The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - Dr. Drew

Episode Date: July 1, 2019

My #HoneyDew this week is the one and only, Dr. Drew! Like a lot of you, I’ve been a fan of Dr. Drew for a long time and I’m fired up to have him on The Dew! He opens up about his strained relationship with his parents growing up, his early days at KROQ working around the clock, his prostate cancer & some untold stories from Celebrity Rehab! Subscribe, download & review! Sponsors: Visit https://vincerowatches.com/honeydew and use code HONEYDEW to get 15% off your order!

This NBA season, make every three-pointer alley-oop and buzzer-beater even more exciting with FanDuel. Download the app today to see why we're North America's number one sportsbook. 19-plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Welcome to the Honeydew, y'all. This episode is sponsored by Vincero Watches. More on that later. Let's get to the episode. You're listening to The Honeydew with Ryan Sickler.

Welcome back to The Honeydew, y'all. We're doing it over here at Studio Jeans at your mom's house. I am Ryan Sickler. Ryan Sickler on all social media, ryansickler.com. Got some dates for you here. We got, what do we have? August 1st through 3rd, the House of Comedy in Minnesota. September 14th, I'll be at the Famous in Baltimore.

Come out and see those shows. And as always, every week, thank you for all the positive feedback thank you for the messages everything please make sure you're subscribed get over to your mom's house podcast youtube page subscribe there get all the shows you've got going on over here at studio jeans uh the website here is the honeydewpodcast.com that's where you can find everything you need the email the social media links all that stuff and if you're new to the show as i say every week we over here we highlight the low lights and these are the stories behind the storytellers and i couldn't be more excited to have my guest here today ladies and gentlemen please welcome dr drew here we are man you know about that wow yeah it's like those guys have

never seen me before dude crazy i'm so stoked to have you here man thank you for doing the show you know i was thinking how high and tight i'm feeling for number one number two your jeans are pulled all the way up number two number two how great are the fans at your mom's house they're all when you were saying thank you i thought i should make that more explicit when i open it is a great, great community. They're great. And I, I even have, like I say,

friends and family back home that, that jump into the comment. They're like, do you read them? I'm like some, not all of them, but they're like, you have really good fans,

really loyal fans. These guys put together that crazy t-shirt. I have going like that. They, people buy them. Thank you for buying those t-shirts. I was a little embarrassed by them, but,

but I appreciate you buying those t-shirts. shouldn't be bigger than this all i'm saying well i'm looking forward to getting into it with you but before we do please feel free plug everything promote whatever you'd like in this very studio the dark where am i looking here i'm not used to the middle one that's our why that one okay that's right uh dr podcast in this very studio usually i'm looking at that camera. That's why I'm not sure what to do here. But yeah, this is Check Dr. After Dark. And also at Dr. Drew.com, me and Adam Kroll have a show called Adam and Dr. Drew Show.

And then the Dr. Drew Podcast. And I have a radio show in Los Angeles. So check that all out. How many total shows? We're sort of trying to hone them down a little bit. Some come and go they have this life with bob forrest got the hat and glasses from celebrity rehab i was doing swole patrol a health and fitness thing with mike catherwood who was yeah guest on dr drew podcast a couple weeks

ago and um but now we're just trying to get back to the basics all right well i know you're a busy man and again i can't thank you enough for being here and one of the reasons i'm still i mentioned this to you when i did your show uh which i'm not sure who's going to come out first dr drew but um back in my day when i was a kid the doctor of the time was dr ruth and i discovered dr ruth right in that time where I discovered masturbation, you know, that seventh, eighth, ninth grade window. And I would listen to Dr. Ruth like I think I want to say it was Sundays. And, you know, back when I had headphones and, you know, if you touch the metal to another piece of metal, it would sound even better. You could get better reception.

And I just remember listening to her and hearing these people call in. And I would hear, you know, these girls would talk about giving their boyfriends blowjobs. And I'm like, oh, my God. And then I start masturbating to the girls calling in, interrupted by Dr. Ruth speaking. And I'm like, hurry up and get over your fucking advice. The custom. And, you know, I never did jerk off to your show. But not that it wasn't jerk off worthy.

But I then I feel as though though so i was a big fan of dr she came and spoke at my community college i will never forget the story she told she was talking about keeping it fresh in the bedroom and she said she had a patient who um her she and her husband would uh in the bedroom he would get an erection and she would throw onion rings on it and then eat the onion rings off this is coming from dr ruth okay who i feel like was 80 when i was fucking 10 okay and it just blew me away that this lady was so into this and was such a professional and i did end up learning so much so then fast forward to not too much later you guys come around you and carola and i was just such a huge fan of love line i'd been doing by the time carola arrived i'd been And fast forward to not too much later, you guys come around, you and Carolla.

And I was just such a huge fan of Loveline. See, I'd been doing, by the time Carolla arrived, I'd been doing Loveline 15 years. Are you serious? Or 12 years. That long? It started in 83. Who was your first co-host? Poor man.

Okay. But also what I did realize is where sex had gone. Yeah. From these innocent stories I would hear to what you guys. And I was like, holy shit. And that's actually, I used to really object to Dr. Ruth because she did not talk about, all she was talking about was we've got to have good sex. I'm like, you don't understand. It's gone.

And the consequences biologically are profound. She seemed to have no awareness about hiv and aids and stuff and i was like oh my god this is irresponsible now since i've gotten to know her in recent years she is spectacular she is the real deal she's an academic in her background she has a new netflix special i think right she was an israeli sniper what she speaks like three different languages she um escaped the nazis into sweden during the second world war i mean just just an amazing amazing yeah amazing human being and even though i objected to her missing what i thought was so important i'm a full advocate for dr ruth and

she has looked the same as when i first the same founder in the 80s she really does so i want to get into your life but i do want to ask you a little bit like as far as practicing you know you're a doctor what is it like when you have i guess for a while you're floating along with the standard set of stds that are out there then all of a sudden something like aids comes and then all these other things come how do you adapt professionally to work not not only educate yourself, but then to help educate your patients? Or, can I ask one more question?

Yeah. Or do the patients coming in actually help educate you? Well, of course, the cases educate us. But you learn from your subspecialty peers, right? So I read all the literature I read, and then I see what my infectious disease consultant friends are doing, that kind of thing. And then I get the experience of the cases. So it's sort of a multi-level experiential learning that doctors go through.

And then you sort of, you know, then you have experience applying what the subspecialists are doing, and you get a feel for it, if that makes sense. It definitely makes sense. Do you find yourself, like, because you're so knowledgeable about the body, do you find yourself like ever over worrying about shit inside you going on? No. You feel like those tears when I'm driving? No. Oh, my God.

