The Adam and Dr. Drew Show - Classic #938: The Devil Makes Work For Idle Hands

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

October 23, 2018 - Adam and Dr. Drew open the show with Drew asking Adam about the state of his dog Phil’s flea treatments as Drew believes that flea borne typhus will be the next disaster connected to Los Angeles’ homeless epidemic. They then turn to the phones and speak to a variety of callers including one with thoughts on Adam’s take on education, and another looking to reduce his marijuana & alcohol use after his divorce.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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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. Time for another throwback episode. This is October 23rd, 2018. The Devil makes work for idle hands. We talk about Phil and his flea treatments.

And I start talking about fleaborne typhus, which of course came, as well as the bubonic plague, which has arrived. It's all because of the rat explosion around the homelessness epidemic, which was really in full swing in 2018. team. And then we turn to the phones and talk to a variety of callers, including one with thoughts on Adam's take on education. Enjoy it. Throwback episode number 938. 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's show. Yeah, get it on. Got to get on. Get on. Thanks. Tune on. Thanks. Thanks. You.

Dr. Reussport, subscribe, all right. I want to thank you guys for tuning in and sharing with a friend. I want to thank TherWorksrelief.com. Truecar.com and download free TV at Pluto TV.

Yes, true. A couple things for you. Are you sure Phil's fleet stuff is up to date? Because I'm telling you, this Myerine-Typhus outbreak is no BS. Phil is... It's the rats from the homeless. Labrador Phil is in studio with us.

It better be. The goddamn dog sleeps on my head at night. You got to put that, you know, the dot, that stuff that, what is it called? Shoot, it's in a purple box. Yeah, they put it behind the neck there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You got to get that. Because this flea thing, it's a flea thing, it's a flea-born illness in Southern California now that is epidemic proportionate.

It's nasty. Well, you wait old Garcetti gets back into town. He's going to mop this up. He's going to mop it up, but quick, you know. I've been predicting it forever. It's now amongst us. It's going to get a lot worse. There's going to be other illnesses on the heels of it.

It's really serious stuff. And it's all from the rats from the homeless encampments. I know. It made me laugh because Garcetti sent out a tweet like, hey, look at the contrails from the rocket and the sky from SpaceX. Spacex. It's so majestic. And Bob Brian wrote back. Oh, yeah.

How much you fucking take care of the homeless prom, you idiot? Get your head back to work. Stop staring up into the skies. By the way, don't look. welcome in the sky's too long you'll trip over a homeless person oh yeah you gotta look down you got you got to walk with purpose and stare at your feet right yes all right the other thing uh we had a call that just fell off let me see if it's still up there no it was interesting i was curious for how you to answer it i'll just ask it which is he wants to know how you see the future of corolla digital

like what's oh is there a plan is there is there is there a you know a revolution afoot no just uh trying to do a thousand things at once just keep keep on the same course yeah i i i i feel like you know show up go to work make more films hopefully create more films more films it's something yeah and uh always looking for what's kind of next you know like For instance, doing live podcasting wasn't a thing before I started doing live podcasting, and then it just sort of became a thing, and everyone's going out doing a live podcast, which is great. But I certainly didn't know that was a thing or would have been a thing several years ago, 10 years ago. Yeah, I heard Scott Adams talking about something interesting.

He said that there's mastering your field and some skills, and then there's mastering being creative. Like being creative is a separate skill set, creating. Because then you can create in anything. You know what I mean? You can just be creative in all kinds of areas. And I feel like the movie thing for you is sort of an expression of that. Well, what happens with me in the documentaries is there's so many interesting subjects that are so insane. I also, Drew, tell me what you think about this.

I was purping up some chicken, sorry. I've also considered and toyed around with the notion. Now, at a certain point, it's just like how many minutes are in every day and what can you do. But, you know, we make these documentaries and it depends how much. They could cost anywhere from $250,000 to $400,000 when the dust settles. But I started thinking about this, and somebody should do this, and we should do this. All right. We'll see.

You should start a business where you make documentaries about people's lives who are normal people. And if you are a person and you've done well for yourself, you have some money in the bank and you're fairly affluent or you've worked hard and you've made responsible decisions or you're the child, the 44-year-old successful child of the guy who worked three jobs to put you through law school and blah, blah, blah, you should commission a doc. About your dad or something? Your dad, your grandpa, or you, do it on you, like literally commission a doc. And we do them on Carol Shelby and Willie T. Ribs, but everyone's story is an interesting story. So it's sort of the equivalent of like a birthday sort of, you know, montage, except it's a documentary. It's a really, it's a professionally done doc. You get a full-blown, you know.

