The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Dr. Drew Pinsky - Sex, Drugs, & Social Media.. Addiction, Adderall, Celebrity Rehab, Therapy, & The Opiate Epidemic

Episode Date: February 12, 2019

#169: David Drew Pinsky, commonly known as Dr. Drew, is an American celebrity doctor who is a board-certified internist, addiction medicine specialist, and media personality. He serves as producer and starred in the VH1 show Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, and its spinoffs Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew, and Celebrity Rehab Presents Sober House. On this episode we discuss addiction, social media addiction, sex addiction, celebrity rehab and the opiate epidemic.   To connect with Dr. Drew Pinsky click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by FOUR SIGMATIC We have been drinking this company's mushroom-infused elixirs and coffees for over a year now. When we need a break from coffee but still need that extra morning jolt and focus the Mushroom Coffee with Lion's Mane and Chaga is the way to go. Lauryn also drinks the Mushroom Matcha which is a green tea designed as a coffee alternative for those of you who want to cut back on caffeine without losing focus and cognitive boosts. This stuff doesn't actually taste like mushrooms, it's delicious. All of these blends have a ton of nutrients and amino acids to give you balanced energy without the jitters. To try FOUR SIGMATIC products go to foursigmatic.com/skinny and use promo code SKINNY for 15% off all products.  This episode is brought to you by RITUAL Forget everything you thought you knew about vitamins. Ritual is the brand that’s reinventing the experience with 9 essential nutrients women lack the most. If you’re ready to invest in your health, do what I did and go to www.ritual.com/skinny  Your future self will thank you for taking Ritual: Consider it your ‘Lifelong-Health-401k’. Why put anything but clean ingredients (backed by real science) in your body?

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. This episode is brought to you by Ritual. You guys know I'm a human guinea pig and I'm still here taking Ritual and loving it. It's filled with iron, vitamin E, magnesium, folate, and omega-3. Kind of everything. It's made in the USA without synthetic fillers. 95% of women do not get the vitamins and minerals they need on a daily basis, So Ritual created a smarter vitamin with the nine essential ingredients women lack most. Go to ritual.com slash skinny today to choose clean ingredients backed by science. Sign up now at ritual.com slash skinny. She's a lifestyle blogger, extraordinaire, fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur, a very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride.

Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her. I, as someone resisting it and speaking out against it, was threatened. Threatened with legal action. Threatened with criminal action. For 15 years years i was saying this is insane this doesn't work i take these people off the opiates their pain goes away by other doctors they only would come to me when they also were aware that they were doing cocaine and

drinking doing other things on top of their opiates which a lot of them did and they were oh my god you're a terrible person you're a drug addict so i'd come and take them off everything their pain would go away or be maybe four or five on a scale of 10. When they came in the door, they'd always say the same thing. 15, 18, 20 on a scale of 10. Always. They said the same thing. Take them off. Pain goes away. And I was, when Heath Ledger dried, there's footage of me and Larry King going, this is a tsunami. You don't understand what's happening here in this country. And now people understand. Now people understand. Boom, boom, boom. that clip is from our guests of the show none other than dr drew this episode covers addiction sex addiction the opiate epidemic

celebrity rehab recovery and therapy happy tuesday guys welcome back to the show this week is valentine's day and i cannot wait to see what michael bostick has up his sleeve for me on wednesday or thursday well i'm gonna flip it on its head i'm all about empowering women lauren And I cannot wait to see what Michael Bostic has up his sleeve for me on Wednesday or Thursday. Well, I'm going to flip it on its head. I'm all about empowering women, Lauren. And this year, I'm going to let you plan Valentine's Day. Pamper me. Cater to me.

Where's my flowers? Where is my woo? Where is my you know what? You know, I might get you a card because you're really about cards. You know what? Scrap the card and give me something that's more of the physical nature. If you catch my drift. I do not need a card.

I screenshotted a bunch of things that I want for Valentine's Day and sent them to you on Instagram. So be sure you check that out. You know, my DMs have been pretty slammed lately. So I don't know if I'm going to be able to get to those in time. All right. On this show, we had Dr. Drew. I feel like everyone knows who Dr. Drew is.

He's kind of iconic. Pro on the mic. Pro on the mic. Pro on the mic. It was interesting to watch because you could tell, like, sometimes you interview people and you're like, okay, this guy's maybe media trained. This person's done this before. This person hasn't done this before. This guy, he's done this before and he's done a lot.

Yeah, he gets in there. I mean, he did do Loveline. I feel like he's done this many, many, many times. You could tell when we podcast with him. It's always nice to podcast with someone that really understands the art of podcasting. For us, we just keep having to practice, practice, practice, practice. But it is something that it kind of does have an art to it. I'm going to do that thing when I go to other people's studio.

He was like gripping the mic and whipping it around with no care. He was holding it like a cucumber. Yeah, I liked it. I was into it. I actually read his book recently on vacation. I read the book Cracked. I highly recommend it. I actually read his book recently on vacation. I read the book Cracked. I highly recommend it. It's very, very good.

And in that book, he not only talks about his patients, he talks about how it is to be a doctor on the other side. And it's so interesting for him to go into the feelings of a doctor. So often I feel like we don't look at the feelings of a doctor. We look at them as so clinical. And so to hear how he perceives the patients is super interesting. Yeah. A lot of this interview, well, not a lot, but a good majority of it was spent kind of asking him and grilling him what it's like to be on that other side, like Lauren said. And, you know, when you've seen the type

of trauma that Dr. Drew's seen with addiction and families breaking up and all sorts of just dark sides of human nature. I mean, we were basically talking to him. That's got to take a toll at some point on an individual. And so we get into that with him as well as many other things. And it was just interesting to hear that perspective because we all see, you know, the celebrity rehab presentation, the Loveline presentation. We don't really get to see what it's actually like from his perspective,

treating people with this type of trauma. This conversation hops all over the place and he gives me some really good tangible advice. And I actually might be going to see a therapist weekly after this episode. I think that he shed some light on why it's so important to deal with trauma or guilt. And you'll hear that all in this episode. Since this episode does have to do with mental health, I thought it was important to talk about mental health when it comes to social media. This is something that has taken me a really long time to understand. I was, you know, Instagram storing seven days a week, creating content seven days a week for years and years and years and years and years.

And then I sort of hit a wall and I realized that it's really important to have days where you're just on blackout. And what I mean by that is take a day off social media, whether it's twice a month. Some people do once a week, whatever it is. For me, it's twice a month. I just will do a blackout weekend and just completely be super present. And I found that that really helps with my anxiety. I don't know if there's fellow content creators out there that are listening or influencers. To be on 24-7 all the time, seven days a week can be super overwhelming.

And I found that stepping back, taking a break, I call it a commercial break and coming back on a Monday is super refreshing. Well, and it's just like for you're not even just for that aspect of it, but for taking just basically disconnecting from technology. I think I'm going to go and get one of those burner phones, you know, the little like black ones that the sketchy people carry and it's, you, you, you know, you can't really reach them, you know, they call them the burners. I want to get one of those and I want to take that and use that on the weekend. So if somebody like really needs to get to me for an emergency, I can use that. But if not, like just not having that phone, you know, taking some blackout periods, taking some time to reflect, self-reflect,

that's really important. Taking some time to read books, read articles, you know, whatever you got to do just to kind of get outside of that social media world is important. This weekend, I reread part of Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins. I listened to Robert Greene's book on tape. I read a lot of books on my books app. I'm obsessed with reading on my phone right now, which is probably pretty bad for you. But I finished Anthony Kiedis' book, Scar Tissue. It was such a good book. You guys have to read it. And I meditated a lot and just really sort of refueled. I feel like I'm like a cell phone battery. I have to recharge or I'm not my best. On that note, talking about mental health and stability,

let's introduce Dr. Drew Pinsky onto the show, commonly known as Dr. Drew. He's an American celebrity doctor who's board certified internist, addiction medicine specialist, and media personality. He's hosted the nationally syndicated radio talk show Loveline for years and years. He's also been on television for years. Most of you know him from Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew, Celebrity Rehab Presents Sober House, and more. He hosts a podcast with Adam Carolla, and many more things. With that, let's introduce Dr. Drew Pinsky to the Him and Her podcast. Before we get into the interview with Dr. Drew, I want to talk to you guys about Noom. Okay, guys, accountability is something that you know I'm very serious about. You know this if you read my blog. I talk about it all

the time. You know I like to count my steps. I just like to see what I'm working with, you know, like clear in front of me. So especially with the new year, I think accountability is more important than ever, especially for me. So if you're looking to stay super accountable in 2019, there's this app. I've talked about it before. It's called Noom. So basically, this is an app that has to do with accountability, but not dieting. So you don't feel restricted. You know what I mean?