No, the other opposite. See, this is why doctors don't take care of themselves or their family. It's completely pushed away. It's nothing, it's nothing, it's nothing. Oh, my God, I'm going to die. It's one or the other i got and it has and it takes a lot to get from here to here all right and uh but i would do that with my kids all the time so i'd be like oh i don't know i'm paying attention i'm paying attention

oh shit they have leukemia i'm sure of it i'm sure of it and uh that's why you don't take care of your own family you can't be objective so let's go back to the beginning where where are you from originally where did you grow up i grew up i've ridged a hambron and then pasadena okay and uh my dad was a family practitioner first generation immigrant from uh i mean his parents came over from belarus and ukraine um had a very big hassle to get into the country. You know, they was not exactly welcoming Russian Jews into the United States. I had to go through Canada and find sponsors and, you know, a place to land to prove how you're gonna make a living. And I guess they had a restaurant or something when the depression hit and was completely

wiped out and were nearly homeless, which freaked my dad out completely. And my grandfather ended up becoming a grocer in Chicago, Elmwood, I think. Elmhurst, I think it was. And they kind of did okay after that. Then my dad went to medical school and whatnot and moved out here. And you were born? 58. 58. So your and moved out here. And you were born? 58. 58.

So your family relocates here. Yeah. And then what starts getting you into medicine, being a doctor? What sparked your interest? So I think always I'm going to do what dad does, this kind of thing. And there was always an assumption. Immigrant families, you're going to be a lawyer, a doctor, an accountant. That's just what you're going to do.

And I was always very good in the sciences but actually when i was in college i abandoned the whole project for about two years you did where'd you go i went to amherst college okay and so here i was in this super rigorous academic environment in new england didn't really know how i got there or why i was there and i just thought i'm just not up for this i'm not that smart i can't do this and i spent about a year and a half just fucking around doing music and theater and I don't know. I thought I was going to be,

I thought I was going to be an opera singer for two minutes. You did? Yeah. Can you belt out a few lines real quick? No, I will not do that. Are you sure? Yeah, positive.

And I think it was an episode of Ridiculousness, though, where I do sing. So they got me to do it there. And then I became miserable. I became miserable. I left college for a while, and I started getting depressed and panic attacks. Why? Do you know? Can you trace it back?

I think it was I had a girlfriend that had broken up with me. I had no stable identity. My identity was very wishy-washy. The whole experience of going into England and not knowing what I wanted to do and rejecting everything I thought I always would do was, and I had some really serious psychological issues that took a long time before I ever dealt with them. And I got severely depressed and severe disabling panic attacks and then disabling generalized anxiety and uh i knew enough to

go to this the well first i went to the mental health services at the college and they of course sent me down to the the medical thing to make sure that i'm they wanted me to get me some valium and uh the doctor you know back then there was almost no student health service. There was no adolescent health. And that's why I eventually became interested in young people's health, because no one was focused on them. And what was down there was some retired physician who was like donating his time in the afternoon. And he looked at me, he goes, just get it together, take long walks in the woods.

He's like very disdainful, like, just get it together. Just walk in the woods. You'll be fine. I'mful. I just get, get it together. Just walk in the woods. You'll be fine. I'm like, could Jesus Christ, the hell would make me fine. I sure as hell would do it. And so I'll never forget that.

I will never forget that. It was, you know, and then I was mostly mismanaged for a couple of years after that. Anyway, in the middle of all that, I started, you know,

what am I going to do? What am I going to do? And finally I, I, I, well well i can't do that science stuff because that's what everybody else wanted me to do i won't even consider it i let it in one day and i just thought well maybe i maybe i am okay at that and i immediately felt better yeah that's what i wanted to know if you pushed it away oh because a lot of people just like i'm not like i have no way i'm gonna do do that. And when, but when I, and when I went back, I had a, I had a different brain.

Not only did I own this and it was mine and I was enthusiastic about it, I'd matured. Uh, and my, I literally was not capable. I didn't have the focus to do it the way I had to, why I needed to do it. So I'm glad I waited. So do you think that you always knew you would and the anxiety? No. Oh no. I was just adrift i was adrift and i didn't like that clearly now you said you had some uh serious psychological

problems can we talk about that so i've only told you about my dad my mom was a trip she was an opera singer i had a weird vivid oh there's your opera okay yeah yeah and then a b movie like film noir actress and was in television like highway patrol and all those crazy things from the 50s and um she was not effective it's the kindest thing i can say as as a parent was um moderately abusive most of the time sometimes severely abusive to me in what ways physically screaming no never never touched but screaming and yelling and just demeaning and that kind of stuff um and didn't get really get what i needed uh to be able to talk about in psychological terms to sort of hook up with my own spontaneous feeling states i didn't no one ever reflected this stuff back to me so i didn't have any access to it

and uh took years of therapy to connecting that back up and that's where a lot of the anxiety was i was just disconnected and that your body only leaves you with anxiety when you can't have your feelings that's one of the sources of anxiety so does it affect you as a student like how are you were you a good student always i was always a great student you were always a good student but obviously for a year and a half, it affected me greatly. So what situations would you see it play out in through life until you- Oh, bad relationship.

Just always a relationship. Horrible longing and just clinging in relationships and just really yuck. Not good. But your parents were together. They stayed together. And my dad was pretty much of a narcissist too. He was a nice guy, but narcissistic. And so it was his way or the highway.

And anything that, you know, anything, any needs outside of their needs were met with complete rejection. That's the narcissistic way. And then she, my mom was just maniac a lot of the time, screaming at me like, unbelievable. Your dad, too? Nope. Just you? No. Oh, she yelled at him? Yeah years would yell at him yeah do you have siblings yeah i have a sister she yelled at her like that too my sister remembers the yelling but somehow wasn't affected by it so it wasn't directed at her i don't think ever so you get through and and he has more with

my mom and so i'm doing love line one night I had a friend of mine in there who was interested in noir films. And he started looking up her background and stuff on the internet. He goes, oh, here's your mom's profile. Helene Stanton, married first. Oh, really? Married before? You had known that? No idea.

No idea. She was about 80 at this time. And I was like, oh, really? She was married to a silent film star. This kind of gives you the sense of who she was she left philadelphia where she was an opera singer with a man who was 56 the fifth wife at age 18 18 and 56 did you give me a fucking heart palpitation had a came out here lived with him for 10 years had a stepson for 10 years. Who was 48.

Yeah, he was late teens or something. Right. And she left him when it was time to leave. Just boom. No contact with anybody ever again. Just cut off like that. I found this when I found out about this. I was given, Carole and I were doing an event in Santa Barbara one time. This woman came up to me and goes, I need to give you an amends.

I go, he's a man's wife? For my grandfather. I went, we need to talk. And she was the daughter of the stepson. And so I ended up calling the stepson, who's now a retired dentist in Stockton. And we gave my mother many opportunities to come clean about it. Totally denied it. Denied it.

And not just said, I didn't want to talk about it. Just was like, that did not happen. Did not happen. She reminds me of Don Draper. You know, remember when she was in, he's in the psych hospital with Peggy and he goes, you'll be surprised how easy it is for things just to not happen. That was her thing. Just didn't happen.

Okay. Talk about compartmentalization. Yeah, no shit. Anyway, that gives you a sense of what i was contending with so how all right so let's go back to you free yourself from the anxiety you're owning what you're gonna do now we're now in college now yeah back to college your anxiety i wouldn't say is it over or you've pushed past at least you've gotten to the point where i know now what i'm gonna panic attack stop stopped and the depression stopped a bit.