Researched. One hour to 90 minute. You'd approach it the same way you approach these things. It's great business. You go, all right, okay, a super grateful son. Your dad provide us family pictures, home movies, whatever you have. Tell us the story. Give us the name of some of his friends.

Is your mom alive? Can we interview her? Or we'll make one for her, too. We'll interview him. Everyone sit down. And everyone, everyone's got a story to tell. It's really about the telling of the story. It's how it's crafted.

Right. And it can be crafted. using still photography. It's like the Civil War series. Sure. Get the right narration. Now you get a group of guys, and they don't have to be Ken Burns. You just get guys who know how to construct.

It's a process. Start loading. Well, these days, all the kids coming out of film schools. They're almost as a filmmaker for every person. Start loading everything in the computer. Start this and that. At the end, we'll have credits. We'll have an opening.

We'll put music under it, whatever. And then at the guy's 70th birthday, We'll show it, and instead of seeing the one we made about Paul Newman, it'll be the one we made about your grandfather. Really? It's an interesting business, right? That's a great idea, yeah. Hey, let me just mention Therworks Relief. Leg cramps, foot cramps, they can disrupt your sleep.

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Someone wants to address attitude toward education. I want to talk about that. Michael, 39, Kansas. Michael? Yes, sir. How are you doing today? Good. So, I just want to, real quick, I've listened to you basically every day for the last 13 years.

And so I'm a big fan. And thank you. God, hold on and say, God, that phone line is bad. Is it that line or is it his? No, it's ours. There's apparently something wrong with line two and everyone that was coming in. It's been a little tough. Gabe reported this was okay, but we will stop taking calls on that particular line.

Sorry about that. Okay. Well, let me just do this. Shout your question fast. I just want to tell you, you learn to read and then you read to learn. And I think that's where education failed you. By age eight, it's been studied that that is the point towards decided what your outcome is going to be at largely at life. You're more likely to drop out.

You're more likely to go to jail. If you're not learning or you're not able to read at a third grade level, level. So your educational success was set up at age eight. I know you reference your terrible teachers in high school, but really it was kind of set up early on. Yeah, I got it. I've said that a million times. Set up the failure of its education. But he's saying that you should have been in prison and been able to work. I think he's missing the point. Let's get him back a little bit. No, he can hear us. His line is too bad. Look, I've always blamed not learned I didn't learn to read or write when I was a child before the fifth grade

and it was after that it was basically just running serpentine from any information that might stick to me I don't blame my high I've never blamed my high school teachers I have said about my counselors and occasionally a teacher not why didn't they teach me more why didn't they go, you have a high intellect. Why do you perform so poorly? What's the problem here? What's the learning issue that we should be addressing? I, now that I'm a dad and I deal with my son and my daughter and their 12-year-old friends who run in and out of my house all day, I know, hey, that Joey kid, kid's sharp. You know, and if you told me, oh, yeah, he's a D student, sometimes F. I'd go, not that kid, that kid's sharp. That kid's verbally strong.

He's funny. His eyes are open. He knows what I'm talking about. He engages. And if my son said, no, that Joey's like a D-minus student, I'd go, then he's going to the wrong place or they're coming at him in the wrong direction. That kid is bright. He's a bright kid.

And you can tell. You knew growing up your friends a little. Even if you, even it wasn't that obvious. They just did not address learning issues back then at all. By the way, there's also the converse. There's a couple of kids that, like, you know, my kid's friends. I think it's a little bit of a dim bulb. And my son will go, he's a great student.

And I'll go, I'm sure he, well, he's found a way to excel in this environment, but it seems a little dim. Or moms maybe helping out. In this environment. But I understood. I was hobbled out of the gate. And I never blamed my high school teachers. No, you blame the hippie school. I blamed the hippie school.

That's when I was eight. Yeah. That's what I didn't learn to read. Right. But I got to believe that if I ran into a 16-and-a-half-year-old version of me, I would have said, that kid is not stupid. Yeah. I don't know what it's, where Port Carte says, but that guy's sharp. You know what it went, I bet you it went down.

Oh, he's a, he's a behavior problem. Therefore, he can't learn because he's a behavior problem. It was a, the sit, it was really more like, here's your job. Who's your counselor, Mr. Tomey? What's your relationship? He's my counselor. What is your goal? To never see him or speak to him or go into his office.

Okay. Mr. Tomey, what would you like your relationship to be with Mr. Corolla? To never see him or have to talk to him in any way, shape, or form? Yes. Okay. Guess what? You two have the same goals. You would like to get paid without getting fired.