It helps you to sort of recognize and change habits that you have that are blocking your success. This app is really, really cool and streamlined because it helps with weight loss by having your own support team and you don't need a nutritionist or a personal trainer. It's all on the app. You have a goal specialist that's a nutrition expert and fitness trainer all in one. So it's all in the palm of your hand. If you're into food tracking, which I use to help me stay accountable, I like to see how much fiber I'm getting. Nothing to do with calories, but how much fiber I'm getting is really important to me.

They have a food tracker and it has the biggest food database available. You can track your meal habits. You can see your portion sizes right in front of your face, like I said, accountability. And then if you want, you can also count your calories. Personally, like I said, I'm very into the fiber count in my food. Noom also is a tool that you can utilize to teach you about moderation. Moderation is key. I am a big fan of, you know, adding more greens to my plate, not subtracting, and to see it all in front of me is super helpful. Basically, what you do is you take an easy 30-second online evaluation that shows you how much weight you can lose. So I did it, and it really does take 30 seconds.

So I mean, I feel like everyone has 30 seconds just to try it out and see what they think. Noom is designed for results. Meet your resolutions by signing up for your trial today at Noom. That's N-O-O-M dot com slash skinny. What do you guys have to lose? Visit Noom dot com slash skinny to start your trial today. Again, that's Noom dot com slash skinny.

Start losing weight for good. All right, now let's get into it with Dr. Drew. This is the skinny confidential him and her. We're just talking about millennials and relationships with millennials and how it's different from your generation when you had to actually sit and talk to each other. Right. And what I was saying was that you don't hit the normal developmental milestones of asking people out, going on dates, finding girlfriends, breaking up, forming again. Doesn't happen. It just you sort of hang out for a while i think pornography is a big diversion and some the eye of the tiger is sort of taken away a little bit and then you hit young adulthood and it's all kind of mysterious right and now you're supposed

to kind of find a relationship and there's a lot of misfiring let's say can you give us specifics i can i think there's one of the more common calls at the time we wrapped up love line was now about what three four years ago something like that we were starting to get this call very commonly hi my name is joe i'm 24 years old 25 years old uh i met this girl she is the one she is it she's the girl of my dreams i asked her out we went out didn't work out at that moment she was busy you know she had things in her life she was busy so she didn't want to really you know go any further so we're now friends and i've been waxing her car and cleaning her carpet and doing her laundry for the last three years and now it's time now it's time i'm like what time time for what time time for her to step up and get in this

relationship it's time it's been three years three years of stalking behavior that's what that is ladies that is full-on stalking behavior no matter how you characterize and i've heard that call every time i go on the radio every time you know i'm talking somebody will call it with some version of that now some of the stalking goes on in social media but a lot of it is in person masquerading as i'm just that nice guy. I'm that friendship. She is always with the wrong kind of guy. And one day she'll see that I'm that that's stalking. What about on the other end with women? Do you find that women stalking men?

No, I don't see. Well, that's more of the online stuff. Michael kind of stalked me before we got together. So maybe he could like go through that. I didn't have social media, though. We were 12. So I didn't back then. You were a little stocky at 12, I feel like.

Well, that's sort of, but to be fair, a 12-year-old kind of don't have, this is the point. A 12-year-old doesn't have the social skills to do otherwise. Yeah, yeah. Right? He's just hanging on for dear life. You're supposed to have skills at 23 when you know when the girl goes, let's just be friends. Let's just be friends. I mean, let's just be friends.

This is not going anywhere. And move on, dude. And oh, no, let's just be friends. Let's just be friends. I mean, let's just be friends. This is not going anywhere. And move on, dude. And oh, no, no. Oh, no. Now, women will do the social media stalking a little bit. And they may do it for too long. But it doesn't feel so sinister. And the girls are always like, he's the nicest guy.

He's been cleaning my carpet. Yeah, right. Oh, no, no. He's just my good friend. Oh, no, no. Oh, come on now. The best of intentions. What other behaviors that you see in millennials is problematic? It could be in relationships or just in general.

You know, I wouldn't I don't have it far be it for me to call any millennial behavior problematic because I don't know how it's all going to work out. But the one thing, you know, the the staying at home long which you know my generation we were freaking tunneling out yeah like like like gnawing our way out as fast as we could there's no hurry which i noticed and and and as a parent i kind of dig that i kind of like it and maybe it's my fault because i maybe i'm encouraging it in some level and you have triplets yeah yeah and they're 26 27 now 26 and um and and on the other, that's very smart economically. It's very smart. And they think of it that way.

Like, no, no, I'm not going to pay rent right now. And I got my own exit over here. And you guys don't bother me that much. You know, you're weird. You're parents, whatever. And so on one hand, that may work out very well. Now, what's concerning to me behind that is most of that kind of i don't want to call it failure to launch that sort of delaying uh autonomy is trying to find

your sort of ultimate course like there's a rather than get a job and make money it's trying to find sort of your ultimate expression of what you want to do and on one hand hand, that is amazing, right? That's fantastic. On the other, it's like, uh-oh, what if they never find it? And do they really understand how to make a living? And so that's the only thing about that. I go through this with my younger siblings. It's like, they're like, well, I got to find the perfect thing. I got to find my passion.

So the way you find that is you go out and you, you know, you eat shit for a while. You get work. But here's the thing. Okay. How old are your younger siblings? They probably, they're in their 20s, early 20s. Yeah. And this is the age group I'm talking about.

But they will eat shit and they work really hard when they need to. Yeah. But they're just like finding the right spot. And then they run out of steam pretty quickly if that doesn't result in something. I noticed there's too a lack of patience. I think. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah.

It's like they want it now. Yeah. Like we were kind of talking about in the relationships. like you have access to everything at your fingertips and they want it now now now now now and it doesn't happen like that i mean you know look at your career has been like such a journey i told you i had read your book cracked thank you for that it's such a good read you guys i think it's on the skinny confidential book club you have to read it favorite writing experience i wrote that with judith reagan and uh we had really i... I don't know if people want to hear this story, but it was really people wanted me to write a narcissism book at that point.

And I wrote sort of a treatment that somebody helped me with. And Judith calls me. She goes, let's have lunch. I go, okay. And she had the treatment sitting on her table the whole time we were having lunch. She didn't say one word about it. At the end of lunch she goes, what's this? And I go, you didn't write that. I go, no, somebody helped me. She goes,

I want you to write something. I go, what? She goes, I don't know. Write me 20 pages. And so I went out with a tape recorder running and a story emerged about that main character just came out of me. I went home and I wrote it down. I transcribed it. And she goes, that's your book. And she gave me the only direction that she gave me for the next six months was keep writing. And she also did Janice's book, I think. She's a genius. She's a freaking genius. I've never been in a creative process like that.

And she was so interesting. And 9-11 happened right in the middle of it. And for about four months, I couldn't write a word. It was terrible. The whole book was so vulnerable. I mean, you opened up as a doctor. Normally, you would expect that book to be all about addiction and the addict. But you opened up the other side of the doctor, which was, I mean, eye opening what doctors go through when they're dealing with an addict.

Can you sort of give us behind the scenes? Well, that's what I want to get into with you because you've seen so many, I don't want to say horrific, but you've seen so many traumatic life experiences. Yeah, yeah. And that has to have an impact. It has an impact. But you get spun and turned upside down by addicts, and your job is sort of to hold the line and stay present. As I sort of do less and less of that work and look back at it,

I see the importance of the team I had. You know, the guys you see cracked is eventually what became Celebrity Rehab. And Bob Forrest, the guy with the hat and the glasses. I love him. And Shelly, and these are with the hat and the glasses. I love him. And Shelly. And these are people I worked with every day. I used to watch that show. And I don't watch a lot of TV, but I watch that show.

We did what we intended to do, which was to pull the curtain back on how tough this work is. And celebrities that are out getting treatment are so ill and working so hard. And they're not on a publicity campaign. They're not on a spa vacation. We got so sick of that because we were treating celebrities. And we'd see the press about them. one ever knew we were but the press was just ridiculous and bob it was actually bob forrester came in one day and said we got a tv show where we show this i'm like okay if you think so and i was a big guns and roses fan so watching steven

yeah steven that was that's that was difficult to watch he's doing great he's doing great he's fantastic and i the ones that aren't didn't do great and passed away i hope people now understand that's the opiate crisis i got them off the opiates and then my peers would put them back on and then they would die every single one it was so heartbreaking that's kind of why i got backed off the field because i got sick of that i couldn't stand it and we walked that through walk me through that so you you would help them get off the jeff conway had back problems all the usual oral opiate problem. It makes pain worse.