And what kind of attacks would you have? Oh, like dissociative. Like the world would sort of float away and I'd feel like I was not there. It was very weird. Would it be specific moments or crowds or public or by yourself? Crowds was part of it. Public and crowds would trigger. So it was agoraphobia.

It got to that point where that would sort of generalize to that stuff. But I couldn't, they would often occur at night, sometimes in bed even. And it was a feeling of dissolving away. And then there's an extreme panic that would go along with that. You ever had panic attacks? I've never had a panic. I had one panic attack. I did have one.

I was, I guess this is a panic attack. I was hiking to Mescal Canyon. It was right before my daughter was born. Hiked it a bunch. Still have hiked it since a bunch. I've never had a problem, but this one particular day I get to the point, there's like this little waterfall area where you can sit and rest for a

minute before you continue up. And I just sat there for a second. And there's these two ladies sitting right just two asian ladies i remember it very vividly sitting right over here and i'm sitting against a rock i start to drink some water and i just start to feel my heart race i start to see the circle close oh yeah and i start to feel myself like slip away from i'm starting to slide down the rock and i just let myself hit hard and i have my phone in my pocket but in my mind i'm i'm on the verge of yelling to these two ladies to call

9-1-1 but i'm having this battle like why would you do that you have a phone in your pocket and then i was like just fucking breathe just fucking breathe and i sat there for a while i breathe and i got through it and that's the only time i can say i've ever had something like that i feel like that was a pan i don't feel like i was about to pass out from exercise i feel like that was a panic attack there's a lot of shit about to happen okay it sounds like it but but it could have been a arrhythmia too right they sometimes your heart can get into rhythms where your adrenaline goes up and it feels like a panic attack but it's actually caused by the cardiac arrhythmia and you can pass out from that yeah so you might want to get to check that i have i was on i told you i go i've had those new

heart scan checks done i thought for even my doctor said you're gonna have something with your family history yeah i remember you told me that yeah and i was clear i was clear so i go every six months i get my ekgs i get all that stuff right as my doctor said if something happens you got all the paperwork that you did everything right you could right we'll see so uh so yeah so that was sort of a miserable time super super miserable and then once i got into the medic the pre-medical training it was crazy intense and it was all i remember that as a miserable time because i didn't know if it was going to yield anything but i was going to get into medical school or anything. So once I got in, I started really enjoying myself. And there's no times where you're like doubting yourself or ever second guessing again?

The whole time. Oh, by going a different direction? Yes. No, though the degree of sacrifice, the intensity of work, I was wondering if it was worth it. But I enjoyed it. I was into it.

Yeah. So I went year-round to school at that point too i was i was in i was deeply in and what did you like what were your some of your early failures i was a to begin with a terrible football player uh i remember this is at a small high school, so the fact that I could even play football was sort of, okay. That's what Adam gives me shit about all the time. But he calls it Little Lord Fauntleroy School for Albino Hemophiliacs. So that was my school.

But freshman year, I mean, it really hit me hard. I was like, whoa, I wasn't prepared for what football was like and I decided I was going to quit and I remember this one coach came up to me and he got right in my face he goes you can do this he goes I know you're thinking you're on the fence but you're good you can do it and so I dug in again ended up warming the bench for a while, like most of the season. I was still very, very frustrated with it. But once I decided to dig into it, I thought,

I'm going to use this as a challenge. And so I kind of committed myself. And I remember the last season of the year, they had a bunch of injuries and they put me in. And defensive end, if i remember right yeah i was about 30 pounds heavier probably too then okay um and uh and i had some interceptions and i made the game won the game and everything and i remember did yeah i remember the coach sat me down the bus like you know you're the question mark different coach you're the question mark in this lineup you know we don't

know if you're really right for this position so we'll give you a try out there it's like i thought to myself at the time that fuck you well thank thank you for that right now really right so it sort of motivated me even more and then i ended up being captain football team you did ultimately yeah i got pretty good you got very good defensive end you stayed defensive i played i played in the trenches all the way both ways and stuff and yeah i learned i learned how to hit i learned how to hit i had a moment uh this was right after my father died in high school and um i was active in sports and it was one of the things that really helped just for a couple

hours take my mind off. Oh my god so I think football I don't care what how many cells I lost vitally important to me. All sports I agree I was just telling my daughter last night like I'm still friends with some of the guys I played sports with in elementary school you know it's just a bonding experience. There's something about this I've only seen this in males there's something about putting yourself in harm's way on behalf of your peers there's nothing like it when i had my kids play tackle football when they were in fourth grade because you know there's no you know there's no real contact with that but it gives them basics take attacking blocking stuff and i remember each kid they start carrying themselves differently just it scared them to be out there but they're like okay i'm doing it for the team it changed them

even at nine ten years of age it was crazy it is crazy yeah i um so i'm going into this it's a tournament and they're asking me as 165 pounder or whatever i was to to do the 185 or 187 weight class and i'm weighing in in my singlet, my headgear. I'm eating a cup of pudding on the scale. You know, all the other kids are in their underwear and everything else. And I know I'm giving 20 pounds. And if it's fat, I can handle it. If it's muscle, I'm getting my ass kicked.

And I just look across. I'm like, you got to be fucking kidding me. This kid was Hercules. And I was like, I'm going to get my fucking ass kicked. And we went out, and the kid just stuck his neck out a little too far and i hit him with a headlock i pinned him in 17 seconds i ended up having the fastest pin in the whole tournament right and we get on the bus and the coach is giving out these little awards wherever he goes and this award and i'm like oh here comes the fastest pin in the tournament but the way he says it is

goes to the guy that should have never won the match he won ryan i was like you fucking piece of shit so as always i ask everyone that comes in with some stories and one of the stories that nadav said something you struggle with health was you have prostate cancer. I sure do. Do? Yeah. Still. You have cancer.

You never know if it's, I don't know what the cancer is. You never know. So this is, again, to me, with my catastrophic thinking about myself, I had a severe illness. My wife and I went to the Caribbean and I came back and the way back,

I just felt this horrible illness. The words came out of my mouth. I never imagined, take me to the emergency room. Something's terribly wrong. And what is it? Fever and chills and weakness and almost confusion.

It turns out I have H1N1 and pneumonia, this horrible virus. I thought I had leptospirosis because I've been in the islands where there's a leptospirosis outbreak and stuff because it really seemed horrible. And it took me out a week of i was toxic as hell and um after that my wife goes well that wasn't normal i go yeah it was a bad illness and she goes oh no no something's wrong i go you know you can you need to get a physical i go i've got a

cardiologist i've got a pulmonologist i get my friends i make an appointment for a physical for you all right i'll get a physical. I get a physical. Normally, I watch my own cholesterol and my own PSA and stuff. I get a physical. PSA had gone from one to four. All normal readings. Four is still normal.