You would like to get warehoused and then pushed out of North Island High without any problems. And problems, this is great. It'll be a tacit agreement. Mr. Tommy, you don't have to burn any calories. Corolla, you stay clear of his office, everything's good. And you know what? Most people take that deal. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Because it's hard work to do anything different. Yeah, haven't you seen those commercials where the teacher is showing up on weekends and tutoring for free? And now just the energy it takes to go. Mr. Croll, let's sit here. Let me, let's dig in. What's going on?

No, this is... Why doesn't that work for you? Let's do some testing to see where the... It's hard work, and the kid's like, just get me out of here. I don't want to be around this guy. Right. And guess what changes all that, Drew? Family and education.

No. Competition. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Mr. Tomey wasn't going anywhere, and nobody was fucking nippet at his heels other than the Grim Reaper. And he had no incentive whatsoever to make me any better. You know what? He was a counselor.

by title, but really what it was a sort of part warden and part hall monitor. Here's something you and I have not talked about, and I've realized the piece of the 70s we missed discussing, which is how effing depressed all the teachers were. Yeah. They were all depressed. They were all depressed. But keep going. Well, the late 70s or 80s.

They were unfulfilled, unengaged, profoundly depressed, overwhelmed. the wheels had come off the wagon in the 60s and no one was there to help the teachers or help them deal with what had been unleashed and so it was just, hey, freak out, the kids raised themselves, it's fine. Everything you'd been doing for the 10 years before the 60s, well, that's all BS now.

And they were just beaten. Right? I mean, think about how many things went that way. Listen, I'm assuming if you're working as part-time game warden at North Hollywood High that your ship hasn't come man like you're not where you wanted to be but it doesn't when I worked and they would when I worked as a carpet cleaner and they would drop me off at the colony kitchen at midnight and say

clean the carpet and come back at four in the morning I wouldn't go I'm depressed I'd just be depressed and clean the fucking carpet yeah yeah so the deal is you still have to do your goddamn job I'm just saying there's a piece of that whole that depressing era that we don't really address that everybody was depressed you know trying to think how depressed all those people are he never he didn't strike me as depressed really no mr tommy no mr tommy don't strike me's depressed really i think you see when you the way you described delabarte and all those guys they just sound depressed del della what was name we had yeah we had guys that were miserable but i don't think hold on the angry well that's but like shop teachers

and PE teachers, stuff like that. Mr. Tomey was Asian and sort of quiet. And he had a hell of a mustache. All right, let me tell you about Pluto TV, the leading free streaming television service. Watch over 100 TV channels and thousands of movies on demand, completely free. Pluto TV, never asked for a credit card.

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Adam 47, Washington, D.C. Yes, that's me. Yes, I'm watching the Yankees in Rentax. Let me turn that off. Yeah, so I went through this horrific divorce in custody battle. Oh, I want to say, I'm a big fan. Long-time fan, big fan of you guys.

Thank you. But I went to this horrific divorce and custody battle. And the way I dealt with it was I drank a little lot of beer and smoked a lot of a pot. Wait, wait, wait, wait, I couldn't hear you. Say that again, you what?

drank beer and smoked pot. drank a lot of beer and smoke pot. Every single night. This is a way of dealing with the divorce? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a horrific divorce and the custody battle was just unbelievable, all kinds of false accusations. I mean, not quite as Brett Kavanaugh level, but pretty bad.

Well, let me just say this. I now realize false accusations are just false feelings that turn into accusations. I realize now that if I ever got down to this with my wife, she would have a million feelings about stuff that didn't happen that would be true. as hell to her. True to her. And then she is in the family law courts where you lose all your constitutional privileges. People are encouraged to lie. Gary, before you leave, what's the name of the podcast I did with, what's her name? The divorce. Laura Wasser. And she's agreed. It's just people lie all the time in horrific ways, horrific. And their courage to do you. Anyone who's ever

been through court, when you, people trot out the sentence, oh, he's under oath. They trot that out like it means something. It means nothing. It means nothing to the people who believe it or who don't care or who want to make money or have a story to tell. The under oath part, we treat under oath like it's some kind of ankle alert system. where, oh, you can't get down to the mailbox without that thing going off. There's no way he's going.

He's not going to Natsbury Farm, not with that ankle bracelet. No, no, no, no. This is an ankle bracelet with no batteries. Yeah. The under oath part is completely out the window. You go to trial once and just watch everyone that you know just lie their ass off under oath. And you'll realize it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything because no one ever follows up with it.

