WEBVTT - Johann Hari on Addiction and the Quest for Happiness 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:03.400 We'd like to acknowledge that traditional custodians of the land 0:00:03.520 --> 0:00:06.840 on which this podcast was produced, the Galliger people of 0:00:06.920 --> 0:00:10.440 the Orination. We pay our respects to Elder's past and present. 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:16.120 It's twenty fifteen and we're in London with journalist Joanne Harvey. 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:19.840 He's about to take to the stage and for the 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.160 next twenty minutes he'll explain that everything you know about 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:24.680 addiction is wrong. 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:26.079 He should know. 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:29.880 He's spent the last three years conducting research around the 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:34.479 world trying to answer the core questions on addiction. This 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:38.479 topic is one close to his heart. One of his 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:41.720 earliest memories is trying to wake up a family member 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.840 and not being able to. A room full of people 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:48.840 watching his Ted Talk will hang on to his every word, 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:54.080 and they aren't the only ones. This Ted Talk, along 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:56.680 with another four years later, will go on to be 0:00:56.800 --> 0:01:02.600 viewed more than ninety million times. I'm at Middleton and 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:07.679 this is head Game today, Joann Hari on making an 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:15.360 impact by investigating life's biggest issues. Thank you ever so 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:19.360 much for coming on my podcast, head Game. Fascinated with 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:23.800 getting into an in depth conversation. You've just got a. 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:28.200 Nose for knowing what you want. 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:31.400 It's almost that you have an addiction for a certain subject, 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:34.120 knowing what you want and then going after it tenfold 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:36.240 and getting the best out of not only yourself, but 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:38.080 out of other people and out of a situation. 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:40.360 So talk to me about your upbringing. 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.600 I cover from a fucking weird background. So my parents 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:45.440 met here in London. They were both run away. It's 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:47.720 my dad had run away from the Swiss mountains, who 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:50.080 grew up in a tiny, little wooden hut on the 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:52.440 side of a mountain, where like, from the age of 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:54.960 five you'd be working with the pigs, you'd be working 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:57.080 in the fields. And when he was seventeen, he's like, 0:01:57.080 --> 0:01:59.080 there's got to be more to life than this, and 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:00.960 he heard there was something going on. It was the 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:04.000 sixties in London, so ran away came here. And my 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:06.040 mum was a run away. She grew up in a 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:09.280 very poor working class family in Scotland, you know, where 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:12.320 life for women was not that good. And with her 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:14.760 best friend Mary, she ran away and they met in 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:18.520 a nightclub just off Carnaby Street when my dad spoke 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:21.720 literally ten words of English and my mum only spoke English, 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:23.760 and they had what my mum calls a series of 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:25.560 one night stands, which I've tried to explain is not 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:27.440 a concept that makes sense if there's more than one 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:29.120 of them, it's not a one night stand. You know, 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:30.280 the family I grew up in, there was a lot 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:33.800 of without going into too much detail, because it's their story, 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:36.760 other people's story, not just mine, but it's a lot 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:40.800 of addiction, a lot of madness. Really. I was mostly 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:43.560 raised by my grandmother, my Scottish grandmother, and it was 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:48.280 weird because they were you know that everyone in my 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:50.320 family left school when they were Like my grand left 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:52.240 when she was thirteen, most of them they were fifteen. 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:54.160 And it's really weird. If you watch our home videos. 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:56.960 Even when I'm a little kid, I have this weird 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:00.240 posh voice. I'm like Stewy from Family Guy, right, So 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:02.320 like my mom was like, why Cheah fat Sam, And 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:05.880 I'm like, really, mother, I find this most It's just bizarre. 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:07.600 And I don't know what edgeway. Where I grew up, 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.440 no one, no one had this weird posh voice that 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:11.840 I have. I must have got it off the TV 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:14.120 because I can't think no one spoke like that. So 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:16.120 it was this weird even when I was very young, 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:21.680 I had this slight kind of I had a great 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:23.280 love for the place I was from and the people 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:25.280 I grew up with. I also had this weird kind 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:27.440 of doubleness about it. 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:30.919 Do you yeah, I can see that in you. Where 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:33.120 did you think that? Because it certainly didn't come from 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:35.160 your mum? And where do you think it that came from? 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:39.640 I genuinely don't know. It's a really strange thing. I 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:44.000 don't know it was. I think because they were not 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:46.560 from the place we were from, right, and they felt 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:49.920 very alienated from the place My dad couldn't. My dad's 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:53.760 English was, you know, imperfect, Like, yeah, I could sort 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.440 of navigate that world better than they could in a way, right, 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:58.480 So I was sort of translating for them, and my 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:00.840 mum was from a very you know, working class Scottish background. 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:04.560 Between the two, sort of merging the two together, translating. 