And the guy who's now my doctor to this day just goes, I need to see a urologist. I went, come on, I'll test it again in six months. I just don't feel comfortable. Let's see a urologist. All right, I'll do it. Went to a urologist i went come on i'll test it again in six months i think we'll i just don't i don't feel comfortable let's see a urologist all right i'll do it went to the urologist urologist goes yeah you shouldn't even be here uh let's give you some antibiotics anti-inflammatories probably prostatitis can i ask you a question real quick at this point here especially as a doctor are you hesitant about these doctors you're seeing are these people you know people i know and I trust. But are there,

your wife said she's going to make an appointment for it. I knew who it was. I knew who it was going to be. And I trusted him to send me to somebody and I knew the guy was going to. All right. And, and, Prostatize.

So, Prostatize, he treats me, we'll recheck your PSA, doesn't go down. He's like, ah, I'll do another round.

Antibiotic, doesn't go down. Well, we need to do a biopsy i'm like god damn it i'm so mad at everybody if i'll come back in six months we'll check it again if you see what happens when you do too much to patients you just gotta be more reasonable conservative biopsy cancer so a lot to be learned from this a yeah please educate us good judgment to doctors who use their judgment you see doctors

to use because of their judgment that's why you go wife my wife also good judgment so my wife i would call that more intuition so my wife's intuition saved my life my doctor first doctor's great judgment that something just didn't feel right. Second doctor going through the procedures and doing what was right, got to the, got to the right place. And that was that. And they, again,

you go to a physician to, to, to them for the him or he or she to apply their judgment. The knowledge base goes without saying we all have the same knowledge base, but that ability to really apply the right judgment at the right time for the right, for your particular situation is why you, why you want the doctor. um and so now you know it's like all right it's a low gleason score i can wait a while so i'm like i'll get an operation a year or something and um then i

found active surveillance where they they re-biopsy you repeatedly over like every 6 to 12 months so i went on active surveillance and the thing grew a little too much it was like time to get that's it prostate out big surgery scared for the surgery for the from the and all of it when you first get diagnosed yeah you first get diagnosed you go i was like god i was like first of all i had i had a lot going on in my life that i really was happy doing and it was like being just as always pulled out of the sky number one number two um it was prostate cancer i thought my dad had my uncle had i thought i'm i was gonna get it at 70 50 really 50 god damn it god damn it he's like come on come on i felt like god and you and you feel a amazing kind of sinking feeling it's like like, whoa. So that's a hereditary.

Yeah. It turns out I have something called Lynch syndrome, which puts me at risk for a lot of stuff. Prostate amongst it. And so got the prostate out, which was a big operation. It took a while to get over. But no consequences. All good.

How long did it take you to recover from that? I don't think I was right for a year. A year? Holy crap. I thought you were going to say a month. But I went back to work in 10 days of course you did yeah so thank you thank you for the sound you're nuts yeah i i think and i think anesthesia i do really poorly i do poorly with anesthesia and tissue damage i think that those are the things that really get me what do you mean tissue somebody cutting somebody yeah opening what sort of struggles did you have especially while

working recovering with that just weak and we get out of it yeah weak but i was i was pretty okay after about i remember i was doing a live tv show on hln and i would lie down during every commercial and so you would oh yeah i couldn't i couldn't tolerate i couldn't i just had would lie down during every commercial. You would? Oh, yeah. I couldn't tolerate it. I just had to lie down. So for about two weeks after I went back to work, I was a little goofy, and then I was pretty good at work. I was pretty good.

I wasn't myself. I didn't have stamina. I didn't have vitality the way I'm used to having. And so I didn't notice that wasn't happening, frankly, because I was like, I'm working. This is great. I'm back at work. Everything's fine could have sex well my penis works you know what are you looking at me like i'm just i'm learning so fucking much i'm learning so goddamn

much and every time i hear these kinds of things i get scared i get scared well i hear cancer we're all gonna get something yeah well i've read that if you live long enough oh that's how you're gonna get anyway well no no you're gonna die with prostate cancer yeah yeah yeah because it's all males get prostate cancer if they lived 100 and it's that's how inconsequential it is as you get older but which is why you're saying i'll go get checked later and i'm not i don't have well because i know it's slow growing and I know you could overdo it. And I was 50. I was like, yeah. Oh, my God. That was going to be so angry. But I would take that cancer over just about any other one.

Because there's a lot of bad ones. Yeah, there are a lot of bad ones. That's why I'm saying I think people hear that C word and they just get scared. Yeah, I know all about all of them. So I know exactly what each one means. I talked to a friend of mine last week who has pancreatic cancer, and that was really hard. That's a terrible disease.

So you're doing all this work. Is this back in the early days of K-Rock? When was this? What are we talking about? When was what? When you had your cancer. You have 50. No, no, that was 10 years ago.

Yeah, of course. So back to early days of K-Rock. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you get your start there? Oh, that was 10 years ago. Yeah, of course. So back to early days of K-Rob. Yeah, yeah. How do you get your start there? Oh, that's a total, I should tell that story. It's an accident. Pretty much everything in my life that's not been directed in medicine has been an accident.

Even addiction medicine was an accident. Like I'm an internist, right? And so I was heading towards cardiology. That's actually where I was headed. And I was very good in intensive care medicine. I sort of have a talent for that. And somebody asked me to go moonlight in a psychiatric hospital down the road, which I'd always heard of.

I lived in Pasadena. There's always this place behind the walls. Went in there. I was like, oh, my God, this place is beautiful. And how interesting. There's all these things here. And I became fascinated with it and i just kept moonlighting there all the way through my residency and i ended up working regularly there and taking

over their department of medicine and so while i was doing my general medical practice i also had this medicine practice or instead of the medical care of the psychiatric patient at the psych hospital well all the medical problems were down on the drug unit we got very good at doing drug withdrawal which was something i was never trained on because there was no discipline of that. And I started getting interested in the disease of addiction. And in 1991, interestingly, I'd forgotten this piece. The guy with the pancreatic cancer was the director of the addiction program. And he called me and said, hey, be the assistant director because if I'm on vacation or something, I need somebody to cover me. You're there all the time anyway.

It's no big deal. And six months later, he quit. And so I had to move into the position of director, at least temporarily, and I really got it together and trained myself. It took me about five years to really get real expertise in the subject and fell in love with it. I really enjoyed doing it.

So that's where the addiction came by. The radio is where the first accident accident came from uh i was living in pasadena k rock was in pasadena about 300 yards from where i lived and it became popular overnight it was crazy uh in like 1982 it was all of a sudden out of nowhere this this station emerged and all my friends were listening to it and everyone was interested in it. And people were starting to socialize with like air staff and stuff over there. And one guy was brainstorming with some guys, and he called me. He goes, you know, they've got this late night show.

They went to their program director, and they have to make it a community service show. And they just want to do a show where people call in and get advice from their friends or these disc jockeys, but they need to make a community service. So they want want to do a show where they call, you know, people call in and get advice from their friends or these disc jockeys, but they need to make a community service. So they want you to come. I told them you were in medical school and they want you to do a segment called Ask a Surgeon. You'll use big words.