Okay. And he was taking massive amounts of all kinds of stuff. And I get him off it. He literally, if you go back and watch the rehab, he tap danced. He had such little pain. He was up tap dancing. And, of course, when he left us, he went back to his doctor. And, you know, an addict will come back and go, I have pain, I have pain.

The doctor went, why did you come off this stuff? Why didn't you listen to me? Go back on it. Dead. And same thing with Mike Starr. Same thing. He called me. He's having back pain.

I said, Mike, please, God, we got him sober. He was living in a sober living for years. And he was just doing better than he'd ever done in his life. And he called me one day and he goes, I'm having back pain. I said, Mike, whatever you do, do not tell a doctor that you have back pain. Why are we seeing such an increase in opiate addiction? You guys don't understand this you go read a book called dreamland by a guy named sam kunonius okay it we a 95 of the 90 of the opiates prescribed on earth are prescribed in this country what's what happens to these doctors because we you know we grew up in san diego and i

don't remember the name of the doctor i mean i don't maybe i don't even want to press him out doctor feel good we call them yeah but he was basically known for prescribing opiates to basically anyone you understand that there was a philosophy that that i as someone resisting it and speaking out against it was threatened threatened with legal action threatened with criminal action for 15 years i was saying this is insane this doesn't work i take these people off the opiates. Their pain goes away. By other doctors. I take the, they, they only would come to me when they also were aware that they were doing cocaine and drinking and doing other things on top of

their opiates, which a lot of them did. And they were, oh my God, you're a terrible person. You're a drug addict. So I'd come and take them off everything. Their pain would go away or be maybe a four or five on a scale of 10. When they came in the door, they'd always say the same thing. 15, 18, 20 on a scale of 10. Always. They said the same thing. Take them off. Pain goes away.

And I was, when Heath Ledger dried, there's footage of me and Larry King going, this is a tsunami. You don't understand what's happening here in this country. And now people understand. Now people understand. And also what I see a lot of too, and tell me if you see this as well, is a lot of women on Adderall. Yeah. Adderall is your next problem. Benzodiazepines, the Ativan, Xanax, sleeping pills. That's a big problem. That's why people die on opiates. It's

the combination with that. It suppresses their respiration synergistically. But the Adderall is a story yet to be told. Adderall is how my patients go out again. In other words, patients who are sober for a long time, they're trying to work hard, they're working long hours, they're having trouble focusing as all addicts do. They go to a doctor and say that, oh, I've got a perfect thing for you. Here's some Adderall. And Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died of his heroin addiction, there was a bottle of Adderall on his bedside. I guarantee you that's how the whole thing started. So women are using this as a weight loss supplement. Can you speak on that?

It's amphetamine. The name of the Adderall's generic name is dextroamphetamine. But it fucks with your hormones. And in the end, you just end up gaining weight. And I can tell by someone's face if they're on it. There's something that sucks the life and water out of their face. Amphetamine. I had a buddy, one of my best friends, when we were in college, he took it for studying and he

went home to get a summer job at a construction site. They drug test you to make sure that they're not hiring addicts. And he tested positive for amphetamine. And he's like, what the hell is going on? His dad gets it and his dad's like, you're on meth? What's going on? He didn't realize it was the Adderall. So if someone is out there listening and maybe they are struggling with some kind of addiction, where would you tell them to start? It depends on how sick they are and whether they detox, things like that. The easiest thing always to do is go to a 12-step meeting, raise your hand, say, I need help. Are there doctors in the area? They will know at the meetings where the good resources are. And there's about to be what's

called a Cochrane analysis relief, which is the highest level of meta-analyses of clinical studies to show how effective 12 steps are and how evidence-based they are. So if you want to get off drugs, that is free and effective. And if you're looking for resources, people that are struggling with their sobriety,

they know. So do people call you all the time telling you that they're struggling with addiction and you recommend they go to 12 steps? Well i mean it depends what i'm dealing with i mean usually they're people that are way down the line and need to go away for something and and what about the family we kind of spoke on this before we got on but do you recommend alan on to people 100 100 okay if anyone doesn't know what that is can you explain what that is another 12 step meeting for family members of addicts and it's the craziest thing people and i would you know for years this

was the the experience i had i'll do anything for my son i'll do anything i'll do anything i go great stay out of it i got him i need you to do one thing go to alan i'll do anything what do you want me to do go to alan well no no i don't need that anyway what do you want me to do i mean every time every time why is that what's the resistance because people don't want to realize they're a part of the game part of the thing and because they don't want to realize their role and like maybe right well and also that they're they they want it to be that person's problem they've suffered enough and they don't want to have to do any work i don't blame them that's all true uh but the reality is that if you have a loved one with addiction, it's an interpersonal disease.

You are in it, too. And you wouldn't have to get treatment necessarily in your life if you didn't have that person in your life that you were involved with. But you do. And if you're going to do what you need to do to help that person, you can either get out of their life. You can do that. You can leave with love or you do Al-Anon. And that will change the way you got to have other people in your corner in order to understand how to manage that person because particularly as a parent or a loved one, every instinct you have is wrong when it comes to dealing with a drug addict. So in all your experience, you know, like people say, oh, you got to let them hit rock bottom.

That's easier said than done. You can't do it as a parent. It's so against every instinct you have. You just can't do it. You cannot do it by yourself. There's no way you can't sit there and watch. So Al-Anon helps you. Al-Anon helps you do that

because they have been there, they've been through it and they help you do these things that are so difficult so difficult you know what i want to talk about fentanyl there's a lot of people right now like that are it's terrible it's wiping people out and i know a lot of people that you know have more likely to die of a fentanyl overdose or opiate overdose right now than a car accident and what's happening yeah that's crazy and what's happening is people are lacing this stuff into other stuff like people i know maybe people think they're doing cocaine and you don't realize.

Cocaine, it's in all kinds of stuff. Next thing you know, you're having a heart attack or you're dropping dead. You're dropping dead. You're not. You don't even know. You don't even mean to do that. Correct. This conversation is getting intense.

Let's cool down. Take a quick break. Get a little focus. I myself am taking this Four Sigmatic mushroom focus shot by one of my favorite Finnish companies, Four Sigmatic. So we've talked about this brand multiple times on this show, but I really want to tell you guys why I love these products the most and why Lauren loves them too. So how many of you are out there drinking coffee, feeling the jitters, getting headaches, having bad comedowns, not being able to sleep at night? Trust me, you're not alone.

I'm in that boat as well. And I've been in that boat. That was before I discovered Four Sigmatic and their beautiful, great tasting mushroom elixirs. My favorite and the one that I got turned on to first was the mushroom coffee. When I sat down and I looked into this, I said, what the hell is mushroom coffee? Does it taste like mushrooms? Is it going to make me sick? Why am I going to be drinking mushrooms? And then I kept hearing more and more about it. I tried it and I could not believe the effects. I had no jitters, no come down. I had the same effects that coffee gives me, woke me right up, kept me focused. And then I discovered the rest of the line. They have the chaga mix, which is for wellness.

They have their reishi, which is for winding down at night. And I just fell in love with the products. Lauren fell in love with them too. She takes the hot cacao mix right before bed. Give her a little bit of that in her hot tea, make her fall right to sleep if she's getting on the old nerves. So, I want to talk a little bit more about the benefits of mushrooms. Mushrooms are all natural. They support productivity, focus, and creativity, and they're perfect for kickstarting your day. If you need that break from coffee,

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of it now because until the 17th of this month,'s a 50 off sale completely site-wide so check it out go to foursigmatic.com skinny and enter promo code skinny for 15 off plus that 50 off sale that's taking place right now until the 17th guys i'm telling you this stuff is a game changer and you will thank me later so let's talk about mental health a little bit can we dive into depression and anxiety in this day and age? And also you wanted to talk about women in white wine. Oh, we're going to talk about women. I asked him before. We're going to need a little bit more time.

Women in wine. We got to talk about that, too. That's on the list, too. So so does depression and anxiety. This is it's kind of like the chicken or the egg. Like, does that come before the addict gets addicted or after the addict gets addicted, or does it depend? It depends. It's not a universal thing.