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:08.480 For them, but also figuring out how this place worked. Right. 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:12.640 So I didn't have this, Yeah, they didn't, and in 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:14.240 a way, as a kid, I understood it better than 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:14.640 they did. 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:16.640 And you're trying to figure it out for them as well. Yeah, 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:17.880 what's figuring out your journey? 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:20.479 And I think one of the reasons I think, really, 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:22.440 the only talent I have that's not being forced to 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:23.960 abduplicating it is a real talent, but it's the only 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:26.760 one I've got is communication. Right, I'm good at communication. 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:31.039 I think it's partly because of that early experience of oh, right, 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.240 they don't know how this works, right, I've got to 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:35.840 figure out how this works. And also that thing if 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:37.960 you grew up in chaotic environments. Lots of people who 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:42.000 grew up in chaotic or violin or environments where his 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:44.920 addiction or mental health problems or whatever. This is really 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:46.880 amazing statistic. I can't make the exact figure, people can 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:51.080 look it up, but something like sixty percent of the 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:54.480 presidents and prime ministers US presidents and British prime ministers 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:57.880 of the twentieth century grew up in a family where 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:00.840 one of their parents either died, became disabled, or became 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:04.200 bankrupt when they were a kid. And there's a big 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:06.280 debate about why that might be. Right, it's an incredibly 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:10.440 high figure compared to the general population, right, and I 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:14.360 think an extreme incredible You just do the prime ministers backwards, 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.880 you can do it right and the presidents, and I 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:19.520 think that must be something about if you grew up 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:23.040 in a chaotic environment, you've got to be the grown up. 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:25.600 You've got to be the adult very quickly, right, And 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:28.719 it's a thing about you want to make it all okay, 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:30.800 you know, you want to solve the problem. 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:31.440 Or make sense of it. 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:33.279 I suppose as well, wasn't it You know, try and 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:35.719 try and try and make sense of it so it's 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:38.560 not as chaotic. And I suppose it just takes a 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:40.880 different way of thinking, different way of problem solving, different 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:44.000 way of tackling a situation that your parents or the 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:46.360 people around you don't use, but you sort of adapt 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:47.040 as you go along. 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:48.880 Well, you've got to be the problem solver from a 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:51.800 very young age and that becomes your skill set. Not clearly, 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:53.719 not everyone. Some people it just breaks them and fucks 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:56.560 them up. But a lot of people, I think it 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:01.800 means that you become the person who then thinking about okay, 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:03.400 from a very young age, you're like, Okay, no one's 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:05.800 going to come and solve this for me. I've got 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:09.040 to solve this situation. And I think that that becomes 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.080 a habit you can take over to other things. Right, Okay, 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:14.800 there's this other chaotic thing going on in the world. 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:17.160 I'm not gonna wait for someone else to solve it. 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:18.720 What's going on here, Let's figure out what's going on. 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:21.360 Let's figure out how we can sort it out. So 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:23.480 I think that was very deep in me that, you know. 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:29.479 I think the Persian poet Roomy said the wound is 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:31.560 where the light enters you. It's something I think about 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:33.040 all the time, right. I'm sure it was somewhere and 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:35.240 Leonard Cohen's heart when he wrote this famous line about 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:37.920 there's a crack in everything. It's how the light gets in. Right. 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.159 I think it's the thing about if you have very 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:45.880 a very extreme childhood, or extreme experiences in general, you 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:47.960 can see that as a curse and it can just 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:50.000 fuck you, right, And of course that does have to 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:53.159 many people, it does have terrible effects on them. Or 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:57.280 you can say, Okay, this is not good. It's not good. 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:00.200 This happened. I wish it hadn't. But given that, what 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:03.240 strength can I take from this? What have I learned 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:05.400 from this experience that can be used to help other 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:08.920 people or to go forward? So I think it's always 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:11.400 you know, we talk a lot about post traumatic stress, right, 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:13.560 which is a real of course, a real thing, But 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:15.760 there's also a lot of scientific evidence for something called 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:20.000 post traumatic growth. Right some people go through like for example, 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:22.720 you can look at survivors of plane crashes. For example, 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:24.400 right now, no one is ever glad they've been in 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:27.400 a plane crash, just to be clear, But some people go, oh, 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:28.840 I was in a plane crash. It fucked me up. 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:30.560 It was the worst thing that ever happened. I've been 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:33.080 traumatized ever since. But a lot of people who've been 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:34.840 in playing crashes, so you know, it was a terrible 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:37.040 thing that I was in that plane crash. But after 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:39.800 I survived, I quit that job I hated, and I 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:42.040 left the husband who was treating me like shit, and 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:44.120 actually it was the best thing that ever happened to me. 