It'll be really funny. And I was like, what the fuck? What? And I was eventually convinced to come up there. And I remember my first night, I came up with my gynecology and infectious disease textbooks. I was totally freaked out. I was a medical student still then i was like i was right at the verge of fourth year and um and i was just blown away by what was happening there i mean

these incredible questions were coming to people you know radio staff in the middle of the night and i and and it was no we were just starting to call grids aids we used to call it gator related intestinal disease syndrome it was just being called aids we didn't have a causative we i think we just maybe had htlv3 the causative agent no treatments no nothing and i was treating tons of aids patients uh particularly once i went to my residency but even fourth year medical no it was probably residency i really started seeing a lot of them but i just thought hey no one's no one is talking to young people about aids no one and there was and it was considered bizarre like you don't talk to kids about that you why would you do that and it was hard it was sort of stepping out of line i was

sort of like thank god you were like why wouldn't you well medicine was sort of a military is a military system and when you know a young and steps out of line, they get crushed. I see. And I did eventually. My residency director at one point just started screaming at me. Screaming, something wrong with you. It's disgusting. Why are you doing this?

And I stopped. That was during my internship. And the same guy came back around like about two weeks later. And he goes, hey, look, I just don't want you to destroy your career. Great advice, shithead. Yeah. And now fast forward two years, I end up, or three years, I end up being his chief resident. I end up running the whole program.

There you go, Dr. Drew. And he goes, hey, you still doing that radio program? I'll tell you what, I'll do it now. Let me do it. I'm like, yeah, right. program i'll tell you what i'll do it now let me do it i'm like yeah right so i so i sort of snuck back in after six months and started doing it again because i just i was so i felt so compelled no one was doing it there was and remember i was i'd had that horrible experience as an adolescent not being properly treated no everyone was like dr ruth telling them how to have great sex

condoms weren't being discussed no sex retransmit disease weren't being discussed and aids wasn't being discussed i couldn't believe it i mean i was 23 to 25 years of age at the time and i was like i know what you guys are up to and no one the society didn't seem to realize it at the time there was like we've just been through the sexual revolution right and people were like you know understood that adults were acting out but adolescents why would they do that? They're kids. Please. Yeah, please. They're doing all of it.

Exactly. Way more than the adults. I'm just behind you in age, and I remember high school being educated about condoms and STDs, but it was all the standard issue, regular STDs you heard about forever. Could you have understood what they were talking about? I couldn't understand it. I ended up it you know it was use a condom so you don't get a you get pregnant right get an std pregnant honestly was a bigger fear for a kid yeah

way more and it wasn't until a year or two later when i'm in college i was living with my grandmother i come home i'll never forget this either she is sitting in a rocking chair and she goes magic johnson has aids and i think it's the only time i said shut the hell up and i was like what are you talking about and then of course everything was aids at first before people understood hiv aids and i was like holy shit and then it was this like i think that's when it really hit i think that was a threshold for a lot of people yeah like wait that can happen out there yeah i think that was a threshold for a lot of people. Yeah. Like, wait, that can happen out there. Yeah. I think that was a big,

we just went from don't get pregnant and don't get herpes to, you can die from this. Right. So I was, I was out there chanting about it all the time. And, and I, and people were freaked out about herpes and gonorrhea.

So I kept saying, that's all manageable. Don't worry about that. This thing is what you got to concern yourself with. So I was very early to that game. So that was k rock early on and then you stayed and i stayed for 35 years was it love line from the gecko it was wow that's great it was two or three or four different disc jockeys i and i i always i always said i go this

is not all the they had all these people on there with a an attorney and then two co-hosts and i was like this is a parent-child conflict. This is two people. That's it. Just the two of us. Get all these other ones out of here. Finally, I was so frustrated with what the other people were saying. I'm like, I can't be around this anymore. So I quit.

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fairly priced. Get a Vincera watch at VinceraWatches.com slash honeydew with promo code honeydew. Now back to the honeydew. So I've had a million shows. I've watched as many of them as I can. The Celebrity Rehab was one of my favorite. And I've always been fascinated by addiction too. I have a cousin who he's a paranoid schizophrenic, also an addict. And I'm fascinated by the stories. I have other family members and friends.

I mean, I've certainly, I battle food. I battle, you know, my own addictions. I've had friends gambling. But I've always been intrigued by the way the mind works and the disease that is addiction. When you get these celebrities now that's something that you had on television stuff like what are some of the crazier fucking things you've seen addiction make people do and is that am i even saying that right would you say it's fair to say addiction makes you do that yeah oh yeah i mean you name it i mean i've

seen you know injecting into the penis and ah wait needles oh yeah oh yeah no it's routine that's pretty routine heroin neck into the neck and i know the neck for heroin yeah yeah or meth or whatever you're into heroin mostly um i can't those are hard stories come up with because i've just seen people do crazy stuff have you ever dealt with someone in these shows that was i can tell you just generally on the show have you ever dealt i treated 5 000 drug addicts in my career are you serious 5 000 have you ever dealt with someone that you're like i don't know how you do it but god damn you're crazy successful and you're just keeping plugging along but you're addicted to shit has there ever been all the time really oh it's where people The functioning addicts?

Oh, those are amazing. Those are fun. And I always tell them, and I'm never wrong, you're going to lose everything. You're not going to maintain this. And they always have to go. They have to go down. In order to come back.

Yeah, they'll kind of be okay for a while and cruise along. And sometimes if I get to them before they really lose control, can kind of keep it together but usually they have to lose everything if they're in drugs not alcohol they'll lose everything what is it about addiction that that attracted you to wanting to help people i just i remember i had two cases uh where usually i would just do the detoxes i really wouldn't see what happened after that and had two cases where they asked me to follow them through the treatment and they were like these young women that were dying and they ended up like amazing i was like what the heck what what just happened i don't understand this and normally in medicine you go from dying to chronically ill you know or you don't go from dying to amazing or

better you ever knew you'd be right i was like what the i want to see what what happened how does this work i i just got fascinated with it so i just kept kept learning and i saw many many crazy amazing things it baffles and it astonishes and what's the craziest addiction you've had to deal with most bizarre addiction you've had to deal with oh god i don't like i've seen shit on tv where people eat pillows no i know I know there's stuff like that. I wouldn't get the exotica, I don't think. I get the meat and potatoes, meth, heroin, alcohol, shopping, sex, gambling. But meth has made quite the leap. Lately.

It's back again. It's been in and out. I've seen it go through a couple of times. So when did meth start coming around? Meth came around in the late 80s, actually, when it really started coming. And I declared it would never replace cocaine. I just thought it's not as rewarding as no way. It's too unpleasant.

I was wrong. I was completely wrong. How do you know? Have you done drugs? How do you know that it's not that rewarding? I've not done meth. I've done cocaine a little bit. You smoke marijuana? I smoke marijuana, alcohol uh i i don't like it i don't i don't really like it that's

so i feel grateful that way i feel ungrateful in that opiates also i don't like i'm with you on that and so when i'd be like and after surgery and stuff i wouldn't take them i felt terrible on them so i'm like what if i ever get cancer and need them it's going to be not good but anyway um then my course my patients are baffled by that what what do you mean they're they literally incredulous like they can't believe it so um what'd you ask me what other doing drugs and oh what the most weirdest oh where did meth come from um yeah meth is just really powerfully addictive once it gets going and you don't have to do a lot of it you do it two one two three times a day and it's keeping you high all day and that's it and that was the part i didn't understand i thought you

had to keep doing meth like cocaine and so it's it's more insidious and the great this is a little here's a lesson for you so comparing meth to crack okay both of them cause paranoid psychosis okay cocaine always and this is smoke cocaine always causes a preoccupation with uniformed officers always SWAT team police team army that's what you think's gonna come in the room and they always they also they always isolate all that foil always come in the room. And they always isolate. Foil. Always foil in the window and looking at the foil. Always.