What I always tell people is that if you have bad enough addiction that you need to see me, again, this is not all addicts. These are severe addicts. I treat severe addicts. There's 100% probability you've had childhood trauma. So trauma is the thing that causes the emotional dysregulation. Depression can be part of it, anxiety part of it, but it's really unregulated emotions, too prolonged, too intense, too negative, that cause them to look outside of themselves for a solution.

And if then you have the gene for addiction, now you trigger a second problem. So now you have trauma and addiction. And the drugs work to quell the pain of trauma. And people will say i've the first time in my life i felt okay the voice you know things things were all right i could manage i felt okay and then the addiction gets triggered so you know you have two problems so yeah and so so and and by the way once you trigger the addiction no matter the inciting influence until the addiction is treated you can't really go after the other stuff in other

or let's put it this way more firmly treating the other stuff will not stop the addiction so you've buried the trauma and triggered the addiction and you've basically created two problems you're fighting a war on two fronts correct yeah women and wine so i i just i see so many moms have like mom juice and like it's a like it's funny and stuff and i talk about my wine all the time but i do see and one of my friends, her name is Kara from the Champagne Diet. She did a whole podcast on this. Well, listen, I'm not the don't drink,

don't do drugs guy, right? I don't bum people's high. I don't care. You like a margarita? Oh, sure. Look, listen, these people use substances. That's part of the human experience. But I'm interested in people that can't stop and want to stop.

That's who I want to help. Or we're having consequences from their using and yet keep using. So that's the group I'm interested in. So you've got to look at yourself and go, hmm, first of all, do I have a family history of alcoholism? First, do I have grandpa, mother, anybody in my family with alcoholism? Or even hint to look like alcoholism? Because oftentimes families go to great lengths to hide those things right uh or and by the way the alcoholic would go to a great length to have anything besides alcoholism depression suicide whatever it is

they'll want treatment for everything else just don't take my alcohol away so you got to look at your family history very critically and if you have a first degree relative it's not a 50 probability you got that gene and if you like like like if you like like it alcohol like you love it hmm you got to be really careful now i'm not saying you can't drink i think that's a little unrealistic but you got to be careful not to trigger something which the triggering triggers well the triggering is you lose control and you know we don't know where that biological threshold is for a given individual. But if you start having consequences like relationships are affected, your health is affected, and that you keep going, it's like, hmm, be careful. Be careful.

It's a hard thing to watch. No kidding. I don't have to tell you that. And you feel helpless because you want to. You are. And that's the horrible thing. You are for the most part. And it's very painful.

Why did you decide to get into addiction? Total accident. How? I was, I'm an internist. I was going on to be a cardiologist, but I started moonlighting in a psychiatric hospital. I got fascinated with that. And so I just sort of stopped at primary care and critical care medicine and then kept doing this stuff at the psychiatric hospital.

And then I ran their medical services. And then all the medical problems were down on the drug unit and i got really good at taking people off drugs didn't know a damn thing about addiction but i was hanging out there all the time and i started learning about it and then the uh the director of the program said you know listen i need an assistant director no big deal you'll just cover me when i'm on vacation it's no big deal just kind of hang you know okay i'm now i'm the assistant director of a drug unit. I started learning more and more and more. And then about a year later, this guy quit. Now I'm the director of a drug unit. And as an internist, particularly back then, that was like 1991, very unusual job for an internist to have. And so I just hung onto

it with both hands, got all my, my training and board certifications and really made it my, something I learned about it. And it was a great experience. I mean, it was really the crossroads of everything. Family therapy, biology, neurobiology, psychiatry, medicine. It's all there in the addiction field done properly. And so I really enjoyed it. And I did it for 25 years. And so what is it like when a patient comes to you to detox?

Because we see in movies like people sweating and shaking and throwing up. I mean, is that really true? Is it that gnarly to detox? It depends what you're detoxing from. because we see in movies like people sweating and shaking and throwing up. I mean, is that really true? Is it that gnarly to detox? It depends what you're detoxing from. I mean, alcohol is the one that's fatal, potentially. Opiates are the ones that's tough. Now with things like Suboxone and methadone and stuff,

people don't often go through withdrawals anymore even, or they don't go the kind we used to go through. Benzodiazepines are miserable, and a lot of doctors don't really understand how to detox people properly, so they do go through a lot of misery but we never had any we were so good at detoxing people we i never once thought to myself how are we ever going to get people off these drugs we can't do it it's like we got everybody off everything no problem no problem that's why i sort of was not a super fan of suboxone which is this tape you know supposedly to tape people off drugs but then again people have withdrawal. So they stay on it.

It's like, get them through the withdrawal. It's so easy. We never had a problem with that. And we had lots of severe, severe heroin. What about the jail system or the prison system? Do you see people going to prison and actually getting sober from prison? Or do you see them being worse? Well, not usually.

Not sometimes worse. But a lot of people, you know, getting people's attention and into recovery is often about cumulative loss, right? Lose your kids, lose your health, lose your relationships, lose your job. Losing your freedom is a pretty powerful motivator. And so a lot of people do find sobriety in prison, but I'm mixed on it. Have you been following the Artie Lang stories? Have you been following anything? I know Artie very well.

I imagine that's intense because he almost did lose his freedom there for a minute. Might have helped him. You think? Maybe. You know who had helped? I just read Ryan O'Neill, Farrah Fawcett's ex-husband or boyfriend's book and he talked a lot about his son Redmond and how Redmond ended up in jail and supposedly now he's

out and he's sober. So that's someone that it did help. My sister. Bob Forrest. Bob Forrest. He was treated 24 times. It was prison that really someone that it did help. My sister, yeah, Forrest was, uh, he was treated 24 times. It was prison that really got his attention. Wow. Wait. So is he a celebrity? I feel like I've seen him somewhere besides celebrity. He was a rock star. Yeah. Okay. There's a documentary about him called Bob and the monster. Who was your favorite patient at a celebrity rehab? Who was, who was your one that you look at and you're so proud? Well, proud and favorite. There are two different things two different things right you know i'm proud of jenny ketchum right we

treated her in sex rehab and it turned out she was addicted to a bunch of other things she's now a social medical social worker up and doing clinical work up in washington she's unbelievable unbelievable this is like a new human being and a professional and all you know she was a porn star and a drug addict and all that shit she went through she uses in her clinical work and she's amazing favorite probably jeff conway i don't know why i love jeff okay and so him his i was at his bedside when he died it was really rough and so let's talk about sex addiction i don't think a lot of i think that word is thrown people just throw it around i cheated on somebody oh fuck i'm i'm a sex addict no no and a lot of people you know we've just seen this whole movement go

through here in hollywood like people i'm a sex addict what do you think about all that well i mean sex addiction it's a fully loaded question yeah there's a great website called center for healthy sex if you want to sort of look on what's available and what that is learn about it but real sex addiction when you see it there is no mistaking it i mean people literally like their genitalia are bleeding you know what i mean from the stuff they do to themselves oh oh yes or or like having pyronies and horrible things and i'm gonna pull that clip from lauren's face and just said that and or a zoom in. And or horrible social consequences or horrible emotional consequences or horrible disease. I mean, it's just.

And the crazy thing about it, when you sit down and you get them into treatment, they'll always say the same thing. And these are people that may be with hundreds of people in the last few months will always say the same thing. I just want to have a relationship. They just don't know how to. They're missing the emotional connection. They can't get in the frame they're just doing the physical they can't get in the frame which is trauma and when people it's intimacy disorder so what about everybody else that's just you know maybe they're not an actual out of it like oh i've got in trouble here i'm a sex addict get your shit together a-hole so is tiger woods a sex addict

you know dancing around it. Yeah. Careful here. Let's put it this way. Because I treated Rachel, you could tell. I remember that. I know some stuff that I can't really talk about. And I would just frame it this way.

You can't admit somebody to a treatment program unless they meet criteria for the disease they're being treated for. There's state regulations. There are state regulations. There's professional regulations. So if you have an addiction treatment program and you, somebody, now they could be entered for assessment to see if they have an addiction, but he was in treatment. And if you're in treatment, you have to meet criteria or the program will get shut down by the state. You can't just make everybody everything.

How many porn stars do you see that have sex addiction and or addiction? I don't see a lot of them. I mean, you know, Mary Carey, you treated her, you treated Jenny Ketchum. And so that's my experience. Jenna Jamison, I follow her on Instagram.

She just got sober and she's like really killing it. Does she see herself as a sex addict now? I don't know. She's never mentioned that on Instagram. I mean, I've known Jenna for years and years years, and she's really a dynamic person, right? And you ought to ask her. She probably should answer you.