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:57.640 Going back to your childhood, it was addiction that really 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:00.560 sort of highlighted one of your first memories when you 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:05.560 tried to wake up a family member from I don't 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:07.240 know if it's an overdose. Can you just take me 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:11.160 back to that moment, because you know, it's it's fascinating 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:14.200 how you've you talk about this but you've actually been 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:15.800 through it yourself, don't. 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.000 I don't remember the exact age I was. I've tried 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:19.840 to figure it out with my sister, but I am 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:24.880 so one of my relatives was using a lot of 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.760 most prescription drugs and was just out of it a 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:30.360 lot of the time. So I have these kind of 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:32.640 formative memories of trying to wake up this relative and 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:34.520 just not being able to because they were just out. 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:36.160 Just on the bed or on the couch. 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:41.679 Yeah, yeah, yeah, and both. And one of the reasons 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.400 I spent so much time researching addiction for a book 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:49.520 I wrote called Chasing the Screen was because these addiction 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:51.960 problems continued in my family, actually more than my member 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:56.280 of my family. And also, I think, like with a 0:08:56.320 --> 0:08:58.760 lot of people who grew up with addiction, it was 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:04.240 a thing that was very if that feels like home 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:06.000 to you, I ended up being in a relationship with 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:08.560 someone who had a very bad crack and hero in addiction. 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:11.240 It's like, weird, we're shortage. And this was where I 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:12.760 lived at the time, and it's a place I really 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:15.880 associate with that relationship. So I could tell you the 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:17.960 map of all the dealers he went to, and there's 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:23.559 a in a mile radius of here, but the and 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:25.440 and I think that one of the reasons I wrote 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:28.280 the book is every book I ever write. For me, 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.280 it's because there's got got to be I'm not an 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:35.440 expert on anything, right, I'm a journalist. For me, it's 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:38.240 got to be that there's a mystery that I don't 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:43.240 understand and I want to understand, right, so I then 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:45.160 go on this kind of journey all over the world. 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:47.640 You said, would you say you get addicted to a topic? 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:52.440 Were we talk about? Because there's multiple forms of addiction, right, 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.199 and we talk about the obvious ones, which are alcohol, drugs, 0:09:55.679 --> 0:10:00.360 from drugs, But you know, for you and having read 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:04.760 you know your backstory and meeting you, I think addiction 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:07.560 sort of runs in the family. Is it Is it 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.600 something that that has passed down from generation to generation 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:14.200 or do you just have an acute sort of curiosity 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:15.960 you need to know everything about that topic? 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:16.920 Is that an addiction? 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.960 You know? It's interesting sad because that actually the research 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.240 I did for Chasing the Screen completely changed how I 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:29.760 understood what addiction is. I wanted to figure this out 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:35.480 because I could see nothing I was doing was helping 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:42.199 right with these people that I loved, I couldn't solve 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:48.560 the problem. And I also had that if I'm honest, 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:51.160 I was quite angry with them, right, And everyone has 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:52.800 ever loved someone who'st an addiction problem has got a 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:55.000 bit of voice in the head that's like, why don't 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:58.360 just fucking stop right fuck saying put yourself together? Right? 0:10:59.679 --> 0:10:59.920 Natural? 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:02.840 Yes, that's the natural sort of thought process to have. 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:06.840 You're ruining yourself, you're running the people around you. You know, 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:08.640 your your waste of space. 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.840 You know, I could see that. I think almost everyone 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:14.920 has two natural impulses. They have that voice, yeah yeah, 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:16.559 and they have the voice like I can see you're 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:19.520 really suffering and in pain, and that this is not 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:22.280 just you know, you're not just partying hard and indulging yourself. 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.080 There's something really deep going on here that you need 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:28.160 help for. So I think almost everyone has those two things, right. 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:33.000 But I wanted to understand what was really going on here. 