And we don't know why they do this. And neither do they. And they're always looking up in this part of the country in the palm trees. They're always in the palm trees. They're always looking up. It's really weird. The cocaine does that somehow to them. Meth, and by the way, it resolves in 12 hours. If they using it goes away goes away like 12 24 hours meth it's much slower to

come on can take years to come on once it comes on it takes months to go away okay oh so it can go away it goes away meth psychosis goes away always so So I had a guest named Jessa Reed who came on, and she has a podcast called The Mormon and the Meth Head. Her partner is a former Mormon. She's a former meth head. Recovered mom. She's fantastic. Okay, before you tell the story, let me just tell you,

because I'm going to predict the future here. Meth psychosis is always a preoccupation with family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors. Aliens. Oh, well, and neighbors. Aliens. Oh, well, if you get going enough. But the aliens are always sent by somebody you know. They're always, oh, yeah. Like Todd Bridges.

Aunt Teresa! Yeah, yeah. Send those aliens over, girl. Like Todd Bridges, the reason he got arrested for shooting in the street, he was shooting these green men that were growing in a factory under his house that his grandmother had built. Okay, so it always ties back to a relationship. I'm going to have to go back and listen to the episode and ask her. You may have to prompt them because it's sometimes obscure.

But yes, they can beaming thought. But it also makes me wonder, does she have another psychiatric problem too? She probably had a lot of trauma. Yeah, if you have other mental illnesses, sometimes they can be activated by the meth. Does she have another psychiatric problem too? Well, she probably had a lot of trauma. Yeah, if you have other mental illnesses, sometimes they can be activated by the meth. But fully aware that it causes this, and she said they lived with her for, I want to say, a couple years.

But she said they would predict a lot of what has happened now. She said they would tell her things. The aliens? Mm-hmm, that were sent probably by somebody she knew. But she said they would say things like in the future um sex not physical sex but you know gender is not going to be that big of a deal it's going to be fluid and she's starting to see she says a lot of the things that they told her the aliens are coming from her brain and she may have had that insight that's all so good for her and i so i mentioned my cousin too so um my father used to tell us

all the time like he was a built-in say no to drugs campaign for us my cousin who has the paranoid schizophrenia who was fantastic at all these sports all this stuff and then according to him was acid that oh set him to the other side. He never recovered. Right. Sometimes people get chronic psychosis from that. I don't know that I would call him. It's hard to call him a chronic schizophrenic.

I've seen horrible psychiatric illnesses from hallucinogens. I've seen bad stuff. He said he was doing that stuff. He's like, Ryan, I've probably tried everything that's out there. I'm like, and that scared the shit out of me. I mean mean i didn't smoke weed till i was 21 because of that yeah i was always scared i was gonna go crazy because i thought that was hereditary too which it probably is a little bit yeah i figured it was um who were some of your favorite moments from the show celebrity rehab yeah i had a million of them um uh there were so many things rodman i had a real attachment to rodman yeah

uh he um oh this is a great story i don't think this went on tv he a lot of stuff didn't go on tv that was just so great let's tell all the stuff that didn't go on okay he um he was in it's the first group and i think he was in the group with like heidi flies and tom sizor was a really rough group and a lot of stuff was going on and uh he was reading a book like this the whole thing the whole time like didn't look up from it and i go i go dennis come on man the they're these people are working hard they're pulling their horn their heart out i want you in the group they went it's it's it's painful to see you doing that i want you in the group and he goes hey he goes all hey. He goes, all right.

He goes, I got to tell you something. You and I, we're going to have a relationship. It's going to take some time, but we will have one. And we did. It took a long time. We eventually did. I know his mom. I know him.

I have great affection for him. But then he was very adversarial. And he goes, you got to understand something if we're going to have a friendship. First thing you got to understand. Here's what you got to understand. He put his hand up here and he goes, there's God. Then he moved his hand down about an inch and he goes, then there's professional athletes.

And you've got to understand that. You need to understand that if you're going to have a friendship with me. I literally was like, all right, that's fine. I get it. I mean, he did lead the league in rebounds. When Michael Jordan led the league in scoring, that's not a lot of opportunities to get rebounds. That's doing some shit, Dr. Drew.

God and then professional athletes. That's fucking great. It's like, all right, man, that's good. And I accepted that, and we became friends. That was a good story. Oh, God, there were so many interesting things. Who surprised you the most in doing well? Jenny Ketchum, who was in the sex addiction show.

She's also a drug addict, but she didn't know at the time. But we found out, yes, indeed, she was doing lots of drugs. And she's now a social worker in Washington with a kid. Wow. She's unbelievable. What do you mean she didn't know? She just thought, I'm doing these drugs, didn't realize it was addiction? People don't realize how.

They'll have a primary. Her primary was sex. But they sort of think the other things is not as big a deal when they really start to look at it's like oh i've not gone one day without smoking pot three times i'm not going one day without doing cocaine morning noon and night i'm not going one day without a drink it's like hmm that's kind of a problem isn't it i'll try to do it oh my god i miss it that's a problem and i want to? I'll try to do it. Oh my God, I miss it. That's a problem. And I want to go back. The thing about drug addiction is that you want to go back. It's not just not being able to stop. I mean, that we can kind of interfere with various ways.

But you go back. You go back. And that's the addiction part. The addiction screws with the part of, it screws with the liking and the wanting part of the brain, right? You like it. You like it a little too much. But even when you don't like it, you want it.

And the wanting becomes operating on a subconscious level right you like it you like a little too much but even when you don't like it you want it and the wanting becomes uh operating on a subconscious level where all the other priorities in your brain start focusing on pursuing the drug even when you don't realize it so everything you want to do everything you're feeling will be directing you back towards using it's insidious shows you how all the rest of the brain works because it all works on behalf of this screwed up this i'm doing a mental inventory of my life right now here yeah i mean someone just told me the other day that i had afrin to clear my nose i just wasn't breathing but i don't i use it like once i was clogged up and i sprayed she goes oh my god are you addicted to afrin i was

like what do you mean it's really easy to do that's what she said she goes my two neighbors growing up were addicted and they would just i go go, they're getting high off of it? She goes, no, they're just spraying it because they think they need it. It's called rhinitis medicamentosa. It actually inflames it and so you get a few seconds of relief so you keep going back, but it perpetuates it.

Rhinitis medicamentosa. What's the name? So I can come up with more. Okay, let me think about it. You can. There are many, many surprises. One of the biggest surprises at Subway Rehab was the process that everybody went through.