She needs to come on the show. Her and Janice Dickinson. I'll grab to Janice. Janice is another favorite, by the way. Can you tell us about Janice? Because I'm obsessed with her. Well, you know how we got you on the show is because our good friend Dave, our mutual friend, he said-

Dave, yeah, exactly. Oh, is he the guy that would not invite me on the cruise that you invited you on the show is because our good friend Dave, our mutual friend, he said- Dave, yeah, exactly. Oh, is he the guy that would not invite me on the cruise that you invited me on the second I met you? Yeah. Is it that guy? Yeah. See, we thought, we're like, listen, we got to fill the boat. Dr. Drew wants to come.

We're going to have you come psychoanalyze all of us on the boat. I am so- He's no longer my friend. Yeah. You were supposed to go on the yacht with us. Oh my God. Don't say that again. There was a

lot of drinking though i don't know how you would have felt about that yeah once you guys have fun we might be having a whole different interview if you went next time next time next time i want to know about janice dickinson because i loved her books and she talks about you and her books and she's sober now and i would love to hear about her journey because she's at clubs or studio 54 drinking with the best of them. And now she lives a completely different life. She is a wonderful human being, as you might imagine. I think the way I got her, she used to come on Love Line back in the day. And I remember one time I met her in the aisle at like an American Idol final or something.

She goes, I got a Xanax from her. I goes, yeah, help me, help me, help me, help me. And then nothing. And then she came in at Celebrity Rehab. And we got her off Xanax from her. I got a Xanax. Yeah, help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. And then nothing. And then she came in at celebrity rehab. And we got her off Xanax. I think it was Xanax at the time. And she had a horrible withdrawal. And it was miserable.

And she had recrudescence of horrible symptomatologies. And then she got involved in the program. And she did really great. And she has horrible, horrible trauma. Right? She told me about that Bill Cosby incident during treatment. Really? Yeah.

Yeah, she didn't talk about that in her book. She didn't use his name. She was so open about being molested by her father in her book and the horror that he put her through. I mean, she was open in her book. That's the trauma. She didn't talk about Bill Cosby, but it came out later about him. So it sounds like she was put through the ringer. Yeah.

I mean, Janice, he wasn't the only one. She had other people that mistreated her. And that's what happens when you're a trauma survivor. You start to naturally attracted to and trusting of people that reenact the traumas of the past. Isn't there something so special for you, though, to be able to sit back and see all these people that you've helped and they're thriving in their life and sober now? Yeah, but my patients always humble me. Some of my toughest cases where I'll go, you didn't do anything. You just sort of turned me in the right direction.

And they're right. They do the work. How do you compartmentalize all of this? Because for someone that's in your position, you're hearing about some of the worst forms of human behavior a lot of times. You're learning about the trauma. Well, a lot of my own therapy, right? Years and years and years a lot of my own therapy right years and years and years and years of my own you going and seeing your own person oh yeah guy or girl girl okay and which i think for the stuff i needed

was critically important i i had a sort of a deficiency in the rapprochement phase of my relationship with my mother which is the kind of going and coming awful. And the healing, my own stuff put me in connected to my own feelings in a much more vivid way and helped me draw a line between my feelings and another person's feelings. Right. So I can, I got very, very good. This was my main instrument was being present with another person, listening with my whole body, feeling what they were feeling, not in a contagious sense, in my own understanding that my own stuff was sort of meshing, blending with theirs, and we were co-creating an experience. But I knew that everything I was experiencing is when I sit with somebody that's been through some horrible stuff. It's not all mine. I understand theirs

versus mine because I deeply understand my own stuff now. And you're not overtaken by it. You're not overcome by it. You're just a witness to it. And that's a very powerful experience. Do you find yourself having a negative outlook of it on just like human beings in general? No, I'm super positive. You are?

Okay. Super positive. So we talked about depression and anxiety. What about other disorders? We didn't really talk about depression and anxiety what about other disorders like we didn't really talk about depression anxiety you asked me a little addiction what do you want about depression so i have depression anxiety do you okay my question i have i have anxiety yeah i don't i don't think that i have depression i think i have anxiety did you ever have a depressive episode like when you're a teenager or anything before we talk about mental health let me tell

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get there. Maybe get into the grief. Yeah. No, get into a depressed state. You wouldn't let yourself get, I do a lot of preventative measures to try to like, I work out every day. I do things that are very preventative, so I don't have to ever get there, but I struggle with anxiety. Um, I know a lot of people struggle with anxiety. Me, I had panic attacks when I was 19, 20. Horrible. Disabling panic attacks. How do I deal with anxiety? For me, therapy was a key piece.

I think part of my anxiety, anxiety is many, many different things, right? And part of it is a genetic thing, right? We're sort of set up for it. It overlaps in some situations with obsessive compulsive disorder. I don't know if you have any of that stuff. Yeah, I got a bit of that too. And they do tend to kind of dovetail together. Well, he says he makes fun of me he's like you're so ocd and i can't i don't make funny but i could you can see it sometimes sometimes she'll get into a rhythm where like she'll be like she'll get a little bit ocd and start cleaning the house you won't even

know what she's cleaning and where things are going it's just like it's like almost like on yeah sometimes that's mood management sometimes you're feeling depressed yeah so it's so sure that's a sign and sometimes anxiety management might be a sign of that too. It's a way of, you know, sort of discharging and ordering your, you know, feels better when you do all that. Not necessarily dysfunctional. It's in us. It's our biology. I mean, if you took four hours to get out of the house doing rituals, okay, now we got a problem.

But just engaging a little bit of OCD stuff. Because OCD actually has lots of assets associated with it, right? She read my book in an afternoon. If she needed to study something, I bet she'd be all over it. You know, that kind of stuff can work to your benefit too. But for me, the anxiety that was miserable was largely for me, and this is

again, it's different in different contexts, but for me, it was because I was unregulated emotionally. I was not in touch with my feelings. And I wasn't hooked up to them. I just couldn't quite get there. What does that stem from? A just not adequate time with mom, literally not not not not attunement from the mom. What about your father?

He was OK, but it's different. It's different. And he's a little narcissistic and stuff. So he never really, really provided that kind of what was needed. And therapy did it. No problem. So have you had to have conversations with your parents after this? No.

It's been something you've come to on your own. I mean, well, they're all gone now, but they were their own people. They had their own struggles. You know, my mom had all kinds of stuff and there's no way she could have done what she needed to do as a parent. When you have empathy and compassion, I think that helps a lot for the parent. Well, listen, there's two words that when people utter, I know they're doing pretty good emotionally.

One is forgiveness, when they can find forgiveness or sort of a way of understanding other people's experiences, even when those people have been unkind to them. And the other word is gratitude. If you're feeling grateful for what you have, I know things are going pretty good because other people's experiences, even when those people have been unkind to them. And the other word is gratitude. If you're feeling grateful for what you have, I know things are going pretty good. Because gratitude is a very powerful, very important emotion to have. You talked a couple of times about narcissism. Can you sort of talk about narcissism in 2018?

We're all there. We're all there. We're all there. We're all narcissists. We've had a turn. We've had a turn. Narcissism was sort of uncommon. Okay. And it's funny, when I was first working in that psychiatric hospital, when I was moonlighting

there as a resident in the early 80s, we had these forms that would be in the front of every patient's chart. It would be something called their Axes diagnosis. And one of the Axes was their personality disorders. And I would see, every time I'd look at their chart, there'd be all kinds of personality disorders. You know, these OCD disorders and dependent personality and all kinds of stuff. And then around 89, 90, I noticed all of a sudden all those other disorders went away and only the what are called cluster B disorders were on every chart.

So that's borderline personality disorder, narcissistic disorder, sociopathic disorder, histrionic disorder. These are all narcissistic disorders. And that's borderline personality disorder narcissistic disorder sociopathic disorder histrionic so these are all narcissistic disorders and that's all we saw and i thought oh man this gotta mean something and people have argued whether or not it was just over diagnosing or whatever i think we had a turn i think there's been a turn and i think everything we're seeing with our tribalism and the crazy aggression we act out and the expression everyone's got envy right you understand the difference between envy and jealousy? Jealousy is, hey, these guys have a cool podcast. I want that.

I'm going to have to go do that. I'm going to work hard and get that. Don't begrudge you having that. I don't want to destroy you for having that. Envy is, I got to destroy you because you have something. Are you familiar with the author Robert Greene? Oh, yeah. We just had him on the show last week.