Right. You know what I mean? Right. They don't press against him for perjury. Right. All right, what's up? So, Adam. So, Adam, yeah.

Okay, so, yeah, so I've been kind of leaning on. And just quickly a note about false accusations. Yeah, my ex threw everything at me. I mean, just imagine things. And justified it, you know, she was trying to get full custody. I was going after, I was only going for joint custody because I didn't want to take him away from his mom. Right. But anyway, she just lied her ass off, you know, and justified it by saying, you know, she's the right parent to have full custody.

You know, she just believed in her car. Well, we got it. So you smoked a lot of pot and drank a lot of beer. Yeah, and I just, that was sort of how I coped with it for, you know, the duration. It's about four years since the beginning of it, and it's over now. For the most part, I periodically get, you know, harassing different. ways. But yeah, I'm just having a hard time kind of letting go. It's so easy to get weed in D.C. now. It's so easy. I have a store that just opened up, and I need to figure out. I just welcome some

advice about distracting myself, taking an exercise. Hold on. Hang on a second. Do you have a family history of alcoholism? Not really. My dad is not much of a drinker. Not. Not. that I know. I'm not that I'm not particularly one. I only drink like three to four beers a night. I don't, and occasionally more, but rarely do I just get hammered. All right.

All right. So, look, if you're not alcoholic, then stop. Yeah. Yeah, I have a lot of free time. All right. A lot of free time is tough. Yeah, but, well, yeah, that is tough. But you have to stop.

You have to stop and go through the withdrawals or whatever it is, you know, whether it's an emotional withdrawal because you have been using. it to cope or whether it's actual physical withdrawals, you have to go through it. It doesn't sound like cutting down is going to work right now. You're a little bit out of control with it and you need to break it. And yes, of course, exercising and proper sleep and proper attention to your emotional well-being and your social life and, you know, filling your time, probably be a good thing and not turning to pornography and things like that.

But if you can't stop without help, that's when you turn to some 12-step meetings. And there's plenty of people around to help you in D.C. Believe me, just go to an AA meeting and raise your hands. I need some help, I have trouble stopping. I got to tell you, there is no adage better than the devil makes work for idle hands. I don't even know what I would do, you know, when people go, oh, he's been unemployed for nine months now, and he's just basically surfing the couch, you know, he's watching daytime TV. Like, I would go, I would have immediately become a disaster.

I would get depressed. Talk about back pain. Yeah. Yeah. How much. You know, one of the things I try to discuss, but it's rarely discussed, is the importance of work, not for money, just for being. No. Work, love, play.

Essential, all three, equally. Work, love play. You got to have relationships of all types. You've got to work with purpose, ideally, or with something that's satisfying. And you've got to have some recreation. That's it. I agree. Wholeheartedly.

Work, cosplay. I agree with you, Drew. All right. No, I wish politicians addressed, meaning what I'm saying is, is you can make $850 a week and then be out of a job. And the politicians go, well, we got to get that guy $850 a week. And my thing is, oh, no, you've got to give him a job for $600 a week. Anything.

You can't just get him. That's the part they miss. Like, well, who's going to give him the money? It's like, it's not the money. You need the work. The work. Yep, agreed. Thank you.

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New or used, true car, confident, simpler. by experience, some features, not available in all states. All right. You can go to amcrola.com and find live shows coming up all over the place this Saturday. Come on out to Phoenix, stand up live. Say hi to me and Mike August up on stage doing basic cable commentary. And Anaheim Grove with Rob Wrigal. That's coming up on the 30th, Anaheim, and got a lot of offerings from Chassis up there.

You can check out the podcast One app for all that tells you and go to Corolla Drink. Say hi to Lynette. Drew, what do you got? Dr.com, the Dr. Drew podcast, and Siegel this week. Very interesting podcast from this world-class psychiatrists and thinker on mental health. Go look for the audiobook on the Opiate series. You will enjoy that, I promise. And join me at Instagram, Dr. Drew Kinski, where I do regular TV live spots. We'll check it out.

And say hi to our friend Rob Riggle. It Riggles Picks, and that's every Thursday on podcast, one, wherever you find your favorite podcast. Until next time, Adam Crowell for Dr. Bruce saying, Mahalo. 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 premium hosting advanced analytics dynamic ad integration and expert distribution all designed to maximize your reach and revenue plus with access to podcast one's industry leading network you'll be connected to top tier advertisers and a massive audience it's time to go pro and turn your passion into profit visit podcast one pro.com to get started today. Podcast One Pro, the power behind the podcast.