You've got to understand, pretty much everybody that came on that show came to make money, be on TV, and screw with us. They did not intend to get treatment. I mean, they knew they needed treatment, so some part of them was like, all right, some of them wanted treatment. I'll take it back. Some do, but most of them, like Jenny said, she just wanted to screw us up. She just wanted to get them, just

muck up the program. But every single one of them save maybe one patient, every single one of them, when they got there and they realized how serious we were about the treatment, they eventually got into it and got involved with it. And this was the transformation that they all went through. And I'm so grateful for it. And I didn't know it was going to happen. By week three, all of them valued their treatment and wanted to share it with the world and wanted to do well by it. Is that fast? Week three seems kind of quick. It does. I could not have predicted it. It was crazy. Now, again, it's in front of cameras so they know they're they know they're being held accountable they're being paid that's why they want to do it they can't they aren't being you know people misbehave i normally kick people out

of treatment these guys were staying the treatment and so it was it was really an interesting sleep over they allowed to go home oh no no this was we were in hospital oh this was intense treatment this is very intense and we did hours of group every day and hours of individual therapy and stuff and lots of 12-step and you know and it was it was rewarding it was really good you know and a lot of people did well a lot of people are sober today because that show a lot you still keep in touch or follow up or they keep in touch with you oh yeah some they're just amazing amber smith is amazing. Jenny's amazing. Sizemore, better and sometimes great. Heidi seems great.

They all seem very much benefited. Very much benefited. And each person, I imagine, is a different case. Even if these three people are addicted to cocaine, treatment is different for everything, is it not? Even though they all have aluminum on their windows. There's different stuff for different people at different times and it's it's all going to be individualized for sure what's the toughest for you well the toughest and the reason i'm not doing

it as actively now as i used to is the opiate epidemic drove me insane it the patients would come in strung out on opiates pain pain pain pain pain jeff conway was a perfect example that you remember jeff pain i'm in pain i'm in pain jeff what Jeff Conway was a perfect example of that. Do you remember Jeff? Pain, I'm in pain, I'm in pain. Jeff, what's your pain on a scale of 10? 20, 15. You can't even imagine it. Take them off the opiates within two weeks. No pain medicine.

All when you won't talk about the pain unless prompted. And when prompted, we'll always say like five, six. Jeff Conway tap danced in front of me. He tap danced. He believed an angel had visited him, took his pain away. Of course, he leaves the hospital, goes back, talks to his doctors. They go, why are you listening to those people? I'm your doctor.

You need to take these medicines. You tell that to a drug addict? Especially coming from a doctor? Jeff Conway dead. Mike Starr. Mike Starr. Severe opioid addict. We couldn't believe we got him clean. He was like a legendary poly drug addict. Methadone, we oh severe opiate we couldn't believe we got him clean he was like a legendary poly drug addict methadone we got him off methadone we got him

off everything we were working with him we worked with most people if they wanted it we worked them for up to a year after treatment and mike we worked really hard with bob was seeing him all the time and he was in sober living and he stayed sober finally after about a year or eight months one day he goes i'm moving to utah we're like oh dude no about a year or eight months, one day he goes, I'm moving to Utah. We're like, oh, dude, no, no. Please, Mike, don't, don't, don't. And he goes, no, I'm moving. I'll be right by Cirque Lodge. It's sort of a sober living.

I got to get into music. Yeah, I got to be. I'm with these. All the guys are sober. I'll check in with you all the time. Goes, checks in two weeks later. He goes, my back hurts. I go, Mike, please, whatever you do, do not tell a doctor your back hurts.

Dear God, please don't do that you understand me don't do that okay okay two weeks later dead benzodiazepine opiate for back pain yeah yeah and so i just i just got i couldn't take that anymore i couldn't take it i mean i you know i grew up in maryland and by the time i got out of maryland it started happening more to the like the siblings of the kids i grew up with three four years younger you know but i would go back and there would be billboards all over maryland that would say talk to your kids about heroin talk to your kids about opiates and it and i started reading these articles about at the time it was coming

out of texas and it was one of the worst epidemics in this in the country in that particular state and they were admitting you know daily i don't know how many of these kids overdosing all started with prescription meds that's right all started prescription my profession did all of it all of it and it was i have a lecture series now where i talk about the history of how this happened because i lived it and it was it was unbelievable it was perpetrated by well-meaning people who became evangelists for pain and it it was just a nightmare and I was living in it I remember I was on Larry King the night that Heath Ledger died and I was on there saying you don't understand this is addiction a doctor did this to him and it's a it's a tsunami that's going to

come over our country I see the wave is it's coming I see it I've been him, and it's a tsunami that's going to come over our country. The wave is coming. I see it. I've been living in it. It's about to come crashing down, and then it came. It did. It came. I'm telling you, we're looking at a similar problem with homelessness right now with infectious diseases. Really?

It's crashing any day. Any day. In this town, anyway, in Los Angeles. I just read it's gonna it's crashing any day any day in this town anywhere in los angeles it's said i just read it's up 16 50 000 people but tuberculosis typhus typhoid fever i even i missed that one i predicted that's back bubba plague is coming back come on i guarantee it from these tuberculosis camps loading and these yeah explode these are this is not a static thing these are sick people decaying in the streets and nobody's doing anything except letting their sanitation fall apart and the rodents are just taking over the city it's bad it's really gonna be bad so

have a good summer i'm like yeah thinking about relocating right now oh my god um how do you feel about marijuana i see a lot of these nfl players that are on that were on the opiates and i'd rather somebody be on marijuana than opiates but what how do you feel because i know you you didn't used to be uh at least i from what i understand you weren't big pro marijuanamarijuana. Are you pro yet? No, I've always been relatively agnostic. I treated, here's what happens. I think Joe Rogan hates me

because I treated marijuana addicts. I've treated a lot of them. And when people want to stop who can't, that's when I want to help them. I don't give up. If people want to use drugs, they should enjoy. I hope they enjoy them.

I'm interested in helping people who have a problem stopping when they can't if you have a problem with a drug and you can't stop and you would like to that's where i'd like to i see everything else it's on you enjoy yourself that's fine experiment whatever whatever do you think it could help these guys in the nfl i'd rather they smoke pot than take opiates much much, much, much. The full story with cannabis, we're just trying to figure out. The ridiculous thing is we've not been able to do the research because the government said it was an evil molecule. That's ridiculous. That's ridiculous. So now we're starting to kind of figure out where it's okay and where it's risky and where it's problematic and getting a much more realistic understanding of the drug. I'm a CBD advocate. I have no problem with

cannabis being used by whomever whenever and be careful but these fucking vapes i had a bad experience on a vape too and i won't i won't it it's not intense it's just look you're the doctor but it's my theory that every single person's body is different and however whatever chemical you put in it's going to act differently in a hundred different people and plant is fine for me but this shit you know no one knows what they're putting in these things you can sit there and tell me it's organic and you know all there was a lady i did a show up north and there was a bunch of people who work for marijuana and she's like have a hit of this but i was like no thanks i had a bad experience i'm telling you one time and i don't want to go back what do you mean bad experience what happened so i was at the

pasadena rose bowl i go out there every few years i get rid of shit i just clear clutter out of my life because clearing it out opens up things for you know opens up space for new things and i had this personal uh bet with my daughter's mother at the time. She's like, why don't you just go out front? And I was like, no, I've done this a bunch. I'm going to make at least $400, and I'm out there for the day. I'm having fun, whatever. So I go out by myself, and I know I'm not going to smoke plant

because I'm on top of people, so I take this vape pen so I can be discreet, whatever. And at this point, it's still dark. The sun's not up. I'm setting up my little camp, and I just take five, and I sit on the bumper of the truck, and I hit this little pin. And again, here comes the circle closing. Oh, you had a panic attack.