I want to talk to him. Oh, my God. I am too. I want to talk to him. Oh, my God. We just had a great, he just wrote the book the laws of human nature it's fascinating we literally got into envy and jealousy you gotta have him on your podcast i'm going to i i immediately i heard him on i said i set a note up to get him get him he's so fucking smart yeah

about all the different like levels of narcissism yeah they're different all the different types you know they're different types how do you deal with someone though that's off the charts narcissistic like you've never seen anything like it or do you not deal with them better not to deal with them okay that's what he says too yeah there's a book called why is it always about you that tells you how to deal with narcissists in your life job relationships whatever and yeah i mean you're not going to change them you're not you got to just sort of know what you're dealing with and be very clear about it there was a question that came in before you can because we you know we always cared the audience about what they want to hear there's a do you find it ironic that you guys will be talking about narcissism and we have a podcast

and a platform and you have a show yeah yeah no no it's not ironic it's it's you you should got to own your narcissism i'm kind of what's called a guy named, oh, crap, what was his name? He was a famous theorist in the 90s. Oh, I can't remember his name. But he called it closet narcissism or reverse narcissism, which is really codependency, right? Codependents are all about, I need you to be okay. I got to fix you. Well, why?

Really, it's for me. I need to fix you, right? That's narcissistic. Wait, so you could even say that that's how it is when you're a parent with an addict. Well, it's codependency, right? Yeah. So it's the same kind of thing. It's like they want the daughter or the son to be fixed so they can feel better.

Yeah. And that's why they need to go to Al-Anon. Right. Yes. And what, so for me now, I can differentiate between my needs and other people's needs, my feelings and the other person's feelings. I used to see people in pain, like even when I was working in the psychiatric hospital and I'd have to stop, I'd have to make them better.

And I thought because I could feel, I understood what they were, no, it's because it triggered me. It triggered my discomfort. I probably have that tendency. Yeah. It's not that common. Yeah. I did write about it in the book.

Yes. If I'm being honest, I probably have that tendency. It's pretty common. Yeah. It's for sure. so what is a day in the life for you i mean oh now it's all over the place yeah can you just like you're you're doing your podcast are you writing another book like give us i am working on a little i i'm sort of okay i'm not sure what i'm doing tell you the truth i've declared 2019 the year of action so I'm just doing

whatever I'm filling my day with whatever I can fill it with I still see patients I still do medical practice it's mostly you know people septuagenarians

octogenarians people I've followed for 20-30 years so I love doing medicine I could never stop doing that a day doesn't go by that I'm making a call about an addict

or an alcoholic something to help out to guide people I'm not doing that work day in day out I do a radio show on 790 AM.m here in los angeles and kbc that's three hours a day i work out every day i what kind of workouts you're doing i do heavy heavy weights lift heavy weights i do i do a health fitness podcast called soul patrol i do one with bob forrest the guy called uh this life you live i do you're putting out a lot of content yeah i do i do i do me and adam do a show

every day i do them by myself and yeah and i'm gonna do some stuff with tom segura on the your mom's house platform where do you find the time for all this it's this is such a vacation compared to practicing medicine full-time you have no idea when i used i used to get up at 5 30 in the morning and struggle to get home by 10 at night for years and that was hard okay i know that dave talked about your wife and what a great relationship you have and we booked this through your wife so how did you guys balance that when you were coming home at 10 30 at night and i don't know how she did it yeah she's a very uh autonomous person right she's very independent now now i get up in her stuff a little bit and she's like

go to work she's like what are you doing i'm like if he's i'm like get leave let me do my morning routine yes do you have a morning routine? I do, but I mean, it depends. Everything a day is different. Every day is different. But I try to at least do 30 or 40 minutes. My gym is in my garage. Okay.

And I've got everything there. That's my spot. And I listen to podcasts and I lift weights just before I get in the car. What kind of podcast do you listen to? I listen to, I'm going to listen to you guys now. I'm going to get the Robert Greene thing going immediately. That'll be next week or two weeks from now. But no, honestly, that was one of the, one of my favorite interviews you've ever done.

I'm sure. Well, I think I heard him on Rashly Speaking or there's something about something Inquiring Minds, I think it is. I would listen to Econ Talk. I listened to Sam Harris. I listened to Jordan Peterson stuff. Those are the ones I feel like. You listened to Dave's radio show. Who? Well, I'm on Dave's radio show occasionally. Sort of remembers me. You ever do

Howard anymore? Yeah. I'm going to be host co-hosting the after show in about three weeks. Wait, I didn't know you did stuff with Howard. You got to get into Stern history. Is he cool? Oh my God. Oh my God. He's amazing. Okay, good. And you know, his, you know, I've been in the stern history oh my god oh my god he's amazing okay and and you know his you know i've been in the main seat three times and i'm going to tell you i was super clear that his psychoanalysis his own psychoanalysis is what he was deploying in following his instincts in his interviewing like i felt like i was on the couch i felt that i know what that is when somebody really attunes to you and starts following the feelings and as they interview you and he does that he's got to be one of the best interviewers of all he doesn't get enough now now and i'm telling you it's his treatment i could feel it when i was being interviewed he does not get enough

credit you're right he does not get enough credit for how you know i was you know we run this network and i always tell people it's not everyone's like you know i'm gonna get this guest i'm gonna get this celebrity. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't move the needle as much as people think, right? I'm sure this, unless it's you, this one's going to be massive. But I tell people, I said, you know, I use them as an example and say the reason people listen to Stern is not because of the guest.

It's because you're interested in what Stern is going to ask that guest. So it's two things. It's like the world's best office soap opera, right? So you're interested in all the guys and yeah you know gary's world sal richard everybody and how richard wiped his ass then chris shook my hand did you hold that oh yeah i forgot about that richard yeah i forgot about that he wiped his ass and shook your hand because he he was in the bathroom yes and then it was a whole thing we were walking i was walking out of the bathroom and then he went into this the thing it's and i was back in the green room. I'm like, oh, my God. His crap hand.

Oh. Yeah. So you have to go back and the Howard 101 to find that. I need to. I need to. But the other thing is, not only that one of the questions you'll ask, I kind of want to know at least how I'm going to feel about that person when it's under Howard's scrutiny. Because I know I'm going to have a whole different take on that person.

You're getting a lot more depth. You're getting the person. When Howard gets his hands on him and he's able to really interview them, I know I'm going to see who this person really is. And more often than not, their stock goes up in my eyes. Lindsay Lohan, though, wouldn't give him anything. She didn't give him anything. No, I know.

She's so media trained or she's not maybe like i don't know what that was yeah it was it's almost like she has a guard up over her there was a guard i think the media has been really cruel to her and and we don't know what kind of treatment she's been in recent years and whether there's medicines maybe blocking i don't know but whatever she's better let's be fair yeah she's a lot better and so i sort of took i sort of took a pass on that one and said yeah she's better i don't want to just wouldn't want her destabilized i'm sure howard feels the same way if there's one celebrity that you could help right now and really and meet with and really give them the care you think they need who would it be some of it i can't tell you

about because i'm sort of involved with stuff on a level that you know but but an easy one for me would be i have a great feeling for Artie. I love Artie. I would want to. Well, the reason I asked is that I know your history and I'm a huge Stern fan. I'm, you know, even back from the days when he was on E, you know, we grew up watching and then I would drive back and forth to Arizona and just listen to all his stuff when Artie was on the show and all that. So that's why I asked because I knew that you might have some insight. No, I helped Artie a bit along the way there and that he had a horrible time the time before.

And then he seemed better. And now something's going on. So poor guy. Would you recommend therapy to everyone? Sure. Everyone. Sure. Well, not everyone needs it.

I mean, I mean, 50% of us really need it. Yeah. But that narcissistic turn, I think, is because we've had a style of parenting that's not been fully attuned and fully, I don't know what word, fulfilling, I guess would be the word. Okay, here's a question I have. At what point does it become that you're blaming your parents? You're pathologizing everything. Yeah, and you're taking the victim around. If you feel grateful and you're forgiving everybody, you're not blaming anybody.

