yeah. But they could not, if somebody was coming to a graduation, the other one physically wouldn't go. Now, they didn't want to go.

So that was part of it. And I think they would sort of conveniently get confused. like, well, I'm not going because your father's going. Well, I'm not going because your mother's going. And then no one would go. But it was a perfect setup. But they could not physically. There were, you know, a handful of events where people showed up.

And they couldn't, it was one or the other. And a way to think about it is in a large-ish environment. Kids feel responsible for everything. And when the family's fractured, they feel like responsible for those two fucking idiots. But they feel like it's they cause it. that they're not worthwhile. They couldn't keep it together. And they feel kind of fractured internally.

So as much as you can stay glued together. Right. So it's not just about visitation and getting along. It's actually sort of seeming like there's kind of a unit there. It's just there's not a relationship between mom and dad. There's a unit there that's there for you, the children, though. Right. Yes.

Oh, my God. Yes. Do not handle it like my parents. You know what I sussed out later? Yeah. I just suspected and sort of figured it out. Like, I sort of thought to myself, why couldn't my mom and my dad be together in the same room? And I don't mean the same small room.

I just mean, hey, it's your daughter's wedding. You know what I mean? Can't you be in a group of 100 people? You know, so don't sit at the same table. Yeah. You know what I mean? I think we've all dealt with that in life, you know, professionally and personally. Can't you just kind of get over it?

And here's the other thing, too. nobody cheated on anybody sure I just wondered that what it means someone would have had been attracted to one of them so I don't know how you do that they both got remarried all right there wasn't a lot of acrimony in terms of people throwing dishes and screaming there no one was an alcoholic nobody it just wasn't all the stuff you know that the bad bad stuff yeah the stuff you hear about yeah the oh oh, you were banging my business partner behind my back. You know, I could never forgive you.

I could never look you in that. They're both relatively friendly, docile, just sort of sloss of human beings, right? So why is it that the super docile, non-confrontational? It's not like, well, I can't be around your father because he's going to be drinking. at that wedding and then you know once he has a couple though you know it's about his fifth Manhattan he's going to come after me and he's loud

you know that didn't exist didn't exist so why is it why is it that the two most docile people on the planet that don't do you figure it out? Yeah I did figure it out what is it and they both admitted by the way it to me or as much as admitted it to me

they're both ashamed of each other like they reminded them of what they had done by marrying the other person they both looked at each other and themselves in that time period is so shameful like oh my god i can't believe i was with you i think they both sort of went i was with that i was with you and and then furthermore i acted this way when i was with you and i and you know you this person knows me and knows just how fucking pathetic, I am. Got it. That who, if you really think about the people you don't want to be in front of, it's not the person that you have a

quarrel with or dispute with or thinks you're this or thinks it's the person that has the goods. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So I mean, if you're going to a fucking party, Gary Haftard, I mean, hypothetically.

Yeah. If you ever would. And there's somebody you didn't want to run into. Would it be the person that you had an argument with or the person that walked in on you trying to suck your own cock wearing a Gerber's bib that was like getting in the way. What was the argument about? What point is this? It's the pathetic.

About whether or not you auto-fulated. It's the, it's the, oh, my God, you know just how pathetic I am person that you don't want to see. the person you've because the person you've had your differences with, that's everybody. You know what I mean? Right.

That's being an adult. Getting on the world. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We had the same manager, Howard for a while. Him and I, you know, had an argument or two.

I don't mind seeing Howard. Right. You know what I mean? I don't feel he thinks I'm a pathetic character. I don't think of him as a pathetic character. You know, we don't,

so we don't mind seeing each other. Right. There's been a couple of disputes in the past, but we don't, if he's going to be at the party, I'm not like, oh, I can't see him. Well, I, but if he had the goods on me, if he walked in while I was trying to suck my own dick in the man's show.

Do you see what I'm saying? If only. The world we live in. You understand? I do understand. It's powerful, right? Yeah, it's. Very powerful.

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a little win in the sales here. We do appreciate it. And my book, President Me, I will sign the jacket. You can send it in. And if you'd like the last book, not Taco Bell material, I got 3,000 of them here. Just go to our website. Go to the store. If you want any hats

or T-shirts, anything that stuff, it all helps our little experiment, which is working out quite nicely. Thanks to you. So, until next time, is that I'm crawling for Dr. Drew? Chris Max Patta. Gary Half-Tard. Say it. Mahalo. This September, CBS hits are streaming free on Pluto TV.

I'm coming in high. For this month only, you can watch full seasons of the CBS shows you love. From the courtroom drama of Madlock to the heroics of fire country. Go back to where it all began in NCIS origins, or watch the hilarious hauntings of ghosts, all for free. Full seasons of the CBS shows you love, this month only on Pluto TV. stream now pay never podcasting isn't just about talking it's about growing engaging and monetizing and that's where podcast one pro comes in whether you're an independent creator or a major brand podcast one pro gives you the tools you need to take your podcast to the next level we're talking about

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