Yeah, that's what it does for me. It gives me panic. I feel the strength, the normal strength in my upper body is completely weak. My chest is heavy. And it felt that way for two weeks, the strength and everything. I tell my friend who also is an everyday smoker, and he goes, well, let me tell you how that story finishes. I was at a wedding, hit one of those things.

He had a seizure. He was rushed to the hospital. He said for a good 10 minutes, he was just so out of it. When they said, you're at the hospital, he's like, Ryan, I didn't even know what the hell a hospital, I didn't know what they were saying to me. Yeah, he had a seizure. Yeah.

I mean, that's not good. And they said, you should really do some research yourself about all these places like Colorado where it's been legal for a while. It's sort of this quiet thing. This is a handful of years ago, but maybe five, six years ago. But it's not really publicized much, but you'll read up. You'll see a lot of these people but maybe five six years ago but it's not really publicized much but you'll read up you'll see a lot of these people are having trouble seizures vomiting yeah depression paranoias this stuff happening we just don't know how much and what time who and we don't know yeah

but you know if it helps you i i'm fine god it helps dr drew i mean i talk to my doctor about all the time he's offered the pain meds i'm like i don't want what does it help anxiety focus you know i don't i don't want to be on anything i've gone to plenty of therapists and i even said to the lady one time you're going to want me to go upstairs you're going to see a psychologist they're going to put me on pills and then she started laughing i said why are you laughing she goes because the guy is upstairs and i was like yeah have you ever had trauma therapy no i've never had trauma therapy why don't you do that well you can maybe set me up with somebody for some trauma therapy i would love to talk to somebody because it's like

emdr and that kind of thing that's what you need though that's where the anxiety is coming from oh that'll help but you can't do it on the pod it doesn't work no i don't go to any sessions okay but you have to be off for like a week or two. That's fine. Okay. Yeah. No, I'll clear. And that's the other thing, too. When I feel my lungs, I'll clear it out for a little while,

chill on it a little bit. Good. That works. I miss it. You miss it, but you can stop. Yeah, that's what I was paying attention to when you said, these are people that can't stop. But, you know, there was.

I always tell people, if you don't think you're addicted stop trying yeah that's what i did i was like let me just go for a month and just clear my lungs out and then i'll tell you what it did too that the first time i hit it after that month i was like oh jesus christ yeah i really did clear out um look we're there at that time dr drew all right sir i could go all day give me another story. Give me one more story to close us out, Dr. Drew. I feel like it should be a celebrity rehab story. That's fine.

I tell this story a bit, and it's a really interesting, it's an illustrative story about how intense communication can be between people on a non-conscious, non-intellectual kind of level. Because people think that therapy is some sort of, tell me what I should do with my problems. It is not that at all. It is not. Yeah. And on one of the addiction shows, we had a guy that was severely abused. Oh my God, terrible abuse.

And he would come in for session and would start telling me about it and right from the first day after about five minutes of sitting with him i all of a sudden would hear the opening music of mad men weird right and and i and when you've been traumatized there are parts of yourself that are not regulating and communicating with the rest of your brain but that part of yourself does want to communicate with the rest of the world. It just doesn't do it through conscious means. It sort of does it through some sort of bodily-based communications and behaviors. And when you sit in therapy with people, you'll hear and feel and smell things that are being communicated by that person. I know it because they're not mine. I've never, I don't hear that music, but in that session, I would hear the music.

So we'd come in every day. Every day. I'd hear it every day. And then as time went on, and he'd be telling me these horrible stories, not only would I hear the music, I would feel like I was that character floating through the buildings, you know, that shadowy thing. I'd feel falling.

And I'd go, wow, this is really interesting. I wonder what this means. It's clearly not coming from me it's something we're creating together here he and i and um after about a week or so came in music falling and while he was just telling me this horrible tale all of a sudden i had this feeling that i was not just falling through these buildings and the music and everything i was a baby i was all of a sudden i was not just falling through these buildings and the music and everything. I was a baby. I was all of a sudden, I was a baby falling through the buildings. And it just took my breath away. I was like, oh, my God, that's so painful.

And I stopped him in the middle of some horrible story. And I said, I'm sorry, I'm having an experience, and I'm wondering if this is meaningful to you. And I told him what was happening. He went, fuck you, you and all your psychobabble and your blah, blah, blah. He stormed out of the room. Came back the next day he went how did you know how did you know it's it's in my head all the time it's the baby it's the crying baby the baby baby are you serious yeah yeah and stuff like that happens all the time in therapy where things get communicated on a bodily basis that if you're really paying attention you're like an open channel it's not like it's

like listening with your body and not just your ears because you know when we're going through the world we don't listen to the things that are the way off in the distance things and images and sounds that we might be if we really paid attention and did nothing but focus on another person and indeed we're open completely to them and stuff happens and by the way having been the subject on the object of that i went to therapy for 11 years finally. In my 30s, I was still having anxiety. One of our kids needed brain surgery when he was one, and I went into such a panic.

And my wife called me one day at the psych hospital, and she goes, you need to see a therapist. I was like, I was spinning like a top. Yeah, yeah, I know, I need to go. I'd love to. And one day I was like, you need to go. And I was like, it just like caught me. I was like, Oh, okay. I hear what you're telling me. I'm going. And I went for 11 years and it was one

of those powerful experiences of my life. More important parents of my life, all the shit with my mom and dad and stuff got all repaired. And, um, it, and it made me very, and because I'd been the subject of somebody deeply listening on the same way, I could then use that to help other people. So how about that's the way to finish? Well, let me ask you one more question now. That's a great way to finish. But as a father now, going through what you did with your parents,

do you find yourself trying to overcorrect? Do you find yourself? You always do the same or too much? Do you do the same with your parents or do you overcorrect? Do you find yourself... You always do the same or too much? Do you do the same with your parents or do you overcorrect? But I think the therapy washed a bit of that out. And mostly,

I'm overcorrecting a little bit now of not being as pushy as my parents were. I'm sort of letting my kids find their way. But I think they would experience me as pushy though. Yeah, well, every kid

was going to think their parents are pushy, right? you're the fucking man dr drew thank you so much for pleasure on here will you please one more time promote whatever you'd like say just get to all at dr.com watch the dr after dark that's my that's my favorite podcast right now let's do that mine too brother uh i am ryan sickler on all social media ryan sickler.com we'll talk to y'all next week