It's just what happened to me, and it's left me with a little thing and i need to fill that and that's what this is a topic that comes up pretty frequently on this show talking about you know like victimizing saying like you know we'll talk about simple example like oh this person has this because they're they had this upbringing or you know i would be there if i had that same like how do you feel about that mentality and would yeah how do you kind of combat that it's a little dangerous right because plenty of people go through bad things and end up amazing right and so a friend of mine uh a guy named west chapman he's got a website out there uh called waking the hero and he went through horrible abuse and

i think at age 10 he tried to commit suicide 15 times or something and like really like for real so and at like 11 or 12 or something he woke up went this this wasn't supposed to be my life and he started embracing treatment and getting better and doing and now he's just this amazing human being right so it's it's possible to get better and to be part of the solution and when you've and when you're you know better or when it doesn't have a horrible effect on you, you feel fairly sorry for bad about the people that mistreated you because, you know, they're equally injured and horrible and must be miserable. And you feel grateful for what you got and you feel forgiving or at least maybe I'm just thinking about my own stuff. I'm not forgiving because it's not OK to treat children that way. It's just not okay at all.

But it's like, it's the best you could do. What do you do as a parent when you've had this mistrust in your childhood and now you're parenting triplets, which is crazy. How did you try to be a better parent than your mom was to you? Just try to be present. It's very simple. You just be there there and my daughter was busting my balls the other day that i wasn't around enough because i was workaholic yeah so

there was my version of what i did wrong you know what's happening now though it's parents are there but they're on this yeah and people we have my phone we are not good at attuning to one another you gotta really attune and really listen and really be present. And there's a lot of parenting that's about making kids feel better or have esteem. That's not the job. That's not the job. The job is to be there, attuned to the child while the child struggles with regulating their emotions and builds their esteem and builds their sense of themselves. Your job is not to dictate it or rescue them from what their feelings are because then they lose the opportunity to regulate regulate would you still call yourself a workaholic i mean he's doing 15 shows well i i tend to workaholism but i don't have i never have dread i never feel out of control i really love

what i'm doing i feel grateful in time if all that stuff went away then i would like okay watch out you know i just got an argument with my mother she's probably mad if she hears this because she was saying that you know michael it's not all about words of this, but I was telling her, I was like, you know, I understand being a workaholic, but I also, there's the other side that I really enjoy what I do. You love your work. It's hard. It doesn't feel, I feel like I would be on, like, she was like, Hey, you know, go home,

take it easy for four hours. But I was like, I would, I wouldn't be happy. I don't think I would be at least at this stage of my life. I've been a workaholic that experienced dread for years, by the way, where I was just, I was just, I was on a mill and I couldn't get off of it. And, you know, it was sort of, it's interesting, you know, one of the, one of the things that makes people happy, right? Happiness is an interesting topic is being able to be of service to other

people. And I always had skill where I could help people and do things for people. And I almost, I think I overindulged in it. I didn't know it was possible to do too much of it. I did it. And so. You talked about that in your book a lot. Yeah.

I'm grateful that I could do that, but I overdid it. I overdid it. Like this stuff's exciting to me because I feel like there's certain people that could listen and actually get a benefit, you know, like me, me going and like doing some closing, some big deal somewhere like that doesn't get me as excited as doing stuff like this. But you should know that there's something about, I fully support your position and it's true, but there is something about one human in the frame with another human that is fulfilling in a way that other things are not.

So look for those opportunities, I would say. You don't have to do it all the time like I did. Just look for an opportunity. What about guilt? Out of all the emotions that I have, I don't know if it's negative, but the negative emotions I have, guilt is huge for me. Do you have any advice for people that are dealing with guilt? There's a lot of guilt. Yeah.

Are you guilt? I'm trying to figure out a way to explain this. Are you, when you feel guilty, are you shattered by it? And so you avoid it at all costs? Oh, that's a good question. So most of the time you don't feel guilty you spend more your time being perfect so you don't feel guilty oh now we're getting into it dr yeah i think that my thing i did um i did like a course with someone and my thing was like the way i got

attention when i was little was was what i perceived as perfect and an over-accomplisher um but i think the guilt maybe comes from obviously with what happened with my mom but it's something that i still feel every single day like i feel guilt when i can't be in more than one place or i feel guilt when i have to work and it's i always just feel that emotion a lot and i don't know how to deal with it feel guilty even if like maybe like something happens like something good happens for her brand and it's progress so here's what it feels like to me and i'm pretty good at sort of feeling people stuff is the perfectionism is one piece uh and part of that perfectionism is never wanting to let people down or feel guilty or you

want to be perfect right and then lo and behold in spite of that your mom committed suicide and so that guilt of not being there or being somewhere else and not being able to be in two places at once and being around her and being for her whatever that craziness spin is is is with you it's unresolved grief is really what that is right so what do you do you go to therapy yeah it'd be pretty easy to get through that you'll have to tell me who your therapist is off air okay i feel like if dr drew's therapist i bet is a real killer i've got i've got some out this way too so okay i've got things in my back pocket okay but but but it but i i see the pain that it even talking about it it it so that's with you to this moment and i don't think that's really guilt

you think it's grief i think it's grief but but that but that the i'm sorry no it's okay yeah that's maybe what it is but but it but it's attached to your, maybe. But that, sorry. No, it's okay. That's maybe what it is. But it's attached to your perfectionism and all that stuff. It's gotten attached to that somehow, but really it's the grief, I think. Okay, all right. So it's left to peace. So if you're like me and you have guilt as one of your main emotions, maybe you need to deal with grief. I have this weird, because this is all developed with me, and I can't listen to what drug addicts say.

I have to sit in the frame and feel what they're feeling and stuff. So I get pretty good at that. Your mom would be so pissed, would hate it to know that you were feeling this. Yeah. She'd be so pissed. Yeah. So come on now. Yeah.

Right? I got to deal with the grief, it sounds like. That's the foundation of it. She'd be pissed, right? Yeah. Yeah. She'd be so pissed. Yeah.

Yeah. What is a book, a resource, a podcast that you can recommend to our audience? And it could be someone that's dealing with addiction in their family or maybe mental health. Just one thing that you would leave them with that's really life changing. A podcast? Could be a podcast. Could be a book.

Could be an article. There is not one thing. There's not one thing. And it's different for different people. It sounds like Al-Anon and the 12 step is big for you. Big because it works. Yeah. A lot of work.

It's very hard. It's very difficult for people. But I would say I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with the task you've given me. Yeah. Except to say that do it every day. Read, listen to podcasts, think about things pay attention to try to learn always learn always learn always grow and then if you have stuff that's you know still digging at you emotionally go get treatment it's not a big deal yeah how often do you recommend

therapy i i don't know it's different all around my guess is you may want to go a couple times a week for a little while just for a little while for a little while. A couple times a week? For a little while. For a little while. Like by a little while, I mean like a few weeks to get, because it feels like something somebody's got to jump on. That sounds heavy. Okay.

All right. Because it is heavy. That's why I'm saying that. But it's important to deal with because if you don't deal with it faster. And then it may sort of be over, right? It may be kind of, it could be a pretty quick thing, this kind of stuff. We try to always like, you know, there's a lot of people it'd be a pretty quick thing this kind of stuff yeah we try to always like you know there's a lot of people looking to externals to you know fix issues or problems or you know and there's a there's very little actually looking internal

yes it let me let me no i'm trying you you ask such a huge question and i let me just say the answer is other human beings whatever whatever question you have the answer is other human beings. Whatever question you have, the answer is other people. Happiness, fulfillment, meaning, it's all about others. That's the way we're constructed as human beings. Giving. Giving around, participating with, being a part of, whatever it is. It's all about other people. Everything.

I mean, think of your podcast. You're interviewing people, right? And we're talking about people's experiences. And even more than that, what makes me happy is that there's valuable takeaways from the podcast that we have that the audience can go and apply to their own life. Yeah, so you're helping people, right? And that is, you know, whenever you look at the great myths or some of the great philosophers, they always come to that same conclusion. Like, take care of your own garden, be of service to your community, be around people, be helpful.

Tony Robbins ask. Well, I don't know. Oh, hit a chord. No, I'm just saying I don't, I don't, I, that stuff to me is so transient. I'm looking for stuff that's more substantial permanent meaningful you know go read philosophy and you know read the great works and it's all in there we're big readers of stoicism oh yeah all the stoics yep seneca will have you you my buddy ryan holiday you've got him on the show you've got it you've got a good you know it's funny we've had him on the show and you

didn't mention me well we was it was a while ago i'm the one that got him into stoicism you don't know this no i actually do no do you know what actually i? We had him on the show. He didn't mention me? Well, it was a while ago. I'm the one that got him into stoicism. You don't know this? No, I actually do. No, do you know what? Actually, I do know this. And you know what's funny? I think you probably know this right now, but Robert Green was his mentor. I did not know that.