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:34.360 So I ended up, I mean, it ended up being 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:36.360 this kind of insane journey all over the world, like 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:39.000 thirty thousand miles, ended up meeting a crazy mixture of people, 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:41.240 from a you know, getting to know rot so right 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:43.520 aback in the book, from a transcrack dealer in Brooklyn 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:45.599 is one of the smartest people I know, to a 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:48.600 hit man for the deadlist Mexican drug cartel, who actually 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:50.320 is not one of the smartest people I know, to 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:53.600 the only country that's decriminalized all drugs with incredible effects 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:57.040 we can talk about. But that actually in relation to 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:01.400 your Christian it was just tranges think because I realized, 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:04.079 I mean, I learned so much writing Chasing the Screen, 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:06.959 but one of the things I learned is that actually 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:12.920 I had profoundly misunderstood what I had seen in front 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:15.000 of me for so long. So let's talk about let's 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:17.680 say heroin addiction for example, right, because that's something it 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:21.559 was close to me. So if you'd asked me thirteen 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.800 years ago, when I started doing the research on this, Johan, 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:27.680 what causes heroin addiction? I would have looked at you 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:30.000 like you were muppet and I would have said, well, mate, 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:34.640 the clues in the name man right, obviously exactly. We've 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:36.920 been told this story for one hundred years. That's become 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:39.920 totally part of our common sense about addiction. Right when 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:43.720 I was in this story about the earliest story about 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:45.320 addiction that we've all been told, which has some truth 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:48.599 in it. Right, So we think we're sitting here in 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:51.160 Shoreditch if we kidnapped the next twenty people to walk 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:53.400 past this recording studio and. 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:54.199 Can make that happen. 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:56.800 You are one of the few people I don't. We 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.480 could actually do it right, and we held the more 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:02.640 hostage and it's weird fucking little room, you know, like 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:05.320 a villain in a Saw movie. And we injected them 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:07.200 all with heroin three times a day for a month. 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:09.480 At the end of that month, they'd all be heroin addicts. 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:12.720 For a simple reason. There's chemical hooks in heroin, and 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:14.640 if you're exposed to them for long enough, your body 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:17.560 would start to desperately crave these chemical hooks. Right. That's 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.240 why in English another word for being addicted is being hooked. Right. 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:24.400 It turns out that is a very small part of 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:28.000 what's going on in addiction. Right. It's some role, but 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:30.599 it's very small. And the first thing that alured to 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.720 me to the fact there's something missing in that story 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:36.000 is when it was explained to me by lots of doctors. 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:37.320 If you or me, if we stepped out of this 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:39.640 studio now and we got hit by a truck and 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:41.840 you broke your hip or I broke my hip, we'd 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:43.680 be taken to the Royal London Hospital of the Road, 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.480 and they give us a lot of a drug called diamorphine. 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:52.040 Diamorphine it's much better than the ship my ex exactly. 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:55.000 It's medically pure heroine. It's the best heroine you can get. Right, 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:57.520 If anyone listening, if you've got a grandmother who's ever 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:00.439 had a hip replacement operation, your NaNs take lots of 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:03.160 heroin right now. If what we think about addiction is right, 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:05.839 that is caused primarily or entirely by exposure to the 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:09.840 chemical hooks, what should be happening to all these grandmothers 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.600 having hit replacement operation. They should be leaving and trying 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:14.480 to score on the streets. Right, This has been studied 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.719 very carefully. It never happens with hit replacements, right, never. Right. 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:20.480 And you hear that, you think what I remember when 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:24.280 I first learned this from a brilliant doctor call Gable Marte, 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:27.560 just saying, well, gabble, that can't be right. How could 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:30.600 you have a situation where you've got someone in hospital 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:33.840 bed they're be giving loads of medically pure, strong heroine. 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:36.520 They don't become addicted. Yeah, the best grade of it really, 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:39.480 if you put it in Layman's terms, exactly, the best shit, 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:42.160 and you've got someone in the alleyway outside, you know, 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:44.000 shooting up actually a weaker form of the drug, and 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:45.800 they do become adicted. What's going on? And I only 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:47.680 began to understand it when I went to Vancouver and 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:50.680 an interview an incredible man named Professor Bruce Alexander, who 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.440 did an experiment that has really transformed how we understand 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:55.960 addiction all over the world. See explained to me this 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:58.000 story we've got in our heads that addiction is caused 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:01.480 primarily or entirely by the chemical hook comes from a 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:04.440 series of experiments that were done earlier in the twentieth century. 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:06.520 You take a rap, you put it in a cage, 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:09.160 and you give it two water bottles. One is just water, 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:12.200 the other is water laced with either heroin or cocaine. 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:16.080 If you do that, the rat will try both. Almost 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:19.240 always prefers the drug water, and it almost always kills 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:22.400 itself by overdosing pretty quickly. Right, So there you go. 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:25.360 That's our story. The rat tries the drug, it needs 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:25.800 more and more of. 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:28.600 The chemists all it has to do, that is right, Yeah. 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:32.680 That's our story. But in the seventies, Bruce, Professor Alexander 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:37.840 was working with people addiction problems in Vancouver. He's he 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:39.880 looks at these experiments and he said, what happened a minute? 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:44.480 You put the rat alone in an empty cage. It's 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:46.720 got nothing that makes life worth living. For rats, all 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:49.080 it's got is the drugs. What would happen if we 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:51.600 did this differently? So he built a cage called rat Park, 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:54.560 which is basically like fucking heaven for rats. Right, They've 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:56.600 got loads of friends, they got loads of cheese, they 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:59.760 got loads of colored balls. Anything a rat likes is 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:01.840 there in rap Park. It's got its needs met, right, 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:05.280 psychological needs. And then it gives them both the water bottles, 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:07.400 the normal water and the drug water, and of course 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:10.920 they try both. This is the fascinating things have fun 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:13.560 well in rap Park. They don't like the drug water 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:16.680 that much. Right, they don't use it compulsively. None of 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:20.920 them music compulsively. None of them die by overdose, because 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:22.600 they've got The way I would think about it is 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.240 everyone knows you've got physical needs. You need food, you 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:28.440 need water, you need shelter, you need clean air. If 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:30.200 I took those things away from you, you'd be fucked. 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:32.680 But it's equally strong evidence that all human beings have 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:36.680 natural psychological needs. You need to feel you belong. You 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.280 need to feel your life has meaning and purpose. You 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:41.320 need to got people see you and value you. You 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:43.280 need to for your love, you feel, got a future, 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:46.120 you understand right, And this culture we've built is good 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:48.360 at many things. I'm glad to be alive today, but 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:50.640 we have been getting less and less good at meeting 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:53.800 these deep underlying psychological needs. So the reason I wouldn't 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:55.800 put it as because you asked it totally understandably, and 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:57.080 it's the way I used to think about it is 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:00.040 oh can these can you override the chemical thing? I 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:04.480 would put it differently, The core of addiction is about 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:06.639 not wanting to be present in your life because your 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:09.200 life is too big a place to be exactly right. 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:16.680 And when you understand that, you begin to see. Firstly, 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:19.560 for me, the first thing you see is how what 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:20.840 we do it's a value. 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:23.520 You start to value yourself, start to value things around you, 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:27.399 and you know your product. And again that excuse a cliche, 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:28.240 I'm sure you hate it. 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:31.040 But your product is your environment exactly. 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.040 It's not you, it's your cage. Right now, there's other 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:35.960 factors going on as well. It's not the only rap 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:38.360 park doesn't explain everything about drug use, obviously there's lots 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:40.719 of other things going on, but it explains a really 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:44.560 big missing part of the picture, and it can lead 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:49.399 you to quite pangful and difficult realizations. I mean, the 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:53.400 most important thing though, and the really powerful realization, is 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:55.720 what it made me realize. I never forget when I 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:59.160 interviewed Bruce the first time, and I went and sat 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:01.520 in a We were in this area called the downtown 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:03.760 Eings side of Vancouver, which has a lot of chaotic 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:06.720 street addiction, and I went and sat in a pigeon park, 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:08.439 which is a park with loos of pigeons in it 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:10.760 and where people are. You know, it's pretty free for 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:15.320 all chaotic drug scene. And I remember thinking, I right, 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:19.440 so the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:22.240 of addiction is connection. That's what you're saying, right. I'm 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:23.760 never get that moment because now like people put that 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:25.359 on t shirts and things since I wrote about it 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:31.240 and totalk on it. But but the core of it is, 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:33.080 and it's why when when you asked, is this an 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:36.439 addiction for me? I don't think of it as it 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:38.720 may have elements of addiction because I do overwork, But 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:41.520 for me, this is not a way of not being 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:43.560 present in my life. It's actually a way of being 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:45.800 more present in my life. So it's a it's a 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:48.640 healthy obsession rather than an addiction, is how I would 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.359 think of it, right, if it would be an addiction, 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.960 if it was actually I was avoiding being present by 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:58.680 doing this stuff right and super present of what you do. So, yeah, 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:02.679 there are moments like that. I massively over work. I 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.080 tend to get burned out because I'm very bad at 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:08.040 taking breaks or pacing myself. So I wouldn't want to 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:11.160 totally rule out the kind of implicit thought in your question. 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:14.720 But yeah, but when you understand addiction in this different way, 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:19.680 you understand firstly why that natural angry, why are you 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:22.720 fucking doing this? Doesn't get us very far? Right? But 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:26.479 also for me that the most important thing about it 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:30.159 is you realize how what we do as a society, 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:33.800 why it has so catastrophically failed when it comes to addiction. 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:36.119