So Ryan menteed under Robert for years. Oh, my God. That's crazy. We're actually working on a- Wait, you got him into stoicism? I did. You have to tell us more about that. It's pretty simple.

I was doing something for somebody, and I was at a college event, and I was talking to the college journalist, and he came up to me afterwards. He goes, what are you doing? What are you reading? And I go, you know, I don't know. I'm a nut. I read, I read, read, read. And right now, I'm reading this guy Epictetus and trying to understand stoic philosophy.

You might look at it. It's kind of interesting stuff. And he went and did it and just kept going. It became Ryan Holiday. And now he's going. Now he's a Stoic. Epictetus had it kind of rough, that guy. He did. And I'm not, at that point, I was a bit of a fan. I'm not a fan presently.

Really? Who do you like better? Marcus Aurelius probably. I like Seneca. Seneca, for sure. But what I do is I of out of Stoics? Marcus Aurelius, probably. I like Seneca. Seneca, for sure. But what I do is I more listen to Stoics, like Ryan and Massimo and guys like that. And I like their version of the application. It's such an applied philosophy.

It's not a cohesive system of philosophy. It's like a way of living. You can actually take action on some of those philosophies. With Seneca, particularly, and again Marcus really but but with um Epictetus it was too much, you know Except everything in your life, and you know if you feel bad about it. That's on you We're talking about a guy that was imprisoned or whatever how you know and slain slaved and in prison So he might have had a different perspective than yeah, I get it and that's how he managed that yeah and and that's a good way to manage that but i'm not sure it's

a way to manage the average life so dr drew you're can we keep talking no no no we can keep talking now that now that because you know we we always are cognitive people's um time and schedule we're having fun here so okay there's there's actually there's another thing i wanted ask you. So we had an individual on this podcast that practiced open relationships. This is a good question. Here's the bottom line. Peace and love, peace and love. That's a code for me. How does that, like, what's the psychology and how does that work?

How does that play out over time? Here's the, here's the bottom line. And I'm very simple on this, which is peace and love. I hope they enjoy themselves. I don't care. Whatever. They can enjoy it multiple i don't care i really don't care well neither do we but all i know is that there are armies of professionals just trying to get two people to have an okay relationship you bring in another person it becomes just one more person it It becomes exponentially more complex. And my experience has been, even in people that claim to be in these wonderful polyamory things, there's always unhappiness when you close the door and talk to some of the people. And there's always a meltdown down the line that has to be dealt with.

I just kind of like look at it as, okay okay, maybe I'm with Lauren and then with someone else. Like what, you know, say thank you for your time today, girl over here. I'm going back to Lauren. Like what happens to her now? Or same thing if Lauren was with someone else, what happens to him? It's not intimacy. You can't, you can't spread real intimacy around.

It's hard to do that. We're just not wired for that. And so if you are avoidant of intimacy and you don't you know then okay then you can have pieces of yourself here and there and hide parts of yourself and not be fully present and open in a relationship because you're just kind of you're one thing and one thing and one thing and another and god bless you if that's how you manage your relationships but man my experience has been that tends not to go well and usually it's somebody complying with somebody else's wishes that they get into these

that's kind of what i got from that um interview playing off that what about people that cheat like the ashley madison scandal that happened very common cheating is very common it makes me sad are they cheat like what is the reason that they're cheating is there one reason or is it a medley medley i mean men are cheating women are cheating off because they're not getting emotional needs met you know and men are cheating because they're animals they're not really they just yeah it's more sexual physical how does it end up normally how does it end up yeah always in disaster no not always but it's it's again it diminishes the relationship and you know and people usually kind of know something's going on they feel they usually blame themselves or they

feel something and it makes you a little crazy if you feel like something's up and you don't know what it is and then the partner doesn't come clean about it it can pass over time it can and it can pass even when the patient the other person becomes presents it and there can be forgiveness but it changes things it does change things either way with your wife and you said you were home at 10 30 at night i mean i can only imagine you working all day working for other people helping other people and then coming home and being married and having to turn that intimacy card on whether it's um you know sexual or romantic or whatever, how did you guys maintain that flame when you were working your ass off? It wasn't hard for me.

I don't, she's never said, we'll have, do you have a doctor? I mean, for me, I was, when you're workaholism, you're just in it. And when we had the kids and stuff, I felt like I was spending more time at home. I felt like I was around a lot, even though my family tells me I wasn't.

So I don't know. We were in a survival mode a lot of early part of our marriage on two fronts you know me working so much and trying to survive financially and then trying to survive three kids simultaneously i mean that that happened in our first year of marriage and triplets in the first year yeah so we were into survival mode almost immediately so we went from this couple that were traveling and having fun, enjoying each other to this like, oh man, we got to survive this. And it took about five years to get over that hump. Three kids at once.

Three newborns at once. That is gnarly. That's crazy. It was gnarly. My hair turned gray. It was that color. The year one, it turned gray. That is gnarly.

Three crying babies. Did you guys have help? Oh yeah. You had to. have help oh yeah you had to yeah of course and and you know it's very stressful i can't even talk about it anymore but when we um had we became pregnant triplets the obstetrician sat us down and said don't do this have twins we'll reduce they call it selective reduction and we were like and they he handed me all this data it's like the marriages don't last. The kids have emotional problems. He goes, I'll get you three healthy babies, but don't do this.

Don't do this. This is not advisable. And so we went. We spent a weekend at the Dana Point Ritz-Carlton, just locked ourselves in the room. We're like, what do we do? What do we do? What do we do?

And finally, I felt like a poker player. Took all his chips, just went all in. We're just all in with this. We can't do this. We can't do it. And we just both committed completely everything we had and it worked out for us and now where are your kids they're at college i think you said in your graduate schools and stuff you know they went to great colleges any doctors no no doctors no anyone want to be in addiction no no no they saw how tough that work was they didn't want to do that yeah it's like yeah no way

so if you were to recommend to our audience one book because i know you've written a couple of where to start would you say to start it cracked that's the book i love the most okay i really like that the narcissism book is a little outdated right now so i am i'm you go to my website i've got a ton of stuff there i've got it right now i've got the history of the opium addiction crisis i've got i'm going to write a series on narcissism i'm working on that right now so i'm going to write an updated thing about narcissism you should write it with robert green together i bet you you and robert green is like dream collab yeah i would because it's you've got the doctor expert and someone that's been through the addiction and

all these different behaviors and then you have someone like robert who is so you know smart with history and he's such a good writer and he puts it in layman's terms that would be a fucking i'm gonna go bug ryan about that his books are books that i and i told him this when i when we interviewed him they're books that you don't just read but they like get inside you and you have to study them it's just i don't he did like the 24 ways of human nature or something yeah he did that just recently he did the 48 laws of power he also said on this podcast that he likes writing books with people that you wouldn't expect him to write a book with so maybe like someone like put in a good word for me yeah i think you and robert green let's do it i'd be into that where can everyone

find you pimp yourself out go to Go to my website. That's everything. Okay. DrDrew.com. And at Dr. Drew, right? For Insta? Yeah. No. Instagram is Dr. Drew Pinsky.

Okay. Dr. Drew Pinsky. Okay. But Twitter is at Dr. Drew. Love it. And yeah. Thank you so much for taking the time. This was fun. Open invitation.

Come on anytime. Sorry it took so long to book. That was on me. No, no, no. That's everyone. That's everyone. It takes a long time to book. We'll take it into consideration when we're doing the boat list.

Yeah. Uh, no blame your friends, Krista and Dave for that. Who used to be my friends, whom I will never forget. Thank you for taking the time. Thanks Dr. Drew. Your support is what keeps this show going, you guys. And we're always looking to see what guests that you want on the show. So would love to know who you want to see tag someone that you want on the show. So would love to know who you want to see. Tag someone that you want to see on my latest Instagram. And if we pick the person that you've recommended, I will send you some TSC swag, some stickers, pop socket, maybe a bookmark. I'll DM you, drop in your DMs and surprise you. Definitely let us know who you want to see. Just tag them on my latest Instagram. Get creative with it. If this show has brought you guys any kind of value,

please make sure you're subscribed and you've rated the show on iTunes. Thank you again, always for your support, and we'll see you next Tuesday. This episode is brought to you by Ritual. You guys know I'm a human guinea pig, and I'm still here taking Ritual and loving it. It's filled with iron, vitamin E, magnesium, folate, and omega-3. Kind of everything. It's made in the USA without synthetic fillers. 95% of women do not get the vitamins and minerals they need on a daily basis. So ritual created a smarter vitamin with the nine essential ingredients women lack most.

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